Rose Studio Concert - November 13, 2014

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors

ROSE STUDIO CONCERT Thursday Evening, November 13, 2014 at 6:30 Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio 3,362nd Concert

GILLES VONSATTEL, piano DANISH STRING QUARTET FREDERIK ØLAND, violin RUNE TONSGAARD SØRENSEN, violin ASBJØRN NØRGAARD, viola FREDRIK SJÖLIN, 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

This concert is made possible, in part, by the Grand Marnier Foundation.

Many donors support the artists of the Chamber Music Society Two program. This evening, we gratefully acknowledge the generosity of William B. Ginsberg.

The Chamber Music Society is deeply grateful to Board member Paul Gridley for his very generous gift of the Hamburg Steinway & Sons model "D" concert grand piano we are privileged to hear this evening.

ROSE STUDIO CONCERT Thursday Evening, November 13, 2014 at 6:30 GILLES VONSATTEL, piano DANISH STRING QUARTET FREDERIK ØLAND, violin RUNE TONSGAARD SØRENSEN, violin ASBJØRN NØRGAARD, viola FREDRIK SJÖLIN, cello

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)

Quartet in G minor for Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 10 (1893) Animé et très décidé Assez vif et bien rythmé Andantino doucement expressif Très modéré—Très mouvementé et avec passion TONSGAARD SØRENSEN, ØLAND, NØRGAARD, SJÖLIN

LOUIS VIERNE (1870-1937)

Quintet for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 42 (1917-18) Poco lento—Moderato Larghetto sostenuto Maestoso—Agitato VONSATTEL, TONSGAARD SØRENSEN, ØLAND, NØRGAARD, SJÖLIN

Please turn off cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices.

Photographing, sound recording, or videotaping this performance is prohibited.

notes on the

PROGRAM

Quartet in G minor for Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 10 Claude DEBUSSY Born August 22, 1862 in St. Germain-en-Laye, near Paris.

Died March 25, 1918 in Paris.

Composed in 1893.

Premiered on December 29, 1893 in Paris by the Ysaÿe Quartet.

First CMS performance on December 13, 1969.

Duration: 25 minutes

By 1893, when he was 30, Claude Debussy had acquired a modest reputation in Paris as the composer of songs, piano pieces, and miscellaneous vocal and orchestral works, as a winner of the Prix de Rome, and as a bohemian musician much under the sway of the Symbolist poets Mallarmé and Régnier. His distinctive creative personality had already been demonstrated to the city’s circle of progressive music lovers by the Petite Suite, Arabesques, and Suite Bergamasque (from which comes the well-known Clair de Lune), but the wider recognition of his genius began when the cantata La Damoiselle élue (The Blessed Damozel) was premiered at a concert of the Société Nationale on April 8, 1893. By that time, he had already begun sketching an opera based on Maeterlinck’s newly published drama Pelléas et Mélisande, a project that would take him a decade to complete, and written much of a ballet score inspired by Mallarmé’s voluptuous poem L’Après-midi d’un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun). The other major endeavor of 1893

was a string quartet, a curious undertaking, perhaps, for a composer of Debussy’s decidedly impressionistic proclivities, but one he apparently felt necessary to show that he could handle the Classical forms which had occupied much of his long study at the Conservatoire and as a Prix de Rome recipient—it is indicative in this regard that the quartet is the only one of his works to which he formally assigned an opus number.

The quartet opens with a distinctive, modally inflected motive (marked by a quick, three-note ornamental cell) that serves both as the melodic germ from which the first movement grows and as the motto theme that returns in later movements to unify the work’s overall structure. The frequent recurrences of the motto throughout the opening movement, usually in transformations of sonority, harmony, and mood, are separated by episodes of mildly contrasting character.

The second movement is a free adaptation of the form and manner of a scherzo. The opening section posits a repetitive viola ostinato built from the motto theme around which swirl sparkling pizzicato effects for the other instruments. The center of the movement is occupied by a rhythmically augmented version of the motto theme first given by the violin above a rustling accompaniment. A modified return of the opening section rounds out the movement.

The Andantino, sensual, lyrical, permeated with the sweet sensations of early spring, evokes a similar expressive and stylistic world to the one Debussy conjured in the contemporaneous Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun.” The two-part

introduction to the finale comprises a slowtempo transformation of the motto and a quicker, mock-fugal passage derived from the scherzo theme. The viola initiates the main part of the movement with a rapid

motive that is tightly restricted in range.

This phrase and further transformations of the motto theme occupy the remainder of the movement, which ends with a sun-bright flourish. 

Quintet for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, Op. 42 Louis VIERNE Born October 8, 1870 in Poitiers, France.

Died June 2, 1937 in Paris.

Composed in 1917-18.

Premiered on July 16, 1921 at the Salle Gaveau in Paris by violinists Yvonne Astruc and Victor Gentil, violist Maurice Vieu, cellist Marguerite Caponsacchi, and pianist Nadia Boulanger.

Tonight is the first CMS performance of this piece.

