NYPSQ Program 2019

Notes on the Program

By Aaron Grad

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756 Died in Vienna, December 5, 1791 STRING QUARTET NO. 14 IN G MAJOR, K. 387, “SPRING” Composed in 1782; 32 minutes

Not long after Mozart moved to Vienna to begin a freelance career, Joseph Haydn released his latest set of groundbreaking string quartets. Mozart had not composed quartets since he was a teenager (when he produced 13 of them), but Haydn’s efforts inspired Mozart to return to the genre late in 1782. He completed the String Quartet in G Major (K. 387) by the end of the year, and he placed it first in the set of six quartets that he published in 1785 with a loving dedication to Haydn.

The Allegro vivace assai first movement attests to Mozart’s mastery of sonata form, the structure found here and in most opening movements of classical-era quartets. Even though listeners might latch onto Mozart’s beautiful and memorable melodies, the real magic of sonata form appears in the transitions and connective tissue that stitch two contrasting key areas into a satisfying arc of tension and release.

This movement’s strategy is to exploit slippery neighbor notes and chromatic runs, using those off-key tones to slide in and out of harmonic stability. A similar chromatic trick appears in the secondmovement Menuetto, except here the momentary disorientation is exaggerated for comic effect, with alternating piano and forte notes phrased so as to contradict the underlying three-beat pulse. Even the exceedingly peaceful Andante cantabile incorporates subtle, drawn-out clashes of neighboring chromatic tones as it weaves in and out of its C-major key center.

There are ample splashes of chromaticism in the finale to unify this quartet’s four impeccably constructed movements, and it also adds a new mechanism to build and dissipate tension, weaving the kind of formal counterpoint that Mozart embraced after studying the fugues of Bach and Handel. (A generation after their deaths, such counterpoint was nearly a lost art, but an older patron whom Mozart met early on in Vienna initiated him into the wonders of the old masters.) If Mozart was trying to impress Haydn with all the compositional cleverness, he succeeded: After hearing the quartets dedicated to him, Haydn told Mozart’s father, “Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.”

MAURICE RAVEL Born in Ciboure, France, March 7, 1875 Died in Paris, December 28, 1937 STRING QUARTET IN F MAJOR Composed in 1903; 28 minutes

The Paris Conservatoire dismissed Ravel as a piano student in 1895, and when he returned as a composer they ushered him out again in 1900 after he failed to write a fugue that followed strict academic rules. Ravel’s five consecutive rejections in the prestigious Prix de Rome competition became something of a public scandal, and even his own teacher, Gabriel Fauré, came down against the

iconoclastic young composer. Ravel’s last submission for the Prix de Rome was the String Quartet that he completed in 1903 and dedicated to Fauré, who declared the work “a failure.”

One musician who recognized the power of Ravel’s quartet was Claude Debussy. In 1905 he wrote to his younger colleague, “In the name of the gods of music and in my own, do not touch a single note you have written in your Quartet.” Ravel’s quartet in fact shares many traits with Debussy’s sole string quartet from 1893; both works develop thematic connections that link the separate movements, and each defies conventional harmonic practice.

Ravel’s String Quartet opens with a sweet theme from the first violin, split into two balanced phrases—a promising start for a competition entry. It takes only five measures, though, for the harmonies to abandon the home key, while the telltale melody glides over mystical whole-tone sequences and Eastern-tinged minor modes.

A close kin of the opening melody returns as the basis of the second movement, marked “rather lively, very rhythmic.” The plucking textures and modal harmonies transport this scherzo-like statement to the realm of a flamenco dance, reflecting Ravel’s fascination with his mother’s native Spain.

The central melody of the “very slow” third movement, introduced by the muted viola, is a drawn-out variant of the same unifying theme. The motive returns yet again as a secondary figure in the finale, but first the quartet presents music that lives up to the “lively and agitated” tempo marking. Having worked through this provocative material, the quartet rises to a bright F-major chord, reaching the conclusive home key in a manner contrary to everything Ravel learned in a classroom.

DANIIL TRIFONOV Born in Nizhny Novgorod, Soviet Union, March 5, 1991 QUINTETTO CONCERTANTE Composed in 2018; 25 minutes

Taking after his father, a composer, Daniil Trifonov began crafting his own music at the age of 5, even before he began studying piano. His introduction to the world stage as a virtuoso pianist came in 2011, when the 20-year-old took first prize at both the Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Trifonov balanced his burgeoning international career with studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music, an environment that nurtured his creativity as both a composer and an interpreter of existing music. A commission from the school initiated Trifonov’s largest composition up to that point, the Piano Concerto from 2014, which he went on to play with Russia’s famed Mariinsky Orchestra in Saint Petersburg and on a US tour.

Trifonov added this Quintetto Concertante to his catalog in 2018, giving the first performance at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. The title’s second word points to the soloistic aspects of this quintet for piano and strings, and Trifonov naturally entrusted his hands with music that lives up to his limitless virtuosity, but the piano’s elaborate textures still leave ample room for the strings, much as Rachmaninoff’s concertos sometimes use the solo piano as an extravagantly colorful accompanist.

Rachmaninoff is clearly a seminal influence for Trifonov, and there are signs of Prokofiev’s penchant for harmonies that slip nonchalantly into surprising resolutions, but the grittier aspects of this quintet show

Trifonov moving toward the model of Shostakovich, the composer of the 20th century’s most celebrated piano quintet. The affinity can be heard in slow passages where Trifonov embraces formal counterpoint and thematic imitation, and it certainly colors the quintet’s wildest moments, from the subversive dance strides of the Allegretto scherzando second movement to the finale’s manic galloping.