Program Notes

Leos Janacek (1854-1908)
String Quartet No. 1, "The Kreutzer Sonata", with the Prazak String Quartet.

In 1923 the Bohemian Quartet, led by the famous violinist Joseph Suk (1874-1935), requested Janacek to compose two string quartets for them. The first, the ardent "Quartet based on the Kreutzer Sonata," was written within a period of eight days. "Note after note fell smoldering from my pen," wrote Janacek, who found inspiration in a tragic 19th-century Russian story itself inspired by Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata for Violin and Piano: "I had in mind a miserable woman, suffering, beaten, wretched, like the great Russian author Tolstoy wrote about in his Kreutzer Sonata." Janacek sought to convey the story, a psychological profile of a failed marriage and a jealous murderer, as a unified drama told musically through expressive, subtly changing motifs. In the first movement, which corresponds to the exposition of the story, Janacek depicts both "compassion for the miserable, prostrate woman" and her evolving character.

The second movement develops the story extensively. The first violinist portrays the future seducer, and a furtive, trembling passage describes the fateful encounter, after which a melodious violin passage suggests the first admissions of love. Tension increases as the tempo accelerates, and the abruptly soft final chord forebodes the future tragic end.

The third movement portrays the crisis. A brief quotation from Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata conveys the power of music to unleash varying passions--love in the woman, jealousy in the husband. Passages of wild figuration lead to sobs; a hymn-like passage portrays the woman fleeing to her lover. A plaintive passage introduces the fourth movement. Agitated passages depict the murder. The husband contemplates his dead wife and, in a majestic passage that represents a dramatic catharsis, experiences an awakening: "For the first time I saw a human being in her." As do Janacek's operas, the work concludes with human dignity restored to both the victim and the penitent.

String Quartet No. 2 "Intimate Letters", with the Prazak String Quartet.

Janacek's second string quartet (1928) was inspired by his long and spiritual friendship with the beautiful Kamila Stosslova, a married woman 40 years his junior. The composition, with its unpredictable changes of texture, color and rhythm, was intended to reflect the character of their relationship as it was revealed in the more than 600 letters they exchanged.

The viola, which assumes the persona of Kamila, has a dominant role in the quartet. After a fortissimo trill in the cello and an opening theme in the violins, the viola presents an eerie theme sul ponticello (on the bridge). The cello shares the viola theme, and the violin articulates a rapid and important figure (also on the bridge) serving a dual role: it is partially accompanimental, but develops into a melody that is forceful and elegiac by turns. The movement closes with the opening theme accompanied by high-pitched violin trills.

In the second movement the composer contemplates the vision of Kamila giving birth to a son and considers his future life. (Actually, Janacek was quite attached to Kamila's real-life son. He went on holiday with Kamila, her husband, and her son shortly after completing the quartet. The composer caught a chill while hunting for the boy in the woods and quickly died of pneumonia.) The thematic material is largely based on the viola theme heard in the first movement. A jovial melody in 5/8 time provides a contrast.

Marked contrasts of mood characterize the third movement. Two themes are explored through tempos and textures that vary continuously.

A vigorous folklike melody opens the fourth movement, but it is quickly interrupted by a four-note pattern in a conflicting meter. This pattern gradually insinuates itself into the musical texture, as does a strummed melody that steadily grows more assertive. The movement is a colorful amalgam of sounds: a cello accompaniment with pizzicato and arco on successive beats; an accelerating allegro theme; intrusions of the opening motif into the ongoing material. Near the end all four instruments play (ponticello) on a striking dissonance. The solo second violin trills a four-note theme, which leads to a re-exposition of the three motifs presented thus far. The movement closes on Janacek's favorite chord of D-flat Major, with the added dissonance of E flat.

Sonata for Violin and Piano, with Josef Suk and Ralph Votapek.

A dedicated Czech nationalist, Janacek drafted his violin sonata while the Moravian people awaited the arrival of the liberating Russian forces at the beginning of World War I. He spent seven years intermittently revising the sonata, which was finally completed in 1921. The sonata exudes an atmosphere of suspense. The first movement, in which some hear a reflection of the concerns of war, opens with an uneasy, restless dialogue between the violin and piano. An impassioned violin declamation, accompanied by an agitated figure in the piano, alternates with a plaintive theme.

The Ballada, the only movement to remain unchanged in the composer's extensive revisions, is a lilting, pastoral movement that develops fluidly through the exchange of brief motifs in the two instruments. In the three-part Allegretto the piano articulates a folklike melody over a left hand trill as the violin interjects descending scales; the violin then plays a melodious passage before the return of the opening material. The Adagio opens with passages marked "ferocious" in the violin. Near its conclusion, the violin sings a majestic, chorale-like theme over a high trill in the piano to depict, in the composer's words, "the Russian armies entering Hungary."

Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
Four Romantic Pieces for Violin and Piano, Opus 75, with Josef Suk and Ralph Votapek.

Always supportive of amateur music-making in the home, Dvorak genuinely enjoyed hearing his mother-in-law's young lodger, a chemistry student, play violin duets with his teacher. Having decided that he would enjoy playing along, Dvorak composed a terzetto for the three of them. He wrote to his publisher, Simrock: "Just imagine--I am writing small bagatelles for two violins and viola. I enjoy the work as much as I do when I write a big symphony, but what do you say to this? They are intended mainly for amateurs, but didn't Beethoven and Schumann sometimes express themselves powerfully with quite modest means?"

However, this work proved to be too difficult for the student. So Dvorak created a new and easier work for them and reworked his original ideas into Opus 75 for violin and piano. Each of the four pieces develops its own warmly lyrical theme. The melodies, while original to Dvorak, share characteristics with Czech folksong: balanced four- or eight-bar phrasing, a strong beginning on the downbeat of the measure, upward leaps that gradually wind down. Repetitions of short melodic units create moments of repose. The broadly expressive, rippling piano line enhances the overall pastoral quality of the work.

© Notes: Nancy Monsman

Festival Musicians

The Prazak Quartet was formed in 1972 while its members--Vaclav Remes, violin, Vlastimil Holek, violin, Josef Kluson, viola, Michal Kanka, cello--were students at the Prague Music Conservatory. The quartet has received numerous awards, including First Prize in a competition celebrating the Year of Czech Music (1974), and the Grand Prix at the Evian International String Quartet Competition (1978). The Prazak Quartet performs throughout Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America and has recently a long-term contract with Nuova Era (Italy) to record quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and the complete Beethoven cycle.

Josef Suk, Violinist, has won international renown as a pre-eminent soloist and chamber musician. Following his Prague recital debut, Mr. Suk joined the distinguished Prague Quartet as a first violinist and soon after formed his own chamber group, The Suk Trio. A prolific recording artist, Josef Suk has recorded for EMI, London/Decca, Supraphon, and Erato, among other labels. He is a six-time winner of the Grand Prix du Disque de l'Academie Charles Cros, and has been honored by the Viennese Mozart Society.

Ralph Votapek, Pianist, captured international attention with the prestigious Naumberg Award in 1959 and a Gold Medal at the First Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1962. Mr. Votapek, who presently serves as artist-in-residence at Michigan State University, concertizes extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. He has been a guest performer with the Juilliard, Fine Arts, and New World String Quartets. Mr. Votapek has recorded for RCA Victor, London, Music and Arts, and Pickwick.

Recording and Mastering: Matthew Snyder

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