Weill String Quartet No. 1, Op. 8 (1923)
Seeing the name of Kurt Weill on a concert program initially brings to mind avant-garde musical theater from the Weimar Republic or groundbreaking Broadway musicals from the early 20th century, although Weill also did compose works for the concert hall that are not as well known. His instrumental chamber music output comes mostly from his student days: String Quartet in B minor (1918), Sonata for Violoncello and Piano (1919-20) and String Quartet No. 1, Op. 8 (1923). In the relatively short time-span between the two string quartets we see Weill undergo a dramatic stylistic shift, responding to the tension of modernism’s increasing pull away from tonal systems. The unpublished B minor work is steeped in a late-Romantic aesthetic revealing the influence by Weill’s composition teacher Englebert Humperdinck as well as Richard Strauss, Max Reger, and Gustav Mahler. Weill studied at the Berlin Musikhochschule from 1918-1919 with Humperdinck but found the atmosphere stifling. Looking for a teacher that would better cultivate his modernist aesthetic Weill applied to study privately with Schoenberg in Vienna, but due to his family suffering from financial hardship he was forced to return home to Dessau where he remained until 1920. The work for cello and piano he writes during this time reveals Weill’s fascination with the expanded tonal palette of Debussy.
The composer Ferrucio Busoni was recruited to teach a composition masterclass at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Busoni was equally known for his commitment to modernism (outlined in his 1907 volume Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music) and his nearly 30-year project of editing and transcribing Bach’s works, culminating in the 25-volume Bach-Busoni editions. The opportunity to study with Busoni and be immersed in his “new classicality” caught Weill’s attention and he was the last and youngest applicant to be accepted for the three-year program. Busoni saw a lot of potential in the young Weill, but also saw technical shortcomings and prescribed a rigorous diet of counterpoint exercises.
The Op. 8 String Quartet firmly propels Weill’s style into a full interaction with the avant-garde and shows how well Weill assimilated his teacher’s aesthetic and shows that he took the training in counterpoint to heart. Originally in four movements, Weill decided to excise the first and second movements and replace them with a one movement Introduktion. The work straddles tonal/polytonal, atonal, and modal sound worlds. The Introduktion starts with a lyrical and melancholy section followed by a faster agitated section (featuring material from the Divertimento, Op. 5) and then returning briefly to a truncated presentation of the opening material. This leads directly into the Scherzo. This movement features a tongue-in-cheek alla marcia trio that quotes material from Weill’s Die Zaubernacht, his first foray into music for the theater depicting a magic fairy that brings toys to life. The work concludes with a Choralphantasie, an homage to J.S. Bach (and possibly also to Busoni) in its use of a chorale theme and intricate counterpoint. This is an “elaborate reworking” of material from Weill’s Symphony No. 1 (1921); while both works feature the same chorale theme, Weill decides to end the quartet with it as opposed to the grand and triumphant ending of the symphony. One who is familiar with Bach cantatas can’t help but think that Weill’s choice to end with the chorale theme is a deliberate hat tip to that genre and implying a possible narrative structure linking the three movements of the quartet that is left to the imagination of the listener.
Busoni had high praise for the work and wrote a glowing recommendation letter to Emil Hertzka, the director at Universal Edition, to take on the work for publication:
“Weill’s string quartet [is] a work of splendid qualities… I know of no other work by a 23-year-old of the present day that is so attractive and worthwhile… I emphasize… that you should promptly grab this talent…”
The work was picked up by Universal Edition for publication and premiered by the Amar-Hindemith Quartet on 24 June 1923 at the Frankfurter Kammermusiktage.
-Program notes by Dr. Daniel Doña