Celebrating the Emerson Quartet with David Shifrin

Emerson String Quartet

Eugene Drucker, violin I

(b. 1973)

BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945)

String Quartet No. 2, Sz. 67 • (27’)

I. Moderato

II. Allegro molto capriccioso

III. Lento

Philip Setzer, violin II

Lawrence Dutton, viola

Paul Watkins, cello

Emerson String Quartet

Philip Setzer, violin I

Eugene Drucker, violin II

Lawrence Dutton, viola

Paul Watkins, cello

BRAHMS (1833-1897)

Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115 • (37’)

I. Allegro

II. Adagio

III. Andantino

IV. Con moto

David Shifrin, clarinet

Emerson String Quartet

Philip Setzer, violin I

Eugene Drucker, violin II

Lawrence Dutton, viola

Paul Watkins, cello

Drink the Wild Ayre is my second string quartet. I wrote my first over twenty years ago while poring over recordings by the Emerson String Quartet. At that time, I was new to composition and bought every CD of theirs I could find, obsessively studying counterpoint and voiceleading via their recordings. Their performances became my benchmark for the masterpieces they recorded; their sounds became synonymous, in my mind, with the composer’s intent. For me, theirs was the definitive interpretation of all the great string quartets in history. So, when the invitation to write this piece came in—the Emerson’s final commission, to be performed during this, their final season—I nearly fell off my chair. I am still awestruck and humbled to have written this piece for some of my earliest heroes.

The title is a playful nod to one of the most famous quotes by their transcendentalist namesake, essayist/ philosopher/poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, Drink the wild air's salubrity.” An ayre is a song-like, lyrical piece. The title seemed an apt reference not only to the lilting, asymmetrical rhythms of the music’s melodic narrative but also to the questing spirit, sense of adventure, and full-hearted passion with which the Emersons have thrown themselves into everything they have done for the past 47 years. Here’s to the singular magic of these artistic giants and the new adventures that await them.

—© Sarah Kirkland Snider

“The question is, what are the ways in which peasant [folk] music is taken over and becomes transmuted into modern music?” asked

Béla Bartók in 1920. He provided three answers: arrange existing folk melodies, or write original melodies using folk idioms. “There is yet a third way in which the influence of peasant music can be traced in a composer’s work,” Bartók continued. “Neither peasant melodies nor imitations of peasant melodies can be found in his music, but it is pervaded by the atmosphere of peasant music.”

Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 , which he composed between 1915-17, as WWI raged across Europe, epitomizes the third solution. The war curtailed Bartók’s ethnomusicological field work, which he had pursued, along with his good friend and colleague, Zoltán Kodály, for the better part of the previous decade. Instead, Bartók organized the material he had already collected. The second string quartet, one of only two original works Bartók wrote during these years, reflects the synthesis of folk idioms into contemporary concert hall language. Each of its three movements feature concentrated distillations of the raw vibrancy Bartók found in folk music, transmuted into classical forms.

Kodály described the three movements as “1. A quiet life. 2. Joy. 3. Sorrow.” He continued, “What emerges from the successive movements is not a series of different moods, but the continual evolution of a single, coherent, spiritual process. The impression conveyed by the work as a whole, though it is from the musical point of view formally perfect, is that of a spontaneous experience.”

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

Johannes Brahms had retired from composing by the time he heard the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, but was so inspired by his playing that he came out of retirement expressly to write for the clarinet. The resulting chamber music includes the Clarinet Trio, two Clarinet Sonatas, and the poignant Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115 , all some of his final, most mature works. Written as they were in the twilight of Brahms’s life, these works have a reflective quality, highly emotional, but experienced from the remove of memory.

The Clarinet Quintet seems to straddle two opposing sides of a coin. The conspicuous lack of tonic in the violins’ opening gesture creates a momentary ambiguity between B minor and D major, an early herald of the duality that will outline the work’s affective trajectory. The three-note motive that the clarinet sings in the Adagio is the same that forms the pillars of the movement’s rhapsodic middle section. The third movement is similarly constructed on two contrasting sections—a melancholic scherzo in B minor between the pastoral spaciousness of the D major Andantino areas—both mosaicked with the same two motives. Even the fourth movement sources its opening material from the Andantino, but this time the turbulent B minor casts a shadow of malaise on the sunny repose that ended the third movement. The final variation’s collision with reprised music from the first movement signifies a sort of communion, a coming full circle that seems to acknowledge this material as the bookends of a unified story. The realization of this goal allows the piece to finally come to rest, but not before the final upset of the forte penultimate chord: Brahms’s harrowing last gasp right as the curtain falls.

