Program Notes for Apple Hill
Kinan Azmeh, In the Element for Clarinet and String Quartet
Ludwig van Beethoven, String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, opus 130
Layale Chaker, Orison (Prayer) (2017)
Ernst Dohnanyi, Serenade (1902)
Sir Edward Elgar, Piano Quintet in A minor, op. 84
Faure, Gabriel, Piano Quartet in C minor
Gabriela Lena Frank, Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout for String Quartet
Philip Glass, String Quartet No. 4
Pavel Haas, Four Songs on Chinese Poetry and String Quartet No. 2
Joseph Haydn, String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2
Joseph Haydn, String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54, No. 2
Charles Koechlin, String Quartet no. 1, op. 54
Celso Garrido-Lecca, String Quartet No. 2
Dana Lyn, Looking for Lady Gordon–A Suite for Fiddle and String Quartet
Featured on the new Apple Hill String Quartet CD
Mendelssohn, Felix, String Quartet in D Major, Op. 44, No. 1
Mendelssohn, Felix, Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Quintet in D Major, K. 593
Price, Florence, Five Folk Songs in Counterpoint for String Quartet
Henry Purcell, Fantasias for viols
Featured on the new Apple Hill String Quartet CD
Ahmed Adnan Saygun, String Quartet No. 1
Featured on the new Apple Hill String Quartet CD
Schubert, Franz, String Trio in B-flat Major, D. 471 (1816)
Shostakovich, Dmitri, String Quartet no. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
Shostakovich, Dmitri, 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87
Pyotr Tchaikovsky, String Quartet no. 1, op. 11
Aleksandra Vrebalov, Pannonia Boundless
Concert Info
Kinan Azmeh in his element at Apple Hill
Kinan Azmeh
In the Element for Clarinet and String Quartet
Commissioned by the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and the Apple Hill String Quartet
Note by Kinan Azmeh
I was sixteen years old when I first visited the US on a scholarship to study chamber music at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber music in New Hampshire. It was exactly in this beautiful surrounding where I first played chamber music. It was summer of 1992 while playing the fabulous Mozart Clarinet Quintet that I decided to be a professional musician.
Years went by and I kept a close relationship with the place and its wonderful musicians who became close friends, and I ended up going back to Apple Hill many times as coach and clarinetist.
Twenty-five years later, summer of 2017, I was back again at Apple Hill and was caught in the rain during a run. I ran back to the camp soaking wet and sat on one of the outside benches and looked up as the rain was falling. One of my colleagues described the scene as “here is a person in his element” and that could not be more true.
The rain, the run and the surrounding soundtrack did that. These two movements try to depict some of that feeling of being “In the element”.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, opus 130
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
Beethoven’s set of “late quartets,” opuses 127, 130-133, and 135, are sprawling, outrageously complex compositions, swirling with dark undercurrents and barely restrained chaos. They were greeted with skepticism and bewilderment by most of Beethoven’s contemporaries, who expected an orderly march from the legacy of Haydn and Mozart—innovation of a genteel and rational sort within a genre whose respectability had been established. But if Haydn had conceived the string quartet as a vehicle of poise and elegance, Beethoven demanded profundity of that elegance and molded poise into a strong framework from which to plumb the depths of the soul. Beethoven’s was arguably the most dynamic, creative, and innovative composing career in history, and during his tortured twilight years—deaf, frequently ill and in pain, preoccupied with his troubled relationship with his nephew—he focused his last blaze of creative energies solely on string quartets. The irresistible narrative of timeless sublimity emerging from the crucible of suffering has lent these works a unique combination of mythical status and intimate familiarity.
The finale of opus 130 was in fact the last piece of music Beethoven completed before his death. He originally wrote the towering Grosse Fugue (eventually published as opus 133) as finale; when his publisher balked at the composite length and complexity, Beethoven agreed to replace the Fugue with a tidier rondo finale. Still, the first movement sets a high bar from the outset: an expansive combination of (at least) two competing characters, an Adagio and an Allegro, it hints at the traditional sonata form while progressing according to intuitive and spontaneous rules of its own. Nothing seems logical—not the mysterious, shifting harmonies of the opening, nor the short convulsions of motion that subside as quickly as they spring up, nor the haunting scraps of melody that appear from nowhere in the development—yet that is precisely what gives the music such a strong sense of immediacy and intent. A larger vision exists just beyond the scope of our momentary comprehension, and the four voices are unified in realizing it. It is as if the normal ingredients of composition have been shredded, elaborated, and embellished, then reassembled into a microcosmic and entirely self-sufficient world.
In contrast to the complexity of the first movement, there are four short middle movements, each with a strong and distinct personality. The Presto is a sort of scherzo or intermezzo that begins elegant and nimble, jumps to a rollicking B section, then careens through some terrifyingly abrupt chords before slipping back into its polished guise. The Andante third movement belies its ominous opening to embark on a sunny stroll with only the most fleeting shadows. The next, Alla danza Tedesca (“in the style of a German dance”), is a rustic waltz that swoops and twirls with irrepressible high spirits. The famously eloquent Cavatina is an aria of sorts led by the first violin, with a delicate melodic line that sometimes soars and sometimes loses itself within the warm, chorale-like accompaniment. (So beloved is this movement that it was given the final place of honor on the “golden record,” the compilation of music from Earth included as part of humanity’s interstellar calling-card aboard the 1977 Voyager spacecraft.)
The finale offers a basically orderly progression of thematic material in rondo form. The main melody, though acrobatic, generally behaves itself—summoning joyful, stampeding outbursts to counterbalance, along with the obligatory devilish tangle of imitation and counterpoint. Like the entire work, it’s a labyrinth constructed and navigated successfully, with ingenuity and grace.
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Layale Chaker (b. 1990)
Orison (Prayer) (2017)
This trio piece is an abstract, profane prayer, inspired by sacred music and Syriac vocal hymns, that resonate a lot in my memory and that are an inherent part of me. The trio setting provided me with a space of intimacy and meditation, as the two other performers and I were working very closely, and I wanted to explore it as such. The first movement in particular is an elegy to this memory. The second movement is an invitation of other influences I have, especially the intricate rhythms and polyrythms in Indian Carnatic music (called Jathis). The third movement makes use the colors of a Maqam rarely used, Athar Kurd, in a new, imperceptible way. This Maqam has a sister Raga called Divyamani, also rarely ever used in Carnatic music performance. I was interested in those colors that were on the fringes of both cultures, and worked with them as a vertical exploration, as opposed to the traditional horizontal progression.
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Ernst Dohnanyi (1877-1960)
Serenade (1902)
Dohnányi’s Serenade is a multi-movement gem packed with musical riches. Following tradition, the Serenade begins with a lively march that features a rustic tune full of Hungarian flavor. A slow movement Romanze follows, featuring the viola accompanied by guitar-like pizzicato, interrupted briefly by a passionate outburst. The virtuosic third-movement scherzo features a bristling fugue and a tuneful trio that combine simultaneously in the scherzo reprise. A hymn-like theme provides the basis for a beautiful set of variations that lead to a rollicking Rondo finale that suggests the influence of Beethoven’s string trios as models. The opening march cleverly remerges to close the Serenade.
Sir Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Piano Quintet in A Minor, op. 84
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
Individuality and expression are the hallmarks of Romanticism. Elgar was the most famous British figure of the movement’s twilight years, and his skill was made all the more poignant by a heightened nostalgia brought on by the encroachment of modernism. In the same way that Schumann’s Kinderszenen evoke lost realms of childhood, or Brahms’s Hungarian Dances a carefree and swashbuckling vision of Gypsy life, the beauty and richness of Elgar’s music conjures aspects of England that are both immutable and mythologized: cool woods, country hamlets, an orderly way of life guided by tradition.
