Ruperto Chapí’s String Quartet no.3 could well be subtitled Tragic Quartet. Here’s a work of a stormy nature, containing atmospheres of drama, anguish and loneliness. Out of the four quartets written by the composer, this is perhaps the one which has the least Spanish features.

The first movement, Grave-Allegro assai, is absolutely original; an impeccable and successful etude on syncopations, which create a constant and thorough rhythmic instability. The brief introduction (Grave) is based upon pairs of pulsating chords; the first one syncopated and off-beat, to which the second one responds on a strong beat. The main movement, Allegro assai, is built upon syncopated triplets in the middle voices, accompanying an agitated and anxious melody played by the first violin. The second subject, marked Allegro appassionato, does nothing to stabilize the character; on the contrary, it is a nervous and syncopated theme, which the cello tries in vain to shore up by playing pizzicatti on the strong beats.

The second movement, Allegro Moderato, is a type of scherzo, with a seguidilla rhythm. However, in spite of the apparent rhythmic simplicity, there is an abundance of complexities, both in the chromaticism and rhythms. The second subject of this movement has a clear Spanish atmosphere, an exception in this quartet, and contains rapid triplet ornaments which lend it a popular character.

The third movement, Larghetto, contains music of extraordinary beauty. Chapí ventures into dark and nostalgic territories, using the key of D flat major which, in the Romantic music repertoire, is usually associated with tragic atmospheres. In this movement there are two instances of descending chromatic passages which create a hair-raising effect.

If we had entertained any hopes that the drama and tragedy of this quartet would subside on the fourth movement, Finale-Allegro vivace, we will certainly be disappointed. The opposite is true; the storminess makes its appearance early on and doesn’t let up until the end of this very Tchaikovskian movement. The tribute to the Russian master is evident in the abundant Slavic rhythms, the waltz in the middle section and the de rigueur, and masterfully achieved, fugatto.

String Quartet no.4, in B minor, was premiered by the Cuarteto Francés on February 22nd, 1907, and was dedicated by the composer to “my very dear friend and disciple Manuel Manrique de Lara”. On that evening’s printed program it was mentioned that “Chapí continues with the aesthetic tendency shown on his previous quartets. Without resorting to specific popular forms, the composer manages to give his work a genuinely national character, picturesque and free, dressing his own thoughts with rhythms and procedures of natural and traditional harmonies. The form matches, in general terms, that of a traditional string quartet but, within it, the composer is able to transit with absolute independence, and to present the thematic elements according to his own phantasy and to the whims of his personal temperament”.

The first movement, Allegro moderato, is written on a transparent sonata form and, with a characteristic 6/8 rhythm, it is perhaps one of the most classic movements of all the Chapí quartets cycle.

The second movement, Allegretto, makes use of continuous, fast and light triplets, which give the movement a certain whiff of a Mendelssohnian scherzo. However, towards the middle part of the movement, a surprising and unexpected section of transparent chords appears, creating a wonderful and original organ sonority.

The third movement, Allegretto animato, with a complex and cyclic structure, seems to have been conceived at some point as the last movement of the quartet. It begins with a Tarantella, whose triplets seem to have migrated from the previous movement into a faster and more frenetic rhythm. After a minute or so, a surprising guajira appears, with a clear Latin American flavor. At the end of this section, successively, elements from the first and second movement start to make their appearance, and the movement ends again with the guajira.

After the thematic richness, and content variety of the first three movements, the final Allegro vivo surprises us with its relative scarcity of material. For the most part, this movement is dominated by a rapid, four-notes motive which reminds us of Antonín Dvořák’s cello concerto, premiered just a few years earlier. The continuous repetition of this motive, throughout extended sections, constitutes a real challenge for the performers. This is a grandiloquent, repetitive and long movement, which the Spanish musicologist Luis G. Iberni called, justly so, Brucknerian.