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TALICH QUARTET 13
The Piano Quintet in G minor, op.57
, is in five movements, which in fact conceal
a very well balanced tripartite form: a
scherzo
comes between two pairs of linked
movements, the first acting as a prelude and fugue, the second as an
intermezzo
and finale. The strictness of its form doubtless plays some part in the richness of
this work, with its assumed neo-classicism, its skilfully constructed dramatic
effects and its intense lyricism.
It begins with a monumental melody played on the piano. The middle episode of
the prelude is lighter, permitting a more intense return to the initial climate. The
following fugue is based on a folk theme: far frombeing a simple, everyday exercise
in style, this movement aims to fulfil the dream of Glinka, ‘the father of Russian
music’ with ‘a combination of Russian folksong and Western counterpoint’. The
intensity of this poignant
adagio
increases with each entry of the piano. But the
mood is suddenly shattered by the allegretto, with its unexpectedly sarcastic tone,
presenting a melody that is intentionally insignificant and emphatic on the piano,
while the strings play an ostinato theme. A Hispanic-style middle episode leads to
a proud recapitulation of the obsessive theme, thus emphasising, in this middle
part, the ‘mirror writing’ of the Quintet.
While this work, sparing in its composition and always very legible, definitively
turns its back on the experiments of Shostakovich’s youth, we rediscover in
this
scherzo
the iconoclastic spirit of his early ballets. There is a return to a more
meditative climate with the
intermezzo
, in which the ‘Handelian’ bass (as Sergey
Prokofiev somewhat perfidiously termed it) is carried by a vast and extremely sad
melody. The
finale
, classically, takes up the theme from the prelude and mixes it
with those of the scherzo to present a recapitulation in the formof an almost joyful
reconciliation.