program notes: 1918-1939: Breaking away

Janáček: Podhádka (“Fairy Tale”)

In 1910, both Igor Stravinsky and Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) made musical settings of Russian folk tales. Stravinsky’s famous Firebird ballet for full orchestra was quite literal and became world famous. Janáček’s Fairy Tale, a more general setting for cello and piano, went relatively unnoticed. This statement is not to take away from the mastery and charm of Janáček’s music, but rather to contrast two opposing approaches to similar material. The full title of Janáček’s work was originally “The Tale of Czar Berendey.” When the composer revised the work in 1923, he shortened the title simply to Fairy Tale.

Briefly, the story goes that Czar Berendey is duped into ransoming the soul of his son, Ivan, to Kashchey, Ruler of the Underworld. When Ivan is old enough, his father tells him of his terrible fate, whereupon Ivan sets out, determined to free himself of the curse. Early in his odyssey, he sees a duckling turned into a beautiful maiden, and they instantly fall in love. She turns out to be Marya, the good daughter of Kashchey. In later episodes, Ivan (with Marya’s help) successfully accomplishes two tasks set for him by Kashchey, but Marya is changed into a flower. Ultimately, the couple are rejoined in a happy ending.

In the Fairy Tale, the cello part represents Ivan while the piano speaks for Marya. These symbols are immediately apparent in the first movement, as a fanfare-like cello pizzicato punctuates the gently curving main theme. A canon (imitation) between the instruments perhaps symbolizes the betrothal of the couple. Soon, however, this tender stroking turns into a gallop, possibly signifying Kashchey’s pursuit of the lovers.

Another piano-cello canonic dialogue opens the second movement, but this spiky theme is answered by a more lyrical variant. The fanfare motive from the first movement returns along with other music heard previously.

The most “Russian” sounding part of the Fairy Tale is the main theme of the final movement. One striking feature that occurs in every movement is a sort of “dissolution” at the end, rather than a solid recapitulation and conclusion. As biographer Jaroslav Vogel points out, this “. . . heightens the fairy-tale atmosphere, and the charm is enhanced by Janacek’s ability to enter completely into the spirit of the old Russian epic tales.”

Tailleferre: String Quartet

In 1917, World World War I was still raging throughout Europe, A group of six composers gathered frequently in Paris to discuss progressive aesthetic theory and practice. Included were Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Talleferre. 

The progressive-minded Talleferre (1892-1983) was the only female member of Les Six, and here rebellious nature preceded her there. Born with the family name of Taillefesse, she changed it to Tailleferre to spite her father, who refused to support her musical studies. She took piano lessons with her mother, and began to compose short original pieces. These led to her studies at the Paris Conservatoire, where she met the young composers who, with her, would soon constitute Les Six. Her early relationship with them soon led to her association with the artistic crowds in the districts of Montmartre and Montparnasse. There the idea of Les Six was born, unified by their faith in writer Jean Cocteau’s published ideas.

During the 1920s, Tailleferre wrote many of her most important compositions, and she remained reasonably prolific throughout her long life. In addition to the concert hall, she composed several film scores, music or the radio and television, and incidental music for the theater. Her music for piano solo and concertos was especially profuse.

Talleferre composed her only string quartet during 1917-1919 at the height of her involvement with Les Six. She was a student of Milhaud at the time. The conciseness of each movement suggests that the work may have originated as a composition assignment or a competition entry.

 The quartet opens with a movement marked Modéré. A short theme is passed around between instruments. Then another, led by the Second Violin receives similar treatment. Led by the First Violin a cascading idea now becomes the focus, and this leads to a short coda (or, wrapping up) of the first movement.

Marked Interméde, the second movement opens in a playful, puckish mood. By contrast, the central section is smooth and closely concentrated on two or three short musical ideas. A variant recap of the first section rounds out the intermediate movement.

A somewhat ferocious mood, marked Très ritmé greets us at the opening of the finale. Then, sudden quietness prevails while the players explore the lower regions of their instruments. This congeals into a surprising solo by the first violin. Shifting into a tremulous pattern, the opening music returns, now transformed in mood and texture. A brief transition leads to a recapitulation of the opening material, which soon dissolves into freer expression and a new section of the movement. Then, taking on a veneer of heroism (Un peu plus lent), the music slips slowly into a hushed ending.

