Three Choice String Sextets

In a recent piece about Linda Catlin Smith's 6th String Quartet, I briefly mentioned the viol consorts of William Lawes. Lawes also crops up in this post about some favourite sextets...

1). Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) - String Sextet No. 2 in G major, op. 36 
The Nash Ensemble - Marianne Thorsen, Malin Broman (vln); Lawrence Power, Philip Dukes (vla); Paul Watkins, Tim Hugh (vc) (Onyx)

The three-in-a-bar first movement of Brahms’ op. 36 puts me in mind of certain great orchestral opening movements - I’m thinking of the Oxford, Eroica, Rhenish and Espansiva symphonies, to name a few. While the Brahms isn’t as forthright or athletic as the Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann or Nielsen, it has something of the same irresistible sweep - I can’t imagine pressing stop or pause part-way through any of these pieces.

The sextet begins with an oscillating figure, which rumbles uneasily in the background throughout the opening minutes. This figure comes to the fore in the development section (from around 7’35“ onwards), sounding a persistent alarm. Just before this, at the climax of the 2nd subject group, Brahms repeatedly spells out the name ‘Agathe’ [2] in the 1st violin and viola parts (at around 2′47″ / or 6′36″ on the repeat). This is a coded reference to Agathe von Siebold, to whom Brahms was briefly engaged. In a letter to a singer friend, Brahms suggested that this sextet was a final goodbye to Agathe, who had gone on to marry a sanitation commissioner.

The slow movement also has a link to Brahms’ complicated love life. Its opening melody was composed for Clara Schumann and included in a love-letter written several years earlier. On paper, this set of variations looks relatively straightforward. In performance, it’s more elusive. The theme itself seems to point in several directions at once, leading to a series of variations which are wide-ranging in mood and texture (sometimes unusually sparse). I was struck today by how skilfully Brahms blurs the lines between some of the variations, making the music feel through-composed at times.

2). Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) - String Sextet in A major, op. 48
Sarah Chang, Bernhard Hartog (vln); Wolfram Christ, Tanja Christ (vla); Georg Faust, Olaf Maninger (vc) (EMI)

While Sarah Chang is best known as a globe-trotting violin soloist, she has also made a couple of excellent discs of Dvořák chamber music. There is this version of the op. 48 sextet, and also a recording of the 2nd Piano Quintet, with Leif Ove Andsnes. For the sextet record, she convened a blue-chip ensemble of current or former members of the Berlin Philharmonic. Sometimes, these starrier chamber music one-offs don’t quite work. Here, though, everyone is pulling in the same direction, audibly enjoying themselves. And why shouldn’t they? The Dvořák sextet is a big-hearted, perpetually tuneful work, full of opportunities for world-class string players to give their all. Brahms is clearly the model: the work’s opening phrase (later used in a more full-throated, momentum-halting manner) feels particularly Brahmsian to me.

A folk flavour is never far from the surface. At the time of the sextet, Dvořák was in a particularly folky phase: his op. 45 Slavonic Rhapsodies and op. 46 Slavonic Dances were composed just before the sextet (with a few bagatelles in-between). The 2nd movement Dumka [3] is a real charmer. Chang gets in a few swoops and slides, as the sextet stretch and squash the malleable material. The 3rd movement Furiant, an explosive one-in-a-bar dance, features some of the most thrilling playing on the disc. 

3). William Lawes (1602-1645) - Consorts In Six Parts - Set a6 in G minor (nice essay about viols here) Laurence Dreyfus (treble viol, director); Wendy Gillespie (treble viol); Jonathan Manson, Varpu Haavisto (tenor viol); Markku Luolajan-Mikkola, Susanne Braumann (bass viol) (Channel Classics)

Much as I cherish favourite recordings of "standard" string sextets by Schoenberg (Verklärte Nacht) and Tchaikovsky (Souvenir de Florence), I probably play this marvellous CD more often. Lawrence Dreyfus’ gleefully bonkers liner notes ("Legalise Lawes Now!") are an excellent attempt to explain the strange power of the music on this disc. Those unfamiliar with Lawes’ work should expect a "Dionysan frenzy hell-bent on breaking civilised taboos", and "a brutal indifference to customary ideas about musical beauty". More specifically, Dreyfus highlights Lawes’ "rampant disregard of decent counterpoint", "bizarre themes", "offbeat imitations" and "wilful obsession with repeated notes". The G minor set is not the most extreme, but I chose this one because it shares a sense of abandon with the Brahms and Dvořák sextets. Lawes is just as melodically inventive, just as unafraid to play with form and tempo to suit his expressive needs - a sudden slamming on of the brakes for a yearning, aching couple of phrases is a characteristic move. Phantasm are right inside the music, displaying the kind of near-telepathic flexibility we sometimes hear from the greatest string quartets. They tear into the contrapuntal pile-ups in the second and third movements, and daringly string out the more expressive music in the opening Pavane (with just a hint of vibrato). While re-listening to this disc in a café this afternoon, I looked up to see two girls laughing at the scrunched-up faces I must have been pulling. It may be best listened to in the comfort of your own home. 

[1] Brahms was troubled by a fear of not measuring up to the musical giants of the past. It has been suggested (by Malcolm MacDonald for one) that he first turned to the sextet in his op. 18 because taking on the works already composed by that time (1860 - just Boccherini and Spohr, I think - viol consorts aside) was considerably less intimidating than squaring up to the quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

[2] A-G-A-B-E - H is B natural in German. Brahms omits the ‘unmusical’ T. This bit of musical spelling was mentioned in a letter written by the violinist Joseph Joachim in 1894.

[3] A dance of Ukrainian origin, characterised by alternating faster and slower sections.