Duration: 30 minutes Louis Vierne was born on October 8, 1870 into the family of a journalist in Poitiers, in west-central France; he was nearly blind at birth. Despite his inability to see properly (or, perhaps, because of it), Louis was especially sensitive to sound and he early showed an inclination for music. Henri Vierne got a job with the Paris Journal when Louis was three, and soon after the family arrived in the capital his wife sought advice about their musically precocious son from her brother, Charles Colin, a winner of the Prix de Rome, oboe professor at the Paris Conservatory, and organist at the Church of St. Denis du Saint Sacrement. Colin recommended that little Louis be given a thorough general and musical education, so the boy was started on formal music study when he was six. An operation on his eyes

later that year allowed him to distinguish shapes, read large print, and move about more confidently on his own. (A typesetter at his father’s newspaper devised a special large-type reader to help.) In 1881, after receiving a good primary education, Vierne entered the National Institute for Blind Children in Paris, where he excelled in piano, violin, and organ. After graduating with top grades in 1890, he became a private student of Franck in organ and composition, and the following year he was accepted at the Paris Conservatoire. After graduating with a Premier Prix in organ in 1894, Vierne taught at the school. In 1900, he beat out some 50 other applicants to win the coveted job of organist at Notre Dame Cathedral, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He died in the organ loft on June 2, 1937 while performing his 1,750th recital at the church.

The years when Vierne was entering his middle age were ones of public recognition and personal tragedy. In 1899, he married Arlette Taskin, the daughter of a celebrated baritone at the Opéra-Comique, and the following year he was appointed organist at the venerable Notre Dame Cathedral; a son, Jacques, was born to the couple that year, André followed in 1903, and Colette arrived three years later. Vierne’s happiness began to wane in 1906, however, when he suffered an accident that incapacitated him

for months; he had not yet recovered from that misfortune when he came down with typhoid fever. His wife, a decade younger, fell into an affair with a supposed friend of her husband during his convalescence and the couple was divorced in 1909 on condition that he never remarry; André and Colette remained with Arlette and Vierne took Jacques to live with him at his mother’s home. Madame Vierne passed away in 1911 after an agonizing illness and Alexandre Guilmant, organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire, died six days later; Vierne, who had volunteered at the school for 18 years, was bitterly disappointed when he was not appointed as his successor.

Two years later, his son André contracted tuberculosis and died shortly after his tenth birthday. World War I erupted in 1914 and Notre Dame was damaged in a German bombing raid soon after hostilities began. Vierne had to go to Switzerland the following year for extended treatment of the glaucoma that was stealing the last of his already feeble sight, but the procedure was not a success. His trials were still not over, however, because family tragedy struck yet again—twice. On November 11, 1917, Jacques, 17 years old and Vierne’s only surviving son, was killed in battle; six months later his beloved brother René died in a bomb blast while serving on a volunteer raiding party.

His family shattered, his health precarious, and his vision virtually gone, Vierne turned to music to express his sorrow, to seek solace, and to find a way back into the world. “I am constructing a piano quintet of vast proportions that will give full expression to my tenderness and the tragic destiny of my child,” he wrote to a friend in February 1918. “The wild and furious energy with which I am tackling this task

matches the depth of my grief, and I will make something powerful, grandiose, and strong…. Perhaps one who has suffered every grief, every bitterness, every anguish, may be able to ease and console the sufferings of others—that is the role of the artist.” When the piano quintet was published in 1924, Vierne dedicated it “to the memory of my beloved son JACQUES, who died for France at age 17.” He headed the score “En Ex-Voto”—“made from a vow”—which traditionally indicates a “votive” offering made for deliverance from adversity. One wonders if his intent was devotional or cynical.

The quintet opens with a low, ominous, winding theme in the piano with no trace of harmonic comfort. The strings reply with a tentative, rising, densely chromatic phrase. Those ideas are reiterated and lead to the main theme, an intense, rhythmically insistent transformation of the piano’s ominous opening gesture that is worked out with the strength of feeling which pervades the entire quintet. The work’s passion, however, in no way compromises its craft, as the lyrical subsidiary theme proves to be a variant of the strings’ rising, chromatic phrase from the introduction.

The exposition reaches a climax but quickly recedes so that the piano can begin the development section with the main theme; the strings offer resolute commentary. The first violin, high in its compass, recalls the lyrical second theme and shares it with its colleagues until its momentum is undermined by a remembrance of the original halting introductory phrases from which it was derived. The piano urges a renewed resolve by beginning a passage of mounting urgency that reaches its peak with the recapitulation of the main theme in its most powerful setting. The piano recalls

the lyrical second theme. For the coda, the movement turns to a less troubled major key that seems to hint at some resolution, or at least acceptance, but the close is enervated rather than peaceful.

British composer, pianist, Oxford faculty member, and 20th-century chamber music authority Francis Potts wrote, “The second movement blunts the edge of grief with its trance-like evocation of distant memories.” The viola presents a long, poignant melody with the gentle rocking motion of a lullaby as the theme of the movement’s opening section. Broken figures in the piano abruptly change the mood for the large central episode, which includes a complementary theme grown from the principal subject, a broad new melody, and further contention involving the piano’s broken figurations.