Bloch: Piano Quintet No. 1

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was a composer of Swiss origin. His studies and early musical career centered in his native city, Geneva. In 1916, he traveled to the United States as the conductor of a Swiss dance company. When the company suddenly went bankrupt, Bloch was stranded without friends or financial resources. Within a short time, however, he had begun a new career here, at first teaching at the Mannes School of Music, then becoming Director of the Cleveland Institute and later the San Francisco Conservatory. 

Most of the music Bloch composed during the 1920s could be termed “neoclassic” That is, music written in Classical Period forms, or music adhering to formal principles (such as balance and proportion) found in Classical Period composers, notably, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. At the same time, Bloch’s own musical style became intensely personal, and consistently so. He completed his Piano Quintet No. 1in 1923.

Tension and drama inform the opening minutes of Bloch’s quintet. In part, this can be attributed to the contrast between the piano’s music and the music for strings. The piano then begins a new “bed” of sound for individual and pairs of strings to etch brief musical statements. This whole passage is a transition to a new theme group, again contrasting piano and strings. Melodies and accompaniments are freely exchanged between strings and piano. These textures are somewhat simplified as the music reaches the epitome of its development. The music becomes declamatory again (as in the opening music), finally tumbling to the conclusion of the movement.

Marked Andante mistico, the central movement begins with the piano offering low-pitched support for sustained fragments of melody exchanged among the strings. This texture now dominates for a substantial period of time until the lower registers of the piano join in the melodic interchange. Strings soon dominate again, offering attractive melodies and duets above the rumbling piano. The whole quintet gradually become more rhapsodic leading to a new section marked misterioso. Former melody fragments return, now supported by steadily rocking rhythms in the piano. Gradually, all the players gel into a rocking rhythm until a climactic moment, when the ensemble gradually re-assembles in an intense quasi-pastoral setting. Again winding down, the music arrives at a restatement of earlier, quieter music. This gradually recedes to a sustained, soft finish.

Allegro energetico reads the tempo marking for the finale. The dance impulse is undeniable, yet the “dancers” seem to stumble often. All this makes for an entertaining movement full of surprises. Mostly unpredictable, the music draws the listener close, waiting for the next surprise. Occasional long-breathed string melodies are stretched across a percussive texture, but they never reach a stable conclusion. Viola and cello struggle to create a melody with   some continuity, and soon the other strings join them. Finally, we hear galloping rhythms accompanying the fragmented melody, now shared with the piano. A great variety of rhythms inform the next pages of this movement, ushering in reminiscences of slower, earlier ideas and melodies. A sizeable and even slower, long-breathed melody leads to a quiet, high-pitched ending to the Quintet.

Notes by Dr. Michael Fink 2023. All rights reserved.

Program Notes: 1918-1939: 19th century Echoes

Korngold: Much Ado About Nothing: Suite for String Quartet, Op. 11 (composer’s adaptation)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) is well known to classic movie buffs as the composer of scores to such adventure films as Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk. However, Korngold at one time held an honored position in European opera and concert music that originated in his youth. This Wunderkind composed his first major work, the pantomime ballet Der Schneemann (The Snowman), at the age of 11 and went on to write a series of successful operas, culminating in Die tote Stadt (The Dead City), completed when he was only 23.

The Austrian-born Korngold got involved in Hollywood film scoring in 1934, when Max Reinhardt arranged with Warner Brothers to make a film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Korngold adapted the music of Mendelssohn for this project but then went on to compose a string of 18 original film scores — most of them “swashbucklers.” These melodramatic adventures were not far removed from the Viennese operatic stage from which Korngold had come, and his late- Romantic, Wagner/Strauss style fit them perfectly.

Back in 1919-20, Korngold had composed orchestral incidental music for a stage production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, which was premiered the following year. While composing music for the play, he was also adapting some of it as a suite for orchestra, which he also adapted for violin and piano and for string quartet. Here are the movements:

  1. The Maiden in the Bridal Chamber. Through music, we hear the variety of thoughts running through the bride’s mind on the eve of her wedding – some sweet and lyrical, some jumbled and fearful, but ending quietly and at peace.
  2. March of the Watch (Dogbert and Verges). Very much in the style of Prokofiev, the music is a comic march, with the pretense of bravery and loyal duty. But frequently, the Watch soldiers trip over themselves or each other.
  3. Masquerade (Hornpipe). Comic and energetic comes a sailor’s dance. Both players are kept busy with their parts, which project jollity and a humorous, playful Punch-and-Judy ending to the suite.