—©

Graeme Steele Johnson

Saturday, July 8

Kaul Auditorium | 8pm

Co-Sponsors:

Anne & Ernie Munch

Barbara & Bill Langley

Prelude Performance | 6:30pm

Young Artist Institute

Emerson Quartet Farewell with Gloria Chien

String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 • (39')

I. Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo

II. Allegro molto vivace

III. Allegro moderato

IV. Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile

V. Presto

VI. Adagio quasi un poco andante

VII. Allegro

Intermission

R. SCHUMANN (1810-1856)

Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 • (33')

I. Allegro brillante

II. In modo d'una marcia

III. Scherzo: Molto vivace

IV. Allegro ma non troppo

Emerson String Quartet

Philip Setzer, violin I

Eugene Drucker, violin II

Lawrence Dutton, viola

Paul Watkins, cello

Gloria Chien, piano

Emerson String Quartet

Eugene Drucker, violin I

Philip Setzer, violin II

Lawrence Dutton, viola

Paul Watkins, cello

Audience members are invited to join us for a special farewell celebration in the lobby following the concert.

This program is made possible, in part, by a grant from the E. Nakamichi Foundation.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 dates to 182526. Like all of his late quartets, Opus 131 pushes the string quartet’s boundaries to previously unimaginable places. It is officially in seven movements, but it might be more constructive to consider it as a single vast movement, as there is no true break between them.

Beethoven’s publisher had asked him to send an “original” work, and so Beethoven included the comment “Assembled together with pilferings from one thing and another” with his completed score. The publisher didn’t get the joke, and Beethoven had to assure him that it was indeed an original work. And original it is.

The opening Adagio is an austere but expressive fugue reflecting Beethoven’s intensive study of Johann Sebastian Bach’s counterpoint. Beethoven pushes the boundaries of tonality, taking the listed key of C-sharp minor only as a brief starting point and transitioning subtly but frequently through related and unrelated key areas.

The Allegro molto vivace is a dance movement with a light, folklike theme that seems to constantly ascend.

The severe third movement emulates recitative and allows for a transition in key and character to the graceful theme of the fourth movement theme and variations. By this point, Beethoven’s theme and variations were integrated, unpredictable, and wideranging, building out in all directions from the original theme in often idiosyncratic ways.

The fifth movement, Presto, breaks out from a sudden staccato cello motif based around an E major triad. Scherzo -like in character but in duple meter, the flow is often interrupted.

The minor-mode sixth movement provides a solemn transition to the sonata form seventh movement, Allegro, back in C-sharp minor. The abrupt, angular first theme fades into a more lyrical second theme that seems to descend into the earth. In a vast development of the themes, the two ideas trade back and forth at a rapidfire pace, with other unrelated ideas occasionally finding their way in.

—© Ethan Allred

In its time, Robert Schumann proposed an idea that seems obvious—combining the piano and the string quartet—but had never been tried. In the space of only a few weeks, Schumann wrote a legendary and unprecedented piece of music that influenced countless followers, including Brahms and Dvořák.

Schumann dedicated the quintet to its intended pianist, his wife Clara, and the piano is central to this work. Clara did not play in the first performance, however, as she fell ill and their friend Felix Mendelssohn stepped in at the last minute.

The Allegro brillante begins dramatically, with a chordal theme sounding like Mozart. The development is very dark, foreshadowing the second movement’s funeral march and eventually arriving at a minor-mode version of the first theme.

The second movement begins as a halting funeral march, departing from choppy phrases only briefly for legato piano lines. A carefully restrained cello and violin duet follows, over a blurry, arpeggiated accompaniment. After a return to the march, an agitated section pits staccato arpeggios in the piano against sharp chords in the strings. A violin tremolo adds to the agitation, before the violin and cello duet returns and the movement closes with a final funeral march.

The third movement, Scherzo, uses incessant scales to maintain its constant energy, transitioning into a trio that uses several arpeggios (and a canon between violin and viola) to subtly move between key areas. After a return to the Scherzo, the furious second trio repeats a short motive in different ranges, instruments, and pitches, before closing with the Scherzo once more.

The fourth movement, Allegro ma non troppo, begins with an accented theme in the piano. Typically for Schumann, he moves suddenly between different sections, allowing for striking juxtapositions. He closes the Quintet by bringing back the first movement’s main theme (described as Mozartean above) in a double fugue with the main theme of the last movement. Schumann connects the themes skillfully, bringing the tone of the two movements together and meeting somewhere in the middle.

