Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969)
String Quartet No. 4 (1951)
Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) was born into a musical family in Łódź, Poland. She studied at the Warsaw Conservatory and, later, in Paris: composition with Nadia Boulanger, and violin with Carl Flesch. Bacewicz became an extraordinary professional violinist, as a concert violinist and as principal violinist of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, while pursuing a parallel and prolific career as an award-winning composer.
Following the German occupation in WWII, Bacewicz was part of the Underground Union of Musicians that sustained musical life during the war. Following the Warsaw uprising of 1944, her family fled, eventually settling back in Łódź after the war, where Bacewicz became a professor at the conservatory. Commissioned by the Underground Union, Bacewicz’s Fourth Quartet completed in 1951 was an immediate success. It won first prize at the International Composers’ Competition in Liège and the Polish National Prize in 1952. In 1953 it became a required piece for competitors in the International String Quartet Competition in Geneva and, in 1956, It was featured in the first International Festival of Contemporary Music.
The first movement is a meticulously managed flow of both gradual and sudden change involving nearly every musical facet: tempo, meter, dynamics, texture, phrasing accents, and tone production. This, in turn, shapes an equally controlled formal (i.e. narrative) organization with an introduction (that will recur as a main structural element), a simple and slightly plaintive folk-like theme, variations, a second theme (in the cello and then viola) marked both “sweet” and “melancholy”, a recapitulation and, finally, a wild climax for a big, bold ending. Bacewicz’s mastery of string technique imbues the texture with a rich and expressive color.
The second, slow movement, is less volatile, in a sense, more straightforward than the first. The mood is significantly more subdued, mysterious, and even fantastic in the literal sense of otherworldly. Again, expressive technical effects and finely shaped dynamics evoke a dream-like atmosphere punctuated by a vaguely ominous “ticking”. Amidst the chromatic lines, shapes, and figurations, a variation of the first movement folk tune adds thematic continuity.
The Allegro giocoso finale is a vividly captivating example of Bacewicz’s neoclassical approach. It follows the form and character of a lively dance-inspired rondo, a staple of the classical style with modern sensibilities. The main theme employs the Polish oberek, a sprightly leaping dance. Typical of rondo form, the theme recurs (with inspired variation) between contrasting episodes. In the penultimate episode, Bacewicz provides a particularly delicate hornpipe leading to the final refrain where all four players sprint towards a conclusion of symphonic proportions.