Kreisler: String Quartet in A Minor

The world knew Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) first as a virtuoso violinist and then as a composer. He was an incredible child prodigy, entering the Vienna Conservatory at the age of seven. There he won the gold medal in violin and went on to the Paris Conservatoire, where he graduated at the age of 12 with another gold medal. Soon, for unexplained reasons, Kreisler gave up the violin for a time while he pursued further education and military service. In 1896, he chose a musical career, quickly regained his technique (he never needed to practice much), and embarked on a triumphant career that took him through Europe, England, and the United States. During and after World War I, Kreisler spent time in France and the United States (his wife’s homeland), finally settling there in 1939 and becoming a citizen in 1943. He continued concertizing and broadcasting until 1950. Kreisler’s bowing technique, tone color, and vibrato style influenced almost every concert violinist of the 20th century.

As a composer, Kreisler achieved some notoriety when he revealed that several compositions from his concert repertoire that he had passed off as authentic “olden” works were actually from his own pen. However, he also composed many contemporary pieces for violin and piano that epitomized the colorful recital fare of his day.

Kreisler also dabbled in chamber music. He composed his one string quartet in 1919, dedicating it to his wife. Each of the four movements is titled. The first, Fantasia, is just that: a quilt of different themes and moods in a form that is free except for the ending, which is a literal reprise of the introductory measures.

The second movement, Scherzo, is a playful, puckish piece that owes much to Mendelssohn. The slower, more sentimental, central section, however, is a showcase for individual instruments, as well as a resting point before a reprise of the main section.

Introduction and Romance is the title of the next movement. The well-proportioned introduction makes an emotional contrast with the main torso of the music. Led by the soloistic first violin, this music is at turns cheerful and passionate. Perhaps the high point is the ending, an adventurous progression of harmonies in the upper instruments over some charming pizzicato work by the cello.

Finale: Retrospection completes Kreisler’s quartet. Following a brief introduction, its main thematic group unfolds as a lively, witty march that evokes Brahms’s “barrel house” style. An atmospheric contrasting section (still in march rhythms) lends momentary seriousness before a partial reprise of main themes. Surprisingly, Kreisler concludes with an encapsulation of music from the opening of the quartet, lending a long moment of nostalgia to its soft, sweet ending.

Price, String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor

Florence Price (née Smith) (1887-1953) is a significant Black composer of concert music. Among her many other honors, Price was the first African-American woman to have a composition performed by a major orchestra (the Chicago Symphony).

She hailed from near Little Rock, Arkansas, where she graduated high school (as valedictorian) at the age of 14. Moving on to Boston’s New England Conservatory, she studied piano and organ, composing her first symphony and graduating with honors (1906) with a double major in organ and music education. Professor/Composer George Whitefield Chadwick continued to be a mentor to Price for many years. Returning to Arkansas, Florence taught at the college level, and in 1912, she married attorney Thomas J. Price. Together they had two daughters and a son.

To escape racial oppression, the Price family moved to Chicago in 1927. There Florence began a long period of compositional activity. Notably, her Symphony in E minor won a major award and was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Frederick Stock, conducting.

In 1931, the Prices divorced, and Florence soon moved in with her close friend, Margaret Bonds. At that point, Price’s most productive creative period began. In addition to orchestral, chamber, and piano music, she composed widely for the voice, leading to warm, valuable friendships with Black singers Marian Anderson and Roland Hayes. (Anderson would usually end her recitals with a Black spiritual as arranged by Price.) In 1964, Chicago honored Price (posthumously) by naming an elementary school after her.

The musical style of Price’s instrumental concert works is key-oriented, a holdover from the Romantic 19th century. Other 20th-century composers who took this approach included Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, and Richard Strauss. Her frequent key changes and passages of thick, continuous counterpoint are reminiscent of the late-romantic César Franck.

Around a short, repeated musical idea (ostinato) in the second violin, the opening movement unfolds as a lyrical strand of attractive melody. The movement introduces a second theme group more serious-sounding than the first, but it soon comes to a soft conclusion. Ever more lyrical, the third theme group joins the quartet together. Its vocal-inspired melodies now come mostly from the First Violin. Other members of the quartet play brief commentaries, but the First Violin consistently shepherds the ensemble back together. Now come passages where the instruments’ melodies differ and compete, yet regularly they blend together. A euphonious, forthright statement by the First Violin and Viola reflect aspects of Price’s cultural background in Gospel and folk music. The music now becomes competitive among the performers as they drive to the end of the movement.