—© Ethan Allred

Sunday, July 9

Monday, July 10

Kaul Auditorium | 8pm

Sponsor:

umama womama: Coleman, Lash & Ngwenyama

Lincoln Performance Hall | 4pm Sponsor: ZOLTÁN KODÁLY (1882-1967)

Serenade for Two Violins & Viola, Op. 12 • (20’)

I. Allegramente

II. Lento ma non troppo

III. Vivo umama womama

NOKUTHULA NGWENYAMA (b. 1976)

HAN LASH (b. 1981)

VALERIE COLEMAN (b. 1971)

R. MURRAY SCHAFER (1933-2021) SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943)

Three Pieces for Flute, Viola & Harp (2022) • (18')

CMNW CO-COMMISSION • WEST COAST PREMIERE

Down

Alexi Kenney, violin I

Jessica Lee, violin II

Hanna Lee, viola umama womama

Valerie Coleman, flute

Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola Han Lash, harp

Music in Cold Aja

Intermission

Trio for Flute, Viola & Harp (2010) • (15')

I. Freely Flowing

II. Slowly, Calmly

III. Rhythmic

Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 36 • (21')

I. Allegro agitato

II. Non allegro—Lento

III. Allegro molto umama womama

Valerie Coleman, flute

Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola Han Lash, harp

Zitong Wang, piano umama womama’s Three Pieces for Flute, Viola & Harp was commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest, with the generous support of Carl and Margery Post Abbott. This work is co-commissioned with Phoenix Chamber Music Society and Clarion Concerts.

In 1905-06, Zoltán Kodály traveled to the far corners of Hungary collecting and recording folk music. During this time, Kodály became acquainted with Béla Bartók and taught Bartók his methods for collecting and preserving their country’s indigenous music. This ethnomusicological work impacted each man’s music: Bartók tended to write original folk-inflected music, while Kodály typically combined a mixture of preexisting folk tunes.

After the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved after WWI, Hungary emerged as an independent country riven by governmental upheaval. In the ensuing harsh political climate, Kodály was denounced as a Bolshevist and his music was banned from public performance from 1921-23. The Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, Op. 12 is the only work he wrote during this time.

In 1921, Bartók, attempting to restore Kodály’s reputation, wrote a glowing review of Op. 12: “This composition, in spite of its unusual chord combinations and surprising originality, is firmly based on tonality…the choice of instruments and the superb richness of instrumental effects achieved despite the economy of the work merit great attention in themselves…It reveals a personality with something entirely new to say and one who is capable of communicating this content in a masterful and concentrated fashion. The work is extraordinarily rich in melodies.”

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

Three Pieces for Flute, Viola, and Harp is a collaborative work made possible by a joint commission between Chamber Music Northwest, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, and Clarion Concerts.

It was created by the members of umama womama to commemorate the debut of their ensemble. Each movement was created by a different member of the ensemble as short pieces that stand alone, reflecting the experiences and interests of the artists as creators in both music and motherhood.

The first movement, Down, explores a sense of foreboding through downward melodic and harmonic motion. Written before and during the pandemic, it also inserts protein sequences of the SARSCoV-2 sequences (CGA and U with U being wild) and variant gestures like P1 as unisons (Gamma) and B 1.1.529 (Omicron). Being “down” with a situation means accepting and being okay with it. Down gives us an opportunity to go into deeper sounds and discover that what goes down inevitably goes up.

—© Nokuthula Ngwenyama

Music in Cold feels prescient in some ways—I wrote it before the pandemic, and on some level I must have been anticipating the iciness of isolation into which we were all plunged about two or three months after I drew the double bar. It features each instrument as its own entity and yet perhaps mostly the blend of the three, their mixture of timbres creating a new instrument.

—© Han Lash

The final movement, Aja, is inspired by the Orisha goddess of the same name who is known as the Orisha of woodlands, healing, herbs, and animals. Through verdant textures and sounds of the forest, the work weaves a portrait in virtuosity to highlight the members of the ensemble while warm melodies in both viola and flute depict the nurturing of motherhood within the forest’s fauna. The arpeggiated and rhythmic sounds of kalimba (thumb piano) are between the instruments, invoking a dance to celebrate life.

—© Valerie Coleman

Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp set the standard by which all subsequent works written for that instrumental configuration are measured. R. Murray Schafer’s Trio for Flute, Viola, and Harp, commissioned in 2010 by Trio Verlaine, deliberately complements Debussy’s Sonata. To achieve this, Schafer abandoned his usual atmospheric soundscapes in favor of music in which melodies— tuneful, engaging melodies at that— predominate. Each movement’s title aptly describes its particular sound: fluid, lissome cascades of highly coloristic melodies; the “hymnlike,” reverent quality of the second movement, a refuge or sanctuary; and the irresistible dancing energy of the finale.

In 1913, while vacationing in Rome, Sergei Rachmaninoff began writing two works: a massive choral symphony based on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Bells, and the Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 36

Within its three movements, Op. 36 is highly cohesive, thanks to Rachmaninoff’s use of recurring and related themes. Poe’s bells ring throughout, and crashing chords evoke the massive sound of Russian Orthodox church bells. The second movement suggests the languid, harmonically rich sound of French piano music, particularly that of Erik Satie. Here Rachmaninoff ventures briefly into jazz with a series of bluesy harmonies.

