Borodin: String Quartet No. 1 in A major - French Vanilla

1/12/11 Borodin: String Quartet No. 1 in A major

“Respectable people do not write music or make love as a career.”
– Alexander Borodin

            Borodin is one of those composers I admit to having known close to nothing about before listening to these two pieces today.  I had heard of Prince Igor, his opera, and knew it was the basis for the musical Kismet, but that was about the extent of it.  Listening to his string quartets, I both wish I had heard his work before and at the same time, understand why I haven’t.  It is both beautiful and emotive, but these are two qualities that come pretty naturally in the string quartet medium.  (Ok, perhaps last month’s Ligeti string quartet was not the best example to start with.)  It’s a good couple of piece of music, but it’s just a little, I don’t know… vanilla.

That of course isn’t to say it has it’s moments of greatness.  For example, about 9 minutes into the first movement of Sting Quartet No. 1 in A major there’s what sounds like some incredibly intense and really fun pizzicato section.  On subsequent listenings, some of it may be bowed, but I’d have to look at a score I guess.  The melodies throughout are strong, but unlike with a woodwind quintet (again, one of my favorite mediums to both write and listen to,) there is a lack of textures.  The 1^st violin carries the bulk of the melodic weight, delegating supporting roles to the lower strings.  In fact some of the greatest moments are when the cello gets to shine, however briefly.

The first quartet breaks a bit from the traditional “fast-slow-fast” three movement form, opting instead to add an additional fast movement after the slower one.  Although there doesn’t seem to be a huge gap between the opening Allegro and the second movement’s Andante.  The latter of the movement develops into some interesting 2-part counterpoint in octaves, breaking up the texture a bit, but as far as tempi go, everything seems to fall into a comfortable medium tempo until the bouncy 6/8 Scherzo of the third movement.

As such, the beginning of the third movement seems like a bumpy ride – not in that it sounds unpolished or is a poor performance, but that each beat feels like a little jolt runs through it.  Perhaps the best moment of the quartet however is the crystalline straight toned harmonics that whistle above the middle third of this movement.  It’s like listening to the sound of tuned bowed glasses – very ethereal and otherworldly.  Borodin could have written an entire movement of this and I would be very, very happy.  Unfortunately, his return to the opening theme seems like a letdown in that it means leaving this beautiful place.  I guess we all must come back down from the mountaintop experiences as well as ascend to them.  (I however, will file this away as something to attempt in the future – an entire string quartet movement written in harmonics.  Borodin meats Jaco Pastorius’ “Portrait of Tracy.”  Could be brilliant…)  Moments like this are the specks of vanilla bean in the ice cream, carrying the analogy a bit forward - just exciting enough to stand out and make the mundane a little more special.

The stark, 4-octave unison beginning the 4^th movement immediately evokes a darker, more somber tone than what has gone before.  The final movement goes on to explore more contrapuntal writing than the first three, and the change is appreciated.  However, it all too soon returns to material from the first movement, and while I appreciate the archform, would still have preferred a return to the third movement instead aesthetically.

I had originally intended on discussing both of Borodin’s quartets today, but I confess, this project is wearing me down a bit.  I fully intend on seeing it through to its completion, and hopefully soon getting a few days ahead again, but for now, I’m going to have to stop here.  There’s just not enough hours in the day.  So much good music, so little time…

Up next – Sky Blue (Maria Schneider)

Next week - Bach: Cello Suites