The title of the disc
Amoroso derives from the theme of love
that gave rise to all three works.
In his later years Janáček’s life and work was dominated
by the unrequited love he had for Kamila Stösslová. Love
was very much on his mind when he wrote the first of his two string
quartets. It was motivated by the Tolstoy novella
The Kreutzer
Sonata which tells of the brutal domination of a woman by her
husband whose jealousy ends with him murdering her. The title comes
from the Beethoven sonata that the wife was working on with a violinist
with whom her husband suspected she was having an affair rather than
a purely musical partnership. The music is unmistakably Czech and
unmistakably Janáček; it could be by no other composer
since his musical signature is so clearly recognisable. The achingly
pleading opening theme represents the wife but the domineering husband
is soon characterised by a more powerful and insistent one that takes
over the movement. The second with its polka rhythm introduces us
to the violinist. Then again there is an interruption by a more aggressive
theme sounding like the husband confronting the couple. The third
alludes to the Beethoven sonata of the quartet’s subtitle. The
final movement recapitulates themes from the previous movements. The
pleading and poignant theme from the opening is interspersed with
increasingly violent sounds representing the husband’s jealousy.
It ends with the wife’s tragic death.
It was as late as 1977 that material was discovered by musicologist
George Perle that left no doubt that Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite
was to all intents and purposes a miniature wordless opera that had
as its motivation a hitherto unknown love story. Berg notated a score
with overt references to it and gave it to the woman in question Hanna
Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a Prague industrialist incorporating his
own and Hanna’s initials in the heart of all six movements as
A-B flat-B natural-F. He wrote on the score “I have secretly
inserted our initials into the music. May it be a small monument to
a great love.” He also included many other cryptographic and
numerological references that were meaningful to the couple and considered
it among his most successful works saying that it was “the large
unfolding ... of an overall programmatic concept: ‘Subjection
to Fate.’”
Once one knows the back-story the titles of each movement become much
more significant, entitled as they are: jovial, amorous, mysterious,
passionate, delirious and desolate. These together with references
to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and to Zemlinsky confirm
the overall concept. As the booklet notes quote George Perle as writing
“Like anyone who commits a perfect crime Berg was proud of his
accomplishment and wanted us to know about it.” The 90 page
score unfolds over almost half an hour and the music is as lyrical
as the work’s title describes though to some ears it may still
sound “modern” despite it having been written nearly ninety
years ago.
The final work on the disc Langsamer Satz is by Anton Webern
who in 1905, as the notes explain, “was head-over-heels in love
with his cousin, Wilhelmina Mörtl.” At the age of 21 love
often seems more all-consuming than it does later in life. The diary
entries Webern made following a walking holiday he took with her show
how enraptured he felt including the phrase ‘two souls had wed’.
Wilhelmina did in fact become first his fiancé and later his
wife. The music is so very lushly romantic with a degree of natural
warmth to it that is almost tangible and with the richest sounds opening
the work. Those produced by the lower register of the cello are particularly
sumptuous. Though he would leave this romantic sound world well behind
it occasioned this line written to his brother-in-law: “Quartet
playing is the most glorious music-making there is.” I say three
cheers to that!
This is a very fine disc of three heartfelt love inspired works played
most beautifully by this young all-female Canadian ensemble.
Steve Arloff