That these elements of classic Englishness were distinctly and complexly woven into Elgar’s personal history is what makes his musical voice so distinctive and compelling. He was born in a quintessential country hamlet—Broadheath, near Worcester—which he periodically returned to and which retained a special hold on his imagination, even as the cosmopolitan bustle of London and its promise of success exerted their pull. In the decade before the “Enigma” Variations finally brought him the fame he craved, Elgar had already mounted one failed attempt at making a name for himself in London, where the rigid class and social structure made him feel his outsider’s status sharply. Elgar was the son of a provincial shopkeeper and piano tuner who had supported himself since the age of 15 with the hustle of a freelancer’s life and married one of his piano students, an accomplished woman of superior social class eight years his senior. A lingering sense of inferiority brought on by his modest origins nagged at Elgar despite his achievement of every trapping and substantive indicator of success. His wife, Alice, remained his devoted partner, business manager, and artistic confidante throughout her life, never regretting a decision that led to her disownment. The self-taught composer who couldn’t afford his youthful dream of attending the Leipzig Conservatory ended up with honorary doctorates from Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale. Elgar was knighted in 1904, the same year that a three-day Elgar Festival was held at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (a first for a living composer). Yet as a shopkeeper’s son among aristocrats, a Catholic among Protestants, and a DIY learner among academics, he invariably felt excluded from the sanctum sanctorum of the elites.
Though convictions are flimsy armor against social pain, Elgar’s own romantic sensibilities had early on brought him to the conviction that the artist’s natural role was as outsider. The extra incentive to travel was occasion for absorbing the work of foreign musicians including Saint-Saens, Anton Rubinstein, and Wagner. Elgar also perfected the art of expressing his conflicted emotions and inner turmoil in his music while only hinting at the specifics. His style is like a fractured mirror reflecting hidden depths—the seductive puzzle, literally, of the breakthrough “Enigma” Variations. The ambiguity of Elgar’s passions gives the listener’s projections free reign, and this valuable service contributed in no small part to the widespread popularity of his music. One type of romantic carries his heart on his sleeve; the more effective type wraps his aching heart in semi-transparent veils of form and propriety.
Elgar wrote the Piano Quintet during the summer of 1918, while in retreat from the troubles of the wider, war-torn world in the groves of rural Sussex. Although reflection and spiritual rejuvenation brought on by natural surroundings played a major role in that summer’s effusion of chamber music, Elgar’s wife mentioned another, more gothic inspiration in her diary: a local legend of evil monks whose spirits inhabited a copse of gnarled trees. The Quintet does indeed display an evocative mix of the pastoral and the sinister, especially in the moody and far-flung first movement. Both imposing and intimate, it unfolds episodically and reveals a grand, dramatic vision. Recurring passages and motives include the creeping, fragmented melody of the opening; a yearning string interlude with a Wagnerian sigh in the cello; a brusque, martial 6/8; a lilting, seductive dance, and a soaring wash of impressionist harmonies in the strings over a rippling piano motive. In the middle of the movement, a fugal section leads to a booming climax.
The viola leads off the second movement, a noble Adagio. The lyrical melody navigates flourishes, murky diminished harmonies, and rhythmic bluster to emerge grand and triumphant, though rarely untroubled—a work of classic, mature Romanticism. The third movement is introduced by the return of the Wagnerian cello motive from the first movement, leading into the main theme, a headstrong waltz. Here Elgar finally unleashes the full extent of the ensemble’s power, with the rich, orchestral sound of unison strings and virtuosic cascades from the piano. Moments of individual rhapsodizing regroup again in groundswells of excitement. Later on, the impressionist episode from the first movement returns as well, then a slow version of the sultry dance—moments of nostalgia that shimmer like mirages amid the sound and fury of the tumultuous, exultant finale.
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Gabriel Faure (1845-1924)
Piano Quartet in C minor
The creation of the C minor Piano Quartet began in the summer of 1876 but not completed until 1879. It is dedicated to the acclaimed Belgian violinist Hubert Léonard, a friend of the composer. It has been Fauré’s most popular chamber creation since its premiere in Paris on February 14, 1880. For a young work, the Quartet is a remarkable achievement in instrumental color, formal clarity, harmonic sophistication and melodic richness.
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Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1972)
Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout for String Quartet
Note by the composer
Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout for String Quartet draws inspiration from the idea of mestizaje as envisioned by the Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, where cultures can coexist without the subjugation of one by the other. As such, this piece mixes elements from the western classical and Andean folk music traditions. “Toyos” depicts one of the most recognizable instruments of the Andes, the panpipe. One of the largest kinds is the breathy toyo which requires great stamina and lung power, and is often played in parallel fourths or fifths. “Tarqueada” is a forceful and fast number featuring the tarka, a heavy wooden duct flute that is blown harshly in order to split the tone. Tarka ensembles typically also play in fourths and fifths. “Himno de Zampoñas” features a particular type of panpipe ensemble that divides up melodies through a technique known as hocketing. The characteristic sound of the zampoña panpipe is that of a fundamental tone blown flatly so that overtones ring out on top, hence the unusual scoring of double stops in this movement. ”Chasqui” depicts a legendary figure from the Inca period, the chasqui runner, who sprinted great distances to deliver messages between towns separated from one another by the Andean peaks. The chasqui needed to travel light. Hence, I take artistic license to imagine his choice of instruments to be the charango, a high-pitched cousin of the guitar, and the lightweight bamboo quena flute, both of which are featured in this movement. “Canto de Velorio” portrays another well-known Andean personality, a professional crying woman known as the llorona. Hired to render funeral rituals even sadder, the llorona is accompanied here by a second llorona and an additional chorus of mourning women (coro de mujeres). The chant Dies Irae is quoted as a reflection of the comfortable mix of Quechua Indian religious rites with those from Catholicism. “Coqueteos” is a flirtatious love song sung by gallant men known as romanceros. As such, it is direct in its harmonic expression, bold, and festive. The romanceros sing in harmony with one another against a backdrop of guitars which I think of as a vendaval de guitarras (“storm of guitars”).
Philip Glass
String Quartet No. 4
One of the champions of the minimalist style is composer Philip Glass, who was born in Baltimore January 1937 and studied composition with V. Persichetti and Darius Milhaud and later in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. In Paris he got a job transcribing the music of Ravi Shankur into Western notation for a film maker and in the process, he discovered his true voice and began writing music that incorporated non-Western elements and techniques. His work culminated in his opera Einstein on the Beach, considered a landmark of 20th century music, and music for the film Koyanisquatsi, which was shown world-wide.
The String Quartet #4 was composed in remembrance of the artist Brian Buczak, a NYC avante garde artist who died of AIDS in 1988. The somber, muted mood is trademark Glass, with repetitive figurations, scale motifs, and undulating arpeggios. But the music of this quartet, perhaps due to the fact that it is written in memory of someone, has a harmonic richness and somber mournful feel to it that is very striking and hypnotically beautiful as it unfolds, inspiring a contemplative state in the listener willing to go with the flow.
Written in three movements, the first begins with a melancholy sequence of chords, in slow, regular, almost funereal succession. This theme is followed by a series of variations that explore the variances of arpeggios, scales, and figuration that are associated with Glass that we demonstrated earlier.
The slow central movement contains one of Glass’ most exquisitely scored melodies, first soaring high and slow in the violins an octave apart against thick, decorated whole-note chords in viola and cello creating a startling sensation – perhaps of the spirit leaving the body.
The final movement begins with a lighter more transparent chord sequence which leads to comforting scale-wise melodies and cadences, a warm and necessary return to the familiar but no longer quotidian or the ordinary world of the living.
