Ippolitov-Ivanov: String Quartet No.1 in A minor, Op.13 (c1890)
Lento – Allegro – Lento
Humoresca – Scherzando:- Presto
Intermezzo:- Allegretto
Finale:- Allegro risoluto – Lento – Piu mosso
Ippolitov-Ivanov has been a peripheral figure in musical history for several years, such that the one piece he was once known for – the suite Caucasian Sketches – has virtually disappeared from the repertoire. He was born near St Petersburg, where he entered the conservatoire in 1875; after graduating five years later he became director of the music academy in Tiflis, at the same time sharpening his conducting skills at the opera and the Russian Music Society. He proved such a success at the academy that in 1905 he was appointed director of the Moscow Conservatoire – having been a professor there since 1893 – where he remained until his death, although he continued to maintain links with Tiflis/Tblisi. In Moscow he became highly active as a conductor, and gave the premières of many new operas, including Rimsky-Korsakov’s Tsar Sultan and The Tsar’s Bride. Having stepped down as head of the conservatoire in 1922, he became director of the Bolshoi Theatre three years later.
Like his near-contemporary Glazunov – his conservatoire equivalent in St Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad – his music sounds very much in the style of the Russian Nationalists (“The Five”), especially Balakirev and Borodin, and he also appeared to share with Glazunov a reluctance to move forward into the twentieth century. Thus Borodin’s embracing of such Western forms as symphony and string quartet – although much disapproved of by Mussorgsky! – evidently found favour with both younger composers, as did also his (and Rimsky-Korsakov’s) taste for the exotic colours of the East. Indeed, it would surely have been through these influential figures that Ippolitov sought inspiration in the folk music of those far-flung republics which were later swallowed up in the USSR; many of his orchestral works bear witness to this, not only the Caucasian Sketches, but also his Yar-khmel’ overture, Armenian Rhapsody, Turkish Fragments, On the Steppes of Turkmenistan, and Musical Pictures of Uzbekistan. Similar flavours find their way into his operas which, in the best Russian tradition, represent the cornerstone of his output.
His second quartet (unpublished) was similarly based on Armenian themes; and although its predecessor was taken up by Tchaikovsky’s publisher Jurgenson in 1894 it has long been unavailable in the West. The Hanson Quartet were enterprising enough to play it on the BBC some years ago, yet we had to go through a musicologist acquaintance in St Petersburg in order to obtain copies of the score and performing material! Quite why such a fine work should have fallen into such obscurity remains a mystery, since it is a real treasure: beautifully conceived for the medium, with Borodin’s economy of scoring in his second quartet (rather than his first…!) a model. Each movement will surely prove a delight, with a characteristic A minor melancholy and toughness to the fore in the outer movements, yet with unforgettable melodies seamlessly incorporated; a yearning tenderness in the Intermezzo; and an absolute winner in its typically fast Russian scherzo, as infectious as any of those by his more famous predecessors.
© Alan George
