Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) had three goes at the string quartet. The first try was a student exercise that is lost. The second is the subject of this article. He abandoned the third after completing the first two movements. The Op 27 is confusingly often listed as his String Quartet No 1. The only extant and completed quartet is an outstanding piece that deserves a more prominent place in the string quartet repertory than it currently occupies.
The quartet which takes more than a half hour to perform is based on a theme from his song Spillemaend (Minstrels or Fiddlers) which he wrote in 1876 the year before he began work on the quartet. The song was the first of six that he set to texts by Ibsen. Grieg’s use of double stops or even triple and quadruple stops gives the four instrument piece a rich sound that suggests that of a full orchestra. The music taken from the song reappears in one guise or another throughout all four movements. The robust music sometimes comes to a complete stop (forgive the common usage – all stops are complete). These pauses can make a listener unfamiliar with the quartet think the movement is finished when it’s just resting.
The markings of the four movements are below. Note salterello in the final one. This is reminiscent of the final movement of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony. A saltarello is an Italian dance named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare (to jump).
Some musicologists think that Grieg’s quartet influenced Debussy’s quartet in the same key written about two decades later which also uses a cyclical structure. I can hear, or think I hear, hints of Grieg in the Debussy quartet. But as the French composer was said to have disliked both Grieg’s piano playing and his compositions I may be imagining a likeness where none exists. The four movements are just below.
Un poco andante – Allegro molto ed agitato
Romanze: Andantino
Intermezzo: Allegro molto marcato – Più vivo e scherzando
Finale: Lento – Presto al saltarello
