– Composer: Juliusz Zarębski (3 March 1854 — 15 September 1885)
– Performers: Waldemar Malicki (piano), Amar Corde String Quartet
– Year of recording: 1997
Quintet for Piano & Strings in G minor, Op. 34, written in 1885.
00:00 – I. Allegro
10:03 – II. Adagio
20:51 – III. Scherzo
26:41 – IV. Finale
In 1935, at the peak of the neoclassical period, the Piano Quintet in G minor Op. 34 by Polish composer-pianist Juliusz Zarębski was published. The Quintet was written at the beginning of 1885, during the period of convalescence of the composer (who suffered from tuberculosis) in his home town of Żytomierz. The Quintet was the last and the most outstanding masterpiece written by Zarębski, who died in September of this same year at the age of 31. Zarębski was a member of the 19th century guild of composers and virtuosos. Extremely talented, he studied piano and composition in Vienna and St. Petersburg. He composed mainly salon and virtuoso music for the needs of his numerous tournées; the most famous collection is called “Roses and thorns” (Róże i ciernie).
The great talent of Zarębski is reflected in the opinions of Franz Liszt, who had seen in him not only the great virtuoso (sharing the interest in a two-keyboard piano with the maestro from Weimar), but also a deeply sensitive composer. Liszt insisted that Zarębski should seriously devote himself to composing. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Quintet was dedicated to Liszt [“À mon cher maître Fr. Liszt”]. There are however clear musical reasons for this dedication. The Quintet emerges from the tradition of the New German School, whose outstanding figures were Liszt and Wagner. The origins of the work manifest itself in the richness of colour and harmony and also in treating the themes as if they were characters in a novel. That is why, instead of a “classical” motif work, we hear the metamorphosis of the characters, themes return in the subsequent parts, and the finale is the culmination in the synthetic style. It is not the form that captures our attention but the twists and turns of the narration. However, it must be added that the “novel” plays out in a highly abstract register. Therefore, it appears inappropriate to search for a concrete programme. After all, Liszt and Wagner did not write chamber music for a reason. The originality of this Polish chamber music masterpiece lies in the “amicably incompatible” combination of classical and Late Romantic traditions. But the beauty of the Quintet lies mostly in the music.
– Allegro: Against the backdrop of murmuring waves of the piano, the strings sail in a broad unison, the theme in turn rolling but serious, and diatonic and “broken” in a chromatic prism. The second theme in E flat major balances this initial appassionato with a nocturne section: quite light, fanciful and twinkling. The march rhythms play an important role in this part. They are only a “seasoning”, they never crystallize into an independent theme. However, they give the piece intransigent, maybe even (especially with the connection with falling chromatic bass) fatal character. The particular feature is a “gypsy” C sharp. It appears in the theme; it causes an amazing journey into C-sharp minor in the second section of the development (ended with a solo, longing cello recitative); it is on show in the daring coda.
– The second movement Adagio, begins and ends with bizarre music which suggests some kind of picture or landscape: maybe a starlight shimmering on dark waters? The foundation of Adagio is the lied (art song). The outermost parts have a hymnic character in B flat major; the middle section in G major can be described as idyllic, in accordance with the symbolic tradition of this key and the connotations of a 12/8 meter. However, Zarębski introduces a shadow, especially in the form of chromatics, which in turn gives an edge of surrealism to this idyll.
– Truly “diabolic” is the Scherzo. Presto: full of frictions, dissonance, sudden changes, contrary accents and “unnatural” scales (a comeback of the “gypsy” Allegro note). Even the diatonic fragments, as a result of “freezing” the harmonic centre, create an impression of wildness. Quasi-folk melodies appear too (and they seem to be Russian: a ‘kamarinskaya’ dance).
– The Finale. Presto begins with an epigraph taken from the previous movement, after which a cleansing calmness prevails. Further on, the music flows colourfully and capriciously, expressed in a rhapsodic sonata form. The first theme again resounds with a bawdy dance note, with a highly stylized (and therefore difficult to identify) character. The themes from the first and second movement return. The piece is crowned by a glorification of the Quintet first part’s main theme.
Fortunately, this piano quintet is now slowly starting to be played at concerts and rightfully so, because this masterpiece deserves a place among the biggest Romantic Piano Quintets.