Schönberg: String Quartet in D-major (1897) (1/3)

Yes, you read that correctly indeed, Schoenberg and D-major.

Genius work of youth, composed at 23 years of age. And only two years later Transfigured Night came to be completed...

Allegro molto.

"Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven and Dvorak were my models at this time. Nevertheless, it still required quite a number of years before I could write a string quartet in D major good enough for a public performance in the Wiener Tonkünstler Verein, half a year after Brahms, its honorary president, had died. While this work was strongly under the influence of Brahms and Dvorak, an almost sudden turn toward a more 'progressive' manner of composing occurred. Mahler and Strauss had appeared on the music scene, and so fascinating was their advent, that every musician was immediately forced to take sides, pro or contra. Being then only 23 years of age, I was easily to catch fire, and to begin composing symphonic poems of one uninterrupted movement, the size of the models given by Mahler and Strauss. [...] Climaxing this period were Transfigured Night, Op.4, and Pelleas und Melisande, Op.5."

(Arnold Schoenberg, Notes to the Four String Quartets, Preface, Los Angeles 1936)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• 20th century classical vienna
• Arnold Schoenberg
• chamber music
• string quartet
• d-major

[teagueqc]

Thanks for making this available. This fine quartet was only published in 1966. It's quite playable by good amateurs - no more difficult than, say, Dvorak, and well worth a try. Schoenberg knew his chamber music from the inside, and it shows in the mastery of quartet texture that he displays even in this early work. Who are the performers, by the way?

[Nachtmarchen]

@teagueqc The LaSalle Quartet, recorded in the late 60s/early 70s. And I agree, this is a fine piece - not even Brahms (if Zemlinsky is to be believed) and the fierce Hanslick could resist its charm.

[thomas4179]

very good version