Stream of Consciousness: What I Thought While Listening to George Rochberg's String Quartet No. 3 for the First Time

With the first fearsome, pesante chords of George Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 3, Part A: Introduzione-Fantasia; Part B: March, I had an immediate sense of passing through a corridor of music history into a new domain: leave exhibits A and B, minimalism and serialism behind, enter a new tonality.  This music immediately suggests a musical narrative and a grand fusion of international and historic styles and mediums.  The driving energy of the introduction gives way to plaintive suspensions and a questioning falling major second motive traded surreptitiously between the violins that seems to poke, to question, “So what?”  Here, extended techniques and effects like portamento gliss hold an equal footing with dissonant and consonant harmonies presented in a pseudo-Beethovian, pseudo-Ives chorale.  

Next, furious tutti chords played with successive down bows at the very frog invoke something between Shostakovich and a Bartókian flavor, but with a decidedly American inflection of voice.  This violin melody ascends in intervals similar to a Shostakovich theme, but ornamented with turns and trills more characteristic of Bartók or Kodály (this effect is heightened by the dissonant chords played by the lower strings in a dumka rhythm with an alternating ostinato bass).  Yet, the Eastern European and Slavic gestures soon just provide the top layer for a cello solo that richly sings a hymn tune much like the Protestant, Transcendalist-influenced music of Ives.  

This American inflection is especially apparent after a textural shift when the cello plays a percussive col legno rhythmic figure accompanied by a violin open-string bariolage that sounds like bluegrass.  This technique of blending multiple national styles while chiefly focusing on the  usage of tonally complex harmonic structures reminds me of the compositional process employed by Bartók in Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano (1938) when he strove to combine traditional Hungarian elements associated with violinist Josef Szigeti with the distinctly American jazz style of clarinetist Benny Goodman.

Another salient American characteristic in this movement is the driving, relentless rhythmic energy.  This forward propulsion of the pulse reminds me of a shuffle (even when it's in a slow tempo, it still wants to move push ahead).  I would compare this feeling of pulse to a later piece for string quartet with a strong American popular bent, Johns's Alleged Book of Dances by John Adams.

The second movement, Part B-III. Variations, opens sublimely with another hymn-like tune in the lower strings while the first violinist sings in a high tessitura with chillingly expressive, wide vibrato.  This writing sounds aurally unique due to the huge gap in registers between the first violin and lower strings.  I vaguely remember a Beethoven quartet that prevalently used this technique (maybe I will remember which quartet in the middle of the night sometime, or I could go ask Dr. Radice…)  Poor first violin, stranded up so high in the stratosphere all alone with no helpful support from its other three colleagues... The chasm between these registers provides another surprising turn of development in the late twentieth century: two simultaneous and contrasting emotional timbres.  Who would have thunk we would end up back here?(!)  


This Theme and Variation movement definitely harkens back to Beethoven, Schubert, even Mahler’s long, sonorous phrases and the overall spirituality of the work.  However, the open spacing for the four voices preserves a sense of novelty throughout this movement; it sounds like the quartet members still like each other, but don’t want to get too close together.  This movement ends so shockingly consonant, it's unbelievable that it originated in the twentieth century at all!


Now, the third part of this quartet has to be quoting Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8, because the rhythm and melody contour is incredibly similar to several motives from that quartet.  Rochberg contrasts the disjunct voicing of the second part with a tight, compact, dense sound achieved by writing for all four voices in a close range with often harsh dissonances.  This movement takes many capricious turns, oscillating between snarky, fierce, playful, sentimental, and fervent.  Rochberg makes brilliant use of effects like col legno, Bartók pizzicato, and simply put, secco bowstrokes.  The way he combines col legno simultaneously with the Bartók pizzicato still sounds fresh.


The lyrical middle section evokes American nostalgia, a cinematic Hollywood sentimentality, and it just drips with emotional sap and all the wonderfulness to be found at Disneyland and Paris, combined.