Suk, Josef

(b. Křečovice, 4 January 1874,– d. Benešov, 29 May 1935,)

String Quartet No.1 in B-flat Major, Op.11

I. Allegro moderato
II. Intermezzo: Tempo di marcia
III. Adagio, ma non troppo
IV. Allegro giocoso

Josef Suk was born in the Bohemian village of Křečovice, where his father, schoolmaster and choirmaster, taught him violin, piano and organ. He showed precocious musical ability early in his life, both as a violinist and a composer, entering the Prague Conservatory at age 11 and concluding his studies at age 18. It was there that he entered into a close association with the family of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), first as the star pupil of the elder composer, then later as the husband to his daughter Otylka. The tragic deaths of Suk’s father-in-law in 1904 and, quite prematurely, his wife only a year later would have a profound effect on his music. His career was of threefold prominence: as professor and later rector of the Prague Conservatory, as second violinist and founding member of the Czech Quartet, giving over 4000 performances with them, and as a gifted composer. To wit, Suk’s composing prowess was quickly recognized, and some identified him as the natural successor to his mentor as the pre-eminent Czech composer. This prowess also proved to be quite scalable, as his (mostly instrumental) works in miniature exhibit the same refined elegance as his larger symphonic compositions. It is for his output in the latter medium, however, that he is most highly regarded today. His masterwork was the symphonic tetralogy that begins with his second symphony, Asrael, Op.27 (1905-06) and extends through his three symphony-length tone poems: Pohádka léta (A Summer’s Tale), Op.29 (1907-09), Zrání (Ripening), Op.34 (1912-17) and finally the Epilog, Op.37 (1920-29). Through these works he developed a unique cosmopolitan style that fused his Bohemian-Germanic musical heritage, as polished through the tutelage of Dvořák and the influence of Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), with the symphonic maximalism of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and Richard Strauss (1864-1949) and the harmonic and textural innovations of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and French impressionism.

String Quartet No.1 in B-flat Major, Op.11 is the capstone of a spate of early full-length chamber works wherein Suk established himself as a craftsman of finely-wrought abstract musical discourse. These works, all completed in the 1890s, include essays in the genres of the piano quartet (Op.1, 1891), trio (Op.2, 1889-91) and quintet (Op.8, 1893), and culminate in this string quartet (1896). He dedicated it to his colleagues in the Czech Quartet, and the ensemble premiered it on 16 October of that year in Riga. It was published promptly thereafter in Prague, and awarded second prize the following year by the Emperor Franz Joseph’s Czech Academy for Sciences, Literature and Art. Given the reception of this work, and given the composer’s career as a professional quartet player for four decades, it is unfortunate he did not produce more works for this most elevated medium. There is a juvenile quartet in d minor and a few shorter pieces, including the doleful Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn ‘”St. Wenceslas”, Op.35 (1914). But Suk would pen only one other string quartet in his maturity: the brooding, single-movement String Quartet No.2, Op.31 (1911), written only fifteen years later than his first but separated by a period of significant stylistic development. To be sure, the earlier exemplar presented here is cast in a decidedly traditional 19th-century mold.

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