Pavel Haas (1899–1944)
String Quartet No. 2
Four Songs on Chinese Poetry
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
Czech composer Pavel Haas is, sadly, best known for a career abruptly truncated by the Holocaust, and a last burst of creativity in the Terezín camp before he was sent to his death. Though Haas’s output was modest, it is distinguished by a freewheeling but cogent synthesis of influences, accepting the torch of Czech nationalism from Dvořák, Smetana, and Janáček and combining it with a wealth of traditional and modern elements. Born in Brno, Haas’s most artistically formative experience was the two years he spent in Janáček’s masterclass at the Brno Conservatory. He worked in his father’s shoemaking business, then as a music teacher, while composing under a rigorously self-critical standard. (He only granted 18 of his works opus numbers).
Haas’s String Quartet No. 2, subtitled “From the Monkey Mountains,” is a rakishly creative meeting of unexpected bedfellows: evocative scene-painting, sketches of an elusive narrative, and snippets of nightclub jazz bumping up against folk flavors of his native Moravia. The Monkey Mountains were a nickname for the Vysočina region in the Moravian highlands, a popular summer vacation spot. Written when the composer was 26 and inspired by what must have been a high-spirited summer holiday, the quartet hops between the real and the fantastical, sunlit vistas and neon-lit nights—exploring the borderland between normal life and the seductive unknown that’s the territory of good vacations.
The quartet proceeds in four whimsically titled, continuously evolving movements, often underscored, as in the opening of the first movement, “Landscape,” with interlocking rhythmic motives. “Landscape” unfolds with grandeur, as the violin and cello shape an expansive and mysterious melody in octaves. Both the rhythmic motives and melody swirl and agitate, leading the traveler over rocky outcroppings and blustery knolls; later they subside into more placid contours before winding up again with increasing bouts of chromaticism and an emphatic rhythmic spasm that gives the last word to the second violin. “Coach, Coachman and Horse” is a surreal, buffoonish sort of scherzo that presumably illustrates the efforts of the titular trio—alternately a halting plod and a reckless gallop, with a hint of polka. “The Moon and I” follows up this circus atmosphere with a slow, suspended meditation that lingers on blue notes and dissonances; the viola emerges to lead a soulful lament set in relief among boldly drawn countermelodies. “Wild Night” is the quartet’s uninhibited conclusion, full of careening flurries and a cabaret-style dance tune that veers between carefree, coquettish, and raucous—although there’s also time for a poignant (tipsy?) reverie. Haas’s original scoring adds a percussionist to this movement, although this apparently tipped the scales, in the view of his refined audiences, far enough into depravity that he later felt compelled to remove it.
The contrast between the revelry of the String Quartet No. 2 and the devastatingly grim environment that gave rise to Haas’s Four Songs on Chinese Poetry could not be starker. These songs were written during the composer’s final months in the Terezín ghetto/concentration camp (Theresienstadt), where he was imprisoned from 1941 until his deportation and death at Auschwitz in October 1944. Despite its prison conditions, Terezín hosted a bustling cultural life due to a high concentration of prominent artists and the Nazi’s desire to present it as a model community to dispel rumors of their genocidal activities. Located in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, Terezín counted among its inmates Jewish Czech composers including Haas, Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, and Hans Krása, as well as numerous instrumentalists, poets, and artists. The inmates, nominally governed by a self-selected “Jewish council,” were allowed to organize orchestras, choirs, jazz and cabaret groups, as well as self-produced operas, plays, and music classes. Propaganda efforts intensified in spring of 1944, as the Nazis prepped Terezín for a Red Cross inspection; a performance of Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár was presented for the visitors. The Nazis decided to follow up in September with a film by actor and director Kurt Gerron, another prisoner. The participants of these key performances were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz when their time in the spotlight ended.
Deeply depressed upon his arrival in the camp, Haas was bolstered by his colleagues and ended up composing at least eight works. By this time he had fully merged the Czech nationalist tradition inherited from Janáček with his own personal but far-reaching vision. It is perhaps natural that trapped in the midst of a warped nationalist nightmare, Haas was drawn to the universal themes and distant perspective of the Four Songs’ texts. Originally written at the request of young bass Karel Berman for a lieder recital, the songs set four poems by different Chinese poets of the medieval Tang Dynasty in a classic Czech translation by Bohumil Matthesius. The poems’ subjects are loneliness, desolation, and longing for home. With their somber, occasionally angular lyricism over turbulent accompaniment, they display emotional clarity and force as well as a raw sting. The most striking contrast of all comes at the conclusion of the last song, “Sleepless Night,” as the speaker sinks into memory while “jackdaws already chirp the day awake.” In Haas’s setting, a merry “la-la-la” carries the song to its end in a sudden swirl of motion. This burst of manic energy, whatever its source—a need to create a semblance of gayety for his captors, a nod to absurdity, the conviction that life is only a dream, or something else—is one more facet of our glimpse into the troubled mind of an inventor confronting a world of beauty, cruelty, and chaos. The stark contrast between the vitality music of Terezín and the horror of the Holocaust opens up metaphysical questions about the nature of music. As Viktor Ullmann said, “our will to create culture was as strong as our will to live,” and so it is that we have a few rare gems from these composers’ final days.
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2
Note by Chris Darwin
Writing in four parts had been recognized both in theory and practice as the bedrock of string music long before the 1750s when Haydn started to compose string quartets. The 18-year-old Haydn got into writing for a quartet of strings thanks to one Baron Fürnberg, who asked him to write something to be played at his place at Weinzierl in the Wachau valley. The four musicians were the local pastor, his estate manager, Haydn, and the cellist brother of Johann Albrechtsberger, who later taught Beethoven composition. The resulting Op 1 & 2 quartets were still, both in name and form, divertimenti.
For the next 10 years Haydn wrote no quartets; his energies went into composing for and conducting Prince Nicholas Esterházy’s weekly orchestral concerts, and in composing scores and scores of trios for the prince’s baryton (a sort of viola da gamba) with viola and cello. But then, in the five years running up to his 40th birthday, in an extraordinary burst of creativity, Haydn invented the string quartet. His baryton trio experience had no doubt given him facility in small ensemble part-writing. He could therefore express new musical ideas in structures that gave equal contrapuntal weight to the four parts.
The newly liberated cello opens the C Major quartet singing above both the viola’s base line and the second violin’s close harmony. At the start of the development, the second violin and viola drive a relentless accompaniment while the first violin and cello lead each other astray into remote keys with a motif derived from the opening bar. Then the viola gets to soar, cello-like, with the opening theme. Four truly equal partners.
The equality of the partners is also apparent in the opening of the darkly intense Adagio: four bars of unison followed by the cello restating the theme to the accompaniment of the upper strings. Although the first violin subsequently gets most of the decorative passagework, it is frequently joined by the others to give a rich texture. The viola is given a complex triplet accompaniment to the first violin’s soaring cantabile second theme, then the second violin takes the theme while the first takes over the triplet accompaniment.
The Minuet contrasts the drone of a syncopated and then chromatically drooping bagpipe with the call of a chirpy bird, while in the Trio the cello sings out a theme derived from the droop.
The last movement is a contrapuntal tour de force: a four-part fugue with four themes, played sotto voce until a forte outburst shortly before the end. Just over halfway through Haydn writes al rovescio as he inverts the fugal subject. In the autograph edition at the forte outburst, Haydn wrote “Laus. Omnip. Deo. Sic fugit amicus amicum” (Praise the Lord. Thus one friend flees another friend).
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
String Quartet in C Major, Op. 54, No. 2
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
Haydn, the “father of the string quartet” as he is commonly known, provided the music world with not only multitudinous offspring, but well-formed and individual ones. The 68 string quartets included in his oeuvre are unfailingly unique, concise, graceful, complex, and perpetually inventive. It is precisely the tidy façade of classicism that sets their subversive elements in relief, for Haydn was skilled at simultaneously celebrating and undermining traditional forms. Celebrated for his playfulness and wit, Haydn’s compositional ethos demonstrates what every lifelong humorist knows: wit is an unimpeachable—and therefore powerful—tool in the arsenal of a revolutionary.
