Title: Quartet in C Minor for 2 Violins, Viola and Cello, Op. 35
Description: As the opulent decade of the 1890s sang itself to a close, Chausson's works were being heard across Europe. In November 1898 the piano quartet, Soir de fête, and extracts from music for The Tempest were played in Brussels, as his friend d'Indy conducted Soir de fête in Barcelona. The Concert, for piano, violin, and string quartet (featuring Ysaÿe and Pugno) and the Poème for violin and orchestra, were given in Paris in January 1899, as Viviane wowed audiences in Lille, Reims, Prague, and Moscow. Jeanne Raunay sang the premiere of the Chanson perpétuelle, dedicated to her, on January 29. The symphony was performed at the beginning of the year in Athens. Chausson was catching on with a public beyond the select audiences of the Société National de Musique or Cercle XX. Amid his smiling final works, the morbid Chanson perpétuelle -- recalling the Liebestod obsession of the 1880s that worked itself out in the Poème de l'amour et de la mer -- is explained by Raunay's insistence. To his friend Arthur Fontaine he explained, "Just now I'm writing a gloomy mélodie for Madame Raunay. She doesn't come off badly. I am nothing if not understanding. It is about the violent despair of love. I'm not at all in the mood. Then, what of sincerity? Is this a hoax? Or do I stage a coup? Not at all. I discover. I feel the pain I would have felt if I were in this situation and I feel it so much more being happy" (November 7, 1898). A photograph from this period shows Chausson on the steps of his home on the Boulevard du Courcelles, Paris, surrounded by, among others, Mathieu Crickboom (dedicatee of Chausson's quartet and leader of the prominent string quartet that bore his name), Ysaÿe, d'Indy, and Fauré -- a stellar gathering. On July 12, 1898, Chausson wrote to Crickboom, "I'm working on a string quartet for you...I believe that it is neither Franck, nor d'Indy, nor Debussy, but I fear that it takes wing a bit from Beethoven. In the end, it is really not such a bad thing to take wing from him a bit." The first movement was completed on October 25; the second on April 1, 1899; and the third substantially completed by May 24. Chausson was killed in a bicycling accident on June 10. Vincent d'Indy rounded the movement off with a brief recapitulation and Chausson's String Quartet was premiered at an SNM concert on January 27, 1900. - Adrian Corleonis on allmusic.com