Program Notes by John Beckwith

The Quartet is a robust, fully-developed, and highly unified chamber work in three movements. This is music of powerful developmental urge. Extraneous associations may perhaps suggest themselves at certain points. For example, the modal quality of themes in the outer movements may call to mind the folkish inflections often adopted by Dvorak (a composer Dr. Morawetz has studied intimately). Or, a more specific instance: the composer himself reveals that the muted, atmospheric touches of the second movement were suggested by some filmed scenes of the desolation of war, which affected him deeply.

The first movement is concerned mostly with the development of a dynamic motive given out in canon at the start. A secondary theme, longer-lined and more melodic, serves for contrast, and is given a double statement, first violin answered by cello. The reprise is bright and jubilant in harmonization. A coda revives the canonic treatment. The final cadence is strongly original, ending on an A-minor chord with a superimposed G-sharp: an effect which is complete and yet ironically incomplete at the same time.

Out of a succession of veiled unrelated sounds - weird augmented seconds, pizzicati, trills - the slow movement builds a long lamenting melody in the first violin. New themes are added, a climax is reached, and the music subsides into a new section, in slightly faster tempo. The martial rhythm here is perhaps suggestive of a funeral procession. The return of the opening material is made the great dramatic event of the movement: the marking is fortissimo, and the elements are compressed and combined in a quite unexpected way. This effect is comparable to some of the Beethoven reprises. The subsidiary themes reappear; again there is beauty and ingenuity in the approach to the final cadence.

The finale has two principal groups of ideas, each characterized by a separate tempo. These alternate twice, so that a capsulized description of the movement would be represented by the letters ABABA. Part 'A' includes the energetic viola theme of the opening, with its excited accompaniment, as well as a prominent theme of hesitant, nervous expression, given initially by the first violin. The slower 'B' section is marked by a dirge-like insistent wail. The links between sections are skillful and thematic. The return of 'B' is varied and somewhat curtailed. The final appearance of 'A' is a thorough re-working of the original theme in faster tempo (Presto). At a broad climactic point, the composer re-introduces part of the final section of the first movement, with penetrating high cello notes. This time the cadence point is a vigorous, unequivocal A minor.