About the creation

Five Pieces is one of the only works composed originally by Stutschewsky for a string quartet ensemble. Despite this, his vast experience as a cellist in the Jena quartet before the First World War, in the Viennese Quartet led by Rudolph Kolisch in the early 1920s, and in the quartet he founded after immigrating to Palestine at the end of the 1930s with the violinists Joseph Kaminsky and Alfred (Arie) Ginzburg and the violist Marc Rak, led to great knowledge not only in Classic and Romantic repertoire but also in modern music, especially in the music written by composers of the Second Viennese School. Although Stutschewsky is often identified with Eastern-European Jewish folklore, the romantic and modern repertoire, together with an increasing influence of several signifiers of Israeli music such as modality and ornamentation, molded the main stylistic traits of this work. Even though there are obvious implications of tonal centers, Stutschewsky deliberately avoids defining a specific scale or clinging to a given form, especially to sonata form, which is typical for string quartet writing. Instead, the work includes free character pieces. In that sense, this piece largely continues the stylistic characteristics of his 1956 work Five Pieces for flute. Also, there are no clear thematic contrasts within the separate pieces, but rather a thoughtful observation of various interconnected musical ideas. Similar traits appeared later in various works for wind ensembles. The first piece is constructed upon a lyrical melodic line that serves as a root for various developments. The second piece is a scherzo-like movement filled with pizzicatos, ornamental figurations, and dynamic changes, and it serves as a bridge before the sober C Minor Adagio. The fourth, shorter Moderato, is built upon a growing tension through a violin melody and leads immediately to a dance-like concluding movement. Corresponding with the hora-like figures at the end of the pieces for flute solo, the dancing rhythms, modal tendencies, and ornamental figures give an Israeli tone to the complete work. Dr. Anat Viks