Talking about string quartets

[aeolium]

Not wanting to get all "heavyweight" on you but for me this begs the question of what it means (to you) for a piece of instrumental music to be "autobiographical". I'm not saying there's no such thing, there are explicit examples from Beethoven and more cryptic ones from Shostakovich and Janáček of course, but outside those...? (and those composers certainly didn't limit their "autobiographical" music to their string quartets)

And there's Smetana no 1 with its title "From my life".

For my part there are some quartets where there seems to be a secret narrative in which the composer is trying to convey something about an event in his life, some experience that he is reacting to. With a great many quartets I don't get this feeling. Examples of the former would be Mendelssohn's F minor quartet, Shostakovitch's 8th quartet op 110, Britten's last quartet. With the Mendelssohn I felt this when I first heard it, before I was aware of the circumstances of its composition, so I was not as it were tuned into an expectation of a work expressing grief/sorrow. But in its intensity and the elegiac quality in the slow movement it seemed quite unlike any other work of Mendelssohn's I'd heard (and it still does). Of course it's possible to listen to such music as abstract music, not particularly tied down to any narrative. But some works I cannot listen to in that way - I also find this with some late Schubert works.

[Richard Barrett]

Yes but again is that a particular preserve of string quartets?

[aeolium]

No, though it's possible that the scale and intimate nature of the string quartet (perhaps chamber music in general) lends itself more to that kind of expression on the part of the composer.

[Richard Barrett]

(perhaps chamber music in general)

... indeed, I mean what did composers do before there were string quartets? and especially for Russian composers the piano trio is also a medium often used for more serious and inward musical thoughts.

Berg's Lyric Suite is of course an example of a string quartet which turned out to have been a lot more "autobiographical" than was thought for a long time (or than its composer wished to be known).

[teamsaint]

......and interestingly, Smetana chose the Trio format for the most personally difficult work of all.

[aeolium]

... indeed, I mean what did composers do before there were string quartets?

I don't know. Was the idea of the confessional/autobiographical in music there much before the C19? I know of some very expressive trio sonatas but I had not really associated the music there with something autobiographical.

Something that interests me is whether we can hear, even in avowedly autobiographical movements like the Heiliger Dankgesang, the narrative that the composer wants us to when we don't know about it from external sources. Once you know that it's hard to listen to it afresh without that superimposed narrative, though I think it would almost be better if you could. When I first experienced those late quartets, I felt the sense of a personal narrative much more in the Cavatina of op 130 than in the Dankgesang.

[ahinton]

I don't know. Was the idea of the confessional/autobiographical in music there much before the C19? I know of some very expressive trio sonatas but I had not really associated the music there with something autobiographical.

Something that interests me is whether we can hear, even in avowedly autobiographical movements like the Heiliger Dankgesang, the narrative that the composer wants us to when we don't know about it from external sources. Once you know that it's hard to listen to it afresh without that superimposed narrative, though I think it would almost be better if you could. When I first experienced those late quartets, I felt the sense of a personal narrative much more in the Cavatina of op 130 than in the Dankgesang.

That's a good point. I recall that I didn't know about what was behind Heilige Dankgesang when first I heard the quartet in which it occurs and I have to admit that subsequently discovering that did not really make much difference to the ways in which or the extent to which I was moved by it; I think that, up to a point, composers' autobiographical input and listeners' responses thereto (especially when the latter don't know about the impact of that particular factor in bringing the fromer's music into being) may be separate considerations - i.e. the composers' motivation and the extent to which listeners might pick up on it.

[Ian]

No, though it's possible that the scale and intimate nature of the string quartet (perhaps chamber music in general) lends itself more to that kind of expression on the part of the composer.

Obviously it is not the unique preserve of the string quartet. But I think at least one relevant feature is the combination of an essentially homogeneous sound created from differentiated, but related, personalities within the group. I think this lends itself to a particular type of music where, for example, component parts aren’t pitted against each other to the extent you might get in orchestral music (incl. concertos)

[Richard Barrett]

I don't know. Was the idea of the confessional/autobiographical in music there much before the C19? I know of some very expressive trio sonatas but I had not really associated the music there with something autobiographical.

