Great History. Bright Future.
Mir贸 Quartet
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PROGR A M Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. 5, “The Lark”................................................................................ HAYDN Allegro moderato (1732-1809) Adagio cantabile Menuetto: Allegretto Finale: Vivace String Quartet No. 5 (1991).................................................................................................................GLASS I through V (b. 1937) INTERMISSION Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”..............................................SCHUBERT Allegro (1797-1828) Andante con moto Scherzo: Allegro molto Presto
This performance was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Presented by the Wisconsin Union Directorate Performing Arts Committee, directed this year by Annie Wright. Media sponsor is WORT, 89.9 FM. This performance was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. UW-Madison students: to join the Wisconsin Union Directorate Theater Committee and help program our upcoming events, please contact Annie Wright at ahwright2@wisc.edu
ABOUT THE MUSIC - NOTES BY PERRY ALL AIRE Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 64, No. 5 A statement in an article by Richard Wigmore reiterates a point of view which had come to be seen as common knowledge: “Hot on the heels of [Haydn’s] Op. 50 came another dozen quartets: the two sets of three published as Op. 54 and 55 (written in 1788), and the six works of Op. 64 (1790). All these were composed for Johann Tost, leader of the second violins in the Esterházy orchestra and something of a maverick, who later made his fortune as a wheeler-dealer.” The erudite and pithy musicologist Joseph Braunstein has suggested, however, supported by his usual wealth of detail, that perhaps Tost was a wheeler-dealer long before “later.” Tost, who entered the service of Haydn’s patron Prince Esterhazy as violinist in 1783, was certainly entrusted by Haydn with the mission of selling the composer’s symphonies Nos. 88 and 89 in Paris where Haydn hoped to continue the success of his previous “Paris” symphonies. This would have been in late 1788 or early 1789, and Tost accomplished the task. But he also accomplished passing off a symphony by Adalbert Gyrowetz (1763-1850) as a work by Haydn, causing Gyrowetz no little embarrassment when he later came to Paris and nobody 2
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would believe that this “Haydn” work was his own. Also, Tost had with him the six Haydn string quartets of Op. 54 and 55 which in the editions of today bear a dedication of Grosshändler (wholesale merchant) Tost. Braunstein points out that none of the 18th-century editions of these quartets listed in Hoboken’s splendid thematic catalogue of Haydn’s works show the dedication to Tost--in fact, there are no dedications at all. There’s more. When Haydn finished his Op. 64 quartets and left for England in November of 1790, it seems that Tost, who had returned to Austria, arranged for their publication as “Oeuvre 65” with a dedication to Monsieur Jean Tost. It should be added that about that time Tost married well, his bride being Maria Anna Gerlischek, housekeeper to Prince Esterhazy and dedicatee of Haydn’s great E-flat Piano sonata (Hob. XVI, 49). He became well-known as a virtuoso violinist in Vienna, friend and exploiter of many composers, and a wealthy businessman. He even rose to the level of “Jean de Tost”, for who could be so prominent without social elevation? But, after 1813 things went badly; he had brushes with the authorities, lost his merchants’ license, left Vienna, and died poor in 1831. Of course, his name lives on now in connection with Haydn’s Quartets, but Braunstein even questions whether these quartets were actually written with Tost in mind. In 1788 and 1790, the years of their composition, the concertmaster of the Esterhazy orchestra was still Luigi Tomasini, to whom Haydn said, “Nobody plays my quartets so much to my satisfaction as you do.” Certainly, Tomasini was capable of all the violin aerobatics that inhabit the “Tost” quartets. All of the above may hopefully be seen as interesting speculation. The point is that the “Lark” quartet of Haydn has come to be justly considered one of his most popular works in the genre, and it takes its nickname from the virtuosic prominence of the first violin part. Its glorious, soaring opening theme brings immediately to mind the word for a collection of larks which is “exaltation”. And it is this theme which, like a fond reminiscence, makes a surprise appearance at the end of the movement. A beautiful A major Adagio follows, again with a prominently melodic first violin, and an interesting sojourn into C major. The D major Menuet, is sprightly, grounded as so often in Haydn, in pleasant good humor, but the D minor Trio is unexpectedly and charmingly chromatic. The Vivace finale once again puts the virtuosity of the first violin at the fore in a moto perpetuo that still manages a place for a closely constructed fugato central episode. It is a true exaltation of spirit and fun, a testament to Haydn’s craft and musicianship. Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 5 In a typically lucid paragraph in a chapter provocatively titled “Beethoven Was Wrong” in his superb book on twentieth century music, The Rest is Noise, music critic Alex Ross discussed the nature of the style known as “minimalism”: “Riley, Reich and Glass came to be called minimalists, although they are better understood as the continuation of a circuitous, difficult-to-name development in American music that dated back to the early years of the century, and more often than not took root on the West Coast. This alternative canon includes Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison, who drew on non-Western traditions and built up a hypnotic atmosphere through insistent repetition; Morton Feldman, who distributed minimal parcels of sound over long durations; and La Monte Young, who made music from long, buzzing drones. All of them in one way or another set aside a premise that had governed classical composition for centuries--the conception of a musical work as a self-contained linguistic activity that develops relationships among discrete thematic characters over a well-marked period of time. This music was, by contrast, open-ended, potentially limitless.” In San Francisco on November 4, 1964, came the premiere of Terry Riley’s monumental piece In C. Critic Alfred Frankenstein wrote enthusiastically: “Climaxes of great sonority and high complexity appear and are dissolved in the endlessness. At times you feel you have never Miró Quartet
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done anything all your life long but listen to this music and as if that is all there is or ever will be.” Playing electronic piano in that premiere was 28-year-old Steve Reich, who had suggested the chiming C’s which so help to unify the piece around a steady pulse. Reich was about to make a name for himself as a composer. After a short stint as a philosophy major in Cornell, he had switched to music and studied composition at Julliard, where one of his classmates was Philip Glass. Reich went on to San Francisco’s Mills College where Darius Milhaud was teaching but, more importantly for Reich, Luciano Berio was a visiting professor. Uneasy even with this scene, Reich moved back to his native New York City where, by the spring of 1967, he was giving a series of concerts at Paula Cooper’s Park Place cooperative on West Broadway, right in the heart of the new “minimal art” of conceptual artist Sol Le Witt and sculptor Richard Serra. In the audience at one of these Park Place concerts was Philip Glass, and he talked to his old Juilliard classmate afterwards, saying that he, too, had been looking for his “way outside.” He also had studied with Milhaud (at Aspen) and had even gone to Paris to work with Nadia Boulanger and so had absorbed the neo-classical technique, and at about the end of his time in France had been introduced to Indian music by Ravi Shakar. At the time of his conversation with Reich he had also written his first numbered string quartet (there had been three earlier “student” quartets that he’d discarded). Philip Glass and Steve Reich would become friends for a while (Glass’s 1968 work Two Pages for Steve Reich was written in tribute); Glass would go on to found his own ensemble and win fame in his own right as a composer. So when in 1991 he sat down to write his String Quartet No. 5 (really his eighth effort), it was with a sense of history and introspection. “In a way,” Glass explained, “string quartets have always functioned like that for composers. I don’t really know why, but it’s almost impossible to get away from it…It’s almost as if we say we’re going to write a string quartet, we take a deep breath, and we wade in to try to write the most serious, significant piece that we can.” But at that moment in 1991, Glass began to consider another way. “I was thinking that I had really gone beyond the need to write a serious string quartet and that I could write a quartet that is about musicality, which in a certain way is the most serious subject.” And indeed, Glass’s String Quartet No. 5 is a rare kind of work with a sort of luminous inner light that seems to increase as the work progresses and coalesces. The short introductory movement