Orion String Quartet Plays Haydn

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

ORION STRING QUARTET PLAYS HAYDN Thursday Evening, February 26, 2015 at 7:30 Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio 3,407th Concert

ORION STRING QUARTET DANIEL PHILLIPS, violin TODD PHILLIPS, violin STEVEN TENENBOM, viola TIMOTHY EDDY, cello

45th Anniversary Season

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 10th Floor New York, NY 10023 212-875-5788 www.ChamberMusicSociety.org

ORION STRING QUARTET PLAYS HAYDN WINTER FESTIVAL IN THE ROSE - INTIMATE EXPRESSIONS Thursday Evening, February 26, 2015 at 7:30

ORION STRING QUARTET DANIEL PHILLIPS, violin TODD PHILLIPS, violin STEVEN TENENBOM, viola TIMOTHY EDDY, cello

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN (1732-1809)

Quartet in F minor for Strings, Hob. III:35, Op. 20, No. 5 (1772) Moderato Menuet Adagio Finale: Fuga a due soggetti D. PHILLIPS, T. PHILLIPS, TENENBOM, EDDY

HAYDN

Quartet in E-flat major for Strings, Hob. III:38, Op. 33, No. 2, “The Joke” (1781) Allegro moderato, cantabile Scherzo: Allegro Largo sostenuto Finale: Presto T. PHILLIPS, D. PHILLIPS, TENENBOM, EDDY

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HAYDN Quartet in C major for Strings, Hob. III:45, Op. 50, No. 2 (1787) Vivace Adagio Menuetto: Allegro Finale: Vivace assai D. PHILLIPS, T. PHILLIPS, TENENBOM, EDDY

HAYDN Quartet in F major for Strings, Hob. III:82, Op. 77, No. 2 (1799) Allegro moderato Menuetto: Presto, ma non troppo Andante Finale: Vivace assai T. PHILLIPS, D. PHILLIPS, TENENBOM, EDDY

notes on the

PROGRAM

Quartet in F minor for Strings, Hob. III:35, Op. 20, No. 5 Franz Joseph HAYDN Born March 31, 1732 in Rohrau, Lower Austria.

Died May 31, 1809 in Vienna.

Composed in 1772.

First CMS performance on January 25, 2009.

Duration: 22 minutes The six works of Op. 20, composed in 1772, were known to Haydn’s contemporaries as the “Sun” Quartets because the cover of their first published edition (1774) was emblazoned with a drawing of the rising sun. The sobriquet was just as appropriate for musical reasons, since these were really the earliest quartets in which Haydn’s full genius in the form dawned. “Everything that his later works were to bring to fruition is here, not merely in embryo but breaking into flower,” wrote Rosemary Hughes. Sir Donald Tovey added, “With Op. 20, the historical development of Haydn’s quartets reaches its goal; further progress is not progress in any historical sense, but simply the difference between one masterpiece and the next.” Haydn applied to the Op. 20 Quartets the richness of invention and mastery of craft learned in the three dozen symphonies he had written during the preceding decade. These quartets are remarkable for the manner in which all four of the instrumental voices participate fully in the musical conversation, a distinct stylistic advance over the Rococo divertimento, in which the violins largely played their pretty tunes

above the discrete background of the lower strings. Haydn’s new musical democracy is confirmed by the contrapuntal nature of all the movements, especially the finales, four of which use fugal procedures. The importance of the Op. 20 Quartets was not missed by Haydn’s colleagues and successors—Mozart wrote six quartets directly under their influence (K. 168173, the first and last of which have fugal finales) and Beethoven copied out the first of the set for his own study.

Rosemary Hughes wrote that the F minor Quartet (Op. 20, No. 5) “shows clearly how Haydn’s new-found grasp of both texture and structure are placed at the service of emotion.” The emotion at the outset, established by the first violin’s anxious flourishes above a pulsing accompaniment, is troubled and intense.

The music brightens, and the main theme is heard again in a new key. A more cheerful subject is mooted, but it is quickly drawn into the movement’s pervading apprehensive mood. The principal theme is worked out in the development section and further elaborated in the recapitulation.

The remainder of the thematic material is re-cast in the dark home tonality before the movement closes with a passionate coda.

