JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
Born in Eisenach, Germany, 1685
Died in Leipzig, Germany, 1750
Contrapunctus I from The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080
As Johann Sebastian Bach neared the end of his life, the techniques of formal polyphony that he had mastered over half a century — fugues, canons, and the like — were falling out of fashion. While other composers, including his sons, experimented with new homophonic styles (i.e., music with one recognizable melody line), Bach spent his final decade going even deeper into the art of counterpoint, working out some of the most spellbinding examples ever created. His most rigorous undertaking of all was a mystifying series called The Art of Fugue. He completed an initial version in the early 1740s, and he was working to expand and revise it at the end of his life, at a time when his failing eyesight forced him to dictate compositions to his sons or other scribes.
In its final form, The Art of Fugue comprises 14 fugues and four canons, all utilizing the same theme that comes through clearly in the opening measures of the first section, Contrapunctus I, with its four long notes outlining a D minor triad, followed by a segment that rises and falls through a portion of the corresponding scale. The contrapuntal approach here is a fugue for four voices; Bach didn’t specify exactly how (or even if) the music should be distributed for performance, but the ranges align well with the string quartet.
BILLY CHILDS
Born in Los Angeles, 1957
String Quartet No. 2, “Awakening”
The following is a note written by Isidore String Quartet violist Devin Moore, reprinted with permission.
Los Angeles native Billy Childs began publicly performing on the piano at the age of 6 and would eventually receive a bachelor’s degree in composition from the University of Southern California College of the Performance Arts. As a performer and composer, Childs was in demand early on, collaborating with pillars of the jazz industry, signing with Windham Hill Records in 1988, and receiving commissions from prestigious soloists and ensembles (LA Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Ying Quartet, and others). A formative education, extensive experience, and unwavering self-conception allowed the five-time Grammy Award winner to develop a unique voice as a pianist and composer in both the classical and jazz spheres.
Commissioned by the Ying Quartet and completed in 2012, String Quartet No. 2 (“Awakening”) depicts the emotional, physical, and spiritual journey in dealing with the serious illness of a loved one; it was inspired by Childs’s real-life experience with his wife. She was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and taken into emergency care, and this three-movement work outlines their complex emotional journey, providing insight into the vulnerability of the composer.
The first movement, titled Wake Up Call, opens with a tremolo/trill in the second violin and viola, set against snap pizzicato in the cello, and a twelve-tone opening pronouncement in the first violin, expressing Childs’ initial shock at learning of his wife’s hospitalization. This cacophony of an anxiety-ridden sound-world is juxtaposed with a reflective middle section overcome with lyrical cascades of melody that accumulate throughout the quartet, evoking a sense of uncontrollable anguish, fear, and lamentation. This brief look inside the composer’s psyche dissipates as the opening material engulfs the music once again. Wake Up Call gives us a glimpse into both the external and internal experience of Childs in this time of uncertainty.
The White Room, the second movement, conveys the powerlessness and urgency he experienced waiting at her bedside through the use of a plaintive melody set against bi-tonal harmonies. Utilizing extended techniques (false harmonics, glissandos, Bartók-like pizzicatos), Childs manifests the feeling of being in the sterile, unwelcoming hospital room with its white walls and repetitive machinery noises. The mechanical landscape eventually spills into two cadenzas in the viola and first violin that seem to spew rage, anger, and torment. The doubled sixteenth-note figure that pervades the movement, resembling a heartbeat, rises and falls as the emotional arch takes shape, eventually settling into a state of numbness and fatigue.
The final movement, Song of Healing, is an ode to recovery and rediscovery, with the viola’s introductory melody expressing the slow process of healing and a new respect for the transient and delicate nature of life. The centerpiece of this movement is a conversation that occurs between the first violin and cello, signifying the real-life conversation between Childs and his wife as the two began to understand the impact that this event has had on their relationship. We can feel the love, trust, and unencumbered expression of emotion as this duo rejoins the quartet and the movement comes to a close. There is a sense of healing, or at least a willingness to heal, as the final chord, a hopeful A major, dissolves into silence.
Through a unique yet familiar compositional style evocative of 21st-century perspective, Childs acknowledges and expresses the familiarity of fear, anguish, and resolution regarding the fleeting nature of life, yielding a work that speaks directly to the human experience.
—Devin Moore
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Born in Bonn, Germany, 1770
Died in Vienna, 1827
String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132
The String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132, was one of three late quartets Beethoven wrote for Prince Nikolay Galitzin, a nobleman and amateur cellist in Saint Petersburg, Russia. An illness in the spring of 1825 forced Beethoven to set the quartet aside, but he was able to recuperate and finish the score that summer while staying in the spa town of Baden.
The opening movement begins with a slow introduction that climbs up the voices of the quartet in an austere, contrapuntal chorale. With a slurred flourish, the first violin initiates the fast body of the movement, but it never settles comfortably into the home key of A minor, and all the jumpy dotted rhythms and frequent disruptions create an overall effect of uncertainty and intrigue. The movement that comes next, marked Allegro ma non tanto (“Fast, but not too much”), is more restrained than a typical Beethoven scherzo, and it serves to prepare the heart of this quartet, a movement that Beethoven titled, “Holy Song of Thanksgiving from a Convalescent to the Divinity, in the Lydian Mode.”
Depending on how slow the tempo is taken, this one extraordinary movement can last about as long as an entire Haydn quartet, with its three spacious episodes of chorale-like counterpoint separated by more upbeat contrasting passages. (At the entrance of the first, Beethoven wrote, “Feeling new strength.”) The indication of “Lydian mode” refers to an old convention from church music, which uses a scale similar to the major scale but with a raised fourth tone, imparting a particular radiance. The transcendent quality of the Lydian mode is especially palpable in the closing section.
Having soared to such spiritual heights, the quartet comes back down to earth for its conclusion. A short march, set in the key of A major instead of A minor, leads without pause into a rondo finale that brings back some of the ambiguity of the first movement, with dancing themes that just barely commit to a major-key conclusion.
© 2024 Aaron Grad