begins with a pluck and an iridescent leap up through the instruments of the quartet, a sweet ringing invitation to what is to come, and this material will provide the foundation of the music. In the second movement, a syncopated, gently rocking melody in shifting meters alternates with the plucked and bowed chords of the introduction, grounded in the swaying of the bass. In the following scherzo movement an always-evolving dance figure begins as alternations with more regular, propulsive rhythms, but gradually the two ideas merge to form a transition to the rapturous, spun-out melodic lines of the coming slow movement. In that movement a more animated middle section forecasts the soaring scales of the fifth movement, the longest of the work. Here, in a final act of musical evocation, the introduction’s material slowly returns to join with those scales to create a new entity, groundless, weightless, a far-seeing resolution in with the inner light bursts out in full radiance. Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, D.810 By December of 1823, Franz Schubert found himself increasingly frustrated as a theater composer. Helmina Von Chezy’s play Rosemunde, for which he had written lovely incidental music, had just been cancelled after only two performances. Fierabras, the largest-scale of his many opera attempts, and Die Verschworen, a more modest work, had been poorly received. Even his monumental song cycle Die schöne Mullerin had not had a very good reception. So, for a time, Schubert turned his back on music for the stage and decided to concentrate 4
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on purely instrumental music. Thus in about the next ten months he produced the “Trochne Blumen” variations for flute and piano on a song from the Müllerin cycle, the A minor String Quartet, the wonderfully original Octet, the “Death and the Maiden” String Quartet, the mighty “Grand Duo” Sonata for piano duet, and the Sonata for Arpeggione (the “Guitar Cello”) and piano. But Schubert’s performance frustrations continued, as so often happened with him as he sought recognition as a composer outside the field of Lieder. His Octet, modeled on Beethoven’s immensely popular Op. 20 Septet, was heard in a private performance that spring, but did not receive a public performance until April of 1827, after which it virtually disappeared. The D minor String quartet was first heard privately at the house of Josef Barth, a tenor singer at the Court Chapel in Vienna, on February 1, 1826. This performance had been preceeded by rehearsals on each of the two days before, during which Schubert corrected the recently copied parts and made some adjustments to the music itself. Later that month, another private hearing was given at the house of Schubert’s friend Franz Lachner. Some feeling for the poignancy of the occasion can be gained from Lachner’s much later recollection of the event: “The…quartet, which now delights the whole world and is numbered among the most splendid creations in its class, did not receive by any means unanimous applause. The first violinist Sch. [presumably Ignaz Schuppanzigh], who was unfitted for such a task because of his advanced age, exclaimed to the composer after the play-through: ‘Brother, this won’t do, let well alone--stick to your lieder!’.At that, Schubert silently gathered the music together and shut it away in his desk for ever.” (The violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh had taught Beethoven the viola and had participated in the premieres of many of his quartets.) Schubert’s D minor Quartet, was published posthumously in 1831. Lachner’s evaluation of this quartet surely holds true today: it is the most popular of Schubert’s string quartets. It is also probably the best of them in consistency of feeling and excellence of composition in all the movements. It opens with a grim announcement from the entire quartet which not only provides a basic rhythmic idea which will pervade and unify the entire work, but suggests the kind of contrast between impetuous motion and lyrical repose which is another consistent feature of this quartet. Indeed, the beautiful second subject of the first movement is one of Schubert’s loveliest inspirations. But the main mood of this first movement with its almost constant triplet underlining is one of turbulence. The concluding coda seems to raise the onrush to even greater intensity only to be suddenly quieted by a brooding finish of great sorrow. As is well known, the quartet gets its “Death and the Maiden” subtitle from Schubert’s use of the melody of his 1817 song of that title as the basis for the theme-and-variations second movement of the quartet. It must be remembered that the