String Quartet, Op. 49 ,”Two Worlds”

Alfred Švarc (Schwarz) (1907 – 1986) composer and lawyer, belongs among composers who at the time when Croatian music was dominated by the neo-national course chose his own path in composition, based on late Romantic and the then prevailing compositional and technical forms of expression. The more than one hundred works in his oeuvre tend to make great demands on the performer, which is perhaps the reason that only nine works were ever presented to the public during his lifetime, including the two student works First String Quartet (1930) and Etude for Piano (1930), as well as seven works from his maturity: String Quartet in A Major (1951), Fragments from the War for choir (1955), the symphonic poem Song of the Young Hero (1958), the orchestral Overture to a Merry Play (1961), Songs of My Grief for alto and orchestra (1962), Miniatures for Piano (1965) and Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello (1973). String Quartet Op. 49 – Two Worlds was composed by Alfred Švarc in 1961. It was designed as a single movement composition containing short parts of contrasting tempo which are accompanied by contrasting dynamics interchanging short sections of opposing dynamics with sharp cuts, resulting in a strong emotional charge of the audience. Alfred Švarc’s intense composing activities are a result of his soul trying to find the meaning of existence through music without succumbing to any defined style, but shaping itself in a unique process of creation within the mind and soul of the misfortunate composer. The amount of works filled with anxiety, hope, rebellion, inconsolable grief – also embodied by the Two Worlds string quartet – are a mirror of the creative self that needs to materialize though sound. Unfortunately, the sound exists only on paper, waiting to be freed through some future performance.