»Ostsaite«

Time and music

»Shostakovich was a too sober, clever artist to present heaven on earth in a time when hell on earth reigns.« This is how the Russian musicologist Abram Gosenpud described Dmitri Shostakovich, perhaps the most significant Russian composer of the 20th century. His Prelude and Scherzo for String Octet, op. 11, written in 1924, also reveals, straight away at the beginning, a sort of prefiguration of the horrors of the regime of Josef Stalin (who was named as Lenin's successor in the same year). It starts with a beguiling sensitivity and releases an enormous energy in the final scherzo. In addition, the two movements of the piece reflect the transformation in the composer's desire to express himself musically. Whilst the prelude still clearly follows the sound principles of Romanticism, the scherzo leaves all functional harmony behind and moves strongly in the direction of Modernism.

Zoltán Kodály's Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, op. 12, became an international success for its composer two years after its composition, in August 1922 in Salzburg. It was performed as part of the Chamber Music Festival of the International Society for New Music and was immediately praised by music lovers and critics alike. Kodály's friend Béla Bartók, for example, said enthusiastically: »This composition is a genuine modern product of Hungarian culture. It is extraordinarily rich in melodies, the exotic features of which are defined by the marked rubato of old peasant music.«

The Polish composer Grażina Bacewicz started to write her own musical works when she was just 13 years old. At this time, the abandonment of Late Romanticism and adoption of Neoclassicism was an important decisive point in the musically creative style of many artists. The Quartet for Four Violins, which Bacewicz dedicated to the students of the Krakau Music Conservatory in 1949, is also characterised by the new tendency towards clarity of sound and linear structures.

The opus number 77 of Dvořák's String Quintet in G major leads us to expect a work that was produced during the time in which the composer was already a celebrated artist. In fact, the piece was written back in 1875 and should therefore actually have been given a much earlier opus number. This »late classification« of the work was the result of an ingenious sales strategy on the part of a publisher who hoped that this »redating« of the piece would push up sales. Even if the quintet as a consequence has to be counted amongst Dvořák's early works, it is already bubbling over with musical innovations and the typical features that also characterise the composer's later works. It goes beyond the scope of a chamber music piece, for example, in that the first movement arises almost completely from the motif of the introduction, which runs like a leitmotif through the entire composition as in a symphonic poem.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Prelude and Scherzo for Four Violins, Two Violas and Two Cellos, op. 11
Prelude – Scherzo

Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967)
Serenade for Two Violins and Viola op. 12
Allegramente, Sostenuto ma non troppo – Lento ma non troppo – Vivo

– Interval –

Grażina Bacewicz (1909–1969)
Quartet for Four Violins
Allegretto – Andante tranquillo – Molto allegro

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
String Quintet in G major, op. 77
Allegro con fuoco, Più mosso – Scherzo. Allegro vivace – Poco andante, L’istesso tempo – Finale. Allegro assai