by Camerata San Antonio | Mar 11, 2023 | Concerts, Education, Quartet
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:
 |
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. |
|
|
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. |
 |
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. |
 |
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. |
by Camerata San Antonio | Mar 6, 2023 | Concerts, Program Notes, Quartet
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.
by Camerata San Antonio | Nov 23, 2022 | Concerts, Program Notes, Quartet
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
All rights reserved
by Camerata San Antonio | Feb 12, 2022 | Concerts, Program Notes, Quartet
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR: FANTASIESTÜCKE FOR STRING QUARTET, OP. 5
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was a black English composer-conductor of considerable talent and, in his day, a widespread reputation. Educated at the Royal Conservatory of Music (largely under scholarship), Coleridge-Taylor began to compose and achieve performances as early as 1893. Soon after leaving the Conservatory in 1897, he began to make a reputation as both a composer and conductor of choral music. Commissions from many English choral festivals came his way, and by 1910 he was famous enough as a conductor to be dubbed “The Black Mahler.”
At the time Coleridge-Taylor lived, exoticism was in high fashion and many composers were finding an identity in the music of their cultural roots. However, his idol was Anton Dvořák. Like Dvořák, he became fascinated with American Indians, especially in presentations like Longfellow’s poetry. Thus, his most famous works were a series of choral and orchestral pieces based on Hiawatha.
Coleridge-Taylor felt drawn to the United States in spite of prevailing prejudices. After a tour in which he was feted by no less than the President himself, the composer thought of emigrating, writing to a friend, “That which you and many others have lived in for so many years will not quite kill me. I am a great believer in my race.” The Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society, established in Washington, DC in 1901, is testimony that his race was (and is) also a great believer in him.
As the German spelling suggests, the 5 Fantasiestüke were inspired by Robert Schumann’s two sets of piano miniatures, which he titled Phantasiestüke (Fantasy Pieces). Composed in 1896 for strings, Coleridge-Taylor’s moderate-size essays explore many coloristic possibilities in a string ensemble.
The first movement, “Prelude,” Is structured in varied sections, which are sometimes contrasted in content and mood. “Prelude’ is inspired greatly by Schumann. Full of sweetness, its themes, alone and in counterpoint, reflect Schumann’s sensitivity.
No.2, “Serenade,” has a more wandering structure with each of the instruments lending mutual support. They explore several different melodies, as if walking along through newly discovered musical places.
No. 3, “Humoresque,” is a pixie scherzo in the manner of Mendelssohn. Though digressions from the main theme provide more forceful humor, the composer never loses sight of the Mendelssohnian ideal.
No. 4, “Minuet.” Trills and other decorations adorn this charming impression of the courtly 18th century. However, the Romantic-style harmonies and long-lined melodies place the music back in the hands of Coleridge-Taylor.
No.5, “Dance,” demonstrates the perennial imprint of the dance on concert-music finales. Coleridge-Taylor, however, places his own personal imprint on this music. Full of verve, the plentiful variety of themes and smaller musical ideas show the composer’s mastery of his medium as well as well as his ability to move his listeners.
BRIDGE: PIANO QUINTET IN D MINOR
Frank Bridge (1879-1941) Is not as well known to American audiences as perhaps he ought to be. He grew up at a time when Charles Stanford was the predominant English composer, and Bridge studied with Stanford during all of his four years at the Royal College of Music (1899-1903). Between then and the start of World War I (1914) Bridge was largely overshadowed by Edward Elgar, whose Pomp and Circumstances marches (for which he was knighted in 1904). Nevertheless, Bridge developed as a composer during the first decade of the 20th century.
The Piano Quintet came into being during that time. Bridge completed the four-movement first version in 1904, and it received some private insignificant public performances. However, the composer was dissatisfied with it, and put the work away until 1912. During those years, Bridge concentrated on playing the viola professionally and conducting, and he was considered one of the most gifted figures on the British music scene.
In 1912, Bridge retrieved and re-thought his Piano Quintet — we might even say “re-composed” the work, since revisions of the even proportion were radically revised. For example, the original to middle movements were melded into a single A-B-A (arch-form) movement.Briefly, the war (1914-1918) affected Bridge deeply, and his music became more dissonant and less key-associated. However, he could still train students traditionally. Notably, Benjamin Britten studied with him for several years of his youth. Britten went on to compose Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge in 1937 and to publish a memorial article in 1966, “Early influences — a Tribute to Frank Bridge.”
