The Kronos Quartet performs contemporary 20th-century chamber music by composers such as Philip Glass, bringing an avant-garde edge to the 19th-century tradition.
In the 19th century, the term chamber music meant music that was not performed in a public place, such as a church or concert hall. This music was normally performed by a very limited set of instrumental configurations—for example, a string quartet, voice and piano, or an instrument (such as a violin or clarinet) and piano. In the 20th century, however, chamber music has developed considerably and has been defined much more widely. It is no longer designed to be played in private, and it may use considerable or unusual musical combinations, according to the creative mood of the composer.
The development of chamber music in the 20th century has been inseparable from the major developments of music in general during the past hundred years. All styles—from folk music to serialism to free atonality—were explored in various chamber music combinations, just as they were in other mediums. In the early part of the 20th century, the monumental sound of the ever-growing symphony orchestra (as exercised by MAHLER) gave way to smaller, more transparent combinations of instruments.
Composers such as Arnold SCHOENBERG and his pupil Alban Berg first reflected this trend in chamber symphonies, the size of which was somewhere between a large chamber music group and a full orchestra. In this respect, Schoenberg’s two chamber symphonies, both begun in 1906, as well as Berg’s Chamber Concerto (1923) for piano, violin, and 13 wind instruments are particularly notable. Some of Schoenberg’s other projects used smaller but more unusual combinations, such as the Three Pieces (for wind quintet, organ or harmonium, celesta, and string quartet with double-bass) or the Serenade Op. 24 for clarinet, bass clarinet, mandolin, guitar, and string trio with bass soloist. More conventional, but highly significant, was Berg’s Lyric Suite, composed for a string quartet (1925–26).
Such textures in no way signalled a reduction in intensity. On the contrary, the new combinations allowed an increase in clarity so that more individual lines could be heard and, therefore, more musical ideas incorporated. This innovative process was carried further by another pupil of Schoenberg’s, Anton WEBERN, the third member of the so-called “Second Viennese School.” Webern distilled the concentration of musical thought into works of the utmost brevity, such as the Five Movements for String Quartet (1909) and the Six Bagatelles (1911–13). Webern’s Concerto Op. 24, dating from 1931–34, incorporated the new technique of Klangfarbenmelodie (literally sound-colour-melody). This was a term coined by Schoenberg, meaning different parts of the same line, even just single notes, being played by a different instrument. The concerto uses the distinct timbres of its unusually treble-biased array of contrasting instruments (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, trumpet, trombone, piano, violin, and viola) to clarify the different parts in the music.
Later in the 20th century, unconventional ways of playing instruments brought new sounds to chamber music. Béla BARTÓK (1881–1945) exploited collegno string playing, in which the wood rather than the hair of the bow is used. Flutter-tongue (a type of tonguing in which players roll the sound “r” on the tongue while playing) became popular in writing for the flute; and multiphonics (where chords are derived from various ways of overblowing wind instruments) and microtones (notes between conventional semitones) became more common in the chamber music of the late 1940s. “Boxes” of notes (in which players can choose the “box” of notes they play), free sections, and other unconventional notations that required the players to improvise also began to appear. In this respect, the Polish composers Witold LUTOSLAWSKI and Krzysztof PENDERECKI were pioneers.
During the 19th century, the human voice was used mostly in accompaniment with piano for non-choral performance, but in the early 20th century, the voice was re-introduced into chamber music. At the forefront of unconventional means of vocal production was Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire of 1911. In this, a chamber ensemble is centred on a piano and accompanies the declamation of Albert Giraud’s surrealist verse by a Sprechstimme—literally, a “speaking part.” But in Schoenberg’s directions the speaking part is neither speech nor song, but lies somewhere in between. In the same year, Schoenberg wrote Herzgewächse, which was based on a translation of a poem by the Belgian poet Maeterlinck. The piece was written for a soprano requiring an extraordinarily wide range, and was accompanied by the unusual combination of celesta, harp, and harmonium.
French composers had contributed some lasting works at the end of the 19th century. The Piano Quintet (1880), Violin Sonata (1886), and String Quartet (1889) of César Franck (1822–90), and the Concerto for violin and piano with string quartet (1892) by his pupil Ernest Chausson (1855–99) paved the way for Claude DEBUSSY’S String Quartet (1894), with its modal inflections and shimmering textures.
