String Quartet in G minor op. 3

During his first year at the Villa Medici, Henri Rabaud composed the string quartet that the new rules of the Institute required from its residents. But the twenty-one-year-old composer only complied reluctantly: “All I need is for someone to ask me for a quartet for me to have ideas for a symphony, an opera, a chorus – anything but a quartet.” He did not fare too badly, though, since Le Figaro of 24 March 1898 noted that the quartet was “full of promise and very pure workmanship”. The work had just been premiered by Édouard Nadaud, Adolphe Gibier, Charles Trombetta and Célestin Cros-Saint-Ange. The following year, Gaston Carraud wrote similar compliments in La Liberté, praising the Adagio for its “exquisitely moving purity of inspiration”. Clearly, the score, written in a Mendelssohnian vein, appealed to performers, and several performances are documented in the years following its composition. While Rabaud knew how to deploy vigorous accents, he disliked authoritarian beginnings. Thus, his quartet opens pianissimo, in a mysterious mood, with a somewhat painful expression. The Allegro molto and the Adagio both contrast a first cantabile theme with a second thematic element of a rhythmic nature. The vividness increases as the work progresses: after two particularly song-like movements, the scherzo, bristling with staccatos, gives a new impetus with its main motif swaying with syncopations. The energy unfolds fully in the finale, where the four instruments launch the main theme in unison before engaging in spirited exchanges.