The restless emotion of the Menuet creates a fine expressive tension with the simple structure and buoyant rhythms of the old dance form. A sweet-natured central trio provides an expressive foil. The Adagio, with its tender lyricism and its gently rocking siciliano rhythms, offers a respite

from the quartet’s turbulence. It is decorous in nature and sonatina in form (sonataallegro without a development section), but with enough accumulating filigree in the first violin to mimic a set of free variations. The Finale, often cited as one of Haydn’s most masterful instrumental fugues, is based on two subjects: a slowmoving one with large-interval jumps

reminiscent of And With His Stripes from Handel’s Messiah, and a quicker theme with much scalar motion. These motives are treated with such techniques as canon, inversion, and retrograde, but those learned devices are never allowed to dilute the movement’s powerful, unsettled emotions, which remain undiminished through the forceful closing chords. 

Quartet in E-flat major for Strings, Hob. III:38, Op. 33, No. 2, "The Joke" Franz Joseph HAYDN Composed in 1781.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 18 minutes “I take the liberty of humbly offering Your Serene Highness, as a great patron and connoisseur of music, my brand-new quartets for strings. They are written in a new and special manner, for I have not composed any quartets for ten years.”

Thus did Joseph Haydn notify Prince Krafft Ernst Oettingen-Wallerstein and several other music lovers of similarly lofty pedigree of the availability of his six Op. 33 Quartets in a fine manuscript edition prior to their publication for the mass market in April 1782. Into them went what he had learned in his 30 years of incessant creative work about pleasing both connoisseurs and amateurs without sacrificing the tiniest particle of his own rigorous standards for form and content: the full, democratic participation of all four instruments; the supple and thorough motivic development; the memorable and malleable themes; the range of emotions;

the effortless technical polish; the wit and joie de vivre.

Though the punchline for the “joke” in the E-flat major Quartet (Op. 33, No. 2) is withheld until the work’s end, a sense of good humor infects the piece right from its opening theme, a bright-eyed tune that would set the perfect mood and tempo to accompany a brisk walk in the park. Haydn cunningly built this apparently breezy melody, however, with a jeweler’s precision, crafting it so that it could be discussed among the participants and played out across the entire movement—extended, inverted, transposed, re-harmonized, elaborated, dis- and re-assembled. There is hardly a measure in this entire sonata-form movement that has not in some way sprouted from the thematic seeds planted in the walk-in-the-park tune. It is such marvelously unified diversity that marked the full blossoming of Haydn’s creative genius. Haydn titled the second movement a “Scherzo”—literally, a “joke”—and he may have intended some good fun by including in the sophisticated form of the string quartet this piece in the rustic nature of the peasant-derived Deutscher (German Dance); the central trio is kept from being

too polite by the whistling high notes of the first violin. The Largo, whose great beauty and deep emotion are heightened by the jocular surroundings, alternates a floating hymnal strain with contrasting episodes of sharp chords and accented syncopations.

The Finale is a rollicking rondo whose form is based on the refrain-like returns of the snappy ditty tossed off by the first violin at the outset. “The Joke” comes at the end, and the punchline is worth waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for. 

Quartet in C major for Strings, Hob. III:45, Op. 50, No. 2 Franz Joseph HAYDN Composed in 1787.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 22 minutes In 1785, Haydn undertook a series of string quartets to capitalize on the excellent success that had greeted his Op. 33 Quartets, published the year before.

He worked for the next two years to round out the required six numbers of the new set—to be issued as his Op. 50 by the Viennese firm of Artaria—and gave much thought as they neared completion to the manner in which a carefully considered dedication might add to his burgeoning European acclaim. He negotiated with Artaria to name his own dedicatee, and settled on King Friedrich Wilhelm II, who had ascended the throne of Prussia in 1786. From his uncle Frederick the Great (a dedicated flutist, a champion of J.S. Bach, and the employer of Bach’s Son No. 2, Carl Philipp Emanuel), Friedrich Wilhelm had inherited a considerable talent for music as well as the court’s director of chamber music, the French cello virtuoso Jean Pierre Duport. Friedrich developed into an accomplished cellist under Duport’s tutelage, and he satisfied his

passionate love of music by hiring Luigi Boccherini as court composer, by ordering the performance of oratorios by Handel and operas by Gluck and Mozart (whom he tried to attract to Berlin), by occasionally sitting in at rehearsals with the opera orchestra, and by regularly participating in chamber music with his household professionals. The Op. 50 Quartets proudly bore King Friedrich Wilhelm’s name when they were published in September 1787.