Andante cantabile marks the second movement. Beginning in a minor key, it is lyrical in Price’s best way, yet there is an overreaching mood of tragedy and sadness. Phrases are traded or shared among quartet members. A new section of music brings a more confident mood. Soft, comforting music follows, as a fragmentary song pours out, drawing the movement to a quiet conclusion.

A significant dance impulse informs the third movement — yet it is a polite, courteous dance, well measured, crisp, and in a moderate tempo. The music becomes “bluesy” at times, yet it never loses its proud façade. The second section is another story. We might call it “showy.” We hear passing references to past musical phrases, but no solid development —just “swing,” which finally winds down to a polite ending.

Quick triple rhythms open the finale, tripping and skipping along. Momentum is the main idea now, as new ideas come and go. At about the halfway point some brief solo interchanges among the quartet lead us to a short pause and a recapitulation of the tripping-skipping music of the finale’s original music. At last, a brief slower passage introduces the finale’s “finale” and a cheerful, energetic ending to Price’s String Quartet in A Minor.

Notes by Dr. Michael Fink 2023. All rights reserved.

2023 Annual string Quartet Masterclass

2023 Annual string Quartet Masterclass

Our 2023 Annual String Quartet Masterclass featured four ensembles, three from Ronald Reagan High School and one from Sonia Sotomayor High School, performing works by Mozart, Borodin, Britten and Kodaly, With our long-time second violinist, Anastasia Parker, on sabbatical, the Camerata SA Quartet was thrilled to invite violinist Laura Scalzo to teach with us. Another new addition this year was the support of our new sponsors, The Texas Violin Shop! In addition to their financial support of the class, Texas Violin Shop enhanced the entire experience by showing us all how to keep our instruments sound their best (so we can too). Their presentation was not only highly informative, but also very entertaining! Thank you, Samantha and Estefan!
Mendelssohn Octet side-by-side

Mendelssohn Octet side-by-side

Four young area music students are spending their Spring Break rehearsing with their teachers from Camerata San Antonio to perform a special free concert. Each of the four young musicians studies with one of the Camerata’s core string quartet and will share the stage with their teachers for this very special free event, part of Camerata San Antonio’s 20th season. 

“We have made a tradition of performing Mendelssohn Octet every ten years, and we’re just so excited to share this performance with these four extraordinary young musicians,” says Ken Freudigman, cellist and Artistic Director of Camerata San Antonio. 

The side-by-side concert is a long-held tradition in classical music education, and particularly meaningful in a chamber music setting, where each performer must prepare their own individual part and all stand as equals together. Each member of the quartet has a fond formative memory of being invited to join our mentors onstage in this way. 

“Mendelssohn wrote the octet when he was only 16 and I can’t imagine a more joyous sonic explosion of youthful exuberance,” says Emily Freudigman, violist and Co-Founder of Camerata San Antonio. “We’ve worked with most of these students either as their weekly lesson teachers or as chamber music coaches since they were in middle school. It’s really a privilege to help shape a young musician’s growth. Chamber music instruction is part of our Camerata mission, and this is a really unique capstone project for these young San Antonio musicians, as we get ready to send them off to college in the near future.”  

What: FREE Concert of Mendelssohn Octet featuring Camerata San Antonio’s string quartet and four extraordinary area student musicians

When: Sunday, March 19 at 2:00PM

Where: Christ Episcopal Church  (510 Belknap Pl)

Let us know you’re coming by registering to attend. 

More about the student performers: 

Young confident woman holds violin Ellie Kennedy, violin, was the 2021 winner of the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio Concerto Competition, has won first place prizes in nationwide competitions including American String Teachers Association(ASTA), and has been concertmaster of the TMEA Texas All State Symphony Orchestra and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) Young Artists Orchestra. Ellie studies with Matthew Zerweck.

Young woman holds violin and smiles

Viviana Peters, violin, has performed as a soloist with the San Antonio Sinfonietta, organized many front-yard COVID concerts, and has been accepted for study at the Tibor Varga Winter Music Academy in Switzerland. Viviana studies with Matthew Zerweck.
Young man holds viola while smiling on stage Ray Zhang, viola, is a Texas Commission on the Arts Young Master, has toured Europe with the National Youth Orchestra, won first prize in the 2023 TexASTA Concerto Competition, was a finalist in the American Viola Society Competition, and was Principal Viola of the TMEA Texas All State Symphony Orchestra. Ray studies with Emily Freudigman.
Young man holds cello looking into distance Vincent Garcia-Hettinger, cello, is a 2023 Sphinx Competition Laureate and recipient of a Sphinx MPower Grant, as well as a From the Top Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. He has won competitions including the Ann Arbor Symphony Young Artist and Nie Competitions, and was invited to participate in the 2022 Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. Vincent studies with Ken Freudigman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QUARTETS PROGRAM NOTES

QUARTETS PROGRAM NOTES

MOZART: STRING QUARTET IN A MAJOR, K. 464

“Before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the profound knowledge of composition.”

