Los Angeles String Quartet features two composers born and trained in Vienna: Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) and Erich Korngold (1897-1957), the former a renowned violin virtuoso, the latter a composer who achieved fame scoring Hollywood movies made at Warner Bros. Their string quartets - Kreisler in 1921 - recalls pre-WW I Vienna; the Korngold work – 1949 - borrows from his music for the films Between Two Worlds, The Sea Wolf, and Devotion.
Fritz Kreisler composed many small, good-natured violin pieces, often forging the names of obscure Baroque composers to conceal his authorship. His Quartet in A Minor is cast in four traditional mvmts. The opening Fantasia provides a melancholy structure in sonata form. The writing becomes expressive in the 1st violin’s high register, the harmonies modal & blurred in an impression of a bygone era. The Scherzo (and Trio) enjoys fervent energy in pizzicatos and whirling motifs, while the middle section gives temporary relief from the nervous dance. Each instrument has a solo moment. The third mvmt, Prelude & Romance, extends the mood of a Vienna café, a lost world where charm was highly valued. For the last mvmt, Finale, the cello, which opened the work, has the last word - a quote from mvmt one - a kind of cyclic gambit. A moody folk dance, this finale bids farewell to the Habsburg Empire destroyed by WW I.
Erich Korngold’s musical gifts won recognition from eminent colleagues, Gustav Mahler and Alexander von Zemlinsky. The rise of the Nazi party forced Korngold’s flight to America in 1935, where he soon made his name in Hollywood, winning two Academy Awards, for Anthony Adverse and The Adventures of Robin Hood. The Quartet No. 3, Op. 34 is dedicated to Austrian conductor Bruno Walter, another expatriate. The work – misdated as 1945 - is in four traditional movements, a concession to the Classicists like Haydn. The composer had just returned to Europe after the fall of Nazism.
The first mvmt, Allegretto moderato, is set in a chromatic D Major. The agitation becomes consistent, due to Korngold’s use of a major 7th chord that doesn’t always resolve on the tonic key. The first violin sets a melancholy theme, a lament for the world shattered by political events. The viola and second violin contribute to the bitter feeling portrayed. The Scherzo prolongs the angular, nervous energy, exploiting the major 7th interval. The middle section Trio, however, proceeding on a pedal point, has a Romantic allure. A love scene, a kind of hymn? It breaks off awkwardly to return to the acerbic first theme. The third mvmt, Sostenuto: Like a Folk Tune, emanates a disarming simplicity, at least at first. But a tumult erupts – again, the major 7th interval – eerie and then progressively agitated, the bass motif reminiscent of Beethoven’s “fate” motif. The storm passes, leaving a tragic stillness behind. The Finale: Allegro con fuoco has many unison passages for the four players, and the writing calls for some technical wizardry. The secondary tune in this darkly fierce movement comes from the Hollywood film of the Bronté sisters, Devotion. The music’s rhythmic thrust derives from the prior Scherzo. When an accelerated version of the major 7th reappears at the coda, we feel we have come full circle.