Composers of every generation have found inspiration in the folk music around them. Witness the number of German dances Haydn and Mozart wrote for evening entertainments in the courts of their patrons. Think of all the Romanian themes to be found in the music of Brahms. Picture Bartok hauling an early 20th century wax cylinder recording device into the Hungarian and Czech countryside to capture music passed down through a long oral tradition, and then transcribing and using what he learned in his own work. We also have Maurice Ravel absorbing and using jazz elements in his violin sonata. The list goes on.
Tonight, we start with a series of folk pieces collected and set for string quartet by the Danish String Quartet. In the preface to the score of their collection of Nordic folk tunes they write:
We are first and foremost a classical string quartet, we spend most of our time playing music by masters such as Beethoven and Bartok. Alongside this repertoire though, we’ve been digging into the roots of our local music tradition – Nordic folk music. For us traditional Nordic folk music is unique. It may reflect a different, simpler time, but we find this music incredibly relevant and meaningful to play.
In 2013 they retreated to the Danish countryside to arrange and record some of their favorites. The result was released by Dacapo Records as Wood Works. The quartet eventually bowed to pressure to publish their wonderful arrangements. These notes are supplied by the arrangers.
Ye Honest Bridal Couple/Sønderho Bridal Trilogy, Part I
These are a set of two traditional wedding tunes, one from the Faroe Islands and one from the Danish Island, Fano. The traditional music of Faroe Islands is primarily vocal, and the first tune of this set I AErlige Brudefolk, is the first song to be sung and danced at Faroese weddings. It is said that it needs to be sung with such devoutness that the skirts of the women won’t move in the slightest – it is a wedding after all!
We have paired this with Første Brudestykke from Sønderho – the first part of a set of three sønderhonings that to this day are still played at weddings on Fanø. These melodies date back several hundreds of years and hold a very special place in the Danish folk music tradition. The dance is in ¾ time, but the music is in duple time, making the total experience of playing and dancing to this music unique.
Sønderho Bridal Trilogy, Part II
This is part II of the previously mentioned Sønderho Bridal Trilogy that is still being used for weddings on the Danish island of Fanø. Fanø was traditionally a seafaring society, and the women had to accept the fact that their husbands would be gone sailing for several months at a time each year. This reality has played into the wedding rituals of the island where even today young marrying couples drink three shots of alcohol, one sweet, one sour, and one bitter, representing the trials and tribulations experienced in married life. These three elements are also reflected in the music of Sønderho Bridal Trilogy, and part signifies the sometimes sour aspects of married life.
Sønderho Bridal Trilogy, Part III
Representing the bitter element of marriage this is the third and final part of the Sønderho Bridal Trilogy. Inspired by the special tonal colors that these melodies contain, our good friend Nikolaj Busk has made a very contemplative arrangement that should be played in a slow and quasi-improvisatory way.
Sekstur from Vendsyssel: The Topped Hen/The Peat Dance
A Sekstur (Six Tour) is a lively dance that closely resembles the Irish jig or classical gigue. The Topped Hen is one of the most popular tunes from the Vendsyssel area of Denmark. The Peat Dance is a Danish reel from the Roskilde area. In this dance the men would traditionally dance around pieces of peat on the dance floor. Later, these peat pieces were substituted by women who, of course, are much nicer to dance around.
The Songs, opus 91 by Johannes Brahms were composed at two different times but brought together by the composer and published as op. 91 in 1884. The poetic images of trees and wind unite the texts. The first three stanzas from the four-stanza poem by Friedrich Rückert, Gestillte Sehnsucht, calls to the birds and winds to whisper the world into slumber, make desire sleep, and whisper an end to all longing and life. The second, Geistliches Wiegenlied, is a lullaby. The text is taken from Emanuel Geibel’s paraphrased poetic version of a song by Lope de Vega. The song finds a woman, later revealed to be Mary, the mother of Jesus, calling on the winds to quiet – “Silence the treetops! My child is sleeping.”
Geistliches Wiegenlied was written first. In 1863 two close friends and musical partners of Brahms’s, virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim and renowned mezzo-soprano Amalie Schneeweiss, got married. The song was presented to the couple to commemorate their first-born son’s baptism. The choice of viola was due to Brahms’s love of the instrument and the fact that Joachim also played viola.
Gestillte Sehnsucht came 20 years later and was an attempt by Brahms to help his friends as their marriage started to crumble. Joachim had become extremely paranoid and consumed by the delusion that his wife was having an affair with Brahms’s publisher. Hoping to help, Brahms reworked his earlier lullaby and crafted a second song for the couple. Unfortunatley it did no good, and they separated. Brahms was certain Joachim’s suspicions were groundless and wrote a letter of support to Amalie. When she later produced this in court during the divorce proceedings, it started a rift between the two old colleagues and friends that was not healed until Brahms wrote his Double Concerto for violin and cello in 1887 and presented it to Joachim as a peace offering.
Pianist Inessa Zaretsky brings us her new piece for voice, viola, and piano. The texts are three poems, Beveled Glass, Communication, and Candlelight, by poet Iain Main. Inessa writes:
These three songs were commissioned last year. I was sent about 10 poems to choose from, and these 3 really spoke to me. The poet wrote them to his young love, and their intimacy and warmth had immediately appealed to me. Originally written for baritone, two of the songs have been transposed to better suit the mezzo-soprano range.
Mozart’s Quintet in C Major, K 515 was written in 1787 shortly after he returned home to Vienna after a triumphant premier in Prague. His opera The Marriage of Figaro was a huge hit and had resulted in a major commission for Don Giovanni. Not content to just be writing an opera, Mozart simultaneously produced three Quintets for string quartet with an added viola.
No one is sure why Mozart turned to writing these works at that time. He did not have a commission and had not been approached by a publisher. He and his friends played them privately for fun, but there were no public outings. A year later Mozart found himself in dire straits—described in last week’s note regarding his Piano Trio K. 548. He attempted to sell copies by subscription but could not get enough buyers to warrant printing the music. Eventually he was forced to sell the manuscripts at a considerable discount to the publisher Ataria and Co.
The C-major Quintet is a bold and sweeping work. The first movement was the largest first movement structure in a chamber music piece before Beethoven began expanding the form. The Minuet has a lop-sided phrasing making it certainly undanceable, while the Trio section takes interesting harmonic turns. The Andante movement features an extended duet between the first violin and first viola that is quite operatic. Perhaps material from the cutting room floor? After a start in which the first violin dominates, the final Molto Allegro lets every instrument take a star turn in some very involved counterpoints.