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turns. The central slow movement, however, is a conundrum: in Bach’s manuscript, the Adagio consists in its entirety of two unadorned chords. Some musicologists contend that he intended another slow movement to be inserted here, while others interpret the freestanding chords as an invitation to some sort of collective improvisation. In a similar spirit of free-wheeling creativity, the Knights have chosen to interpolate their take on Paul Simon’s wistfully affecting American Tune, itself based on a plaintive chorale from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

— Harry Haskell

ANNA CLYNE

(b. 1980)

Prince of Clouds

About the Composer

London-born Anna Clyne is a Grammy-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” in a New York Times profile and as “fearless” by NPR, Clyne’s work often includes collaborations with cutting-edge choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians. In October 2020, AVIE Records released Mythologies, a portrait album featuring Clyne’s works recorded live by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Several upcoming projects explore Clyne’s fascination with visual arts, including Color Field for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, inspired by the artwork of Mark Rothko; Between the Rooms, a film with choreographer Kim Brandstrup and LA Opera, as well as Woman Holding a Balance, a film collaboration with Orchestra of St. Luke’s and artist Jyll Bradley (whom Clyne also teamed up with for the film Pardes, commissioned by the Scottish Ensemble).

Clyne composed a trilogy of Beethoven-inspired works, which premiered in 2020 for Beethoven’s 250th anniversary: Stride for string orchestra, inspired by Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique, premiered by the Australian Composers Orchestra; Breathing Statues, premiered by the Calidore String Quartet; and Shorthand for solo cello and string quintet, premiered by The Knights in 2020 at Caramoor.

Clyne is currently the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Associate Composer through the 2021-2022 season and a mentor composer for Orchestra of St Luke’s DeGaetano Composer Institute.

Clyne’s music is represented on the AVIE Records, Cantaloupe Music, Cedille, MajorWho Media, New Amsterdam, Resound, Tzadik, and VIA labels. Both Prince of Clouds and Night Ferry were nominated for 2015 GRAMMY Awards. Her music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. boosey.com/clyne

About the Work

When writing Prince of Clouds I was contemplating the presence of musical lineage — a family-tree of sorts that passes from generation to generation. This transfer of knowledge and inspiration between generations is a beautiful gift. Composed specifically

for Jennifer Koh and her mentor at the Curtis Institute of Music, Jaime Laredo, this thread was in the foreground of my imagination as a dialogue between the soloists and ensemble. As a composer, working with such virtuosic, passionate and unique musicians is also another branch of this musical chain.

Prince of Clouds was co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, IRIS Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Curtis Institute of Music. It premiered in November 2012 at the Germantown Performing Arts Center, TN with conductor Michael Stern, and subsequent performances at Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, IL with conductor Harry Bicket; Royce Hall, Los Angeles with conductor Jeffrey Kahane; and the New York Premiere at Miller Theater. Prince of Clouds was composed at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Summer 2012.

— Anna Clyne

JESSIE MONTGOMERY

(b. 1981)

Starburst

About the Composer

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles.

Montgomery’s growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta; Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival; and Banner (2014) — written to mark the 200th anniversary of The Star-Spangled Banner — for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation.

Upcoming premieres include I was waiting for the echo of a better day, a full-length dance collaboration with the choreographer Pam Tanowitz for Bard SummerScape 2021, L.E.S. Characters - Concerto for Viola and Orchestra with violist Masumi Per Rostad at Grant Park Music Festival, and Five Freedom Songs, the expansion of a song cycle written for soprano Julia Bullock, at Sun Valley Music Festival.

Since 1999, Montgomery has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latinx string players, and she has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble.

She is currently the Mead Composerin-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

About the Work

This brief one-movement work originally for string orchestra, and arranged for chamber ensemble by Jannina Norpoth, is a play on imagery of rapidly changing musical colors. Exploding gestures are juxtaposed

with gentle fleeting melodies in an attempt to create a multidimensional soundscape. A common definition of a starburst: “the rapid formation of large numbers of new stars in a galaxy at a rate high enough to alter the structure of the galaxy significantly” lends itself almost literally to the nature of the performing ensemble who premiered the work, The Sphinx Virtuosi, and I wrote the piece with their dynamic in mind. I am delighted that the Knights will be performing Starburst on this program today.

