Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
String Quartet No. 13 in G major, Op. 106, B. 192
Antonín Dvořák composed reams of outstanding chamber music such that it seems there is always something more to discover or certainly, to rediscover. Spanning a diversity of ensembles and instruments, even “just” the string quartets offer a marvelous expanse and range. While the beloved “American” quartet is surely the most famous and frequently programmed, there are 14 to explore with at least the last five widely considered masterworks. The “American” is the 12th in chronological order, composed in 1893 while Dvořák served as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. Two years later, in 1895, he departed from America and returned to his native Bohemia. In November, Dvořák began earnestly working on a new string quartet that initially germinated while he was still in the U.S., but he quickly encountered a writer’s block. Setting this aside and weathering a bit of a lull, Dvořák began again with yet another new quartet, found his stride and with customary momentum, swiftly completed what became his 13th string quartet. It was published as Op. 106 only after he subsequently completed and published the previously waylaid quartet, the last, number 14, with the lower opus number 105.
The String Quartet No. 13 in G Major, Op. 106 is an extraordinary work by any measure and even among the last five “great” quartets measures is a distinctive high-water mark. Unmistakably Dvořák for its endearing lyricism, exciting rhythmic vitality, and the ingenious, transparent textures inseparable its vibrant color, the singular quartets achieves a refined amalgam of his stylistic traits. In terms of his famous evocation of folk music, it is not so overtly Nationalistic as his “Bohemian” (or “Slavonic”) works on one hand, nor his recent “American” works on the other. Rather, it seems these impulses are richly folded into music that speaks primarily in an exquisite rhetoric of the Romantically charged but essentially Classical, European string quartet. Inherently conversational as most great string quartets are, this one conjures a dialogue along a lineage with the voices of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms implied in the original eloquence of Dvořák’s own.
In a fine touch of artistic unity, the distinctive opening flourishes —featuring trills, and falling arabesques—appear at the beginning of the first movement and reappear towards the end of the very last. In a cyclic construction, the finale recalls the first movement’s two main themes and even a hint of the second movement as the overall quartet recalls its origins like a memory. The second, slow movement is astonishing. It might best be described as a double set of variations as it alternates between two themes, one warm, bright, simple and unified like a choir, the other dark and complex with the texture unraveled into separate strands. As the music oscillates between hope and despair, the variations become more grand and emphatic, the emotions more intense and the dramatic catharsis more profound. The third movement is a characteristically vital scherzo that inverses the previous movement’s dark-within-light with an outer driven, furioso dance giving way, twice, to a softer, more relaxed trio within. As if mirroring the first movement’s introduction, the last movement begins with a long sigh before plunging headlong into a scintillating perpetual motion that sustains the high energy of a classical rondo finale. It traverses a panorama of episodic contrasts that eventually recall the quartet’s beginnings before snapping back into its fully “amped” conclusion. With the last two quartets of 1895, Dvořák concludes his stunning catalog of chamber music and indeed, his “absolute” instrumental music. In his final years, Dvořák turned exclusively to program music including tone poems and opera.