- Adagio – Allegro moderato – Adagio e sostenuto. From a beginning that resembles a cello sonata, the opening builds to a full ensemble presence. Then starting over, a new rhapsodic episode unfolds, becoming more intense until the main body of the movement (allegro), equally rhapsodic and unabashedly late-Romantic. Loose, free-wheeling development grows until it collapses into an echo of the opening adagio and a calm finish.
- Adagio ma non troppo – Allegro con brio – Adagio ma non troppo. Now the tripartite middle movement unfolds as an instrumental song. The piano and individual strings take turns, solo and in ensemble, presenting new phrases. The elfin scherzo central section is a complete contrast to what we have just heard. Mysteriously, the music brings us seamlessly back to the rhapsodic, smooth, stretched-out Adagio reprise of the opening music, ending very mysteriously..
- Allegro energico. Brilliant from the start, the quintet’s finale is marked by sudden contrasts, some in cultural styles (e.g., occasional gypsy connotations). This music is BIG in every sense. Even the softer central section has an inexplicable broadness, recalling ideas from the earlier movements. Long-lined rhapsodic themes in semi-improvisatory gestures lead to an ending in a truly GRAND style.
Notes by Dr. Michael Fink, 2021. All rights reserved.
by Camerata San Antonio | Dec 21, 2021 | Concerts, Program Notes, Quartet
Shostakovich: String quartet no. 8, op. 110
The intimate chamber idiom has its share of composers’ personal mottos and autobiographical references. Still, it is rare to glimpse into any composer’s memories as clearly as in the Eighth String Quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). This work contains a musical motto intended to symbolize his name, which is stated in the opening measures and reworked into each succeeding movement. Resembling J.S. Bach’s motto, B-A-C-H (B-flat, A, C, B), the Shostakovich notes are D, E-flat (Es in German), C, B-natural (H in German). Together, this sequence suggests “D. Sch.,” a German mnemonic of the composer’s initials. Still more autobiographical are the musical quotations from the composer’s earlier works and other familiar melodies, with possible references to the sounds of WW II bombers and gunfire. The words of Shostakovich’s closest biographers and of the composer himself can best complete our introduction to this quartet of 1960:
He worked on the score in Dresden. . . . The beautiful city of Dresden had been swept off the face of the earth in a single night, but was rising again from the ruins, all of which stirred old feelings seemingly locked in his past. It is not without cause that he dedicated the Eighth Quartet . . . to the memory of the victims of Nazism and war. . . . Written in no more than three days, as if poured from the depths of the artist’s soul, the quartet is autobiographical. . . . In the course of the quartet’s five continuous movements, themes from various compositions make their appearance
. . . from the opening subject of the First Symphony, which is interwoven with the Largo of the first movement, to the motifs from the movement entitled “Eternal Memory” in the Eleventh Symphony.
Dmitri and Ludmilla Sollertinsky, Pages from the Life of Dmitri Shostakovich
When I wrote the Eighth Quartet, it was also assigned to the department of “exposing fascism.” You have to be blind and deaf to do that, because everything in the quartet is as clear as a primer. I quote Lady Macbeth, the First and Fifth Symphonies. What does fascism have to do with these? The Eighth is an autobiographical quartet, it quotes a song known to all Russians: “Exhausted by the hardships of prison.”
And there is also the Jewish theme from the Piano Trio in this quartet. I think, if we speak of musical impressions, that Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it, it’s multifaceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It’s almost always laughter through tears.
Solomon Volkov, ed. Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich
Schubert: STring quartet in A minor, d.804
After Schubert had put aside his “Unfinished” Symphony in 1822, he did not give up the idea being a symphonist. On the contrary, he had grand plans for what would become the “Great” C Major Symphony, but he felt that he needed more seasoning in the instrumental domain. As a result, he turned his attention to chamber music, writing three string quartets and the Octet. After completing the Quartet in A Minor and the Quartet in D Minor (“Death and the Maiden”) in March 1824, he wrote to his friend, Leopold Kupelweiser, “I have written two quartets . . . and an octet, and I intend to write another quartet. In this manner, I want to pave the way to a grand symphony.” Although Schubert completed all three quartets, the A Minor was the only one in the trilogy to be published during his lifetime.