Haydn spent the better part of the years between 1760 and 1790 in near-isolation, as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy court, a position that offered outstanding job security and resources but little freedom to engage with the outside world. This self-contained environment, with strict mores governing relations between the classes, undoubtedly magnified the insularity of the professional musician’s world, with its host of colorful characters and professional intrigue. One of these characters was Johann Tost, leader for a time of the second violins in Haydn’s orchestra. Tost left the position in 1788 to travel and freelance abroad, and Haydn, contractually tied to his Esterházy job, deputized him to seek foreign publishers for six of his quartets, opuses 54 and 55. There were as yet few rules in the field of international copyright, and Haydn had become savvy in maximizing his profits through multiple publishing contracts. Tost, as his delegate, seems to have brought a similarly entrepreneurial spirit to resales, as well as to sales of “authentic” manuscripts of dubious origin and items from the Esterházy library that somehow found their way into his luggage. Nevertheless, at the time Haydn was grateful enough for Tost’s efforts that he officially dedicated his next set of string quartets, op. 64, to him. Given the virtuosity of the violin writing, Tost must have been a skilled instrumentalist. Even so, he continued to pursue his business ambitions by returning to Eszterháza, marrying a housekeeper with a significant nest egg, and using the money to establish himself as a successful cloth merchant in Vienna.
Haydn’s appreciation for vagaries and juxtapositions, whether charming, cruel, or absurd, encompassed both his musical perception and his worldview—attributes which in the best composers are inextricably combined. Familiarity with his work brings the realization that playfulness is no mere decoration or witty aside, but a core characteristic. Courting zaniness and impetuosity, Haydn demonstrates a calculated willingness to sacrifice the niceties of style for something arresting, emotionally direct, and visceral. The second string quartet of opus 54 is no exception: it juggles characters and hops between wildness, elegance, froth, and profundity with disarming poise. The first movement’s opening motive begins with a brusque chord and a zigzagging plunge in the first violin which quickly peters out into a soft landing and one of Haydn’s trademark cheeky post-cadential tags—a preview of the mercurial nature of the entire movement, in which cascades of virtuosic triplets careen out of control one minute and segue into decorous restraint the next. The Adagio is brief and solemn, with the first violin rising out of a chorale-like texture in a plaintive recitative that is deeply passionate yet also suggests the overt drama of the opera stage. The minuet, a traditional form of courtly elegance, is infused with more than a little earthy rusticity; the trio hints, again, at operatic bluster. The finale brings an utterly unexpected turn: rather than the usual frothy rondo, Haydn devotes most of the movement to a sweet, cantabile Adagio. Any traces of rancor, instability, and shadows dissolve, leaving only the slightest tinge of melancholy; the simple, stately motive philosophically traverses a shifting harmonic tapestry. Finally a short Presto arrives—the expected blithe conclusion—but it cedes to a reprise of the Adagio for the quartet’s final, quietly satisfied conclusion. The entire work is so skillfully assembled that we have to take a step back to realize the emotional breadth and web of ambiguities wrapped up in its well-proportioned elegance.
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Charles Koechlin (1867-1950), String Quartet no. 1, op. 54
Note by Stephen Ai
Although known today primarily for his large output of pedagogical texts and compositions, Alsatian composer, pedagogue, and musicologist Charles Koechlin, seems somewhat unfocused when measured against our modern standards. The seventh child of influential textile designers, Koechlin embodied the decadent buzz of fin-de-siècle Parisian bourgeois society, dabbling passionately in diffuse hobbies such as mountaineering, astronomy, photography, and competitive swimming, all while avoiding permanent appointments at conservatories with regular salaries. In August of 1947, Koechlin fiercely defended his professional filibustering in an article entitled, “Art et liberté — Tour d’ivoire” (Art and Freedom — Ivory Tower), writing that his self-imposed isolation was necessary for artistic inspiration, with a slight caveat. This isolation was not one of complete detachment from the material world as traditionally understood, but rather one of keen observation; Koechlin’s ivory tower served as a point from which to enact positive social utility through art, casting a “beam [that] illuminates the world with beneficent clarity.”
Koechlin’s unique mode of composition as observation is perhaps the strongest thread that binds his diverse and at times esoteric musical output. Indeed, we find a strong fascination with nature across his opus: sprawling, polytonal, multi-movement, the Jungle Book cycle (opp. 95, 175, 176), details the omnipotent and protectorial role of the jungle; six film miniatures inspired by swimming and sea water (op. 140); and several chamber pieces about the effects of light and sunshine, among them his Viola Sonata (op. 53) and Second Quintet (op. 223), to name a few. It is important to note that these depictions of nature were not simply one-to-one imitations, but rather exercises of representation and reciprocality. For Koechlin, music had the special power to reach into and interface with the contested area between the manmade and the natural. In his own words, music allows one to “investigate the mysterious links between Nature and the imagination.” Here, nature is human, and the human is natural. When listening to Koechlin’s music, we find ourselves staring slack-jawed at Nature’s immensity, and it playfully winks back in response.
The First String Quartet is no exception. The first movement begins in a warm D major, with sinuous violin lines above bagpipe drones in the cello, recalling the pastoral mountain landscapes familiar to Koechlin on his mountaineering treks. The melody whistles aimlessly, traversing naturally like the wind through irregular and regular time signatures, alternating between 6/4, 4.5/4, 9/4, and 3.5/4. There is, however, something deeply unsettling. Despite the fluidity of the melody, the music seems to lurch at each barline; Koechlin’s wind rails against the human inclination towards regular structure. The second movement, a scherzo, similarly follows an irregular rhythmic design. The once-unsettling lurch is reinterpreted as a flight of child-like whimsy, with each entrance of the nursery rhyme melody interrupting the previous. In the third movement, we find ourselves mired in a slow-flowing and dense chromatic soup. Koechlin flips the script in the finale, bursting with Neo-classical optimism. This exuberance finally finds rest at the end of the piece by slipping into a comfortable cadence in A major away from our D major beginnings in the first movement. Here, in a final twist of irony, Koechlin throws off Classical expectations of harmonic closure in a Mozartean manner, as if to honor the natural course of the music’s ebb and flow over the artificial constraints expected by his training.
Michael Kropf (b. 1991)
String Quartet
Note by Michael Kropf
I first heard the Apple Hill String Quartet perform when I was young adolescent participant of the Apple Hill Summer Chamber Music Workshop (a wonderful and transformative summer music program). Apple Hill has been the location of some of my most treasured music making experiences. During my summers there, I have come to know the members of the resident Apple Hill String Quartet as teachers, mentors, and friends, and the chance to collaborate with them now as a composer has been very meaningful to me.
The piece begins with a twelve-note figure in which each alternating pitch is played by a different instrument and held for a distinct length of time. In this way, the pitches of the figure each sustain and resolve at their own pace, creating a kind of harmonic kaleidoscope. This idea of suspension and motion goes through a number of increasingly pulsing and volatile transformations before lurching into a rhythmically unhinged climax. These savage gestures gradually fade, revealing the harmonic kaleidoscope still slowly churning underneath.
Part 2 takes the last moments of Part 1 and crystallizes them into a single undulating gesture that continues through the duration of the five-minute long movement. This gesture begins as a melody in the viola, and is made up of descending sets of pitches which are selectively “pedaled” by the other instruments of the quartet. As the movement progresses, the single melody gradually gives way to polyphony, and the narrowly-focused register of the beginning is slowly and laboriously expanded outward.