concept of death invoked here is that of the consoling friend, the “brother of sleep” who whispers words of peace and calm into the young maiden’s ear. The G minor variations in the quartet ring the changes in the range of these emotions: noble, passionate, austere, somber, and, in G major at the end, consolatory. The quartet’s characteristic turbulence returns in the scherzo movement, but it is lightened somewhat by the wistfulness of the contrasting trio music which casts a more playful atmosphere. Then comes the Presto finale, a movement of incredible intensity and virtuosity. Those in the nineteenth century who found in Schubert’s use in this movement of the rhythms of sicilliano and tarantella an evocation of the grinning skull of the medieval Dance of Death-and similar “tone painting” throughout the work--could not be more mistaken. In this quartet Schubert’s command of the classical technique of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven finds one of its most impressive displays. And the coda of this movement fulfills its promise: stern, unyielding, like-it-or-not intensity to the very end.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS Daniel Ching Daniel Ching, a founding member of the Miró Quartet, began his violin studies at the age of 3 under tutelage of his father. At age 5, he entered the San Francisco Conservatory Preparatory Division on a full twelve‐year scholarship, where he studied violin with Serban Rusu and Zaven Melikian, and chamber music with Susan Bates. At the age of 10, Daniel was first introduced to string quartets. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Daniel studied violin with Kathleen Winkler, Roland and Almita Vamos, and conducting with Robert Spano and Peter Jaffe. He completed his Masters degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with former Cleveland Quartet violinist Donald Weilerstein. He also studied recording engineering and production with Thomas Knab of Telarc, and subsequently engineered the Miró Quartet’s first promotional disc. Daniel is on faculty at the Sarah and Ernest Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches private violin students and coaches chamber music. He concurrently maintains an active international touring schedule as a member of the Miró Quartet. Daniel is a discerning connoisseur of all things cinematic and electronic. Before he became a busy parent, Daniel was an avid skier and a dedicated reader of science fiction—he looks forward to returning to those passions, some day. In his free time, Daniel enjoys hosting happy hours with friends and lounging at home with his wife Sandy, their two sons, and two cats. William Fedkenheuer Winner of the Lincoln Center Martin E. Segal Award, violinist William Fedkenheuer has distinguished himself as a versatile artist with international performances as soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. William’s touring in the United States has included performances at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall Presents, San Francisco Performances, and the National Gallery. Abroad, he has performed at the American Academy in Rome, Fountainbleu, Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds, the Taipei National University of the Arts, and in Austria 6
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at the famed Esterhazy Castle for the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt. Making his solo violin debut with the Calgary Philharmonic in 1994, William went on to receive a Bachelor of Music from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music under the tutelage of Kathleen Winkler and continued his graduate studies with Miriam Fried at Indiana University. From 2000-2006, William was a member of the Borromeo String Quartet and on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Most recently, William has served as the first violinist of the Fry Street Quartet and was on the teaching faculty of the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University. An active hiker and fly-fisherman, William and his wife, violinist Yi Ching Fedkenheuer, have two sons, Max and Olli, and two dogs, Archibald and Lulu. William performs on a bow by Charles Espey and a violin by Peter and Wendy Moes. John Largess Violist John Largess began his studies in Boston at age 12 in the public schools, studying with Michael Zaretsky of the Boston Symphony, and later as a student of Michael Tree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. In 1995, he graduated from Yale University to join the Colorado String Quartet as interim violist and toured the United States and Canada with it, teaching and concertizing. The following year he was appointed principal violist of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina, a position he held until joining the Miró Quartet in 1997. Also an active speaker and writer about all things chamber‐musical, in 2004 Mr. Largess was invited to give a week‐long audience lecture series as a part of the Eighth International String Quartet Competition at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada; he repeated this series in 2007 and again in 2010. With his training in Greek and Latin Literature and his Bachelor’s degree in Archeology from Yale University, as well as studies at the Hebrew University in Israel, he has participated in excavations in Greece, Israel, and Jordan. John loves to cook gourmet
