David Dalle
Thursday August 4th, 2022 with David Dalle
The Danish String Quartet and a holy song of thanksgiving for all that we have loved and lost.

The Danish String Quartet first caught my eye with their nearly completed "Prism" series on ECM Records. This planned five volume project finds thematic matches between a Bach fugue, one of Beethoven's five late string quartets, and a post-Beethoven quartet. The first three volumes featured 20th century composers, Shostakovich, Schnittke, and Bartok. Their newly released fourth volume features a composer who was a teenager when Beethoven died, and already a very prodigal composer: Felix Mendelssohn. An 18 year old Mendelssohn had composed (already) his 2nd string quartet only a few months after the death of Beethoven. It was very strongly influenced by Beethoven's late quartets, particularly Op. 132, matched with it in this recording. This demonstrates the brilliant insight a young Mendelssohn had as these late quartets were almost completely ignored until many years after their composition. It is a cyclical work, matching the cyclical nature of three of Beethoven's late quartets, which was a completely novel structure. Even amongst the great mystical beauty of Beethoven's late compositions, the slow third movement of Op. 132 stands alone. He titled this movement a "Sacred Thanksgiving Song of Convalescent on the Godhead, in the Lydian mode". It is music that moves in the early Baroque sounding Lydian scale with canonic entries until it reaches a point, Beethoven writes, "Regaining strength" increasing in speed as the harmony changes to D major until the song returns where Beethoven writes "With the most inward expression". Especially today, I hear this as a song of thanksgiving for all that we have loved and lost. Not in grief, but in gratitude for having them in our lives. For George.