Tchaikovsky was still
studying at St Petersburg’s Conservatory
when he began work on the B flat major
string quartet in August 1865, only
to abandon it three months later after
completing only the tri-partite first
movement. Cast in usual sonata form,
the first subject has its origins in
a Russian folksong, unsure of major
or minor mode. His last chamber work,
the string sextet entitled Souvenir
de Florence, was written at his
summer retreat at Frolovskoye near Klin
barely three years before the composer’s
death, and recalls a visit he had made
to Italy. Its Adagio recalls his Fifth
Symphony, and though all the other three
movements are in the minor, there is
nevertheless a more cheerful feel to
the work than such a characteristic
would imply. Tchaikovsky’s three string
quartets were written in the 1870s as
the composer was beginning to put together
the building blocks of his career. The
First, in 1871, was dashed off
as part of a programme of his latest
music, which he pragmatically decided
should be of chamber music rather than
more expensive orchestral fare. Its
style varies between harking back to
the classical period while a Russian
folksong (a snatch of the Song of
the Volga Boatman is easily identifiable)
is said to have moved the author Tolstoy
to tears (it was later arranged for
cello and orchestra). The rest consists
of a whimsical scherzo with rhythmic
aberrations and a sonata-form finale.
Three years later the Second Quartet
opens with interesting chromatic
dissonances, the scherzo once again
offsets rhythmic interplay of duple
and triple metre, the slow movement
takes its listener to the depths of
Tchaikovsky’s emotional despair, while
the finale employs devices such as fugue
and homophony. The Third Quartet
was written a couple of years later
in 1876, in the year his violin concerto
was finally given its premiere by Brodsky
in Vienna under Richter. In the uncomfortable
key for a string player of E flat minor,
the work seems more personalised than
its predecessors. It was dedicated to
the violinist Ferdinand Laub, who had
died the year before, so a funeral march
becomes its pivotal third movement,
while the preceding joyous scherzo is
notably brief. Only the more cheerful
Rondo-Finale sweeps away the mood of
pervading gloom and tragedy.
These are superb performances
given by one of the world’s finest string
quartets, with special mention made
of the lavish textures achieved in the
sextet. Unanimity of ensemble is exemplary,
the sound finely judged and balanced
at both Russian and UK venues. The Borodin
Quartet’s playing is suffused with directness
and simplicity of phrasing, and no better
rendition of the Russian style comes
to mind. The clever emphasis on the
composer’s witty rhythmic inventiveness
(forever playing with uneven five-in-a-bar
time signatures), and the magical experience
of listening to a group of four players
sounding at times like a string orchestra
of forty will remain indelibly unforgettable.
Tchaikovsky’s output of chamber music
for strings is very well served by this
double set of excellent discs.
Christopher Fifield
Borodin Quartet with Yuri Yurov (viola) and
Mihail Milman (cello) 