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food, particularly French pastry and fine desserts; luckily, he also enjoys exercising. John is a trained yoga instructor, having studied Vinyasa Power Yoga with Baron Baptiste. He also practices Kundalini, Bikram, and Ashtanga styles, and teaches yoga at 24 Hour Fitness and the Bodhi Yoga studio in Austin, Texas where he lives. When not standing on his head, he enjoys making his Tibetan Singing Bowl sing. John serves as Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of String Chamber Music at the University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music. Joshua Gindele Cellist Joshua Gindele, a founding member of the Miró Quartet, began his cello studies at the age of 3, playing a viola his teacher
had fitted with an endpin. As cellist for the Miró Quartet, Joshua has won numerous international awards including an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Cleveland Quartet Award and has shared the stage with Pinchas Zuckerman, Joshua Bell, Midori, Matt Haimovitz, Eliot Fisk, Leif Ove Andnes, and The Oak Ridge Boys. He continues to perform across four continents and on some of the world’s most prestigious concert stages. In his free time he regularly hikes, climbs, runs, goes to the gym, plays tennis and golf, skis, cooks French food and enjoys the occasional glass of wine. Joshua serves as Senior Lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music where he teaches a select number of private cello students and coaches chamber music.
O T H E R S H OW S T H I S S E A S O N The Alan Kelly Gang Fronted by Ireland’s piano accordion maestro and with three critically acclaimed masters of their craft in tow, the Gang sit firmly at the cutting edge of the traditional Celtic repertoire. Friday, February 28, 2014, 8pm, The Sett, Union South Gene Pokorny with UW Symphony Orchestra. Free The Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s tubist brings his big sounds to Madison with the UW Symphony Orchestra. Sunday, March 9, 2014, 7:30pm, Mills Hall Inon Barnatan, piano “A true poet of the keyboard” and the New York Philharmonic’s first Artist-in-Association, Inon Barnatan is one of the hottest up-and-coming classical piano performers. Friday, April 18, 2014, 8:00pm, Mills Hall Travel Adventure Film Series Lost Worlds of the Middle East with Rick Ray A personal journey and an attempt to get to the heart of some of the sources of conflict between and within four of the nations of the Middle East. Mostly it is an attempt to give the viewer a sense of the people and culture that one cannot find on American mainstream media. Monday, April 21, and Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 7:30pm, The Marquee, Union South Keyboard Conversations® with Jeffrey Siegel: Mistresses and Masterpieces Tuesday, May 6, 2014, 7:30pm, Mills Hall
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Buy Tickets Now MARCH 7, 8, 9 John DeMain, Conductor
madisonsymphony.org, Overture Box Office, or (608) 258-4141
YEFIM BRONFMAN, Piano An All Beethoven Program! Symphony No. 1 Piano Concerto No. 2 Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus Piano Concerto No. 5 (Emperor) SPONSORS:
The Madison Concourse Hotel & Governor’s Club Kenneth A. Lattman Foundation, Inc. Stephen D. Morton Martha and Charles Casey • J.H. Findorff & Son Inc. Wisconsin Arts Board
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APRIL 4, 5,
madisonsymphony.org, Overture Box Office, 6 or (608) 258-4141
Julian Wachner, Conductor
DVORˇÁK
Slavonic Dance No. 1
JONGEN
Symphonie Concertante
MOZART
Requiem
featuring NATHAN LAUBE, Organist
MADISON SYMPHONY CHORUS BEVERLY TAYLOR, Director EMILY BIRSAN, Soprano DANIELA MACK, Contralto WESLEY ROGERS, Tenor LIAM MORAN, Bass SPONSORS:
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Roma E. Lenehan, in memory of Angelena Frensley Lenehan • University Research Park Daniel W. Erdman Foundation • Qual Line Fence Corp. • Wisconsin Arts Board
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