There are some highly autobiographical moments in Froberger's keyboard music: "Méditation sur ma mort future", "Allemande, faite en passant le Rhin dans une barque en grand péril" and so on; and the programmatic works of composer and mercenary Tobias Hume would be an even earlier example, also Dowland - so it goes back to the very beginnings of independent instrumental music I think.

As for whether you hear it or not, indeed you're right that it needs some external prompting in order to be explicit. And as for chamber music in general, I guess it could be said that one of the composers whose work is most "autobiographical" is Mahler, who wrote no chamber music after his teenage Piano Quintet.

[ahinton]

There are some highly autobiographical moments in Froberger's keyboard music: "Méditation sur ma mort future", "Allemande, faite en passant le Rhin dans une barque en grand péril" and so on; and the programmatic works of composer and mercenary Tobias Hume would be an even earlier example, also Dowland - so it goes back to the very beginnings of independent instrumental music I think.

As for whether you hear it or not, indeed you're right that it needs some external prompting in order to be explicit. And as for chamber music in general, I guess it could be said that one of the composers whose work is most "autobiographical" is Mahler, who wrote no chamber music after his teenage Piano Quintet.

Piano Quartet, methinks (unless there's another work that I'm unaware of) but yes, a very good point - and the illustrations from much earlier music (for which many thanks) are welcome, too.

[vinteuil]

... yes, many early examples (many thanks to Richard Barrett for reminding me of the Froberger... ); I also recall JS Bach and the departure of a brother, CPE Bach saying goodbye to his Silbermann clavichord...

But large forces too, surely? Mahler, as stated; also Ein Heldenleben and Intermezzo, and I'm sure lots of Berlioz....

[ahinton]

... yes, many early examples (many thanks to Richard Barrett for reminding me of the Froberger... ); I also recall JS Bach and the departure of a brother, CPE Bach saying goodbye to his Silbermann clavichord...

But large forces too, surely? Mahler, as stated; also Ein Heldenleben and Intermezzo, and I'm sure lots of Berlioz....

Indeed so - but, to return to the string quartet, most of the works mentioned are by composers no longer with us; what about those by David Matthews, who now has a dozen of them to his name (all of which are either already recorded or in the process of being so)?

[aeolium]

But large forces too, surely? Mahler, as stated; also Ein Heldenleben and Intermezzo, and I'm sure lots of Berlioz....

But here a lot comes down to how the listener perceives this music, surely. Does everyone recognise the autobiographical elements in Mahler's music (as opposed to the way in which the music is expressive of his personality)? I'm not sure I do, or would without external prompting. And Berlioz has a lot of programmatic music, but does that mean it is autobiographical? Benvenuto Cellini could be interpreted as reflective of Berlioz's difficulties, but it could just as well not. The Symphonie Fantastique - again programmatic but not imv autobiographical.

Perhaps the term is too ambiguous anyway.

[Beef Oven!]

But here a lot comes down to how the listener perceives this music, surely. Does everyone recognise the autobiographical elements in Mahler's music (as opposed to the way in which the music is expressive of his personality)? I'm not sure I do, or would without external prompting. And Berlioz has a lot of programmatic music, but does that mean it is autobiographical? Benvenuto Cellini could be interpreted as reflective of Berlioz's difficulties, but it could just as well not. The Symphonie Fantastique - again programmatic but not imv autobiographical.

Perhaps the term is too ambiguous anyway.

I recognise the autobiographical elements in Mahler's music, even though I never wrote a note of it!

[Richard Barrett]

Berlioz has a lot of programmatic music, but does that mean it is autobiographical? (...) The Symphonie Fantastique - again programmatic but not imv autobiographical.

I would have thought that the Symphonie is the epitome of autobiographical programme music. If, as you say, the term really means anything precise at all.