With those words, Franz Josef Haydn expressed his feelings about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (to Mozart’s father, Leopold). The year was 1785, and the occasion was the playing of some of Mozart’s six “Haydn” quartets. These had been composed over the years 1782-1785, and Mozart would soon dedicate them in print to the “Father” of the String Quartet.

The A Major Quartet is the fifth in the series, and it is probably the least performed. Yet there are treasures for the listener in this work. The general grace of the first movement is one. Beginning with a waltz-like gesture, the first theme-group presents a turning, cascading idea that soon lands in the distant key of C. There, the waltz impulse becomes intensified. The second theme has an ascending chromatic “motto” that introduces its several phrases before the first theme returns to round out the exposition and open the door to the development. In the recapitulation, Mozart replaces the key of C with the even more remote key of F. But soon all is resolved, and the movement ends normally.

The minuet movement (placed second in this quartet) begins with two contrasting phrases. The main motives from these are then combined and reshuffled to generate the rest of the movement. Unexpected rests and dynamic shifts add humor by breaking up the natural flow.  From A major, Mozart moves to E for the Trio section. The smoothness of its first strain is broken by agile first violin triplets in the second.

A theme with variations forms the Andante. The elegance of the theme continues in the first three variations. Then in the fourth, a minor variation, the melody dissolves into triplet activity. The suavity of the opening returns in the fifth variation, but in the final variation this combines with an extended staccato rhythmic figure that moves gradually through the instruments from cello to first violin.

The finale is dominated chiefly by one theme. Interestingly, it opens with a descending chromatic line, mirroring the ascending one in the first movement. The variety of textures in this movement is remarkable. They range from insistently repeated bass notes to hymn-like passages to stretched notes in the outer parts played against running scales in the inner parts. Mozart brings the quartet to a close with a final, clever reference to the descending chromatic idea.

BACEWICZ: STRING QUARTET NO. 4

During the first half of the 20th century, women composers did not enjoy the liberal, open treatment and recognition they have achieved (gradually) during the second half and beyond. This “glass ceiling” situation was more pronounced in Eastern Europe than in Western society. Knowing this helps us to understand why the very talented Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) had to wait until 1945 to complete her first orchestral work, the present concert overture, and another four years before its premiere. Of course she lived through the upheavals of two World Wars and also other tragic events in her native Poland during that time. Society and the Arts were often in a state of upheaval, making concert schedules unsure and suddenly changeable. Her education in Warsaw (Kazimierz Sikorski) and Paris (Nadia Boulanger) focused on composition and also violin playing.  Most of her adult life, Bacewicz made her living as a violinist. It was not until after WW II that, now married and living in Warsaw, she turned her attention professionally to composing music. Describing Bacewicz’s activities in the 1950s, music researcher and writer Judith Rosen introduces the String Quartet No. 4:

A significant work from this period is the String Quartet No.4 (1951), which received first prize (out of 57 entries) in the International Composers’ Competition in Liège, Belgium. In 1953, it became a required piece for competitors in the International String Quartet Competition in Geneva and continues to be chosen for performance in the United States and abroad. 

(Part I.) An Andante introduces Allegro segments, which are spikey at first, but new themes smooth out and become ever more lyrical, then strident, leading to a short solo by the viola. This introduces a new theme in high range of the cello. Then comes punctuating music, flirting with dissonance before answered by a lyrical melody in the first violin. Now, the music is clearly developmental for a time. A new segment of development focuses on the instruments’ high ranges. The stamping chords from early in the movement now are explored and developed, now and again morphing into dragging chords that support fleeting melodic thoughts. The solo viola returns with lyrical melody, and then is joined by the others in an exchange of two-note ideas that wander with little connection to a single key. Smoothly, the music discovers the quick coda ending of the movement.

