Piano Quartet in a, Op. 1

Like many Czech composers of his generation—one is tempted to say all—Josef Suk was profoundly influenced by the compositional style of his teacher and eventual father-in-law, Antonín Dvořák. Other musical figures loom large, of course (e.g., Brahms), but none captured the boy’s imagination like Dvořák. Suk entered the Prague Conservatory at age 11 and was later tutored by Dvořák in composition during the months leading up to his graduation in 1892. The youthful Piano Quartet in A Minor (1891) is clearly stamped with the late 19th-century Austro-German sound. It was written less than a year before Suk’s Serenade for Strings, op. 6, his most successful piece and well known for its great melodicism and control. As student compositions both the Serenade and the Piano Quartet are remarkable, portending great things to come from Suk.
The Piano Quartet was written as a direct result of Suk’s playing in informal musical soirees held in Prague during his student years. Having played through a great deal of the trio and quartet repertoire as a violinist, Suk satisfied his desire to compose such pieces himself. He was also encouraged to tackle the piano quartet/quintet genre by Dvořák, who oversaw the composition of the A-minor quartet during the spring of 1891. Although he had already numbered other of his compositions, Suk felt this quartet deserved pride of place as his opus 1—no small indication of his and Dvořák’s sense of satisfaction with the effort.
The piece includes three movements, beginning with a spirited and mature Allegro appassionato. Listeners familiar with the quartets of Dvořák or Brahms will find much here that is familiar, particularly Suk’s use of the full range of rhythmic values to offset more conventional harmonic ideas. Syncopations, slow chordal progressions, triplets, dotted figures, and running sixteenths all appear in the opening movement; the very first idea is markedly syncopated and features a variety of rhythms and articulations. One senses the young composer trying out every device he has learned, but the effect is still assured and memorable.
In second position Suk places a gentle F-major Adagio built upon a throbbing, full-voiced accompaniment in the piano. Still there is tension built directly into the melody, with its chromatic motion and tendency to modulate outside the key. Indeed, it is not long before quite distant keys are being suggested through Suk’s Chopinesque chromaticism that slides downward by step. New material in D major helps spark a more animated middle section before Suk reprises the opening.
The concluding Allegro con fuoco revisits the energy of the first movement. A driven piano part helps maintain intensity all the way to the grandiloquent finish, though a calmer lyricism pervades the second theme (set in both C major and A major). The form sticks fairly closely to the familiar sonata-allegro design, although the development section spends a great deal of time navigating the very distant key of A-flat major. In sum, the quartet shows Suk’s very real ability while still a student, and if it chooses imitation over bold experimentation, at least the young man had wisdom and skill enough to imitate great models.

(c) Jason Stell