J. Vanhal - Quartet No.1, Op 21 - Full Piece Recording 

Composer: Johann Vanhal (1739-1813)

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Vanhal was a Czech composer who went to Vienna in his 20s. He spent most of the rest of his life there.  He was a really prolific composer and for a man with over 100 chamber work and more than 70 symphonies, not very much of his music is available to listen to.  (Coincidentally, just after I started recording this, the Orlando Philharmonic performed his Double Bassoon concerto.)  

Vanhal knew Mozart and Haydn and even played string quartets with them and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.  (That name sounds like i made it up, but I did not).  In that quartet Vanhal played the cello.   

Vanhal spelled his name "Wanhal," something I did not learn until after I had submitted the quartet for distribution.  (I don't know which I would have chosen had I known.  "Wanhal" is more correct, but it seems he's popularity known as "Vanhal" and the score I used had the latter spelling.)

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Date: 1779

Original Instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, cello

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Movements:    

1. Allegro

2. Minuet and Trio

3. Adagio

4. Rondo

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Why this one:

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​I liked the idea of recording something by a guy who played with Mozart and Haydn, especially since, despite being well regarded by his contemporaries, he doesn't seem to have left much of an imprint on modern repertoire.​

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Also It's neat that he lived near St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, a place that I spent a lot of time walking around when I visited in 2006.  I like to think that maybe I walked by his home. 

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Additionally, this is the first piece I've done in Eb, a key I fear as it's kind of an ugly one on instruments in the violin family.

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Description:  

Movement 1 - Allegro

Key: Eb

Time: 3/4  BPM=115

I have a hard time latching on to this one and don't really have much to say about it.  I think it sounds nice and I like how it starts with violin 1 and viola paired together and the violin 2 and cello paired, then switches to violin 2 being paired with the viola.  Sorry, Johann.  I swear  I do like this movement...

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Performance:​

I skipped the repeats for this one.  Nothing too difficult here.  I recorded it in two recording sessions, with violin 2 and cello in the first session, and violin 1 and viola in the next.  (I split them up like this because I was recording other things in the  same sessions and that order made the most sense logistically.)

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Errata:

There's a lot of dotted eighth sixteenth note figures in one instrument against straight triplets in the other, which aren't quite the same rhythm.  I interpreted this dotted rhythm to mean it was still a triplet feel and I just made the the sixteenth note land on the 3rd note of the triplet in the other instrument. 

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Movement 2 - Minuet and Trio

Key: Eb

Time: 3/4  BPM=112

This movement has the conventional Minuet and Trio macro structure of Minuet - Trio - Minuet.  The Minuet is made up of two 8 measure subsections that both repeat, for an aabb structure.  The Trio is an 8 measure subsection followed by a 10 measure subsection that also repeat for a ccdd pattern.

As I understand it, the general convention for this form was to skip the repeats on the return to the Minuet, so my overall structure ended up as:

Minuet   Trio    Minuet

aabb     ccdd    ab

The most conspicuous element of the Minuet is the repeated short-long rhythmic motif played in the first violin.  The trio drops this rhythmic idea abut it adds some sixteenth note runs.  To my ear, it doesn't sound like the key modulates at all.

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Performance:​

The only hard part of this movement was the harmonized descending sixteenth note run in both the violins at the end of the Trio.  It's fast and both the fretting and picking were difficult to play and keep synced.  

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Errata:

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In the 3rd measure of section a and the 7th measure of section b there was a weird major second interval caused by the cello against the viola.  It was even in the same octave.  It definitely felt wrong so I adjusted the cello to follow melodic contour of the other three instruments

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Movement 3 - Adagio

Key: Bb

Time: 2/4  BPM=65

The adagio is structured AABB.  The B section starts off in F major before restating the opening of the A section in Bb.  

Throughout, the violins mostly harmonize with each other while using the same  rhythms.  The viola and cello do the same in the A section but diverge in the first half of the B section, with the viola playing a straight sixteenth accompaniment and the cello emphasizing an offbeat pattern with a short-long-short rhythm figure.

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Performance:​

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​​​I opted to play the repeats here as otherwise the whole movement would have been about 30 seconds long.  None of this was all that difficult and it was pretty fun to play.

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Errata:

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There's some weirdness in the score here, with the piano mark (meaning "play soft") in the B, section being in not quite same place for Cello and viola.  I chalked that up to an error in the score, though I have a hard enough time getting dynamic variation in this project that I didn't sweat it all that much.

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Movement 4 - Rondo

Key: Eb

Time: 2/2  BPM = Half note = 100

As this is a rondo, this movement has a structure of ABACA, with the A being the theme.  The theme is 8 measures long, part B is 23 measures, and part C is 16 measures.

The first half of part B is modulates to the key of Bb before returning to Eb for the second half.  (This modulation to the key of the dominant, i.e. a fifth up, is really common.)  

Part C is in C  minor, the relative minor to Eb. 

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Performance:​

There are repeats in the score that I opted not to play.  They're a little ambiguous and I wasn't sure if on the return to the theme it was meant to be repeated.  

The violin 1 part in the theme was rather difficult as it was pretty fast and harmonized with the violin 2 and viola in the same rhythm, which made keeping them all in sync tricky.  (I'm not sure I completely succeeded). 

I had to play violin 1's A and B section pretty high up the neck with some finger tangling position work, as they otherwise would cover a lot of horizontal distance up and down the neck and I wouldn't have been able to manage it at speed.   The violin 2 and viola harmonized with  the the violin 1 for a lot of the theme, but weren't nearly as difficult due to how they laid on the neck.

Errata:

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The structure of this was a little unclear.  Usually I interpret the Fine marking as the end of the theme, i.e. the part in a rondo that repeats.  But the viola and cello part had the Fine in a different spot and the first violin didn't have it at all.   Picked what sounded like a theme, was the location in 2 of the 3 parts that had one listed, and had a stronger ending as the right one.  (The one listed in the cello)

Also the cello part as written was 1 measure shorter than the other parts.  This lost measure was in the B section and I took a guess that the copyist left out one repetition of the quarter note Bb downbeat right before the end of the section.  (The viola also had a drone pattern, but it had 5 measures rather than the 4 in the cello).  

I still think there may be something wonky going on as, structurally, it's a little odd that the theme is 8 measures, part C is 16 measures, but part B is 23 measures.  I would have expected it to be 24 measures (i.e. divisible by 8).  But... shrug?

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Album Art:

I took this photo of St. Stephen's Cathedral, near where Vanhal lived, in Vienna, Austria.