Darius Milhaud’s String Quintet No. 2, Op. 316, composed in 1952 to a commission from the University of Michigan, was intended for the Stanley String Quartet, which was based there. In this four-movement work, Milhaud alternates between moderate and slow movements in triple time with lively passages in a duple metre. A seemingly traditional, neoclassical texture is combined in Milhaud’s Quintet with original, postmodern melodies.
Referring to the neoclassical style, Katarzyna Brochocka’s String Quintet is not only more than half a century younger than Milhaud’s, but it also presents a different approach to the hierarchy of string instruments, often making the double bass part an equivalent solo voice. The three movements of the work, performed attacca, contrast with each other in terms of tempo and mood. The composer gave the first movement the character of a lyrical, melancholic story; in the second, she focused on dialogue and counterpoint, against a backdrop of dreamlike themes; finally, the third movement, with its rhythmically throbbing character, is reminiscent of folk stylisation.
The rather complicated history of Antonín Dvořák’s String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 77 dates back to 1875, when the composer wrote its first version, in five movements. He subsequently added an Intermezzo in second place, which was in fact an adapted version of the Andante religioso second movement of his String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, written five years earlier. In this form, the Quintet was first performed on 18 March 1876 in Prague. Twelve years later, the composer revised the work, removing the Intermezzo and publishing the Quintet in a four-movement version, which combines Schubertian melodic inventiveness with Brahmsian formal perfection, while retaining the stylistic features typical of Czech national music.
Grzegorz Zieziula