Chamber Music at the Bella: Night 1

Fanfare

Karen Donnelly

A gifted performer and a dedicated musical educator, Karen, a native of Regina, Saskatchewan, has served as Principal Trumpet of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra since 1999. She composed this fanfare for solo trumpet in 2020, under the influence of bird song and on behalf of the Music & Beyond concerts.

Carrot Revolution

Gabriella Smith

(b. 1991)

Gabriella Smith is hailed as an “outright sensation” (LA Times). Her music comes from a love of play, exploring new sounds on instruments, building compelling musical arcs, and connecting listeners with the natural world in an invitation to find joy in climate action. She composed Carrot Revolution in 2015 for the Aizuri Quartet.

“Looking for inspiration for this string quartet,” she writes, “I suddenly remembered a quote from painter Paul Cézanne that I’d heard years ago (though which I later learned was misattributed to him): ‘The day will come when a single, freshly observed carrot will start a revolution.’ And I knew immediately that my piece would be called Carrot Revolution. I envisioned it as a celebration of that spirit of fresh observation and of new ways of looking at old things, such as the string quartet — a 250-year-old genre — as well as some of my even older musical influences like Bach, Perotin, Gregorian chant, Georgian folk songs, and Celtic fiddle tunes.”

String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 110

Dmitri Shostakovich

(1906 to 1975)

The powerful emotional directness of String Quartet No. 8 has made it the most frequently performed of Shostakovich’s 15 examples. He composed it in 1960, and the Beethoven Quartet premiered it in Leningrad on 2 October. He wrote it during a visit to Dresden, Germany and publicly dedicated it “To the memory of the victims of fascism and war.”

This provided Soviet authorities with a politically correct inspiration, but he gave it a personal spin by, at least inwardly, including himself among the victims. In a letter to a friend, Isaak Glikman, he revealed additional intentions: “I was thinking about the fact that if I die some time or other, it’s pretty unlikely that someone will write a work in my memory. So, I decided to write such a piece myself. The basic theme of the Quartet is DSCH (the German names for the notes d, e-flat, c, b), i.e., my initials.” Another friend, Lev Lebedinsky, wrote that Shostakovich was contemplating suicide at the time, due to his recently giving in to long-standing pressure to join the Communist party. Lebedinsky stated that Shostakovich considered the quartet an autobiography and his last will and testament. Lebedinsky convinced him not to take his own life. Fifteen years later, String Quartet No. 8 was performed at Shostakovich’s funeral.

Octet in F Major, D. 803

Franz Schubert (1797 to 1828)

Schubert’s Octet in F Major is one of the true glories of the chamber music repertoire. He composed this expansive work in 1824. He modelled it on the Septet that Ludwig van Beethoven had written nearly 25 years before, which had become one of Beethoven’s most popular works. Schubert increased the number of instruments by adding a second violin to Beethoven’s lineup. The complete ensemble consists of two violins and one viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. At times he makes it sound like a small orchestra; at other times, the instruments take turns playing solos.

Program notes by Don Anderson © 2023