Part 3 brings back the opening figure of the piece, but in a new melodic and rhythmic context. Winding melodies give way to a new accented figure which orbits chaotically around an increasingly agitated harmonic sequence. The kaleidoscope of the opening returns one final time, in a more listless form, before the accented figure forcibly returns to end the piece.
Celso Garrido-Lecca (b.1926)
String Quartet No. 2
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
We’ve always been connected to our neighbors in the southern part of the New World. Our histories and identities have evolved in parallel branches, with patterns of conquest, upheaval, amalgamation, conflict, growth, and rebirth that contain similarities but also marked differences. To be a Latin American artist was (and still is), in many times and places, a dangerous thing. Art is so often a powerful statement of identity and values, and those whose creations are made from threads at odds with the official narrative of power threaten those who rule by force. The history of composition in 20th-century Latin America is dynamic and complex because it tackles that all-important question of how to define a nation and its culture organically rather than by force.
Like many of his contemporaries, Celso Garrido-Lecca, born in 1926 in Piura, Peru, undertook the challenge of creating authentic Peruvian and Chilean music in the classical tradition in the modern world. Over the course of a long and fruitful career, he has emerged as one of Peru’s leading contemporary composers. Garrido-Lecca himself divides the course of his artistic development into three periods, each influenced by his surroundings, events, and associates. As a young man he moved to Santiago to study at the National Conservatory of Chile, where he cemented his knowledge of classical techniques like counterpoint and immersed himself in the avant-garde trends of Europe, including serialism. He absorbed the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School and was fascinated by the mysticism of Russian modernist Alexander Scriabin. Through a student job as a sound engineer, he also became involved with the University of Chile’s Experimental Theater, where he became close to the distinguished director, poet, singer-songwriter, and activist Víctor Jara. Jara motivated Garrido-Lecca to write incidental music and set popular and political songs in a simpler, tonal style. Another influence was Aaron Copland, who was himself deeply interested in the role of the artist in society. Copland traveled extensively and brought many of his South American protégés to Tanglewood to study; Garrido-Lecca received a fellowship there in 1964. He also received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation and spent time studying in New York and Washington, D.C.
This chapter of his life ended abruptly in 1973 with Augusto Pinochet’s coup. Víctor Jara was arrested, tortured, and shot, and Garrido-Lecca’s colleagues at the University, where he now taught, urged him to flee the country. He returned to Peru and threw himself into the musical life of Lima, accepting a professorship at the Lima National Conservatory. He became deeply interested in connecting his work to both the indigenous traditions and contemporary society of Peru, founding the Popular Song Workshop at the Conservatory. Works such as Danzas populares andinas (1979) followed the trend of weaving old melodies and rhythms into classical forms.
Beginning in 1985, Garrido-Lecca decided to move on from this simple, folk-inspired language by reincorporating influences from his earlier years, aiming for a synthesis of traditional Peruvian, modern Latin American, and contemporary and modernist European elements. The String Quartet No. 2, written in 1987, is dedicated to the memory of Víctor Jara in a nod to Garrido-Lecca’s personal history. It unfolds, fittingly, in a strong dramatic arc of five interconnected episodes, driven by forceful motives, a masterful sense of momentum and suspension, and an element of spontaneity—sudden outbursts, clashes, and contrasts that keep emotional rawness paramount despite the complexity of the music’s construction.
The opening Prólogo is tense and volatile, an abrupt awakening filled with both wonderment and fear. Sometimes the voices spiral in a primordial soup, sometimes they rise—unified or opposed—in violent flares, and often a single held tone connects flashes of consciousness, snatches of tunefulness, or recurring slashes of angular motives. Glassy sustained notes connect the ferocious end of the Prólogo to the first Cántico (Elegía Primera). Here mournful recitatives blossom and subside, soon rising into a crucible of high-register counterpoint. The cántico subsides again over dusky harmonies, and then the center of the piece, the propulsive pizzicato Interludio, emerges. This brief, taut eye of the storm traverses complex rhythmic modulations, imitation, and percussive bursts in an amped-up whisper.
A cloud of tremolando leads to the second Cántico (Elegía Seguno), whose melody begins this time fractured and sparse, backed by gently oscillating lines. Its development is likewise fractured, jaggedly climaxing and returning to scattered fragments. The Epílogo launches energetically, with dance rhythms and a swinging melody, though a dark undercurrent soon reveals itself. A sense of snowballing vitality drives through shifting meters and textures, but the energy disperses in a wintry coda—a final meditation and salute, perhaps, to a life of abundance and empathy cut tragically short.
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Dana Lyn
Looking for Lady Gordon–A Suite for Fiddle and String Quartet
Note by Dana Lyn
“Suite for Fiddle and String Quartet” is built around the idea that two traditions of string playing can coexist and complement each other without compromising the rhythmic, tonal, and textural elements that make each tradition unique. In these arrangements, the fiddle tunes are always played in a straight-ahead manner, as per the tradition. The string quartet, while occasionally filling the role of accompanist to the fiddle tune, offers enough thematic material, dynamic shape, and texture to stand independently.
“Poll Ha’penny” is a hornpipe that I learned from the fiddle playing of Bobby Casey, a musician from West Clare who spent much of his life living in London. A hornpipe is a type of traditional dance tune in 4/4, characterized by dotted rhythms and ornate triplet runs. My way of playing this hornpipe is less jaunty in character, but the string quartet arrangement is based on polyrhythmic patterns of sixteenth notes played at a low volume, as if to suggest hearing dance music (or the sound of dancing feet) from far away.
The two reels that comprise “Tommy Coens'” are from the East Galway tradition. Reels are also dance tunes in 4/4 and are probably the most commonly heard type of dance tune in traditional Irish music. The first of these tunes is unusual in that that it is in G minor, a key which lends itself to the fiddle but not to most other traditional instruments, like the keyless wooden flute or the uillean pipes. In the setting of this first reel, the quartet plays a series of interlocking patterns, creating a sonic density that gets dispersed at the top of the transition into the second tune, which is in G mixolydian.
“Madame Maxwell” was composed by the Irish composer Turlough O’Carolan (1670 – 1738). It is usually played at a brighter tempo. In my setting of it, the string quartet plays an extended, scherzo-like introduction based on a C whole-tone scale and entirely in pizzicato (as a homage to O’Carolan himself being a harper). Over this, the fiddle plays “Madame Maxwell” in half-time and in the key of D, creating a feeling of unsettledness that is resolved in the B section of the tune.
The “Girl with the Long Dark Hair”, also known as “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”, was penned by West Clare fiddle player Junior Creehan in dedication to his daughters, one of whom was blond and one of whom was a brunette. In this arrangement, the first violinist and/or the violist is often in canon with the fiddle, albeit in a different register and usually in tremolo–as if hovering like a shadow. The harmonization of this tune lacks a resolution, further mirroring the cyclical quality that many Irish tunes possess.
The last arrangement in the Suite begins with an original tune called “Looking for the Early Opener”, which is a jig played in half-time. This tune is decidedly bleak, but the string quartet lifts it out of its depression and into the next two tunes, “Lady Gordon” and “The Bucks of Oranmore”, both common tunes in the Irish repertory, though the latter, usually played in the key of D, is presented here in A and set against a backdrop of wave-like arpeggios and choppy, off-center grooves.
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
String Quartet in D Major, Op. 44, No. 1
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
Some composers can’t shake a cardinal trait: one feature of their life or character that looms over all others, shaping, accurately or not, the narrative of their career and legacy. Felix Mendelssohn dazzled with his precocity, and his death at the early age of 38 enshrined him as a figure of perpetual youth and vigor. Works like the celebrated Octet, composed at 16; the sheer abundance of his output; and his use of motion and speed as hallmarks of exhilarating virtuosity all contribute to a picture of a prescient genius striving to cram his allotted time on earth with talent and beauty.
