10 minute read
DOVER QUARTET WITH ESCHER STRING QUARTET
PRELUDE 7 PM
Lecture by Michael Gerdes
A Classical Music Super Group…
Do you love string quartets? Have you ever wondered what would happen if two were combined? Explore the origins of the string octet in this Prelude lecture before enjoying three of the most wonderful examples ever written.
DOVER QUARTET WITH ESCHER STRING QUARTET
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022 · 8 PM
THE BAKER-BAUM CONCERT HALL
SHOSTAKOVICH Two Pieces for String Octet, Opus 11
(1906-1975) Prelude Scherzo
MENDELSSOHN Octet in E-flat Major, Opus 20 (1809-1847) Allegro moderato, ma con fuoco Andante Scherzo: Allegro leggierissimo Presto
INTERMISSION
Support for this program generously provided by:
Sam B. Ersan
La Jolla Music Society’s 2021-22 Season is supported by The Conrad Prebys Foundation, The City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, Banc of California, The Lodge at Torrey Pines, ProtoStar Foundation, Vail Memorial Fund, ResMed Foundation, Bright Events Rentals, Ace Parking, Brenda Baker and Steve Baum, Raffaella and John Belanich, Gordon Brodfuehrer, Mary Ellen Clark, Joy Frieman, Joan and Irwin Jacobs, Dorothea Laub, Jeanette Stevens, Debra Turner, Bebe and Marvin Zigman. ENESCU Octet in C Major, Opus 7
(1881-1955) Très modéré Très fougueux Lentement Mouvement de valse bien rythmée Dover Quartet Joel Link, Bryan Lee, violins; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola; Camden Shaw, cello Escher String Quartet Adam Barnett-Hart, Brendan Speltz, violins; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Brook Speltz, cello
Dover Quartet last performed for La Jolla Music Society during SummerFest on August 21, 2011. Escher String Quartet last performed for La Jolla Music Society during SummerFest on August 17, 2016.
Born September 25, 1906, St. Petersburg Died August 9, 1975, Moscow Composed: 1924 Approximate Duration: 10 minutes
When Shostakovich died in 1975, he was remembered primarily as a symphonist, but the last several decades have seen new interest in his chamber music, particularly his impressive cycle of fifteen string quartets. Shostakovich came to the string quartet relatively late in life—he did not write his first until he was in his thirties—but as a very young man he had experimented with chamber music, composing a piano trio at 17 and the Two Pieces for String Octet at 18, while he was still a conservatory student.
From this same period came Shostakovich’s dazzling First Symphony, Opus 10, and in fact he worked on the symphony and the Two Pieces simultaneously. The Two Pieces are in the same neo-classical manner as the symphony. Shostakovich scored this music for string octet, specifically the same double string quartet that another teenaged composer, Felix Mendelssohn, had used in his Octet. The form can seem strange: this brilliant, bittersweet music consists of two contrasting and unrelated movements, both characterized by high energy levels.
Composed in December 1924, the Prelude is dominated by the powerful sequence of ominous chords heard at the very beginning. This movement is episodic, with sharply contrasting passages for muted triplets, pizzicato chords, and a virtuoso part for the first violin before closing on a quiet unison D. The Scherzo, written in July 1925, is much more acerbic. It too is episodic, though here the thematic material tends to be short and angular. The fiery main idea, announced by the first violin, rushes this movement to its sudden, powerful close.
The Two Pieces for String Octet were first performed in Moscow on January 9, 1927, by the combined Gliere and Stradivarius Quartets.
