In December 1920, the Revue musicale published a special issue dedicated to the memory of Debussy, who had died two years earlier. However, rather than containing memorial articles, the issue was devoted exclusively to musical tributes from prominent composers whom Debussy had known and influenced. These included Ravel, Stravinsky, de Falla, and several others. Ravel’s contribution was a piece entitled Duo scored for violin and cello. Within six months, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) had begun laboring over the expansion of the Duo into a full, four- movement sonata. The work completed, Ravel looked on it with characteristic self-effacement: “It doesn’t seem much, this machine for two instruments: it’s the result of nearly a year and a half’s slogging. . . .”

The composer’s difficulties lay chiefly in style, for the Sonata represents a turning point away from lush, impressionistic harmony and into a purely 20th-century realm of leaner, more contrapuntal sonorities. Ravel recognized his own change in style, for he wrote, “The music is stripped down to the bone. The allure of harmony is rejected and increasingly there is a return of emphasis on melody.”

The sparseness in Ravel’s new style-direction can be heard right from the first movement, a modified sonata form structure. The instruments carry on a polemic that is not resolved until the movement ends. Harmonic shading is not altogether forgotten; however, witness the “bluesy” alternations between major and minor chords.

“The duo was finished. Then I realized that the Scherzo was much too developed, and what’s more, lousy.” Ravel entirely scrapped his first version of the second movement and started again. The Scherzo and the third Lent movement show Ravel’s complete entry into modern music. With its alternating pizzicato and arco passages, the Scherzo builds in an intense, Bartók- like expression that employs genuine bitonality (E-flat minor over A minor). The following slow movement carries the work’s tonal ambiguities to a high point as its intensity grows. Finally, with both instruments playing fortissimo in their highest registers, Ravel creates an emotional passage that verges on atonality.

In true 20th-century fashion, rhythmic impulse generates the final movement. The “epic struggle” (in the words of French music authority Rollo H. Myers) suggested in the first movement resumes “without mercy on either side.” At times, a renewed atonality threatens the movement’s tonal foundations, but Ravel finally leads the “perilous acrobatics” of the two instruments to a consonant ending on a simple C major chord.

Charles Gounod, member of the league of prominent French composer-admirers of Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), once remarked about him: “He is a musician armed with every weapon.  He is a master of his craft as no one else is. . . .” His talents and mastery also extended far beyond composition. A child prodigy in piano performance, Saint-Saëns went on to become a successful professional at the piano as well as the organ. A champion of both contemporary and older music, Saint-Saëns was an editor of the complete works of Jean-Baptiste Lully. He was also interested in a wide variety of non-musical subjects, including Archeology.

Saint-Saëns composed the second piano quartet in February 1875, the year he married Marie-Laure Truffot (age 19), and their first child was born. In addition, 1875 marked the premiere of the composer’s Danse macabre.

The B-flat Piano Quartet has been called one of Saint-Saëns’ “neglected masterpieces.” The four-movement chamber work is certainly worthy of that degree of recognition (and perhaps more). Predictably, the first movement (Allegretto) focuses a great deal on the composer’s instrument, the piano. Heard often in concert with all three string instruments, the keyboard establishes a solid lyricism through its various related themes and development(s). This is quite reminiscent of Robert Schumann’s approach to the Classical sonata-allegro form: drawing us along emotionally with the richness of vocal-influenced proclamation.

The Andante that follows is dominated at first by a persistent rhythm supporting a progression of chords. Then, a freer, more lyrical exchange between piano and strings leads subtly to a new, lyrical, long-phrased central theme before returning to the persistent rhythm, which now frames a fugue. The persistent-rhythm theme recapitulates briefly at the end.

A shorter movement (representing a scherzo) then follows. It begins in a Puckish style reminiscent of Mendelssohn. The strings come more to the fore here, as equal partners with the piano. The central section focuses on the violin in virtuosic style. The recap of the main section contains few surprises, yet it is just as entertaining as before. A short piano cadenza, however, is a bit more surprising, leading as it does to the movement’s efficient ending.

The composer asks for the first movement’s tempo to be restored during the opening and closing moments of the finale. A violin-piano duet dominates the early moments. The music also becomes developmental early but returns to thematic statements and transitions before a formal development. The wrap-up follows, featuring a formal fugue involving all instruments. A full coda brings the whole work to a brilliant conclusion.

Program Notes by Dr. Michael Fink.
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