String Quartet No. 1

Description

Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello — Ives began his String Quartet No.1 while in college at Yale and finished it by 1902. It is in a late-romantic tonal style influenced by Brahms and Dvorák, but it uses themes paraphrased from the hymn tunes he sang in church and played as an organist. By infusing the sound and character of American hymnody into the romantic European string quartet, Ives united two of the musical traditions he loved and claimed a place among the nationalist composers of his day. The opening movement is a stately fugue on "Missionary Hymn" ("From Greenland's icy mountains"), later joined by a countersubject drawn from "Coronation" ("All-hail the power of Jesus' name"). At the climax, the contrasting third phrase of "Missionary Hymn" enters over a pedal point, and the movement ends with a chorale-like setting of the hymn's final phrase, a variant of the first. In the cheerful Allegro, the principal theme is derived from "Beulah Land" and that of the contrasting middle section from "Shining Shore," two hymns that look forward to the afterlife. Both tunes are so completely reworked that only fragments of each may be recognized, but they lend the themes a strong American flavor and hymnlike character. The meditative third movement is based on "Nettleton" ("Come, Thou Fount of ev'ry blessing"), and its middle section draws motives from this and the previous two hymns. The spirited opening theme of the finale blends figures from "Coronation" and "Webb" ("Stand up, stand up for Jesus"). --J. Peter Burkholder Ives began his String Quartet No. 1 while in college at Yale and finished it by 1902. It is in a late-romantic tonal style influenced by Brahms and Dvorák, but it uses themes paraphrased from the hymn tunes he sang in church and played as an organist ("From Greenland's Icy Mountains", "Beulah Land" and "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" among them). By infusing the sound and character of American hymnody into the romantic European string quartet, Ives united two of the musical traditions he loved and claimed a place among the nationalist composers of his day.