In 1931, Rachmaninoff decided to revise Op. 36. “I look at my early works and see how much superfluous material is there,” he said. “Even in this Sonata, too many voices are moving simultaneously, and it is too long. Chopin’s sonata lasts 19 minutes and all is said.”

Tuesday, July 11

Lincoln Recital Hall | 12pm

SPOTLIGHT RECITAL: Alexi Kenney & Soovin Kim

J. S. BACH (1685-1750)

Violin & Keyboard Sonata in E Major, BWV 1016 • (20’)

I. Adagio

II. Allegro

III. Adagio ma non tanto

IV. Allegro

Alexi Kenney, violin

Zitong Wang , piano

SALINA FISHER (b. 1993)

EUGÈNE YSAYE (1858-1931)

Hikari (2023) • (7’)

Sonata for Two Violins, IEY. 20 (1915) • (30’)

I. Poco lento, maestoso: Allegro fermo

II. Allegretto poco lento

III. Allegro vivo e con fuoco

Alexi Kenney, violin

Soovin Kim, violin

Alexi Kenney, violin

During the lifetime of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the trio sonata was one of the most important multi-movement chamber music forms.

Trio sonatas typically included two melodic instruments and a continuo, or the instrument(s) that would provide the harmonic and rhythmic backbone in Baroque music. Despite their name, trio sonatas were generally performed by four musicians, for instance two violinists, a harpsichordist, and a cellist.

Although Bach did write some trio sonatas, he generally preferred to write sonatas for only one melodic instrument and continuo. Rather than including the second melodic instrument, he preferred to notate a full melodic line for the keyboardist to play with their right hand above the rhythmic and harmonic bass line provided by their left hand. By doing so, Bach helped elevate the importance of the keyboard from the background to the foreground and arguably created the template for instrumental sonata composers ever since.

Bach structured his Sonata for Violin & Keyboard in E Major, BWV 1016, in an old-fashioned Italian style known as the “sonata de chiesa,” or church sonata. Church sonatas typically consisted of four movements: slow-fast-slow-fast. In this sonata’s opening Adagio, the violin offers the primary melodic material, while the keyboard provides the bass line as well as a gently flowing treble countermelody. In the second movement, the keyboard introduces a dancelike theme, soon imitated by the violin then repeated in three-part dialogue between the violin, keyboard right hand, and keyboard left hand. The third movement, Adagio ma non troppo, is a mesmerizing duet that unfolds slowly into a series of elegant exchanges between violin and keyboard right hand. Bach ends the sonata with a jubilant Allegro dance, showcasing the virtuosity of violinist and keyboardist alike in an ecstatic yet carefully-crafted finale.

—© Ethan Allred

Hikari, by Salina Fisher, was commissioned by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust on behalf of Alexi Kenney. Salina Fisher writes: “‘Hikari,’ meaning light, brightness, or radiance, leans into the violin’s natural resonance and brilliance. Its musical language integrates the instrument’s expressive warmth and lyricism with more transparent timbres, in a constant search for light. The featured open string-crossing is an homage to Bach’s Chaconne, a work that is both central to this recital and to my own relationship with the violin.”

—© Princeton University Concerts

A contemporary of Claude Debussy and César Franck, Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) arguably made just as great an impact on European music history as those better-known composers. Born into a family of artisans and musicians, Ysaÿe studied in Liège and Brussels before heading to Paris, where he studied with fellow Belgian composer/violinist Henry Vieuxtemps. By the 1880s, Ysaÿe had established his reputation as a top violin virtuoso, cited especially for his expressiveness and extensive use of vibrato. Highly respected by his peers, he gave the world premieres of many masterworks, including Franck’s Violin Sonata (1886) and Debussy’s String Quartet (1893). Ysaÿe also played a role in the development of musical culture in the United States, first touring the country in 1894 and serving as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1918-22.

Ysaÿe’s 1915 Sonata for Two Violins exists at the pinnacle of the repertoire for unaccompanied violin duet. He dedicated the sonata to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, who also happened to be his student. The Queen was a skilled musician, though we do not know whether she ever performed the duet with her teacher. The sonata combines the soundscape of Ysaÿe’s musical environment—that is, the impressionism of Debussy and late Romanticism of Franck—with his own intimate knowledge of violin technique. Incredibly dense in its texture, the sonata often sounds more like a trio or quartet than a duet, owing to Ysaÿe’s use of double stops, arpeggios, and other imaginative compositional methods.

—© Ethan Allred