WHICH IS THE TRUE GRAND FINALE? A BEETHOVENIAN DEBATE
Dover Quartet carefully sequences cycle of 17 works for string quartet with big finish
The main event of the Montreal Chamber Music Festival is a traversal in six concerts by the Dover Quartet of Beethoven’s 17 works for string quartet. Or should that be 16 with a kicker?
One might suppose the matter can be easily settled, but the standard count of 17 has been challenged by a tendency to play the fearsome Grosse Fuge Op. 133 as a finale to Op. 130.
This is how Beethoven originally wrote Op. 130 and how the six-movement work was first performed on March 21, 1826. Contemporary accounts suggest that the inner movements were better received than the finale. One biographer reports the composer’s reaction to the reaction as: “Cattle! Asses!”
Whatever his species, Beethoven’s publisher also was troubled by the length and difficulty of the fugue and offered a fee for an alternative finale (which would be the last substantial piece Beethoven completed).
The Great Fugue, as it is known in English, was published separately (for string quartet and in a four-hands piano transcription) and has remained an object of awe ever since.
A strong case can be made that Beethoven — not known for his pliancy in the face of criticism or advice — acceded to his publisher’s suggestion after due reflection and for good cause. So why make trouble by reattaching the fugue to Op. 130?
“We think there is something to the fact that he originally wrote the quartet with this enormous, shocking and almost lopsided structure,” writes Dover violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, who, like her colleagues, studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.
“We also find that going into the Fugue from the Cavatina (the celestial Op. 130 slow movement) is one of the most chilling experiences, and the way the Fugue ends, breathlessly rising through a euphoric B flat major after all of that, is nothing short of transcendent.”
And what about the replacement rondo, Beethoven’s valedictory statement? This will be given as an encore after Op. 130 with the Great Fugue as the finale on June 2.
Formed in 2008, the Dover Quartet has performed Beethoven cycles before and is still experimenting with the order of presentation. The rising tonal centres in Sunday’s grouping of Op. 18 No. 3, Op. 74 and Op. 59 No. 2 are not coincidental. “That uncomfortable chromatic climb from D to E flat to E will hopefully have an over-arching effect of tension that will make the incredible E minor quartet all the more dramatic and frightening.”
Check it out, if you dare. The cycle is presented at Pollack Hall; it began Friday and continues through June 11.
On June 8 the Dovers, winners in 2013 of the Banff International String Quartet Competition, are joined by the 2016 victors, the Rolston String Quartet. (The Canadian group has just been named fellowship quartet in residence at Yale University.) Mendelssohn’s Octet is the inevitable combo presentation, but the program also includes Beethoven’s rarely heard String Quintet Op. 29 (from the Rolstons with Pajaro-van de Stadt as the extra player). The Rolstons will also play the compulsory piece written by Zosha Di Castri for the 2016 Banff contest.
For more information, visit festivalmontreal.org.
The result was mathematically possible, but hardly probable: Zoltán Fejérvári of Budapest took first prize in the Concours musical international de Montréal while second-prize winner Giuseppe Guarrera, an Italian now studying in Berlin, won all the special prizes to which he was entitled. These comprise the Radio-Canada People’s Choice Award, an open-ballot affair worth $5,000; the André-Bachand Award for best performance of the compulsory work ($4,000); the award for best semifinal recital ($2,000 from Tourisme Montréal); the Bach Award ($1,000 from the Montreal Bach Festival) and the Chopin Award ($1,000 from Liliana Komorowska).
Add $13,000 in extras to the $15,000 second prize, and Guarrera has a cash takeaway only $2,000 less than the $30,000 cheque (bankrolled by the city of Montreal) that Fejérvári received. What puts the Hungarian far ahead is the $50,000 Joseph Rouleau Career Development Grant, funded by the Azrieli Foundation. This bundle (which includes management and other benefits) was added to the first prize and no other.
How could Guarrera have dodged the first prize? I confess to having him in mind as the probable winner and expected to reflect with some impatience on how Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 — the quintessential competition warhorse since the days of Van Cliburn’s 1958 victory in Moscow in the International Tchaikovsky Competition — once again carried the day.
Fejérvári’s choice, Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, was much more original. It is not inconceivable that the judges (independently, for no discussion is allowed) gave the Hungarian credit for his enterprise. Of course, they could have felt on balance simply that Fejérvári gave the better performance in the final round.
The special award Guarrera could not win was the award for best Canadian in the semifinals. This went to Teo Gheorghiu, the only Canadian. Raised in Switzerland and now based in London, this friendly fellow with a British accent summed up in one word his credentials as a Canadian in terms of his residency in the country whose passport he holds: “Non-existent.”