(Part II.) Again, the music begins Andante, but smooth and mildly contrapuntal among the instruments. Soaring music then makes a landing, and repeated chord formations support a violin-cello duet that soon melts into a rich chordal transition. The violin-cello duet now plays an answer to their preceding statement, leading to a “vamping” segment a short, restful interlude. Imitative counterpoint among the quartet is now extensive, until the now-familiar brief melody comes from the viola and cello, while the violins accompany. The music continues with a review of several previous musical ideas, which “discover” the end of the movement.

(Part III.) No tempo is specified, but it could be marked Allegro giocoso. The music has the definite “feel” of Baltic folk music, and it has a quick dance impulse. We hear fast triplet rhythms and phrasing that frequently comes to a complete stop. As in the previous movements, this finale’s melodies are usually fragmentary and certain fragments repeat. Suddenly, the music is cast in a more moderate tempo, allowing melodies to become more lyrical. Soon, however, mischief brews, and we are on our way back to the whirling rhythms of the opening. Soon however, the music digresses (keeping the dance character, but exploring new moods and string effects). Like any good rondo, the music returns to the original main thematic matter, but this time in pizzicato. This, too, soon morphs into a wandering, quasi-developmental segment. The music seems to yearn for a return to familiar territory, and Bacewicz delivers it, returning to a full-blown re-statement of the main theme. But now the music builds toward a climax, which presents as a final dancing coda to the movement and the whole quartet.

BEETHOVEN: STRING QUARTET IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 74 “HARP”

For Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), the year 1809 was a year of both triumph and defeat. For one thing, he became financially secure through an annual income contributed jointly by Archduke Rudolph, Prince Lobkowitz, and Prince Kinsky. This allowed him to seriously contemplate marriage. However, it came as a severe blow when his proposal was rejected. It was also the year in which Beethoven solidified his chamber-music techniques after the experimentation and symphonic ideals expressed in the three “Razumovsky” Quartets, Op. 59. This solidification was achieved through writing the Quartet in E-flat, for a work in which Beethoven again seems at ease and in complete technical control. 

After a slightly mysterious slow introduction the main body of the first movement launches with an opening arpeggio motive. This proves to generate the passages that have lent the work its sobriquet, “Harp.” (The term arpeggio derives from the Italian arpeggiare, meaning to play the harp.) Indeed, Beethoven’s later treatment of the arpeggio motive is harplike, since he generally introduces it in pizzicato. This happens briefly in the exposition and in more expanded form during the development section. The first movement is a paragon of brevity and simple elegance.

For some, the middle movements are the high point of the quartet. The Adagio is a serene yet deeply emotional essay. Its romanticism is at once recognized by its expressive harmonies. The main theme, in musiclogist Joseph Kerman’s words, is “certainly one of Beethoven’s best lyrical ideas to date. Tender, and yet at the same time slightly remote in emotional quality.” Late in the movement, Beethoven’s vast capacity for pathos can be heard in passages where the first violin plays halting ornamental commentaries while lower strings spin out the chief melody. 

Beethoven’s characteristic driving rhythm typifies the Scherzo movement, marked Presto. The rhythmic motives of this portion of the work may strike the listener as a speeded up, yet “benign” relative of the Fifth Symphony’s Scherzo. The intenseness of the quartet’s main Scherzo section contrasts sharply with the broad humor of the Trio. Beethoven asks for a tempo twice as fast as the opening and composes the Trio in “textbook” double counterpoint. Here he is lampooning pedantic contrapuntists as well as himself (for around this time he compiled a series of counterpoint drills for Archduke Rudolf).

The final movement follows the Scherzo without break. It is in a traditional form binary theme with variations. Yet a remarkably untraditional feature is the alternating dynamic markings for the variations: semper forte (Var. 1, 3, and 5) and semper dolce e piano (Var. 2, 4, and 6). 

Kerman succinctly summarizes the “Harp” Quartet’s significance when he describes is as “a work of consolidation rather than exploration, a work which though by no means content to repeat something that has been done before, is content to move within an expressive framework laid down by its predecessors.”

Dr. Michael Fink, copyright 2022. All rights reserved. 

 

Tango amour program notes

Golijov: Omaramor

Carlos Gardel, the mythical tango singer, was young, handsome, and at the pinnacle of his popularity when the plane that was carrying him to a concert crashed and he died, in 1935. But for all the people who are seated today at the sidewalks in Buenos Aires and listening to Gardel’s songs in their radios, that accident is irrelevant, because, they will tell you, “Today Gardel is singing better than yesterday, and tomorrow he’ll sing better than today”. 