The first movement begins like one of Schubert’s songs: with a brief introduction (in fact, a little uneasy, like “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel”) leading to an exquisite lyrical melody. Following a vigorous transition, the second theme is, likewise, song-like. The development reveals some wonderfully colorful key explorations before settling down to a recapitulation that turns unexpectedly to the major mode for the second theme.
For the Andante’s main theme, Schubert borrows his own Entr’Acte music from Rosamunde. This he treats in a series of variations that cover a subtle variety of moods.
Alfred Einstein called the Menuetto movement “the germ or kernel of the A Minor Quartet,” also pointing out that it is a Ländler and not a minuet. In addition, it opens with a direct quotation from Schubert’s 1819 setting of Schiller’s ode, “The Gods of Greece.” If this quartet “is ‘about’ disenchantment and the loss of innocence,” as biographer John Reed asserts, then this movement, with its wistful pre-Brahms melancholy, epitomizes the work.
The rondo finale, set in A major, dispels some of that melancholy with its rustic flavor. But Einstein describes it as appearing “in the same Hungarian disguise which Schubert was to use again in Die Winterreise in an exactly similar sense: outwardly exuberant and chevaleresque, but . . . without any real consolation….” Nevertheless, the impetuousness and rhythmic verve of the finale does much to redirect the quartet’s previous moodiness onto a more positive course.
Notes by Dr. Michael Fink 2021. All rights reserved.
by Camerata San Antonio | Sep 1, 2021 | Concerts, Program Notes, Quartet
haydn: string quartet in e-flat major, op. 76/6
[In this work] it is easy to take at face value Haydn’s outer shell, the part he exposed to the public eye, as being the whole man. The Finale of No. 6 is dry, but the point that is being made is not one that admits of a Mozartian warmth, while the opening Allegretto fulfills exactly the same function as that in No. 5 — that of preparation for the slow movement. – H.C. Robbins-Landon
The graceful ingenuities of… No. 6… roll away like the process of peeling an onion… – Sir Donald Tovey
These comments expose the framework in which we should consider the E-flat Quartet: The man Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) had several layers of depth, and so did much of his music composed late in life. This quartet properly falls last in the half dozen works of Opus 76. The analogies of the onion and of an outer shell that holds inner treasures hold true. But so could the image of a revolving door, where Haydn can survey the entire 18th century on the inside, yet he also ventures into a preview of the 19th on the outside.
With a theme that could be a “prequel” to music by Robert Schumann, Haydn sets out the theme and variations that forms the quartet’s first movement. These variations are wide ranging in emotional and formalistic character, creating an underlying tension throughout. The climax comes in the fugue on part of the theme, ending this concise movement in a cheerful mood.
Often, you may find this quartet nicknamed “Fantasia.” That is because Haydn gave the Adagio second movement that title. Robbins Landon remarks, “… It can only be described as one of the boldest and most original movements in the whole eighteenth century.” Immediately, we realize that the opening theme is a remarkable forerunner to Beethoven’s slow “hymn-like” themes. The emotional, wandering harmonic character of sections contrasting with the “hymn” is also progressive — ahead of Haydn’s time. Ultimately, these tendencies merge in an extended epilogue, which can leave a listener nearly breathless.
Although Haydn titles the third movement “Menuetto,” its lively speed and witty character make it more of a scherzo — again, pre-echoes of Beethoven. Even the central section, “Alternativo,” is playful and humorous.
In the Allegro finale, short downward scale patterns form the chief thematic ideas. This movement is full of fun and Haydnesque droll humor. There seems to be no end to the descending scale fragments, and the composer seems determined to see how long he can work with them before his listeners grow uncomfortable. However, the master knows just when to wind things up with a brilliant, frothy finish.