— Jessie Montgomery

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

(1770–1827)

String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95, “Serioso”

About the Composer

Beethoven’s 16 string quartets, written between 1798 and 1826, constitute a towering achievement that has both inspired and intimidated composers ever since. Robert Schumann, whose own quartets are deeply indebted to Beethoven’s, declared that the genre had “come to a standstill” since the latter’s death; the “immortal freshness” of his quartets, along with those of Mozart and Haydn, continued to “gladden the hearts of everyone,” but the younger generation had proven incapable of producing anything of comparable quality. Indeed, with the possible exception of Dmitri Shostakovich in the 20th century, no other composer has so consistently used the string quartet as a vehicle for working out musical ideas in their most concentrated and intensely personal form. In the conventional tripartite division of Beethoven’s life and works, the Quartet in F Minor of 1810–11 falls at the tail end of the middle period, on the heels of the three pathbreaking Razumovsky Quartets, Op. 59, and the Harp Quartet, Op. 74. In some respects, however, Op. 95 belongs in a category by itself. Its radical brevity harks back to Beethoven’s early, Haydn-esque Op. 18 Quartets rather than to its immediate predecessors. At the same time, the work’s emotional intensity and idiosyncratic treatment of form and harmony prefigure the composer’s mold-shattering quartets of the mid1820s. Beethoven himself judged it suitable for only “a small circle of connoisseurs” and even questioned whether it should be performed in public.

A Deeper Listen

Beethoven’s description of the F-Minor Quartet as “serioso” may or may not reflect his state of mind after the collapse of his marriage plans in 1810. In any case, he gets straight down to serious business in the opening Allegro con brio. A terse, tightly wound motto, played by the four instruments in unison, sets the tone for the entire work; both its structure and its emotional content are highly compressed. A persistent undercurrent of turbulence runs throughout the first movement, roiling its lyrical surface. In music as in life, the composer often struggled to strike a balance between heroic affirmation and near-suicidal depression.

With a leisurely descending scale, the cello introduces one of Beethoven’s most luminous and beguiling slow

movements. Very soon, however, the mood darkens as the viola launches a quirkily chromatic fugue, interrupted by a ghostly echo of the cello’s opening stepwise theme.

The Allegretto ma non troppo wends its way toward an apparently tranquil close. Instead of the expected D-major cadence, however, a jarring diminished-seventh chord heralds a return to the home key of F minor and an abrupt transition to a bracing Allegro in ¾ time, marked assai vivace, ma serioso (quite lively, but serious). These contrasting moods are further explored, if never quite reconciled, in the finale. Within its highly condensed span of 175 bars (including a slow introduction), the Allegretto agitato runs the gamut from wistful tenderness to fierce, almost savage despair. Out of nowhere, it seems, a hushed F-major chord once more disperses the prevailing gloom. Whereupon a lighthearted coda, as incongruous as it is brief, brings this enigmatic but richly satisfying masterpiece to an unexpectedly upbeat conclusion.

— Harry Haskell

About the Artists.

Eric Jacobsen, Artistic Director and conductor

Conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative projects. As conductor of The Knights, Jacobsen has led the “consistently inventive, infectiously engaged indie ensemble” (The New York Times) at New York venues from Carnegie Hall to Central Park. He has appeared in such renowned international halls as Vienna’s Musikverein, Cologne Philharmonie, and the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. Now in his fourth season as Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic, Jacobsen is also much in demand as a guest conductor, having recently led the Camerata Bern, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Philharmonie Merck, and the Silkroad Ensemble, founded by Yo-Yo Ma.

Colin Jacobsen, violin

A 2003 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, violinist Colin Jacobsen first played to critical acclaim at the age of 14, collaborating with Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic in a performance that was hailed by The New York Times: “Jacobsen was the impressively accomplished soloist in Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy, sounding as if he were born to the instrument and its sweet, lyrical possibilities.” He recently returned to the New York Philharmonic in a performance of Brahms’ Double Concerto with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and David Zinman conducting.

Jacobsen’s wide-ranging musical activities are part of a generational wave that is taking classical music into a much broader context. As a soloist, he continues to play with orchestras worldwide, including the YouTube Symphony and those of Albany, Charleston, Chicago, San Francisco, Nashville, and Philharmonia Baroque. He has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, as a member of the Metropolitan

Museum Artists in Concert, and has collaborated with musicians such as Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Kim Kashkashian, Mark O’Connor, Phillip Glass, Steven Isserlis, Christian Tetzlaff, Mitsuko Uchida, and Jan Vogler. Jacobsen’s summer festival appearances have included Banff, Caramoor, Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia’s Steans Institute, Salzburg, and Tanglewood.