The Quartet in C major (Op. 50, No. 2) is a superb example of Haydn’s mature compositional skills in the expert handling of the instruments, the meticulous balance of satisfaction and surprise, the effortless but supremely sophisticated formal construction, and the ease and invention of thematic development. The first movement’s main theme, in the best Classical fashion, balances languor and vigor with its swaying opening gestures countered by rocketing scale figurations.

These elements recur, with the scalerockets fired off alternately by violin and cello as a transition to the dapper second subject, presented by the first violin above a prim, music-box accompaniment.

The main theme is revisited to close the exposition and then carried over into the development, where its possibilities for somber treatment in imitative style are explored; the scale-rockets and the second

theme are investigated in a similar manner.

The earlier materials are recapitulated in full but with subtle harmonic changes and the substitution of a passage echoing the imitative episodes of the development section as the transition to the reprise of the second theme.

The Adagio is elegant and succinct—a wordless song shared by the violins; a brief central episode in darker harmonic colors; and an elaborated return of the opening song. The Menuetto is playful in both its mood and in the little tricks of rhythm and harmony with which Haydn

delighted performer and listener alike.

The thematic seeds of the Finale are planted in the first two measures: a repeated-note motive with two quick pick-up notes in the second violin and viola, and a dashing 16th-note figure in the first violin. Virtually every measure in this four-minute, sonata-form movement is generated from those simple ideas, in repetition, in extension, or in elaboration.

That such a piece of music is delightful and engaging while also satisfying the art’s most rigorous intellectual demands is both the wonder and the legacy of Joseph Haydn. 

Quartet in F major for Strings, Hob. III:82, Op. 77, No. 2 Franz Joseph HAYDN Composed in 1799.

First CMS performance on December 4, 1994.

Duration: 25 minutes

Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian Lobkowitz, born into one of Austria’s most distinguished families in 1772, was among Vienna’s preeminent patrons of music at the turn of the 19th century. Beethoven’s biographer Thayer described him as “a violinist of considerable powers and so devoted a lover of music and the drama, so profuse a squanderer of his income upon them, as in 20 years to reduce himself to bankruptcy.” In 1799, the young Prince commissioned not one but two sets of string quartets—one from the young lion Ludwig van Beethoven, who had first pounced upon the city seven years

before; the other from Joseph Haydn, then Europe’s most revered composer, who was still basking in the unalloyed triumph of the premiere of The Creation in April 1798. Though Haydn had reached the not inconsiderable age of 67, he was still vital and energetic, and readily set to work on Lobkowitz’s order for a series of six new quartets.

Haydn completed two of the pieces for Lobkowitz in 1799 (G major and F major, published by Artaria in Vienna in 1802 as Op. 77, No. 1 and No. 2, with a dedication to the Prince), but then broke off the series to take up the enormous labor on The Seasons, the successor to The Creation, which so sapped his strength that he was unable to finish any more of the quartets.

The two quartets of Op. 77 were the last in the incomparable series of instrumental creations stretching over half a century with which Haydn had brought the quintessential forms of musical Classicism to their perfected states.

The Quartet in F major, Op. 77, No. 2 displays the ease and fluency of formbuilding through motivic development that Haydn had wrested from a half-century of instrumental composition. As the first movement’s principal thematic material, the first violin posits a descending scale, perfectly balanced in two loud-soft phrases, that is carefully embellished with tiny decorative figures and sharply etched rhythmic cells. The lower strings underpin the second phrase with a smooth, scale-step accompaniment and punctuate the end of the eight-measure theme with a quick, repeated note motive. From this handful of ideas—a scale, a distinctive rhythm or two, a few legato notes—Haydn spun a masterful eight minutes of music: tightly integrated yet constantly inventive; attractive in every detail yet never losing sight of the movement’s overall formal scheme; simple yet complex; expressive yet cerebral; lovely yet profound. It is music-making of the highest order, significant not just as the basis for this single piece but also as the culmination of the work of many earlier generations of composers and the model (and standard) for those to follow.

The second movement is labeled “Menuetto” but it is really a fully developed scherzo, a form that had gained considerable currency in fashionable Viennese musical circles following the publication of Beethoven’s Op. 1 Piano Trios in 1795. The joke inherent

in the Italian word “scherzo” is amply demonstrated by the movement’s outer sections, with their toe-stubbing rhythmic tricks, surprise dynamic changes, sly harmonic side-steps, and tweaky grace-notes. Providing an emotional and stylistic foil for this exalted foolery, however, is the central trio, sedate, almost somber in mood, smoothly flowing in demeanor, and tinged with expressive chromatic harmonies.