There had been a noticeable trend in chamber music since Debussy’s celebrated orchestral piece Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), in which the wind instruments make their effect by intertwining solo lines rather than by combined textures. This process, though here in an orchestral context, had major ramifications for chamber music in that it extended solo possibilities for the woodwind.
Where Schoenberg and his followers had reduced the textures of the 19th-century symphony orchestra, Debussy and Maurice RAVEL approached from the other end, so to speak, by experimenting with novel chamber music combinations. Following Debussy with a String Quartet in 1902, Ravel created an entirely new texture with his Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet (1905). Debussy added to the repertoire of chamber music centred on the harp with his Sonata for flute, viola, and harp (1915), which was one of three sonatas to survive out of a planned series of six left unfinished at his death. His three projected sonatas would have displayed still more striking chamber music combinations: one was planned for oboe, horn, and harpsichord; another for trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, and piano; and the last for a wider combination of instruments, including a double-bass.
It was left to the next generation of French composers to continue this trend. Francis Poulenc, whose long career stretched from the end of Debussy’s life to the early compositional years of Pierre BOULEZ, began his chamber music output with the Rapsodie nègre of 1917 for piano, clarinet, flute, and string quartet, adding a voice singing nonsense poetry in two movements. In the climate of light-heartedness and a certain austerity during the 1920s, Poulenc added—in a way similar to Igor STRAVINSKY— wind duos and trios without piano, plus a trio for oboe and bassoon with the piano, to the repertoire. Between this early work and his death, he composed a few chamber music pieces centred on a piano that have become extremely popular, including sonatas for clarinet, oboe, and flute, as well as a wind sextet.
French chamber music of the 1930s has made less of a mark, though Jacques Ibert (1890–1962) and Jean Françaix (b. 1912), to name but two, have written many chamber works. Olivier MESSIAEN, highly influential in other genres, left few chamber music works. However, his Quatuor pour la fin du temps, written while in a Silesian prison-camp in 1941, has become something of a landmark, inspiring many other composers to write for the then unusual combination of piano, clarinet, violin, and cello.
Chamber music that included a voice was favoured by other composers in several countries. In France, Ravel’s Chansons madécasses (1925–26) for flute, cello, and piano exploited the instruments and voice in new ways. Schoenberg added a voice to his String Quartet No. 2 (1907–8), as did Samuel BARBER in his much acclaimed early work Dover Beach (1931).
In England, the leader of the so-called English Pastoral School of composers, Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, composed in 1908 to 1909 a chamber piece for voice, piano, and string quartet based on the poems of A. E. Housman entitled On Wenlock Edge. Peter Warlock’s haunting setting of W. B. Yeats’s The Curlew (1922), with its striking part for cor anglais (a deeper-pitched oboe), is remarkable among several other similar chamber music song cycles. Frederick DELIUS and Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979) contributed sonatas for violin and viola, while Benjamin BRITTEN and Sir Michael TIPPETT followed with several chamber works, the latter’s quartets being particularly influential.
One of Poulenc’s partners in the group known as Les Six was the composer Darius MILHAUD, whose output was prodigious, totalling no less than 18 string quartets. While his earlier music delighted in the new naivete advocated by Les Six, his later music experimented with polytonality, as in the Aspen Serenade (1957) for nine instalments. This was one of many works that were popular with the concert series and festivals in America. Milhaud, like several other European composers, spent most of World War II in exile in the U.S., where he worked at Mills College in California and the music school at Aspen, Colorado. His style, like that of Stravinsky, BartÓk, and Paul HINDEMITH, was disseminated in America. Hindemith, an accomplished viola player with an active career as a player in his youth, wrote sonatas for most major instruments and piano, as well as many works for larger combinations, frequently in a neoclassical vein.
Stravinsky, highly influential on Parisian composers, provided a crucial link with Central Europe, and Russian influences may be heard in pieces such as the Three Pieces (1919) for solo clarinet. His enthusiasm for jazz was also marked, and he enriched the chamber music repertoire with several jazz-influenced pieces, such as Rag-time (1918)—which includes a cornet, a Hungarian cimbalom, and percussion, as well as a line-up of wind and strings—and the Ebony Concerto, written for a jazz band. Stravinsky was not alone in drawing inspiration from jazz: the second movement, for example, of Ravel’s Violin Sonata drew on blues for inspiration, and Milhaud composed several jazz-inspired pieces.
