String Quartet in F Major

Description

Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Violoncello — The string quartet is so central to late 18th-century music that P.D.Q. Bach could no more ignore the medium than he could master it. The euphoria created by the fact that the manuscripts brought to light during the first half century of P.D.Q. Bach’s rediscovery included nothing for string quartet was abruptly shattered at the turn of the millennium, when Professor Schickele ran across what turned out to be one of the minimeister’s magnumest opuses.The first movement is in a large, not to say obese, sonata form. The parts, especially the cello’s, ascend to an extraordinarily high range in this movement, which undoubtedly explains the tempo indication Allegro ma non troposphere.The second movement is marked Largo alla Fargo because one section sounds like a tree shredder.  At one point the cello part indicates the use of a “tazzo styrofomoso,” and indeed this seems to be the only work in the entire string quartet literature to require the use of a styrofoam cup.Also, in this movement, the composer magically brings back part of the previous movement, just as Beethoven did in his Fifth Symphony. P.D.Q.’s attitude towards Beethoven seems to have been, “Anything you can do, I can do louder.”The Menuetto no sweato employs unusually-produced pizzicato notes, which P.D.Q. called “snaps;” the name is derived, in all likelihood, not from the sound itself, but from the composer’s favorite drink.The last movement is extraordinary, I mean it really is. It begins with a grave and very deep introduction marked Grave e molto deepo, which quotes Beethoven’s last quartet (which is also, big surprise, in F major). Beethoven gives his opening musical phrase a title: Der schwer gefasste Enschluss, which is German for “the really tricky question.” The phrase also has words underneath it, in the manner of lyrics: “Muss es sein?” (“Is it a moose?”) This phrase, which P.D.Q. Bach quotes literally (i.e., steals), is repeated, as if the players were waiting for an answer. Finally, the answer to the question is forthcoming: “Es muss sein!” (“Yes, it’s a moose!”).What moved this composer, probably the least spiritual composer in the history of Western music, to ask such a question? Does the answer – one feels safe in assuming that P.D.Q. Bach never saw a moose – have a metaphysical meaning (“metaphorical” is when you don’t use “like” or “as”)? It is to be hoped that further research will provide answers to those questions; in the meantime, we may be pardoned for simply relaxing and giving ourselves over to the work’s inherent mooseness.