ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SECOND SEASON
Tuesday, March 7, 2023, at 6:30
CSO Chamber Music Series
CIVITAS ENSEMBLE
Yuan-Qing Yu Violin
Weijing Michal Viola
Kenneth Olsen Cello
Winston Choi Piano
mozart Piano Quartet in G Minor, K. 478
Allegro
Andante
Rondo: Allegro
intermission
mahler
strauss
Piano Quartet in A Minor
Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 13
Allegro
Scherzo: Presto—Molto meno mosso—Tempo I
Andante
Finale: Vivace
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Future Civitas Ensemble concert information can be found at civitasensemble.org
wolfgang amadeus mozart
Born January 27, 1756; Salzburg, Austria
Died December 5, 1791; Vienna, Austria
Piano Quartet in G Minor, K. 478
composed 1785
Among the most important harbingers of the shift in Mozart’s musical language was the G minor piano quartet (K. 478), which he completed on October 16, 1785, in response to a commission for three such works from the publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister. Hoffmeister had entered the business only a year earlier, and Mozart’s extraordinary and disturbing score, for which the publisher saw little market, threw a fright into him. Eventually, the publisher canceled the contract. Artaria & Co., proving bolder than Hoffmeister, acquired the piece and published it a year later; there are hints in contemporary documents that the quartet enjoyed a number of performances in Vienna.
The first movement’s pervasive agitation is contrasted by a lyrical melody initiated by the strings without piano. The Andante, in sonatina form (sonata without a development section), is probing, emotionally unsettled music, written in Mozart’s most expressive, adventurous harmonic style. Of the thematically rich closing rondo, English musicologist Eric Blom noted, “[It] confronts the listener with the fascinatingly insoluble problem of telling which of its melodies . . . is the most delicious.” So profligate is Mozart’s melodic invention in this movement that he borrowed one of its themes, which he did not even bother to repeat here, for the principal subject of a piano rondo (K. 485) he composed three months later.
gustav mahler
Born July 7, 1860; Kalischt, Bohemia
Died May 18, 1911; Vienna, Austria
Piano Quartet in A Minor
composed 1876
When Mahler enrolled at the Vienna Conservatory in 1874, he proved to be an excellent student, attentive to his studies, and even inspired when it came to composition. He is known to have written at least one movement of a symphony, several songs, and a goodly
number of chamber pieces, including the opening movement of the Piano Quartet in A minor in June 1876. The quartet won an important school prize, and it was performed with considerable success on July 10 at the conservatory and again in September at a recital in his parents’ Bohemian town of Iglau. The score was then sent to Moscow for a competition, and “it got lost,” according
to the composer, but his wife, Alma, discovered a copy among his papers in the 1960s. The quartet was broadcast over radio station WBAI in New York in 1962 and played publicly two years later in New York’s Philharmonic Hall.
The A minor piano quartet shows both Mahler’s assimilation of the influences of Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms and his ability to create music of distinctive profile and strong emotion from his earliest years. The twelve-minute movement is disposed in proper sonata form, with a melancholy main subject marked by a melodic leap
followed by a sigh and a contrasting subsidiary motif of a more animated character. Perhaps the most surprising feature of the movement is its development section—the portion of the traditional form with the fewest structural guidelines and, therefore, the most leeway for the composer’s imagination, which shows remarkable technical ingenuity and emotional passion for the work of a sixteen-year-old. The recapitulation of the earlier themes balances the structure, and the movement closes with a brief violin cadenza and a dying coda.
richard strauss
Born June 11, 1864; Munich, Germany
Died September 8, 1949; Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 13
composed
1884
Strauss, nurtured on the conservative styles espoused by his father, showed a precocious talent for musical composition. His first published work, the Festival March, appeared in 1876 when he had ripened to the age of twelve; he wrote the Overture in A minor in 1879 and a string quartet the following year. His Symphony in D minor was introduced in March 1881. The successful premiere of his Serenade for Winds in Dresden on November 27, 1882, brought him to the attention of the noted pianist-conductor Hans von Bülow, whom Strauss succeeded as music director of the Meiningen Orchestra in 1885.
The opening movement of the C minor quartet focuses on three principal ideas: a scalar phrase presented
by unison strings at the outset; a tender melody in triplet rhythms initiated by the piano; and a bold striding motif, again stated by unison strings. The gracefully tripping music of the scherzo is contrasted by lyrical passages reminiscent of a Viennese waltz. The Andante, with its long, carefully sculpted melodies, rich harmonizations, and wide structural arches, looks forward to the tone poems and operas of Strauss’s later years. The finale’s bounding rhythms and leaping melodies bespeak youthful exuberance for which long melodic phrases and some rather calculated thematic working-out provide stylistic and expressive balance.
Richard E. Rodda, a former faculty member at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, provides program notes for many American orchestras, concert series, and festivals.
Yuan-Qing Yu Violin
An international award-winning violinist, Yuan-Qing Yu is praised for her virtuosic performances, her collaborative interdisciplinary projects, and her pursuit of bringing music to people with limited resources. Yu can be seen and heard regularly on WFMT-FM’s Live programs, the CSO Chamber Music series, and the MusicNOW series. She is a professor at Northwestern and Roosevelt universities and frequently presents lectures and symposiums with professors from other fields. In 2011 she founded Civitas Ensemble, where she currently serves as a board member and president. She was appointed assistant concertmaster of the CSO by Daniel Barenboim in 1995.
Weijing Michal Viola
Weijing Michal joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in March 2012. From 2007 to 2009, she served as the youngest principal player ever in the history of the Phoenix Symphony. Michal is a founding member of the Chicago Peridot String Quartet and has collaborated with the Vermeer String Quartet, among other ensembles. She studied at the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory of Music without entrance auditions and with Li-Kuo Chang at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University after she came to the U.S.
Kenneth Olsen Cello
Kenneth Olsen joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as assistant principal cello in 2005. A native of New York, Kenneth Olsen is a founding member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, a conductorless string orchestra comprised of young musicians from orchestras and ensembles nationwide. He is a member of the Chicago-based Civitas Ensemble. Founded in 2011, Civitas is a chamber-music ensemble with a threefold mission: to present engaging live performances of new and traditional works, to inspire a young generation of classical musicians, and to bring the healing power of music to those with limited access to live performances. Olsen first performed as a soloist with the CSO in October 2008 in Golijov’s Mariel, conducted by Miguel-Harth Bedoya.
Winston Choi Piano
For more information on today’s artists, visit cso.org/cso-musicians.
Canadian pianist Winston Choi is associate professor of piano and the head of the piano program at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts. His professional career launched after he was named laureate of the 2003 Honens Piano Competition and winner of France’s International Piano Competition of Orleans (20th Century) in 2002. As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Aeolus, Avalon, Philomusica, and Spektral string quartets. He also tours regularly with the Civitas Ensemble and as part of Duo Diorama (with his wife, violinist MingHuan Xu). Choi’s debut CD, the complete piano works of Elliott Carter, was given five stars by BBC Music Magazine.