All-Bartók Program at Tanglewood Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Juilliard String Quartet
Beyond the authoritative: wisdom and originality in the Bartok string quartets
By: Michael Miller - Jul 08, 2007
Tanglewood Festival,
Seiji Ozawa Hall, July 5, 2007
The Juilliard String Quartet
Joel Smirnoff, violin; Ronald Copes, violin; Joel Krosnick, cello; and Samuel Rhodes, viola
All-Bartók Program Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Juilliard String Quartet:
Béla Bartók (1881-1945): Quartet No. 2, op. 17, Quartet No. 4, Quartet No. 6
Yet another event with deep local roots and many implications about music in the Berkshires, America, and the world at large...This concert marks the end of The Juilliard String Quartet's 60th anniversary season and commemorates a seminal event in the history of music in America, the first performance of Béla Bartók's six string quartets as a complete cycle, a turning point in the reception of Bartók and his quartets in this country. The Juilliard, founded only two years previously by William Schuman, president of the Juilliard School of Music, performed them on July 10 and July 17, 1948 at the invitation of Serge Koussevitzky—another one of his visionary ideas—which has influenced performance practice to the present day in creating the strong, but not iron-bound tradition of performing Bartók's quartets as a group and issuing recordings in the same encyclopedic format, implying a certain Bachian piety towards this music which was once considered difficult and forbiddingly austere.
Bartók's connections with the United States went back many years. He toured the US in 1928 and entered his Third String Quartet for the competition of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. In 1934 his Fifth String Quartet was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation—another musical institution with origins in the Berkshires—and was first performed there in the following year. His Sixth String Quartet received its first performance by the Kolisch Quartet from Vienna at Town Hall in New York in January 1941, just months after Bartók and his wife arrived as émigrés in the wake of the Second World War. Still, Bartók received little attention in the United States until the first performance of his Concerto for Orchestra on December 1, 1944 by the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky, who had commissioned the work through his foundation the previous year. This colorful and accessible piece broke the ice for Bartók, and he received more commissions and growing public enthusiasm before his death in 1945. The Tanglewood quartet cycle of 1948 was a continuation of Koussevitzky's commitment to the legacy of this great composer. The Juilliard's summer performances marked the beginning of the initiative, but, having met with tepid response at Tanglewood, it only came to fruition when the cycle was repeated in New York in the spring of 1949. Public and critical response, most famously Virgil Thompson's long review in the New York Herald Tribune, finally set Bartók's quartets on their way to the standard repertory, but only after the Juilliard continued to perform them around the US and later in Europe. Their first recording of the group came out in 1950, further establishing the works and their authority as interpreters of them. Their authority was in fact justified, not only because of Koussevitzy's role, but because Eugene Lehner, a former member of the then disbanded Kolisch Quartet, which had premiered the Third and Sixth Quartets, introduced the Juilliard to the works and coached them in preparation for the Tanglewood concerts. Although other groups, like the Hungarian Quartet, also known by the name of its first violinist, the great Sándor Végh, could claim connections with Bartók, the Juilliard remained predominant on this side of the Atlantic. Their interpretation has remained essential over sixty years—I first became acquainted with Bartók's quartets from their 1960 lp's—although the original members, Robert Mann and Robert Koff violins, Raphael Hillyer viola, and Arthur Winograd cello, have all been replaced over the years.
In this way Thursday's concert celebrated the very best in American musical life, with several non-profit entities, including Tanglewood, the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation, and the Juilliard School coming together to support the production and ensure the posterity of the very best in contemporary music. Without this support, the Bartók quartets, arguably the purest music by the greatest twentieth century composer, might well have been forgotten. The composer himself, financially insecure and ailing, had to support himself in the US by teaching at Harvard and the like, but the Koussevitzky and other commissions enabled him to write some of his greatest music, music which was sufficiently accessible to the general public to gain him a posthumous place in the standard repertory.