Stravinsky wrote few chamber pieces, although there is an Octet (1922–23, later revised) and a Septet (1952–53) and there are arrangements of movements from larger works (such as The Soldier’s Tale, 1918, and Pulcinella, 1920) that have become popular. Stravinsky shared with Ravel and Mihaud the exploration of ensembles somewhere between the normal chamber music combinations and the symphony orchestra (for example, in the Symphonies of Wind Instruments of 1920).
Still more rooted in the folk music of Central Europe was Béla BartÓk. His chamber music, centred on his six string quartets (written from 1908 through 1939), might be considered, along with those of Dmitry SHOSTAKOVICH, to have extended the 19th-century tradition. BartÓk’s six quartets display considerable modernity for the time, and are now regarded as some of the most influential works written this century. Their movements employ his characteristic unequal bar lengths, and are partly inspired by the folk music of Eastern Europe, which he studied intensely. Slow movements are often nocturnal. Several rhapsodies for solo instrument and piano complement the quartets, and there are experimental chamber pieces, such as Contrasts (1938), for the unusual combination of violin, piano, and clarinet (written for Benny Goodman), and a sonata for two pianos and percussion (1937).
The Kronos Quartet performs contemporary 20th-century chamber music by composers such as Philip Glass, bringing an avant-garde edge to the 19th-century tradition.
Another major contributor to the string quartet repertoire was Shostakovich, whose 15 quartets date from between 1935 and 1974, and form the core of his chamber music.
During the latter half of the 20th century, percussion was to come into its own, extending far beyond the background role it had played in the 19th-century orchestra. Boulez’s chamber cantata Le marteau sans maître (1952, later revised) followed Bartok in exploiting the tuned percussion instruments (such as the marimba, the vibraphone, and the xylophone). American minimalist composers also delighted in the sound of these instruments. The Music for Mallet Instruments (1973) of Steve Reich, for example, is one of the central works of minimalism in the chamber music genre, although it could be claimed that with works such as these, the concept of chamber music became outmoded.
Earlier in the century, American composers displayed considerable interest in chamber music. Charles Ives wrote two string quartets and four violin sonatas as well as many other pieces, often curiously titled and incorporating popular American music such as songs and hymns. Aaron COPLAND contributed a modest but varied repertoire of chamber music, and Elliott Carter added three string quartets. The American chamber music of the 1950s and 1960s, including the chamber pieces of Milton Babbitt, such as String Quartet No. 2 (1954) and the sextets for violin and piano (1966), may be seen as among the main American developments of the works of the Second Viennese School.
The last 30 years of the 20th century have spawned many chamber pieces, particularly by the American-based English composer Brian Ferneyhough. Ferneyhough’s main compositional output is in a chamber medium, ranging from the four string quartets (the first being the 50-minute Sonata for String Quartet, 1968) to solo flute (Cassandra’s Dream Song, 1971), solo piano (Lemma-Icon-Epigram, 1981), and works for medium-sized ensembles (such as Funérailles 1 & 2 for seven players, 1969–77). Ferneyhough’s music, where there are often six or seven lines moving according to their own agendas, invites the use of chamber forces for practical reasons of clarity.
Another British composer who has worked extensively in chamber music—though also producing a large amount of opera, orchestral, and choral music— is Sir Harrison Birtwistle. His early chamber works include Refrains and Choruses for wind quintet (1957), Tragoedia for wind quintet (1965), Harp and String Quartet (1965), and Verses for Ensembles for wind quintet (1969). His most recent work is Pulse Shadows (1998)—based on a series of poems by the Romanian poet Paul Celan—for string quartet, soprano, two clarinets, violin, cello, and bass.
In recent years, chamber music or music for ensembles of between eight and 15 players has come to the fore in composition. This is the case in most of the main music-producing countries. One reason for this trend is that funding for the arts has become more profit oriented, which has led to more conservative programming for full orchestral concerts, whereas smaller groups may get support more easily. Another factor is the music itself. Many composers, especially those who may be regarded as “high modernist,” are demanding new heights of virtuosity and clarity of texture, which can be provided by chamber players. The future for chamber music looks bright.
Richard Langham Smith
SEE ALSO:
ALEATORY MUSIC; AUTHENTIC PERFORMANCE; SERIALISM.
FURTHER READING
Berger, Melvin. Guide to Chamber Music (New York: Anchor, 1989);
McCalla, James. Twentieth-Century Chamber Music (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
BartÓk: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion; Carter: A Mirror on Which to Dwell;
Debussy: Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp; Ferneyhough: Funérailles 1 & 2.