Friedrich Cerha: String Quartet Nos. 3 & 4 – Eight Movements after Hölderlin Fragments

3nd string quartet .

It is one of the characteristics of my artistic development that I repeatedly push forward into new areas of imagination with some works and then integrate what I have achieved as organically as possible into my previous experiences. The 3nd string quartet definitely belongs to the latter phase.

Elements of non-European music, which have occupied me in many ways in my first two quartets, play a subordinate role here. The work consists of six short movements, in which everything is geared towards a sharp, clear drawing of sometimes strongly changing characters and a brief presentation of the often expressive musical progression.

The first sentence is characterized by a pair of opposites Furious and a somewhat quieter, cantabile part, which reappears several times in a variety of ways.

In the first section of the second movement, a piece played on the bridge expands pp-Movement over regular fourths in the cello further and further; she will in the final part sul ponticello resumed and ebbs away in pp. The two parts include a cantabile episode that echoes one of my childhood Slovak memories.

Diverse, changing characters characterize the particularly multifaceted third movement. A viola line inspired by Central African motifs is woven into one of the sections.

the fourth sentence, Intermezzo, comes from an area that I have called the »Janáček complex«. Expressive syncopated figures alternate with a swift, scurrying movement in the middle Spiccato and a smooth flowing one.

In the fifth movement a melody in the viola, then the violin, moves in a high register over even quavers on the other instruments. A motif that comes from Papuan music is briefly quoted in the cello. The movement closes with the mentioned quaver movement in the Fortissimo. He goes attaca in the last sentence, a kind of perpetuum mobile, about. Everything is moving at breakneck speed p and  pp, in which the spook ends.

4nd string quartet (2001)

While in 3nd string quartet the six movements, in spite of their complexity, are self-contained units of distinctive character, are in the 4nd string quartet Although there are also contrasting sections, there are so many cross-connections through reminiscences, allusions and reprises that the overall impression is more that of a coherent organism.

A very slow introduction exposes the piece's characteristic intervallic progression. You follow in fff a longer one Furious-Section consisting of semiquaver movements interspersed with rests in all four instruments. Finally, a phrase “hangs” and becomes im mf repeated; then it settles fff furioso continued.

This process sets in motion a process in which the Furious- Sections between the repeated phrases are getting shorter and the number of tones within the phrase are getting smaller and smaller, but the number of repetitions is always increasing, until at the end a phrase consisting of only three tones is repeated fifteen times. When listening, this brings a gradual awareness, a seeing through a procedural course.

A slow section then follows on from the introduction, but the movement accelerates and transitions into a rapid section in which small, sudden islands appear in the f and  ff stand out from the action.

A  ritardando leads to a very slow "sentence" (with sordino) over, in the first and third sections of which restless, rapid figures are interspersed in all instruments, reminiscent of the preceding ones.

Two Energico marcato labeled parts frame the quiet center part of the next larger molding. It ends in a recapitulation of Furious-Section in which the process described above is repeated – only briefly and of course not literally. At the end, the movement leads into the last section, which is borne "with extreme calm", in which a few rapid, isolated figures are reminiscent of the slow middle "movement". Interspersed in even quarters pizzicati the piece ends.

Eight movements based on Hölderlin fragments for string sextet (1995)

In 1994 I repeatedly read Hölderlin in its entirety and noted numerous speech melodies derived from the verses, which I increasingly stylized musically because I never wanted the texts to be sung. The commission for a string sextet initially led to the idea of ​​developing the musical composition directly from the differences in language. However, since the process soon proved to be too restrictive, I resorted to my speech melodies and developed them in a very free, highly stylized way – with the exception of the last movement, which in its monomaniacal state is completely independent of the intonation of the text.

The very slow first movement, characterized by a strangely light gloom, is followed by the five-part second movement, in which rapid drama and a calmer, flowing movement determine what is happening. The slow third movement has a pale floating effect. The fourth set is a Presto misterioso; the frantic movement is probably inspired by that of the "water".

The very quiet fifth movement is characterized by an »emphasis motif« that begins marcato, a line from violin and cello and a viola motif that suddenly emerges again and again. The sixth movement is characterized by unsteady wildness, a rapid change of rhythm and frequent changes of meter, interrupted by a calmer middle section.

Its return leads into the very calm, expansive seventh movement, which seamlessly transitions into the eighth and final movement. Here there is no longer any pulsation and neither tonal centers nor the formation of themes. Sustained tones, rapid, ornamental figures, as it were playing around a tone, which – as if from far away – are reminiscent of non-European things, and glissandi characterize him. The set starts very high and moves in a big way Growing up continuously but almost imperceptibly down to the end decreasing to end in deepest darkness.

In the end, I asked myself the question, which is not easy to answer, whether it makes sense to tell the listener and the performing musicians the lyrics I started from, especially since it is in no way program music. I did it because I see it as an indication of the basic emotional attitude of the individual movements, and also because I didn't want to conceal such an important source of my work.

Friedrich Cerha