In one of his perennial hits, “My Beloved Buenos Aires”, Gardel sings: “The day I’ll see you again/My beloved Buenos Aires,/Oblivion will end,/There will be no more pain.” Omaramor is a fantasy on “My Beloved Buenos Aires”: the cello walks, melancholy at times and rough at others, over the harmonic progression of the song, as if the chords were the streets of the city. In the midst of this wandering the melody of the immortal song is unveiled. 

Omaramor is dedicated to Saville Ryan, “whose fire transforms the world.”

-Osvaldo Golijov

Piazzolla: Four, for Tango

The work of Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) has been aptly summarized as breaking with the traditional form of the Tango in the same ways Ravel did with the Viennese Waltz and Gershwin with the Blues. The “traditional form of the Tango” is a dance-song of Argentina developed before the 20th century out of such antecedents as the Cuban Habanera, which has a similar rhythm. Sudden, almost violent movements characterize this dance, performed by couples in a tight embrace. Similarly, the music contains sudden contrasts in rhythm and dynamics. Sentimentalized by American films, the “real” tango often contains song texts of an intensely emotional tone — sensual and bittersweet.

In many ways, Piazzolla was like an Argentine combination of George Gershwin and Aaron Copland. Learning first the bandoneón (button accordion), Piazzolla became interested in elevating his native Argentine music to the level of European art music. He studied piano with Sergei Rachmaninoff and composition with Nadia Boulanger, only to be shunned in Argentina for attempting to revolutionize the national dance. Eventually, the Argentines understood and respected his music.

At some point, Piazzolla promised to compose a work exclusively for the Kronos Quartet, which materialized in 1988 as Four, for Tango. This four-minute piece offers many of the “special” effects that have made the Kronos Quartet famous: various slides, varieties of pizzicato, percussive effects using the back of the bow to tap the instrument’s body, etc. In brief episodes, we hear a fragmented tango melody and intrinsic rhythmic accompaniment. In fact, we could say that rhythm dominates Four for Tango.

Schwertsik: Adieu Satie, Op. 86

Kurt Schwertsik (1935- ), after conventional musical training, found his voice as a composer. After studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (at the time called The Academy of Music), he was at first attracted to Serialism (atonal music without reference to any key). At first he studied with avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen at Cologne and Darmstadt around 1960, but then rejected Serialism in favor of a personal brand of tonal music. He has continued in that vein to the present time, and has met with success in doing so. Many of his works have been brought out in print by prominent publishers. He has also garnered several awards and prizes, notably the Silver Medal for Service to the City of Vienna (2006).

The title, Adieu Satie, refers to the French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925), whose 3 Gymnopédies for piano were well known to other French composers, notably Claude Debussy (who orchestrated one of them). Schwertsik’s tribute, Adieu Satie, is scored for string quartet and bandoneon (button accordion). The composer’s own program note for the work begins with the movement titles —

1.Parade

2.Darius en vacances [Darius on vacation]

3.Le Coq et l’Arlequin [The Cock and The Weather-Cock]

4.Gymnopédie [title concocted by composer Eric Satie]

5.Clownerie acrobatique [Acrobatic Clown Trick]

— and continues poetically:

You monastic clown,

who wished to banish the bourgeois from art

and disturb the hushed solemn whisperings of lofty art-lovers

with music hall, cabaret and the circus.

You Dadaist,

who refused to distinguish high from low art

good taste from bad

simple from incomprehensible ideas.

You patron saint,

of a modern ideal, which is my homeland

where I always wished to be: Utopia.

You navigator of time,

salvage the soul of modernity destroyed by Fascism

in your own chariot vanishing into eternity.

Adieu Satie

Translated by Richard Stokes © 2003

D’Rivera: Wapango (String Quartet Version)

A native Cuban, Paquito D’Rivera (1948- ) grew up in Havana. His father, a saxophonist, was his first teacher, who taught him to play the saxophone. He also took Paquito to Havana nightclubs to hear top-notch musicians, both Cuban and American, and to events featuring bands and symphony orchestras. In 1960, Paquito began studies at the Havana Conservatory, where he learned to play the clarinet as well as continuing formal music classes and saxophone lessons. 

With pianist classmate Chucho Valdés, Paquito formed the jazz-pop band Irakere in 1973, which played a fusion of jazz, rock, classical, and Cuban music. The group went on to win a Grammy Award in 1980 for Best Latin Recording for their album, Irakere. By that time, the band was well established, touring frequently, and Paquito had a wife and children.