As a touring member of the Silk Road Ensemble since its conception by Yo-Yo Ma, Jacobsen has been part of a creative cauldron that has continually pushed him to expand his boundaries. Through exposure to musicians like the Persian kemanche virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, vocalist Alim Qasimov, and pipa player Wu Man, he has been inspired to compose and arrange pieces both for the Ensemble and for other groups. Jacobsen is a co-founder along with his brother, the cellist and conductor Eric Jacobsen, of the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and The Knights. Both ensembles tour worldwide and have issued acclaimed albums featured by NPR as top classical picks for 2008 and 2012, respectively. In December 2012, Jacobsen was selected, with his brother Eric, from among the nation’s top visual, performing, media, and literary artists to receive a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship, which carries an unrestricted grant of $50,000.

Alex Gonzalez, violin

Described by the Viborg Folkeblad as a ""true virtuoso...[that] left the audience almost breathless,” violinist Alex Gonzalez has appeared across the United States and abroad as a chamber musician, ensemble leader, and educator.

An avid chamber musician, Gonzalez was a recipient of the John Celentano Award for Excellence in Chamber Music upon graduation from the Eastman School of Music. He has enjoyed performances at notable venues including Carnegie Hall, the National Gallery of Art, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Oxford University. He has also performed for broadcast on programs for BBC Radio 3, Colorado Public Radio, and the SkyArts Television Network. He has made appearances at numerous festivals including the Chatsworth Arts Festival, Sitka Music Festival, Thy Chamber Music Festival, as well as the Thy Festival’s 2019 Autumn Tour.

Gonzalez is a member of The Knights and the Sphinx Virtuosi, performing extensively with both ensembles across the United States and abroad. Outside of these ensembles, he has performed with the Saint Paul

Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, among others. Gonzalez enjoys regular collaborations with the Chineke! Foundation, appearing across the United Kingdom and Europe as both guest concertmaster and chamber musician with various Chineke! ensembles. As a former member of the New World Symphony, he regularly served as concertmaster to Michael Tilson Thomas and other distinguished guests. In addition, he was honored to perform as part of a celebration to MTT at the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors.

As an educator, Gonzalez has served on the faculty of Carnegie Hall's National Youth Orchestra Program, the Sphinx Performance Academy, and as guest faculty for the Iberacademy in Medellín, Colombia. He has also enjoyed giving masterclasses at North Carolina School of the Arts, Montclair State University, and Skidmore College, among others.

Gonzalez completed his formal studies at the Eastman School of Music, Rice University, and Carnegie Mellon University. His principal mentors include Shakeh Ghoukasian, Oleh Krysa, Paul Kantor, and Cyrus Forough. Formal chamber music studies were under Carol Rodland,Mimi Hwang, Norman Fischer, James Dunham, and the Ying Quartet. He performs on a violin made for him by Mario Miralles in 2017.

The Knights

The Knights are a Grammynominated collection of adventurous musicians, dedicated to transforming the orchestral experience and eliminating barriers between audiences and music.

The Knights have performed and recorded with such renowned soloists as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Béla Fleck, and Gil Shaham, and appeared in venues including Vienna’s Musikverein and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Recent highlights include a thrilling performance as part of the opening season of the new Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and an appearance as the first American orchestra-in-residence at the Festival de Pâques in Aixen-Provence, performing multiple concerts throughout the city, including programs with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and violinist Renaud Capuçon.

The Knights recently presented a fully-staged version of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide in honor of his 100th birthday at both the Tanglewood Music Festival and the Ravinia Festival. They gave the premiere of The Head and the Load with international artist William Kentridge at London’s Tate Modern and New York’s Park Avenue Armory. The ensemble evolved out of friendly late-night chamber music sessions at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. Since the orchestra’s incorporation in 2007, the brothers have both served as its artistic directors.

The Knights

Violin Colin Jacobsen Alex Gonzalez Alex Fortes Guillaume Pirard Christina Courtin Michelle Ross Emily Daggett Smith Ben Russell Deborah Wong

Viola Mario Gotoh Kyle Armbrust Miranda Sielaff

Cello Karen Ouzounian Caitlin Sullivan Laura Metcalf

Bass Shawn Conley

Harpsicord Steven Beck

Conductor Eric Jacobsen