Viola and cello recall the poignant first theme, with the piano’s broken figurations transformed into a gliding, disembodied accompaniment.

The finale begins with stabbing chords in the piano and a hesitant response from the strings that previews the movement’s main theme. The ominous theme that opened the quintet is remembered by the piano once again before the main part of the movement is launched with an energized and extended version of the introduction’s string motive. Fanfare-like figurations in the piano announce a demonic march as the subsidiary theme. Both themes are treated with considerable skill in the development section. The ominous theme from the first movement returns one last time in a tragic setting against a vague evocation of tolling funeral bells. Resolve is restored with the recapitulation of the finale’s vigorous main theme. The expected return of the demonic march is replaced by the lyrical second theme of the opening movement, perhaps intended here as a sign of modest hope, before the quintet culminates in a stormy coda that leaves, according to Francis Potts, “a deliberate sense of unresolved drama: of demons anything but laid to rest.” 

© 2014 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

meet tonight’s

ARTISTS

The Danish String Quartet has established a reputation for possessing an integrated sound, impeccable intonation, and judicious balance. Since making its debut in 2002 at the Copenhagen Festival, the group has demonstrated a passion for Scandinavian composers, whom it frequently incorporates into adventurous contemporary programs, while also proving skilled and profound performers of the classical masters. This scope of talent secured the ensemble a three-year appointment in the coveted Chamber Music Society Two program that began in the 2013-14 season. The quartet was also named as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist for 2013-15.

The Danish String Quartet's 2014-15 season brings first-time tours to Israel and South America. Other international tours feature the quartet in London, Brussels, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Glasgow, and Weimar as well as the Lofoten Festival in Norway. With increasing popularity, the ensemble is considered one of the most sought after quartets in the United States. On November 12 the quartet launched its recording of Danish folk songs entitled Wood Works, released by the Dacapo label and distributed by Naxos, at SubCulture in New York. The quartet presented the US premiere of Danish composer Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen's Quartet No. 7 "The Extinguishable" in October at the University of Chicago Presents series and will subsequently perform this work in St. Paul, Santa Barbara, Pasadena, New Haven, Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Laramie. The ensemble’s robust schedule is rounded out with appearances at Washington Performing Arts, Vancouver Recital Society, La Jolla Music Society, and Da Camera of Houston.

In late November the Danish String Quartet present the eighth annual DSQ-Festival, a four-day event held in Copenhagen that brings together musical friends the quartet has met on its travels. In 2009 the group won First Prize in the 11th London International String Quartet Competition. This competition is now called the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and the quartet returned to Wigmore Hall in April 2014 to perform a program of Beethoven and Haydn.

In 2006, the Danish String Quartet was Danish Radio’s Artist-in-Residence, providing the opportunity to record all of Carl Nielsen's string quartets in the Danish Radio Concert Hall, subsequently released to critical acclaim on the Dacapo label in 2007 and 2008. In 2012 the quartet released an equally-acclaimed recording of Haydn and Brahms quartets on the German AVI-music label. The ensemble recorded works by Brahms and Robert Fuchs with award-winning clarinettist Sebastian Manz at the Bayerische Rundfunk in Munich, released by AVI-music in 2014, and recently signed with ECM Records for future recording projects.

Violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and violist Asbjørn Nørgaard met as children at a music summer camp, eventually making the transition into a serious string quartet in their teens and studying at Copenhagen’s Royal Academy of Music. In 2008 the three Danes were joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Sjölin. The Danish String Quartet was primarily taught and mentored by Professor Tim Frederiksen.

A "wanderer between worlds" (Lucerne Festival), Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Comfortable with and seeking out an enormous range of repertoire, he displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions, he recently made his Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, and San Francisco Symphony debuts, while performing recitals and chamber music at the Tonhalle Zürich, Ravinia, Tokyo's Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His most recent 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as "tightly conceived and passionately performed...a study in intensity" by the New York Times. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary music, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His 2011 recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York's classical albums of the year. A former member of Chamber Music Society Two, he received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. Mr. Vonsattel is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Fall 2014 — Winter 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.

11/13/14 9:00 PM Late Night Rose 11/19/14 11:00 AM Master Class with Peter Kolkay 12/11/14 7:30 PM New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse 1/15/15 9:00 PM Late Night Rose 1/22/15 7:30 PM Art of the Recital: Gary Hoffman and David Selig 1/29/15 7:30 PM New Music in the Kaplan Penthouse

All events are free to watch.

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

upcoming

EVENTS

DVOŘÁK, CHAUSSON, AND SCHUBERT

Sunday, November 16, 5:00 PM • Alice Tully Hall Schubert's timeless masterpiece, the "Trout" Quintet, is paired with great Romantic works by Dvořák and Chausson.

MIXED WINDS

Tuesday, November 18, 7:30 PM • Alice Tully Hall Treasures of the wind repertoire are celebrated in a program including works by Barber, Taffanel, Brett Dean, Poulenc, and Mozart.

MASTER CLASS WITH PETER KOLKAY, BASSOON

Wednesday, November 19, 11:00 AM • Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio The art of interpretation and details of technique are explained by master artists.

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