String Quartet in E major op. 36
Largo ma non troppo. Allegretto. Largo – Allegretto assai scherzando – Adagio con molto expressione – Allegro con brio. Adagio. Allegro vivace
Like the composers before him, Lalo, Franck and Fauré, and those who came after, Debussy, Ravel or, more recently, Boulez, Dutilleux and many others, Fernand de La Tombelle was one of those French composers who, after successfully meeting the challenge of the string quartet once, felt no need to do so again. Paradoxically, this Opus 36 was dedicated to Vincent d’Indy who, at the time of its publication (1897), was putting the finishing touches to his second quartet (also in E major), thereby providing perceptive analysts with a set of thematic combinatorics. D’Indy lacked only the fresh melodic inspiration and accessible style that were among his friend’s distinctive qualities. The quartet’s initial motif could have been written by Massenet and its shape, although probably influenced by borrowings, is never distorted, any more than the avoided cadenzas feel artificial in view of the clarity of tonal feeling. Every movement boasts precision of ideas, luminous polyphony and the equal distribution of instrumental parts (the scherzo begun by the second violin, the sudden appearances of the viola). Besides the opening theme which reappears at the end of movements I and IV, impatient or tragic dotted rising rhythmic figures and spiccato runs ensure the unity of this work, which clearly has a powerful emotional backdrop.
