Gabriel Dupont (1878 - 1914) - Poème for piano and string quartet (1911) I. Sombre et douloureux [0:00] II. Clair et calme [15:30] III. Joyeux et ensoleillé [21:02] Prazák Quartet Marie-Catherine Girod, piano (2013) Gabriel Dupont’s Poème for piano and string quartet, composed in 1911, is one of his few chamber pieces. It is dedicated to Charles-Marie Widor, his teacher. The work is in three movements and typically lasts around 33 minutes. Gabriel Dupont is often known only for placing second in the 1901 Prix de Rome, behind André Caplet but ahead of Maurice Ravel. Despite this early promise, he fell ill from tuberculosis in 1903 and struggled with the disease until it took his life in 1914. The illness rendered his health feeble, and he spent much of his adult life in convalescent homes, unable to enjoy many of the joys of life. This had a significant impact on his music – a musical theme he called “Mélancolie du bonheur” (melancholie of happiness) is featured in several of his works, including this one (in the first violin line at 17:59, for example). Musicologist Emannuel Sauvlet describes it thus: “This theme of the ‘melancholy of happiness’ (present in many works as a characteristic theme) is the leitmotif of all the music and life of Dupont; a man who loved life, who loved to contemplate the beauties of nature, but which Fate would not allow to live. This is expressed by this ‘melancholy of happiness’, the happiness of living and the melancholy born of the awareness of the ephemeral character of this life. Others would have expressed this tragedy by revolt...but in Dupont, it is finally a serene resignation that prevails. Every happiness is charged with melancholy, because it is destined to disappear one day; Such is the biographical trajectory of Dupont, such is the message that his work bequeaths to posterity.” The Poème for piano and string quartet displays the influence of Franck and Fauré, featuring impressionistic harmonies and cyclical form. The first movement, Sombre et douloureux, is serious and dramatic, with dense textures and a virtuosic piano part. The second movement, Clair et calme, is more sparse and features some very beautiful and serene melodies. Joyeux et ensoleillé, the third and final movement, is bright and cheerful yet still occasionally tinged with an undercurrent of melancholy. (sources: Wikipedia, https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7644&context=etd) Original audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFepzzOcRk0 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAgRRh_qag

Frank Bridge (1879 - 1941) - String Quartet No. 3, H. 175 (1925 - 1926) I. Andante moderato - Allegro moderato [0:00] II. Andante con moto [11:57] III. Allegro energico [19:57] Maggini Quartet (2002) Frank Bridge's String Quartet No. 3 is a work in 3 movements typically lasting around 30 minutes. "The Third String Quartet was commissioned by the American patroness of music Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge and dedicated to her. It was composed in 1925-6 and first performed by the Kolisch Quartet in Vienna in 1927. In it Bridge’s advanced mature voice is fully revealed for the first time. The quartet’s language shows kinship with Berg and Bartók; the twelve semitones are constantly in play; octave doublings are avoided, and the music is driven by a relentless momentum through the rigorous development of its ideas. These are generally short motifs from which the web is spun and throughout the music is interrelated. In the slow introduction and opening bars of the Allegro, the thematic motifs, and harmonic elements of the first movement, indeed the whole work, are laid bare, ideas that are ripe for infinite change and transformation in the highly charged sonata structure that follows. Of particular importance is a four-note semiquaver group that turns in on itself and is pervasive through the quartet, whilst the main first subject begins on the first violin with a wide leap upwards, and an angular falling back. A rising, eerie sequence in rhythmic unison leads to the second group of ideas with the viola leading the way. These rise to a glorious climax when a magical change of harmony is like a ray of sunlight breaking through clouds. The movement ends with an exciting coda and a terse concluding note. The ternary form Andante con moto is utterly different, a shrouded, crepuscular world of shadows and half-lights, evocative of the Sussex down-land where Bridge settled and which he loved, at dawn or dusk. It inhabits a mood of melancholy established by the wistful, muted dialogue between the violins heard against pizzicato viola and single notes on the cello. Throughout links, either veiled or obvious, can be heard to the musical material exposed in the first movement. In the finale, a sonata rondo, the energetic contrapuntal dialectic of the first movement is enjoined again and much of the musical material resurfaces in new guises. An athletic long-limbed theme heard on the first violin, accompanied by dissonant chords forms the main idea, whilst the second is an agitated theme played by the cello high in its range. In the development section the main themes of the first movement are considered again, whilst in the recapitulation the second subject, now on viola, precedes the first. After a last climax, the work ends with an extended epilogue section ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnosxO9MDTE