Ravel - String Quartet In F
Cleveland Quartet
Modern | 1910-1960
Review No. 13
Going against critical opinion of the day, Debussy gave fellow countryman Ravel sage advice when he told him not to touch a single note he’d written in his String Quartet. Classically styled but Modern-sounding, Ravel’s work appeared at the tail-end of the Romantic era – and was, it seems, too much for Faure. As its dedicatee (and Ravel’s teacher), Faure was particularly uncharitable in his assessment of it; he referred to the finale as a “failure”. But that was then. Over 100 years later, performances which brim with vim and vigour – like this one by the Cleveland Quartet – rubbish past criticisms and showcase Ravel’s deft string writing.
Revelation
Three ladies take tea on the lawn on a warm but overcast May afternoon. It sounds quaint – but it’s an apt way to depict the first movement’s first 50 seconds. One of the ladies disturbs this scene by unexpectedly sharing a secret that shatters the niceties of Earl Grey and cake. A sudden gust of spring breeze sets strings quivering (T5-1:14~1:27). The other two women lean in, conspiratorially.
What unfolds is a story going back decades to the first lady’s youth. A forbidden love? A tragic one? It’s remembered vividly, tenderly – sometimes, painfully. Each episode in the music befits one in this fictitious woman’s past. Then she sits back, sips tea and awaits her companions’ shocked reactions (T5-4:37).
Recollection
When her friends are done probing for intimate details in the first movement’s second half, our storyteller slips into the flashback that is the second movement. The Cleveland Quartet’s crisp pizzicato entry has a snap and sparkle that speak of a mischievous girlhood.
Their introduction sways like ears of wheat in a summer wind – recalling the fields where two young lovers would meet, unseen by disapproving families. Yet there’s an uneasiness in this movement’s contrasting central section (T6-1:47~4:55) – one that reminds us there’s a reason for this reverie.
Rejection
Beginning quietly, coolly and with sighing strings, the third movement’s opening signals the flashback’s end. Or at least, that’s what we can imagine. For although this is music without programme, it’s nonetheless richly visual and cinematic.
We see the ladies pretending to comfort and console their friend. We witness her angry dismissal of feigned sympathy (T7-3:45). We follow her as she hurriedly withdraws from their company. And we watch as she rails alone against her memories (T7-4:57~5:49) – her rage at the past leading inevitably to tears and exhaustion.
Release
The finale may make you think you’ve turned several pages at once. Feeling more like an epilogue, it both disappoints expectation and sustains our intrigue. It keeps from us our protagonist’s secret – though the music seems to suggest this was damaging enough to warrant her expulsion from polite society. A nervous, excitable energy drives this movement, tempered by delicate moments that hark back to our narrator’s life before she exposed her past. We sense her world is now a little more chaotic. But she is freer – and happy.
