"You ask me how the modern quartet differs from its predecessors?" said
Mr. Betti. "It differs in many ways. For one thing the modern quartet
has developed in a way that makes its inner voices--second violin and
viola--much more important than they used to be. Originally, as in
Haydn's early quartets, we have a violin solo with three accompanying
instruments. In Beethoven's last quartets the intermediate voices have
already gained a freedom and individuality which before him had not even
been suspected. In these last quartets Beethoven has already set forth
the principle which was to become the basis of modern polyphony: '_first
of all_ to allow each voice to express itself freely and fully, and
_afterward_ to see what the relations were of one to the other.' In
fact, no one has exercised a more revolutionary effect on the quartet
than Beethoven--no one has made it attain so great a degree of
progress. And surely the distance separating the quartet as Beethoven
found it, from the quartet as he left it (Grand Fugue, Op. 131, Op.
132), is greater than that which lies between the Fugue Op. 132, and the
most advanced modern quartet, let us say, for instance, Schönberg's Op.
7. Schönberg, by the way, has only applied and developed the principles
established by Beethoven in the latter's last quartets. But in the
modern quartet we have a new element, one which tends more and more to
become preponderant, and which might be called _orchestral_ rather than
_da camera_. Smetana, Grieg, Tschaikovsky were the first to follow this
path, in which the majority of the moderns, including Franck and
Debussy, have followed them. And in addition, many among the most
advanced modern composers _strive for orchestral effects that often lie
outside the natural capabilities of the strings_!
[Illustration: ADOLFO BETTI, with hand-written note]
"For instance Stravinsky, in the first of his three impressionistic
sketches for quartet (which we have played), has the first violin play
_ponticello_ throughout, not the natural _ponticello_, but a quite
special one, to produce an effect of a bag-pipe sounding at a distance.
I had to try again and again till I found the right technical means to
produce the effect desired. Then, the 'cello is used to imitate the
drum; there are special technical problems for the second violin--a
single sustained D, with an accompanying _pizzicato_ on the open
strings--while the viola is required to suggest the tramp of marching
feet. And, again, in other modern quartets we find special technical
devices undreamt of in earlier days. Borodine, for instance, is the
first to systematically employ successions of harmonics. In the trio of
his first quartet the melody is successively introduced by the 'cello
and the first violin, altogether in harmonics.