American composer John Harris Harbison [born 1938], wrote at least five string quartets. He appears to have come out of the American 1950-1960’s school, which included Feldman and Cage et al, but seemed to break free from that approach to create his own unique style. I intend to discuss string quartet No. 2, which is in five movements.
The tempo markings for this quartet also make sense as movement names, so I shall use them.
Fantasia opens the work with the two violins carrying a sparse melancholy melody. One flies high, the other acts as support. Now the cello enters and the sound becomes one of slight chaos. This continues with assertive violins. I wouldn’t say it reaches breaking point, but it is powerful. Suddenly there is a change to a more structured melody, but it is still quite intense. This soon drops back to the opening theme, played with more conviction this time. A strong chordal passage comes out of nowhere and the movement is over.
Concerto is quite brief, and again features two violins, this time at tempo, with one violin pizzicato. Essentially, this movement is a bit of a romp with driving violin melodies. There is a drop in intensity and the end moves straight into the next movement.
Recitative and Aria, the longest movement, is very slow and a violin plays long notes over a measured, sombre backdrop. There is no tempo, but some interplay starts to appear. The violins become quite agitated for a time with a flurry of short phrases. The intensity slowly diminishes and the piece assumes more form. This involves a solo violin, with occasional melancholic prompts from the ensemble. As the violin increases in intensity, so the texture of the backdrop is thickened. After a time, the cello becomes prominent with its own melody, which cuts through the violins. This is a wonderful, abstract soundscape. The cello begins to soar and the ensemble rises with it; what a beautiful cacophony! Now the violins duel with piercing, jagged phrases. A brief pause brings about a gentle passage with both violins engaging in melodic statements; this is similar to the opening feeling. However, the violins won’t be subjugated, and they begin to move into their high register and continue their duel. Frequent statements from the cello occur, until the movement just fades away.
Sonata begins with a quietly abstract mood. The violins work this feeling with occasional interjections from the cello. It becomes more structured as the violins continue their third movement duel, and are quite animated. Now they settle, before starting to rebuild their dialogue again. This time it is more mellow, with even some harmonised melodic lines occurring. There is still quite a degree of abstraction in this passage, but nothing too noisy. Some string sound effects are heard and the ending is preceded by a rhythmic violin motif, which carries over into the next movement.
Chorale Fantasia continues the motif, until the violin totally deconstructs it, and resumes its previous dialogue. A pizzicato backdrop allows the violin and cello to make strong, ascending melodic statements. This morphs into a state of semi-chaos which continues for some time, and the full ensemble is engaged in a hectic passage. Further harmonised ascending melodic lines occur, building to a crescendo which concludes the piece.
This a very busy work, although there are some pleasing slow passages. There are also three other worthy quartets on the review copy; I may come back to them at some stage. I am especially fond of the third, which is in one movement. It features very close harmony; that is, the music is in a fairly restricted tonal range, giving it a very taut sound.
This disc, titled First Four String Quartets, on the Centaur label and performed by the Lydian String Quartet, is available on Amazon US and Presto.
It is also on Spotify and there are several quartet movements on YouTube. Many complete quartets can be found on earsense.
Listenability: Very enjoyable, measured Modernism.