The Andante is a set of free variations on an elegant but rather prim melody presented by the first violin above the lean accompaniment of only a walking-bass line in the cello. The other instruments enter as the theme unfolds (a wonderful effect—rather like switching from mono to stereo on the home audio system), and the second violin and then the cello take over the melody for successive variations. An elaborate passage in the first violin provides the transition to the final variation, which returns the quiet and simplicity of the opening, though here with the inner voices filling out the texture.

The closing movement, Haydn’s last instrumental Finale, is a dashing, monothematic sonata structure built on a theme of folk-dance vivacity, “a sublimation and fulfillment of all that had gone before,” according to Rosemary Hughes in her study of the composer’s string quartets. 

©2015 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

meet tonight’s

ARTISTS

Since its inception, the Orion String Quartet has been consistently praised for the fresh perspective and individuality it brings to performances, offering diverse programs that juxtapose classic works of the standard quartet literature with masterworks by twentieth and twenty-first century composers. The quartet remains on the cutting edge of programming with wide-ranging commissions from composers Chick Corea, Brett Dean, David Del Tredici, Alexander Goehr, Thierry Lancino, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Marc Neikrug, Lowell Liebermann, Peter Lieberson, and Wynton Marsalis, and enjoys a creative partnership with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The members of the Orion String Quartet—violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips (brothers who share the first violin chair equally), violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Timothy Eddy—have worked closely with such legendary figures as Pablo Casals, Sir András Schiff, Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Peter Serkin, members of Tashi and the Beaux Arts Trio, as well as the Budapest, Végh, Galimir, and Guarneri string quartets. The Orion performs regularly with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is quartet-in-residence at New York's Mannes College of Music.

The quartet members appear at the Ravinia Festival, Toronto Summer Music Festival, and Music Mountain with pianist Peter Serkin performing Dvořák and Brahms piano quintets. They also perform at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, where they have become distinguished for commissions and unusual works by major composers. The quartet was pleased to join the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company for two performances in September of its iconic D-Man in the Waters (Part I) as part of Fall for Dance at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Highlights of its 2014-15 season include a European tour with concerts in Germany, Madrid, Bilbao, and the Wigmore Hall in London. The ensemble’s critical acclaim in performances of Haydn’s string quartets has made this composer central in many programs this season. Returning to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the quartet performs a program of Haydn, Webern, and Reger's Piano Quartet with longtime musical partner Peter Serkin. Other US appearances bring the quartet to Yale with the woodwind quintet Windscape.

The ensemble celebrated its 25th anniversary in the 2012-13 season with a collaboration involving the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at New York City’s Joyce Theater for a special two-week project featuring musical excerpts and arrangements of works by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Ravel, and Schubert.

WQXR’s The Greene Space presented a live-broadcast of the collaboration with performance and conversation by the quartet and Bill T. Jones.

Heard on National Public Radio's Performance Today, the Orion has also appeared on PBS' Live from Lincoln Center, A&E's Breakfast with the Arts, and three times on ABC-TV's Good Morning America. Additionally, the quartet was

photographed with Drew Barrymore by Annie Leibovitz for the April 2005 issue of Vogue. Formed in 1987, the quartet chose its name from the Orion constellation as a metaphor for the unique personality each musician brings to the group in its collective pursuit of the highest musical ideals.

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. He has performed as a soloist with the Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, and the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England.

He also serves on the summer faculties of the Banff Centre, Heifetz Institute, and the Colorado College Music Festival. A member of the renowned Bach Aria Group, he has toured and recorded in a string quartet for SONY with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. Recently he shared the solo spotlight in a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in Santa Fe with violinists Benny Kim, Bella Hristova, and William Preucil. He has made concerto appearances with the Nova Philharmonic in New York and the Queens College Symphony under Maestro Maurice Peress.

Todd Phillips has performed as a guest soloist with leading orchestras throughout North America, Europe, and Japan including the Pittsburgh Symphony, New York String Orchestra, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with which he made a critically acclaimed recording of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Deutsche Grammophon. He has appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Marlboro, and Spoleto festivals, and with Chamber Music at the 92nd Street Y and New York Philomusica. He has collaborated with such renowned artists as Rudolf Serkin, Jaime Laredo, Richard Stoltzman, Peter Serkin, and Pinchas Zukerman and has participated in 18 Musicians from Marlboro tours. He has recorded for the Arabesque, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon, Finlandia, Marlboro Recording Society, New York Philomusica, RCA Red Seal, and SONY Classical labels.

