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String Quartet no.2 in A major, op.62
The first movement is entirely dominated by lively mazurka rhythms. Two chords
introduce the first theme, which is characterised by a stormy rising motif, and
which unfolds like a two-voice canon played by the first violin and the cello. The
second theme, in E major, is calm and linear, and is taken up after a few bars by
the second violin, while the first violin plays a sixteenth-note accompaniment. The
development begins with a four-voice fugue. Fragments of the second theme lead
to the recapitulation.
The canon in E flat played by the violin and the cello at the beginning of the
Scherzo
is abandoned after eighteen bars, and is followed by a soaring melody in A major
played by the first violin and accompanied by the lower voices. Folk-song is again
used in this movement. It is punctuated by sudden chiaroscuro changes and
beautiful flowing melodies.
The Adagio is a short character piece for the violin. After a brief introduction, the
first violin takes the melody over from the other instruments. The cello provides an
ostinato accompaniment made up of a thrice-heard rising and falling scale. In the
repeat of the Adagio the cello accompanies the three other voices with a sustained
note.
The last movement,
Vivace
, is a sort of
perpetuum mobile
for the first violin. The
melody appears for the first time in the second violin part, rising from a chain
of sixteenth notes accompanied by chords in the lower voices. An evocation of
the slow movement leads back to the main theme, this time played by the viola.
The movement ends in a stretto passage in which the home key is reinforced in
the last thirteen bars by repeated occurrences of the tonic triad played by all the
instruments.
16 KALLIWODA