Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 4, Opus 37

String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1936) I. Allegro molto. Energico II. Comodo III. Largo IV. Allegro New Vienna String Quartet Schoenberg composed his Fourth String Quartet, Op. 37, on a commission from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, an American patron of the arts who had created a foundation in her name at the Library of Congress. The première of the Fourth Quartet was given in 1937 in Los Angeles by the Kolisch Quartet, founded, as the Wiener Streichquartett, by first violinist Rudolf Kolisch (1896-1978) in 1922. By 1927, the name of the ensemble was changed to the Kolisch Quartet. Both the Kolisch Quartet and Ms. Coolidge received the dedication of the Fourth String Quartet. Composed in April-July 1936, the Fourth Quartet was one the first pieces Schoenberg began after immigrating to the United States and settling in Brentwood, CA. It is also one of his first twelve-note compositions since his work on the opera Moses und Aron, after which he began to re-explore the tonal idiom. In a letter to Elizabeth Coolidge, Schoenberg describes the Fourth Quartet as "more pleasant" than the Third Quartet, Op. 30, of 1927. The four movements of the quartet are based on a single, twelve-note row, although the style is somewhat more free than that of the Third Quartet and certainly of Schoenberg's earliest twelve-note works. The first movement, marked Allegro molto, energico, is in an abstract sonata form. The main theme is one of Schoenberg's most nearly periodic in years. Numerous repeated tones reveal the composer's free approach to the use of row forms, while the varied repetitions of the theme somewhat obscure the overall organization of the movement. Occasionally the only recognizable aspect of the theme is a group of four repeated eighth notes. Transitions are generally built around a hesitant, chromatically sighing theme that first appears in the first violin. Schoenberg's developmental skill comes to the fore as a motive from the main theme appears in the cello as an accompaniment to a prominent viola passage. Marked Comodo (leisurely), the second movement is an intermezzo in A-B-A form. Although the central section presents new material, the combination of this material with preceding elements gives it a developmental function. The arpeggio-based main theme finds itself combined with numerous connecting motives, creating a dense contrapuntal texture before the recapitulation, which itself includes some of the combinations of the developmental section. The recitative-like main theme of the Largo third movement first sounds in unison. Individual instruments begin to break away with their own lines, and a gradual decrescendo leads to a genuine secondary theme. In contrast to the first theme, the secondary theme is regular, periodic, and has an arch shape comprising six measures. The movement is in a binary form (ABAB) and the final return of the opening unison is in inversion. Variation technique is prominent in the rondo finale, marked Allegro. Transformations of the main theme are so great that it is occasionally difficult to recognize its return. In the first such instance, the theme is inverted and Schoenberg sets it to a different row form. Near the end of the movement, the main theme appears in variations much closer to the original in a pseudo-recapitulatory fashion. [Allmusic.com] Art by Hans Hofmann

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Arnold Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 4, I

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Arnold Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 4, III

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Arnold Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 4, II

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Arnold Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 4, IV

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16 - Op. 37 / Allegro (Neue Wiener Schule, 1971) - Arnold Schoenberg