Even from the youthful beginnings of his career, Mendelssohn possessed the qualities that make a young wunderkind no mere showman, but truly brilliant. It was not only his personal voice that was eloquent, but his appetite for learning, knowledge, observation, and assimilation—his absorption of surrounding greatness increased his own. Beethoven’s late quartets had just appeared when Mendelssohn began composing his first set of string quartets, in 1827. Although Beethoven’s complexity, disregard for traditional form, and audacious harmonic language left most critics scratching their heads, Mendelssohn was in awe, and expressed his admiration by incorporating distinctly Beethovenian elements into his own work. He was also a perceptive champion of Bach, whose music had fallen into obscurity since the Baroque period; Mendelssohn played a crucial role in Bach’s reascendency with his 1829 performance with the Berlin Singakademie of the virtually forgotten St. Matthew Passion.
Mendelssohn’s third through fifth string quartets were written in rapid succession and published as his Opus 44 in 1840. By this time, he had achieved a place of prominence in the music world and particularly in Leipzig, where he led the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra to great acclaim and distinction. He had married Cécile Jeanrenaud the previous year, was in high demand as a guest conductor, and enjoyed a wide network of personal and professional friends and acquaintances resulting in a busy travel schedule. Not for Mendelssohn the role of the misunderstood genius or artistic loner!
Although the D Major quartet was actually written last, in July of 1838, he chose it to lead the collection, indicating perhaps a special pride in the work. The opening movement is classic Mendelssohn, marked—naturally—Molto allegro vivace, with a lusty sixteenth-note motor, a main theme both bold and gallant, and a starry-eyed contrasting theme. The movement opens in a starburst of energy with a leaping arpeggio, which becomes a pervasive motive. Despite the prolific heat at which he composed, Mendelssohn is known as being one of the most conservative of the Romantics in terms of form and style. Like much of his work, this movement displays a classic sense of balance, unity, and proportion. It’s a pleasure to follow the quicksilver path of the motivic arpeggio as it volleys between the voices in the development, while a hushed, minor-tinged chorale passage is the yin to the yang of the first violin’s blustery acrobatics.
Mendelssohn’s veneration for the airy structures of Classicism continues into the second movement, a gentle Minuet that unfolds in a continuous blossoming of harmonies. The wandering melody picks up speed in the trio, led by the first violin but taken over by an upswelling from the lower voices. The third movement, Andante espressivo, is in a light, lilting intermezzo style, with a puttering obbligato line to offset the graceful melody. Still, the meeting of these contrasting figures results in an underlying tautness that leads to two dramatic climaxes in which the first violin spirals upward in passionate recitatives. Everyone unites for the final Presto con brio, a perpetual-motion caper that easily morphs into a jauntily poised melody.
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847), Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81
Note by Daniel Doña
The chamber works of Felix Mendelssohn provide a unique perspective on the development of his musical language. Mendelssohn chose four chamber works (three piano quartets and a violin sonata, composed 1822-25) as his first published works. Throughout his musical career he would continue to explore the chamber music genres that had been established and developed by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, including those of the string quartet and string quintet. Mendelssohn’s last complete major work was the String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, written two months before his death, and widely seen as a response to the untimely death of his sister Fanny in May of 1847, aged 41.
During the last five years of his life, Mendelssohn was constantly traveling between Leipzig, Berlin, and London. Mendelssohn was instrumental in founding the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843 and was deeply involved in the administration of the school along with serving on its faculty. He was also the music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, a position he held from 1835 onwards. In Berlin, Mendelssohn served as Kapellmeister to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In great demand in London as a piano soloist, he also became a favorite of Queen Victoria, and accompanied her in performances of his lieder and other works during private gatherings at Buckingham Palace. Unquestionably, juggling these duties, along with raising his five children with his wife Cecile, meant he was severely overworked.
The Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81, is a collection of movements written for quartet during various points in Mendelssohn’s life. Mendelssohn composed a Theme and Variations in E Major (Op. 81, No. 1) and a Scherzo in A minor (Op. 81, No. 2) in 1847 shortly after completing the String Quartet in F minor (Op. 80). The E-Major Theme and Variations bears similarities to movements in Robert Schumann’s Op. 44 string quartets, which were dedicated to Mendelssohn, and speaks to the influence that these two friends had on each other’s music. The Scherzo is a wonderful example of Mendelssohn’s continuing mastery of this type of movement and the characters it evokes. The character of this movement can be traced back to the Scherzo of the Op. 20 Octet, inspired by the Walpurgisnacht scene from Goethe’s Faust, evoking breeze blowing through leaves illuminated by moonlight. These two movements were likely meant to be part of another complete string quartet; judging from the character of these movements, the quartet may have served as an expressive foil to the intensity of the F-minor string quartet. A posthumous demand for Mendelssohn’s works spurred the publisher Breitkopf and Härtel to create a complete quartet by combining these with other music for quartet that Mendelssohn had composed earlier. This practice had precedent: Mendelssohn himself combined his Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826) with the incidental music to Shakespeare’s play (Op. 61, 1842) for use in an 1843 production of the play in Berlin.
The Capriccio in E minor (Op. 81, No. 3) was composed in 1843 while Mendelssohn was in Leipzig. The movement starts out with a barcarolle sung by the first violin. This section is punctuated by a recitative, possibly hearkening back to Mendelssohn’s use of this operatic device in his first two string quartets. He then launches into a fugue in the style of J.S. Bach, paying homage to the composer whose work had largely been forgotten in Europe until Mendelssohn’s famous staging of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829.The set of pieces is rounded out by the Fugue in E-flat Major, written in 1827, shortly after Mendelssohn completed his String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13. This movement was probably written in the spirit of the dozen or so fugues that Mendelssohn composed for string quartet at the behest of his teacher Carl Zelter.
Breitkopf and Härtel, the posthumous publishers, may have decided to end the collection with contrasting fugues to mirror Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, which was originally intended to be the final movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130. The young Mendelssohn was obsessed with Beethoven’s late quartets and he most probably appreciated the works for the rest of his life. The publisher’s decision to close the Op. 81 collection with a piece in the spirit of Beethoven would be an appropriate homage to Mendelssohn’s relationship with the genre of the string quartet.
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Jessie Montgomery (b. 1981)
Strum, for String Quartet
Note by the composer
As a performer and educator, Jessie Montgomery was a co-founding member of PUBLIQuartet, a member of the Catalyst Quartet, the Providence String Quartet with Community MusicWorks, a faculty member of Apple Hill, Music at Port Milford, and Third Street Music School Settlement, and an affiliated artist with Sphinx, an organization that supports young African-American and Latino string players, in which she was a two-time laureate. As a composer, Montgomery has created works for concert, theater and film and held residencies with the Deer Valley Music Festival, Providence String Quartet and New York Youth Symphony; she was Van Lier Composer Fellow with the American Composers Orchestra in 2011-2012. Jessie Montgomery writes, “Strum is the culmination of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally composed for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th Annual Sphinx Competition. Originally conceived for a quintet of two violins, viola and two cellos, the voicing is often spread over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive sound. Within Strum, I utilized ‘texture motives,’ layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinatos [repeating figures] to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a ‘texture motive’ and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, Strum has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91)
Quintet in D Major, K.593
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
From his own day up to the current one, Mozart has enjoyed a remarkably long-lasting reputation as a composer of incomparable subtlety and wit in chamber music. His professional friendship with Haydn led to a lively string quartet exchange, the two composers benefiting from a mutual admiration society that is well documented in letters and dedications. But Mozart also excelled in a similar genre, one that Haydn never touched: the string quintet with two violas, colloquially known as the viola quintet. In his child prodigy days, under the tutelage of his father, the renowned pedagogue Leopold Mozart, young Wolfgang performed with his sister in the salons of the rich and titled on the violin as well as the harpsichord. In comparatively later life, he gravitated to the viola in the parties and reading sessions that fed his inspiration. Interested in thorny counterpoint and dark textures as much as melodic grace, Mozart created some of his most treasured chamber works for the viola quintet. Adding this one extra part to the string quartet increases the demands on the inner-voice web and calls for a heightened sense of balance and color—perhaps the most important element of compositional virtuosity. Mozart’s only contemporary to write viola quintets was Luigi Boccherini, who, as a cellist, tended to shine more in his quintets with two cellos, and whose taste for the agile flash and sparkle of the galant style often suggested a mini-concerto.