Corea: Adventures of hippocrates
Chick Corea (June 12, 1941-February 9, 2021) was an important figure in modern jazz and rock performance and composition. A keyboardist of considerable reputation, his initial musical education came from his father (a professional musician) and from transcribing and learning improvised solos from records. Bud Powell and Horace Silver were early influences. Corea’s first professional experiences were with Latin bands, but in the late 1960s he joined Miles Davis’s group, which was pioneering jazz-rock fusion through electronic abstract jazz. When he formed his own avant-garde group, Circle, in 1970, it was to explore “free” jazz improvisation in a non-electronic sound environment. However, Corea gradually turned to synthesizers and other electronic devices to achieve his sound ideal. He developed as a composer during this period, with some of his tunes (notably Windows, Spain, and Crystal Silence), becoming jazz standards. Corea’s interest in the interaction of jazz and rock grew in the 1980s through the formation of a trio, the Elektric Band. Since then, the versatility and wide-ranging musical interests of Chick Corea have become legendary, and his name is known equally among jazz and rock listeners, as well as many classical enthusiasts.
About Hippocrates, Corea has written: “This quartet was written by a relatively inexperienced writer for strings (me) so, technically, my notation may be unorthodox (or standardly wrong). But I find that most string quartet players, knowing that, will go ahead and make the proper adjustments themselves. This is better than trying to alter the musical concept to fit the correct technical point. Hippocrates is the name of a little robot in a science fiction series by L. Ron Hubbard. There are 7 stories in the 2 volume set entitled Ole Doc Methuselah.”
In 1994, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Society and the Orion String quartet commissioned a work from Corea. The outcome was The Adventures of Hippocrates. This was to be Corea’s first work in which a keyboard was not the central instrument.The music is a suite of five substantial movements for string quartet, each exploring a different tempo and rhythmic character. The composer describes their character: (1) Quasi Tango, (2) Waltz, (3) Lyrical (4) Quasi-Rock, and (5) [Finale] (with a “swiftly-moving tempo”). The music is as fresh as writing a string quartet was for Chick Corea. However, we can perceive a few outside influences in this music, such as Astor Piazolla (the “godfather” of the modern Argentine tango) and Béla Bartók (whose Mikrokosmos for piano Corea had previously recorded), and Corea’s own ’70s recordings of Fusion-Rock and “Free” Jazz. Summing up Hippocrates, critic-musicologist Kai Christiansen writes:
Corea has always been a composer and keyboardist with a sophisticated sense of rhythm, harmony and linear momentum. But this string quartet commission challenged Corea to project these skills onto instruments foreign to his fingers as well as splitting his keyboard conception into four separate parts. The results are intriguing, challenging and effective, as is so much of the great music Corea has created in his distinctive style.
Beethoven: STring Quartet in g major, op.18/2
The six works of Opus 18 represent Beethoven’s first burst of energy in the direction of the string quartet. At the time of writing (1795-99) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) had ample opportunity to experiment with the medium and to hear his music when the ink was barely dry. He regularly attended the quartet sessions of Prince Lichnowsky and Emmanuel Förster, a composer who exerted a degree of influence upon young Beethoven. The group was placed at Beethoven’s disposal, giving him opportunities rarely afforded a composer.
The G Major Quartet, although placed second in publication, was the third in order of composition. More than in any other quartet, this is Beethoven’s homage to the wit of Haydn, the “father” of the string quartet. The work is nicknamed the “Compliment” Quartet, and Beethoven appears to pay his respects formally in the elaborate opening. Joseph Kerman writes that “it seems irresistibly to summon up images of courtly bowing and scraping in some never-never-land of rococo fantasy.”
Beethoven follows this introduction with the real meat of the exposition. His ready-set-go transition theme evolves into the secondary material soon to become important. In the development section, he employs as many themes as he can, in as many ways as possible. Characteristically, Beethoven’s recapitulation also presents material in new ways. The coda brings the wit of this movement into full bloom.
The Adagio is justifiably famous for one of Beethoven’s innovations. After exposing a sumptuous main theme, he abruptly inserts a section in binary song-form marked Allegro. Following this unpredictable but highly effective segment, the Adagio reprises with the cello and first violin sharing the honors.
Marked “Scherzo,” the third movement is a quickened minuet using galloping rhythms. The Trio section follows more the conventional 18th-century tradition.
The spirit of Haydn smiles through the main theme of the finale. But this playful rondo movement reflects the Haydnesque humor in new, Beethovenian ways. For example, there are false returns of the main theme in “wrong” keys, and mock-scowling shadings of the theme in the minor mode. The quartet ends with two codas: the first pompous and inflated and the second light and witty.
Notes by Dr. Michael Fink. All rights reserved. Copyright 2021