However, the Communist Cuban government during this time had become oppressive, placing constraints on his music in the 1960s-1970s, labeling it “imperialist” and officially discouraging citizens from listening to it. A meeting with Che Guevara gave Paquito impetus to defect from Cuba, and in early 1980 he did so, gaining asylum in the U.S. Embassy, promising (successfully) to bring his close family out of Cuba.

Since 1980, Paquito’s career has blossomed. With his various ensembles, he has performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues; he has been granted numerous national awards; he has recorded prolifically; and he has received more than a dozen Grammys.

Latin American musical styles have continued to be at the forefront of his compositional interests, and he has branched out in several international directions. For example, his 5-minute piece, Wapango, has its basis in a native Mexican dance, the huapango. Robert Stevenson, expert on the music of Mexico writes, 

The huapango, a dance indigenous to the hot country between Tampico and Veracruz, capriciously alternates rhythms between 3/4 in one measure and 6/8 in the next. The rapid gait of the beats and the alternation of accents produces an extremely agitated and nervous dance. The word huapango has been variously derived. . . . Whatever derivation be accepted, the dance itself is mestizo [“mixed” Spanish and indigenous], not [purely] Indian.

D’Rivera’s Wapango freely employs these shifting accents. However, the main focus of the music at first is its flowing melody. This is varied in different ways and passed to and fro between the instruments, developed slightly here and there between phrases from the main melody. We often hear a free alternation between “sung” melody and dance impulse. In the end, the dance wins out.

Piazzolla: Five Tango Sensations

 Astor Piazzolla and his various “combos” had, by 1980, established the Argentine Tango as both a sensual dance and a platform for serious composition. Before the 1980s, Piazzolla had been rather a “folk” musician in his compositions and playing style. However, during the 1980s, he learned as much as he could about Classical and Modern Music. Thus, during that decade he developed new aspects and features in his own compositions. Now he employed more dissonance and special effects (especially for bowed string instruments), and new energy infused his works. He also was influenced by (and performed with) famous Classical and Jazz musicians, for example, the Kronos Quartet and Lalo Schifrin.

Eventually, the Argentines had understood and respected his newer music. He went on to compose national operas and music for Argentine films as well as presenting significant concerts in Buenos Aires and on the international scene. Piazzolla also contributed music to the Marlon Brando film, Last Tango in Paris

Five Tango Sensations had been “distilled” around 1983 from an earlier suite for one of Piazzolla’s groups. He first performed Sensations with a string quartet in Munich. In 1988, Piazzolla returned to New York to play Five Tango Sensations with the Kronos Quartet in a Central Park concert. Soon afterward he made an Elektra-Nonesuch recording of the work with them. It turned out to be the last recording in his life. Partly for that reason, the Five Tango Sensations CD became a phenomenal “hit,” remaining at the top of the Classical Music chart for more than a year.

“Asleep.” The bandoneon, both unaccompanied and accompanied by the strings, leads the music. (This passage is also repeated at the beginning of movements 2, 3, and 5.) This is mainly a three-note figure, heard in repetition and at various pitch levels. The bandoneon spins out this repetitious phrasing into longer ideas, freely improvising flourishes while the first violin plays counterpoint to them.

“Loving.” The strings now come to the fore as equal partners with the bandoneon, especially the high solo by the first violin. The strings’ trembling harmonies illustrate the movement’s title audibly.

“Anxiety.” Now we hear definite a definite quick dance impulse. Again quick, the music begins as a lively, agitated free fugue for the whole ensemble led by the bandoneon. Then, this surrenders to a quick repetitive rhythm (led by the bandoneon). Strings now play a more important role, drawing the music into a march just before the wind-up.

“Despertar.” A soft solo line from the bandoneon draws us into an intimate movement reminiscent of old romantic movie music. A four-note motive dominates here in a melody soon heard as a violin solo soon joined by the bandoneon. The music subtly becomes ominous, then passionate, then softly intimate. We have now come full circle to the four-note idea that built the first movement. Now, however, individual instruments hang brief comments on the sustained ending chord to close this movement.

“Fear.” Piazzolla begins this finale with the music that opened “Asleep,” the first movement.  After the strings join in, the music grows in subtly new ways, awakening to new developments in quasi-improvisatory ways. Here is a musical commentary on the first movement, enhanced by knocking sounds from the bandoneon. “Trembling” strings softly accompany. And the work ends in a quiet, ghostly atmosphere.

Notes by Dr. Michael Fink 2022

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