The D major quintet is Mozart’s penultimate entry in the genre, composed in Vienna in 1790 and published in December of that same year. Although Mozart was plagued by financial worries at the end of his life, his works were popular with Viennese publishers and circulated among a wide audience. (“I have now been obliged to give away my quartets…for a pittance,” complained Mozart of the results of hard-nosed business dealings, “simply in order to have cash in hand.”) The quality of his work went unaffected by bitterness, however, and the D major quintet maintains the high standards of ingenuity and elegance set by its predecessors. Mozart had also recently returned from a trip that included a stop in Leipzig, where he studied scores of J.S. Bach—an occasion that renewed his inspiration to pursue contrapuntal richness in his own music.
The opening movement of K.593 starts with a striking Larghetto introduction that takes the form of a call and response between the cello and the upper four voices, the lone cello stating an arpeggiated chord and the others evolving the harmonic thread into a reflective chorale. The dotted-rhythm undulations of the introduction’s last measures make their way, transformed, into the Allegro, which begins with ebullient offbeat accents and a shower of triplets from the first violin. As usual, Mozart revels in the harmonious blend of disparate motives: the martial, trilled opening theme and the silky eighth notes later found in the cello, chords softly tiptoed together and carefree dotted figures sashaying around the group, violent outbursts and suave melodies. The biggest surprise, though, is the reinsertion of the embellished opening Larghetto before the final brief iteration of the Allegro theme that closes the movement.
The harmonic and textural richness of Mozart’s palette is on display in the Adagio, which is a constantly shifting catalogue of instrumental combinations and musical characters. He sets the upper three voices against the lower three, blends all five in rich harmonic modulations, layers them in tightly interlocking figures, and etches the highest and lowest in relief against a background alternately turbulent and ethereal. The Minuet soothes with its gentle cycles of rocking, overlapping figures—although it builds to a surprisingly emphatic climax—while the trio converses in adorably coy fragments. The first violin begins the rondo theme of the Finale seemingly in mid-stride, with a foreshadowing of the chromaticism that grows more complex and intricate as the movement evolves. Several contrapuntal interludes are launched by a trilled figure that is picked up in imitation. Later on we are treated to the rondo theme and the contrapuntal trills in counterpoint, as well as vertiginously scissoring chromatic lines: sophisticated, cheery, daring, and cerebral all at once, in Mozart’s inimitable style.
Florence Price (1887-1953)
Five Folk Songs in Counterpoint for String Quartet
Florence Price was the first African-American female composer to have a symphony performed by a “Big Five” American orchestra when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Frederick Stock performed her Symphony in 1933. The Five Folk Songs in Counterpoint may have been written as early as 1927, and if so, this places them in the midst of jazz-infused classical pieces such as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Copland’s Piano Concerto (1926). Yet, Price’s efforts with Five Folk Songs in Counterpoint are quite different–more joyous etudes in compositional technique using the folk songs to orient the listener. She framed the African-American spiritual within a traditionally European classical music form and tradition to reflect the melting pot of cultures in America at the time. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” has a lyric that is commonly thought to be in code–the true meaning is deliverance from slavery. The melody is stated by the cello and passes through each instrument. It is given a detailed treatment with a few jazz-like touches before ending in a classic coda.
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Henry Purcell
Fantasias for viols
Note by Zoe Kemmerling
The viol consort, like the modern-day string quartet, is the closest four ensemble players can come to a creating a single instrument. The word “consort” came into use in the Renaissance period, as a term to describe any of various instrumental or instrumental-vocal chamber groups: a “whole consort” was comprised of instruments of the same family, while a “broken consort” could mix winds, brass, strings, and even voices. The viol family, precursor to the violin family of today, was uniquely suited to consort formation. The viol had six (gut) strings, a flat back and sloped shoulders, frets, and a soft-spoken, plaintive sound quality; they ranged in size from the contrabass to the miniature pardessus, all played either between the knees or upright on the lap with a tapered bow held underhand. In harmony, a viol consort produced a sound that ballooned magically. It was an ensemble that depended on blend and balance, the resonance of each voice strengthened and amplified by its fellows.
By the time Purcell was active, the viol consort, a favorite of composers such as John Dowland and William Byrd, was past its Elizabethan heyday and regarded as something of an anachronism. The violin was on the rise, and the contemporary Baroque fashion was for high melodic lines over a basso continuo (comprised of a sustaining bass instrument plus active chordal accompaniment by harpsichord, lute, or other plucked instrument). The Italians led the way in verve, vigor, and virtuosity. Yet in the late 1670s and early 1680s, Purcell composed a steady stream of fantasias for four- and five-part viol consort. It seems that no one had much interest in playing them—some scholars have even wondered if it was purely a theoretical exercise, given that most of the works remain only in score form, without parts—and yet Purcell clearly felt that this antiquated genre was the right vehicle for expressing some of his most unusual, provocative, and audacious musical thoughts. In another couple of centuries, he probably would have been right at home in the dense, chromatic late-Romantic world of Strauss, Wagner, and Schoenberg—and the new consort of the string quartet would have been ready to welcome him.
The term fantasia connotes a certain dreaminess and a loose, improvisatory approach—yet the greater the license, the more adept the artist must be to rise to the challenge. The Spanish Renaissance composer and writer Luis de Milán described the form as exactly as good as its composer, constructed as it was “solely from the fantasy and skill of the author who created it.” Purcell offers a brilliant blend of imitative counterpoint and unexpected harmonies, often planting the seed of the entire work in the opening motive. His use of harmony is a recognizable precursor to the functional (and much simplified) harmonic language codified in the Baroque and Classical eras, yet it is not bound by the same strictness—he can spin out a passage indefinitely via suspensions and constant modulation before arriving at a resting place. Most of the fantasias are multi-sectional, and sections of rigorous counterpoint are balanced by others that are dance-like, chorale-like, ruminative, or merely providing the respite of a gentle cadence. Sometimes the four voices seem to follow an idea through every possible permutation, and sometimes they’re content with a brief, witty comment. The glue that ties each work together is the unity of the ensemble: the inherent contrapuntal equilibrium of Purcell’s four-part writing ensures that each section is well-proportioned, and each transition effected by mutual agreement.
In contrast to the latest fashions of the period, Purcell’s fantasias are all about what happens beneath the surface. His melodies are beautiful, but also brief and incomplete; once a motive begins, its reaction, rebuttal, compliment, or elaboration always occurs in another voice—often an inner voice. This constant ensemble activity is what gives the fantasias such a rich palette of dissonance and also the agility to change direction at a moment’s notice—each voice has the power to affect the whole, and the whole is attuned to respond to smallest details in each voice.
Ahmed Adnan Saygun
String Quartet No. 1
Note by Elise Kuder, violin, Apple Hill String Quartet
In the fall of 2014 the Apple Hill String Quartet traveled through the Middle East to Turkey, Cyprus, Israel, and Jordan. While researching works by composers from the region for our concert program, an acquaintance suggested Ahmed Adnan Saygun, a composer unknown to the four of us. We googled him, learned that he was known as the “Turkish Bartok”, and thus began a wonderful journey of exploration and discovery which led to this recording.
