CLAUDE DEBUSSY, String Quartet in G Minor
Joseph Calvet, violin; Daniel Guilevitch, violin; Leon Pascal, viola;
Paul Mas, cello
Quatuor Calvet was founded in 1919 by violinist Joseph Calvet.
1. Animé et très décidé
6:03 2. Assez vif et bien rythmé
9:47 3.Andantino, doucement expressif
18:10 4. Très modéré - En animant peu à peu - Très mouvementé et avec passion
Recorded in 1931.
Early in 1893, Debussy met the famed Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaÿe. Debussy was at this time almost unknown (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun was still a year in the future), but he and Ysaÿe instantly became friends-though Ysaÿe was only four years older than Debussy, he treated the diminutive Frenchman like "his little brother." That summer, Debussy composed a string quartet for Ysaÿe's quartet, which gave the first performance in Paris on December 29, 1893. Debussy was already notorious with his teachers for his refusal to follow musical custom, and so it comes as a surprise to find him choosing to write in this most demanding of classical forms. Early audiences were baffled. Reviewers used words like "fantastic" and "oriental," and Debussy's friend Ernest Chausson confessed mystification. Debussy must have felt the sting of these reactions, for he promised Chausson: "Well, I'll write another for you . . . and I'll try to bring more dignity to the form."
But Debussy did not write another string quartet, and his Quartet in G Minor has become one of the cornerstones of the quartet literature. The entire quartet grows directly out of its first theme, presented at the very opening, and this sharply rhythmic figure reappears in various shapes in all four movements, taking on a different character, a different color, and a different harmony on each reappearance. What struck early audiences as "fantastic" now seems an utterly original conception of what a string quartet might be. Here is a combination of energy, drama, thematic imagination, and attention to color never heard before in a string quartet. Debussy may have felt pushed to apologize for a lack of "dignity" in this music, but we value it today just for that failure.
Those who think of Debussy as the composer of misty impressionism are in for a shock with his quartet, for it has the most slashing, powerful opening Debussy ever wrote: his marking for the beginning is "Animated and very resolute." This first theme, with its characteristic triplet spring, is the backbone of the entire quartet: the singing second theme grows directly out of this opening (though the third introduces new material). The development is marked by powerful accents, long crescendos, and shimmering colors as this movement drives to an unrelenting close in G minor.
The Scherzo may well be the quartet's most impressive movement. Against powerful pizzicato chords, Debussy sets the viola's bowed theme, a transformation of the quartet's opening figure; soon this is leaping between all four voices. The recapitulation of this movement, in 15/8 and played entirely pizzicato, bristles with rhythmic energy, and the music then fades away to a beautifully understated close. Debussy marks the third movement "Gently expressive," and this quiet music is so effective that it is sometimes used as an encore piece. It is in ABA form: the opening section is muted, while the more animated middle is played without mutes-the quartet's opening theme reappears subtly in this middle section. Debussy marks the ending, again played with mutes, "As quiet as possible."
The finale begins slowly but gradually accelerates to the main tempo, "Very lively and with passion." As this music proceeds, the quartet's opening theme begins to appear in a variety of forms: first in a misty, distant statement marked "soft and expressive," then gradually louder and louder until it returns in all its fiery energy, stamped out in double-stops by the entire quartet. A propulsive coda drives to the close, where the first violin flashes upward across three octaves to strike the powerful G major chord that concludes this most undignified-and most wonderful-piece of music.