Violist Steven Tenenbom has established a distinguished career as chamber musician, soloist, recitalist, and teacher. He has worked with composer Lukas Foss and jazz artist Chick Corea, and has appeared as a guest artist with such ensembles as the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets, and the KalichsteinLaredo-Robinson trio. He has performed as a soloist with the Utah Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, and toured with the Brandenburg Ensemble throughout the United States and Japan. His festival credits include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Ravinia, Marlboro, June Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, and Bravo! Vail Valley. A recipient of the Coleman Chamber Music Award and a former member of the Galimir Quartet, he is currently a member of the renowned group Tashi and the piano quartet OPUS ONE.

Cellist Timothy Eddy has earned distinction as a recitalist, orchestral soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. He has performed with such symphonies as Dallas, Colorado, Jacksonville, North Carolina, and Stamford, and has appeared at the Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Aspen, Marlboro, Lockenhaus, Spoleto, and Sarasota music festivals. He has won prizes in numerous national and international competitions, including the 1975 Gaspar Cassado International Violoncello Competition in Italy. Mr. Eddy was frequently a faculty member at the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshops at Carnegie Hall. A former member of the Galimir Quartet, the New York Philomusica, and the Bach Aria Group, he collaborates in recital with pianist Gilbert Kalish. He has recorded a wide range of repertoire from Baroque to avant-garde for the Angel, Arabesque, Columbia, CRI, Delos, Musical Heritage, New World, Nonesuch, Vanguard, Vox, and SONY Classical labels.

Spring 2015

WATCH LIVE Enjoy a front row seat from anywhere in the world. View chamber music events streamed live to your computer or mobile device, and available for streaming on demand for the following 24 hours. Relax, browse the program, and experience the Chamber Music Society like never before.

3/12/15 3/24/15 4/2/15 4/16/15 4/20/15 4/30/15 5/7/15 5/13/15

7:30 PM 11:00 AM 7:30 PM 9:00 PM 11:00 AM 7:30 PM 7:30 PM 11:00 AM

One Piano, Four Hands Master Class with Paul Watkins New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse Late Night Rose Master Class with Cho-Liang Lin Art of the Recital: Gilbert Kalish New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse Master Class with Jason Vieaux

All events are free to watch.

View full program details online. www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/WatchLive

If the Chamber Music Society has played a part in your past‌ play a part in its future.

February is PLANNED GIVING MONTH at CMS The Chamber Music Society honors loyal patrons who have chosen to become guardians of this intimate art form with a unique membership in the Alice Tully Circle.

It is important that the Alice Tully Circle continues to grow.

We invite you to consider a planned gift to the Chamber Music Society. Members of the Alice Tully Circle receive invitations to special receptions and concerts throughout each season.

For more information about including the Chamber Music Society in your will and other deferred gifts, please call Sharon Griffin, Director of Development, at 212-875-5782.

With special thanks to these Alice Tully Circle members: Anonymous (3) Mrs. Marguerite S. Bedell Dr. Jerome Bruner Eliane Bukantz Anitra Christoffel-Pell Robert J. Cubitto and Ellen R. Nadler Ms. Carlotta Eisen Mr. Stuart M. Fischman Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Giron Ms. Dalia Carmel Goldstein Anthony C. Gooch Dr. Edith Schwartz Goodman Mrs. Mary Scott Guest

Warren Ilchman Frederick L. Jacobson Thomas Jambois Peter Kennard Hans and Donna Kilian Dr. and Mrs. Thomas C. King Mr. and Mrs. William Lembeck Helen Brown Levine Dr. and Mrs. Martin L. Nass Eva Popper Martin Riskin Mrs. Robert Schuur Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Stockwell, Jr. Sally Wardwell

upcoming

EVENTS

ROMANTIC PIANO QUARTETS

Sunday, March 1, 2015, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Tuesday, March 3, 2015, 7:30 PM • Alice Tully Hall Bold, lush, and radiant piano quartets by Mahler, Schumann, and Brahms comprise this unforgettable program.

CONVERSATIONAL STRINGS

Sunday, March 8, 2015, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Duos by Mozart, Martinů, and Ravel are followed by Mozart's heartfelt Viola Quintet in G minor.

ONE PIANO, FOUR HANDS

Thursday, March 12, 2015, 7:30 PM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio • SOLD OUT The ideally-matched four-hand piano team of Wu Han and Juho Pohjonen presents works

by Mozart and Mendelssohn.

This event will also be streamed live at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/watchlive