The first event on our tour was a concert and master class at the Avni Akyol Fine Arts School at Kadikoy in Istanbul, sponsored by the U. S. Consulate. Imagine our wonder when we were told that Saygun started the school! We were a little shy about playing a “Turkish” piece for Turkish students, but the school went wild when we performed the dramatic and exciting last movement of the quartet. This exuberance and connection would continue throughout the tour. We also gleaned information from musicians and professors along the way which enhanced our interpretation of the piece—specific folk songs were brought to light; styles of playing which might better imitate the whirling dervish music of the ney, a traditional Turkish flute (specifically in the haunting second movement); and thoughts on Saygun’s inner world and emotions regarding his mandate to create a new Turkish sound, one that merged traditional Turkish songs and culture with Western music.
There is truly too much to write about this great composer! Our hope is that in recording this String Quartet No. 1, audiences will fall in love with Saygun’s music and world as we did, and further their own discovery of his works.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
String Trio in B-flat Major, D. 471 (1816)
Schubert’s String Trio was composed while Schubert worked as an assistant elementary school teacher. Like so many of Schubert’s instrumental works, it is an incomplete composition, comprising only a first movement. It is nevertheless a much-loved piece of music in which we can fully hear the nineteen-year-old composer’s deep admiration for the music of the Viennese masters whose legacy he inherited–Haydn and Mozart–and perhaps Salieri, Schubert’s own teacher. It is music of sparkle, wit, high lyricism and drama, and great refinement.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75)
String Quartet no. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
Note by Jesse MacDonald, violin, Apple Hill String Quartet
On Dec. 16th, 1946, Dmitri Shostakovich premiered his 3rd String Quartet in Moscow. One year after the horrors of World War II ended, and the same year that Boris Pasternak commenced writing his novel, Dr. Zhivago (my mother’s favorite novel and movie), this would be the only piece of music that Shostakovich would write that year, foreshadowing hidden anxieties and troubles. It would soon come to pass that the Stalin regime would double down on their efforts to keep a righteous patriotic society, and thus started to oppress the arts and sciences. The 3rd quartet would soon fade from existence just months after its premiere.
We start the 5-movement quartet with a somewhat jovial and ironic melody that in time increases in its unrest (the foremost word of this entire piece) and culminates in a double fugue. The unrest continues to start the 2nd movement with a E-G-B note ostinato in the viola; more ostinatos abound throughout the remainder of the movement in each part. Things take a magical turn with mouse-like movements, as the tempo grinds to a slow pitter patter and finishes off with even more unrest that sets the tone for the canon-induced, frenzied fervor of the 3rd movement. This whale of a movement seems at times to pay homage to the devastation of just finished world war. The long-lasting and brutal effects of the conflict on the land and its people is pieced together in the heart-rending, funeral march melody of the following movement. This melody takes many forms throughout, ending in a grief-stricken state as the unrest and disbelief finally starting to consume the music, culminating in fragments of melodies, phrases found and lost, a sinisterly comical, yet purely Russian melody; all this leads to our final F-major chord, a woeful violin melody and the small glimmer of hope that our period of unrest is finally over.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75)
24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87
Dmitri Shostakovich, 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, is a set of preludes and fugues for solo piano, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. The cycle was composed in the years 1950/51 while Shostakovich was in Moscow and premiered by pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva in Leningrad in December, 1952. J.S. Bach’s, The Well-Tempered Clavier, an earlier set of 48 preludes and fugues, is widely held to be the direct inspiration for Shostakovich’s cycle. Today’s selections have been arranged for string trio by Mike Kelley, violist of the Apple Hill String Quartet.
Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
String Quartet no. 1, op. 11
Even among those who do not listen regularly to Classical music, Tchaikovsky has become a household staple across the world, graced by the ubiquitous presence of The Nutcracker during this past holiday season. Known especially for his long-form works for large musical forces, such as opera, symphony, and ballet, Tchaikovsky’s wide appeal has been due in part to his penchant for lush orchestrations and dramatic gestures, an aspect that has come to define the Russian national sound, carried on by successors such as Rachmaninov and Scriabin. It is no wonder that pieces of a smaller scale, particularly chamber music, constitute only a small portion of Tchaikovsky’s opus: three string quartets (opp. 11, 22, 30) all written early in his career, a piano trio (op. 50) dedicated to the memory of pianist and composer Nikolai Rubenstein, and a string sextet “Souvenir de Florence” (op. 70). Although these pieces are few in number, they intervene at pivotal moments in Tchaikovsky’s career, employing a more intimate sound and compositional style reserved only for extenuating circumstances.
The first string quartet was written in 1871 during Tchaikovsky’s post at the newly founded Moscow Conservatory as a professor of music theory. Following the rejection of his First Symphony by the Russian Musical Society (RMS), the underpaid and relatively unknown Tchaikovsky sought other avenues of exposure. In 1871, Tchaikovsky elected to cobble together a program of newly-composed smaller works to be performed by the RMS string quartet, led by close friend and violinist Ferdinand Laub. Tchaikovsky’s experiment proved an immediate success, earning its place as the first significant Russian contribution to the vaunted string quartet repertoire, thereby laying the groundwork for future Russian gems, including Borodin’s string quartets. Later, the string quartet was performed for author Leo Tolstoy in 1877, who, upon hearing it, according to Tchaikovsky, burst into tears. The quartet’s success, coupled with Tolstoy’s shining approval, marked one of Tchaikovsky’s first steps into international recognition.
A closer look at the quartet reveals a strong affinity for the string quartets of Beethoven and Schubert, charged with Tchaikovsky’s signature sound. The first movement, Moderato e semplice, opens strikingly with the quartet in unison chords set to an off-kilter, syncopated 9/8 rhythm, a sonic effect that author Melvin Berger has likened to the bleating of a folk accordion. Soon, this orderly chorale setting begins to splinter and spin out into fleeing passages, a flurry of activity that reveals a richer, more tuneful second theme. The second Adagio cantabile movement conjures images of a simpler and more sincere provincial life away from Moscow, taking inspiration from a folksong allegedly heard and transcribed at Tchaikovsky’s sister’s estate in Ukraine. The scherzo, with its angular melodies and sharply accented articulations, have prompted comparisons to Schubert’s quartet of the same key, “Death and the Maiden.” The final movement, an uncharacteristically well-behaved Classical sonata-rondo, echoes the order of events of Beethoven’s op. 54 quartets. However, even amidst Tchaikovsky’s Beethovenian caricature, Russian characters emerge, most saliently, as a noble theme introduced by the viola.
Aleksandra Vrebalov, b. 1970
Pannonia Boundless
Note by the composer
Pannonia Boundless was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in 1997. Always open to new experience and eager to explore a new artistic territory, Kronos asked me to do six minutes of virtuosic music that would be based on Gypsy tunes and would employ a specific playing technique of these nomadic musicians. After research in the Novi Sad radio archives and visits to Gypsy taverns in Vojvodina, I wrote this piece as an homage to those musicians who, from the margins of society as much as from well-known concert halls, have the power to touch our hearts. Pannonia Boundless was released in 2000 and used in the movie Soupirs d’ame, by Canadian director Helen Doyle, and in the ballet, The Little Prince, by choreographer Dusan Tynek. I wrote Pannonia Boundless in my grandmother’s house in the Serbian city Sombor, the same house in which I had stayed during the NATO air-raids in 1999. A neighbor had died as collateral damage. Today I learned that the piece was played by the best band in the world, the US Marine Band, at their chamber music concert in Washington, D.C. Strange, beautiful life.
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