Bartók after all was not an Erich Korngold, who could easily find a niche for himself at Hollywood. Can we imagine what it would be like if Bartók's works had been forgotten after his death, and the quartets resurfaced today as rediscovered masterpieces of an eccentric Hungarian recluse? Probably few would care. One or two might occasionally crop up at the more recherché festivals. When the original Juilliard Quartet took up the quartets, they knew that they would be a hard sell, but as Samuel Rhodes states in the Tanglewood program notes, "The inherent vitality, originality, folk-like accessibility, and intellectual substance have gradually caused the Bartóks to be assimilated as part of the basic repertoire." Bartók's fascination with Hungarian folk-music emerged from his relationship to his nation, from which he was to a degree alienated by his social class. It also helped him in breaking free from the tonal and formal conventions of 19th century concert music. Bartók didn't believe in quoting folk-music directly, but his inititative is more relevant than ever today, when musical taste is dominated by "world music" and a historically related, but different sort of interest in folk-traditions. This was just brought home to me by a brilliant performance of Mauricio Kagel's Exotica of 1972 at the Yellow Barn Festival in Amherst, which I shall discuss in a forthcoming review.
The Bartóks and the Juilliard certainly attracted a strong crowd on a stormy Thursday evening, and they were not slouching around, fidgeting, or chatting, like a typical Music Shed audience. They were there to hear the music. In truth, Bartók's quartets require concentration, an activity (Yes, it's an activity!) not everyone is good at these days. The music is concentrated. Every bar matters, every note. If the music is new to you, or you still find it intimidating, a good brief analysis is always helpful, like those by Steven Ledbetter in the Tanglewood program notes, and—even more—repeated listening of a good recording or, better, two. The 1950 and the 1981 recordings by the Juilliard are in print, as are those of the Végh and the Hungarian Quartet. Among younger groups the Takács Quartet have developed an enthusiastic and richly deserved following.
Last year a member of the excellent Alexander String Quartet commented in reference to their project of learning all the Shostakovich string quartets for his centenary, that they sometime lost track of exactly which quartet they were playing. There is not the remotest chance of that in Bartók. Each work is strikingly different. For this single concert the Juilliard chose the even numbered quartets, which makes for a satisfying and instructive traversal of his career. We hear Bartók as he matures before the outbreak of the World War I (1912), in his experimental phase at the end of the 1920's (1928), and finally just at the beginning of the endgame (1939), before the Second World War forced him to emigrate to the US. Quartet No. 2 is a dark work in three movements, the first moderato, the second fast and dance-like, and the last slow, concluding in a brooding tone. The fourth, in five movements, goes through a complex succession of mood shifts and motifs which range from the folk-like to abstract melodic phrases, but following overall a consistent process of development, one from another, and moulding themselves into a symmetrical, layered structure. In the sixth, each of the four movements begins with a section marked mesto (sad), which develop a single theme. The first three lead into quicker sections, mark Vivace, Marcia, and Burletta (and Moderato) respectively, and the last dwells on the melancholy theme of the beginning. Bartók's tone palette is different in each, apart from any development as his experience ripened, and the variety of tone and sonority is immense.
First of all, the Juilliard, from their years of experience with the music, were able to project this vast range of color and sonority in a way that one could actually call understated. Overall the tone of the current équipe is mellower that it was in 1960, without being in the least ingratiating or slick. Their sound is not quite as severe as years ago, more refined, rather like brushed steel. Perhaps the acoustics of Seiji Ozawa Hall played a role in that as well. The Juilliard's response to voice leading, texture, and color was precisely matched to the structure and spirit of each movement in each work, but in no case did they distract us with any unnecessary emphasis or self-conscious gesture. The musicians had identified totally with Bartók's discipline and perfect balance of form and expression. As the final mesto of the sixth quartet unfolded I imagine few in the rapt audience failed to realize that they were listening to the greatest music played with the deepest understanding and the highest level of execution, achieving what I believe Bartók would have wanted, a fusion of rhythm, tonality, color, and form.
Usually I'm sceptical of commemorations and that sort of thing, but this one had a real significance, doing full honor to Bartók, Dr. Koussevtizky and his beloved Tanglewood, as well as to the Juilliard Quartet and its members past and present. Listen to the Juilliard's 1950 recordings, and you'll see that they haven't stayed still, any more than Tanglewood.
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