Born February 3, 1809, Hamburg Died November 4, 1847, Leipzig Composed: 1825 Approximate Duration: 33 minutes
It has become a cliché with a certain kind of critic to say that Mendelssohn never fulfilled the promise of his youth. Such a charge is a pretty tough thing to say about someone who died at 38—most of us would think Mendelssohn never made it out of his youth. And such a charge overlooks the great works Mendelssohn completed in the years just before his death: the Violin Concerto, the complete incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Elijah. But there can be no gainsaying the fact that the young Mendelssohn was a composer whose gifts and promise rivaled—perhaps even surpassed—the young Mozart’s. The child of an educated family that fully supported his talent, Mendelssohn had by age 9 written works that were performed by professional groups in Berlin. At 12 he became close friends with the 72-year-old Goethe, at 17 he composed the magnificent overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and at 20 he led the performance of the St. Matthew Passion that was probably the key event in the revival of interest in Bach’s music. Mendelssohn completed his Octet in October 1825, when he was 16. One of the finest of his early works, the Octet is remarkable for its polished technique, its sweep, and for its sheer exhilaration. Mendelssohn’s decision to write for a string octet is an interesting one, for such an ensemble approaches chamber-orchestra size, and a composer must steer a careful course between orchestral sonority and true chamber music. Mendelssohn handles this problem easily. At times this music can sound orchestral, as he sets different groups of instruments against each other, but the Octet remains true chamber music—each of the eight voices is distinct and important, and even at its most dazzling and extroverted the Octet preserves the equal participation of independent voices so crucial to chamber music. Mendelssohn marked the first movement Allegro moderato ma con fuoco, and certainly there is fire in the very beginning, where the first violin rises and falls back through a range of three octaves. Longest by far of the movements, the first is marked by energy, sweep, and an easy exchange between all eight voices before rising to a grand climax derived from the opening theme. By contrast, the Andante is based on the simple melody announced by the lower strings and quickly taken up by the four violins. This gentle melodic line becomes more animated as it develops, with accompanying voices that grow particularly restless. The Scherzo is the most famous part of the Octet. Mendelssohn said that it was inspired by the closing lines of the Walpurghisnacht section near the end of Part I of Goethe’s Faust, where Faust and Mephistopheles descend into the underworld. He apparently had in mind the final lines of the description of the marriage of Oberon and Titania: Clouds go by and mists recede, Bathed in the dawn and blended; Sighs the wind in leaf and reed, And all our tale is ended. This music zips along brilliantly. Mendelssohn marked it Allegro leggierissimo—“as light as possible”—and it does
DOVER QUARTET WITH ESCHER STRING QUARTET - PROGRAM NOTES seem like goblin music, sparkling, trilling, and swirling right up to the end, where it vanishes into thin air. Featuring an eight-part fugato, the energetic Presto demonstrates the young composer’s contrapuntal skill. There are many wonderful touches here. At one point sharp-eared listeners may detect a quotation, perhaps unconscious, of “And He Shall Reign” from the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah, and near the end Mendelssohn skillfully brings back the main theme of the Scherzo as a countermelody to the finale’s polyphonic complexity. It is a masterstroke in a piece of music that would be a brilliant achievement by a composer of any age.
Born August 19, 1881, Liveni Virnav, Romania Died May 3/4, 1955, Paris Composed: 1900 Approximate Duration: 38 minutes
A child prodigy, George Enescu left Romania at age 7 to enter the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, then went on to study at the Paris Conservatory. Along the way, he worked with a spectacular array of musicians: in Vienna he played in orchestras conducted by Brahms, and in Paris he studied with Massenet and Fauré, became friends with Saint-Saëns, and was a classmate of Ravel. He graduated from the Paris Conservatory with a first prize in violin in 1899 at the age of 18, then embarked on a career as violinist and composer.
Enescu’s music took two distinct paths at first. There were consciously nationalistic works like the Romanian Rhapsodies, composed in 1900-01. But at this same moment, just as he left the Conservatory, the teenaged Enesco set to work on quite a different piece, an Octet for Strings. In contrast to the Romanian Rhapsodies, which string together a series of Romanian folksongs in an episodic structure, the Octet was very carefully conceived and composed as a complex musical structure. The Octet grows out of its powerful opening idea, which will reappear in many subtle transformations across its forty-minute span.
An Octet for Strings of course calls to mind the other great octet for strings, also written by a teenager: Mendelssohn’s Octet of 1825, composed when he was 16. But how different these two works are! Mendelssohn’s Octet is all fleetness, grace, and polish, but Enescu’s plunges us into a world of violence, sonority, and conflict.
The principal influence on Enescu’s Octet was not Mendelssohn, but—surprisingly—Berlioz, who wrote no chamber music of his own. But Enescu saw a role model in Berlioz, who had been dead for thirty years when he began work on the Octet: Berlioz had fought against hidebound French musical traditions and had introduced a nightmare element into his music, one that strongly attracted Enescu (who in fact quotes the Symphonie fantastique in the closing moments of the Octet). Enescu noted that he wanted to bring the extravagance of the earlier composer to the civilized world of chamber music: “Sometimes I felt myself like a Berlioz in chamber music, if it is possible to imagine the man who used five orchestras composing such a kind of music.”
The opening instantly establishes the character of this powerful music. Over steady accompaniment from the second cello, the other seven instruments hammer out the opening theme, a sinuous, angular, and propulsive idea that takes nearly a minute to unfold. This is the seminal subject of the Octet, and all subsequent material will in some way be related to this theme. This is very densely argued exposition: much of it unfolds canonically, and the writing makes virtuoso demands on all eight players. The second subject, announced by the first viola and marked expressive and grieving, seems to strike a different note, but this theme is simply a derivation of the powerful opening idea. After a dynamic development, this extended movement trails into silence on a muted restatement of the main idea.
Enescu calls for only a brief pause between the first and second movements (long enough only to remove the mutes), and suddenly the second movement leaps violently to life. Marked Très fougueux (“fiery, impetuous”), it opens with the same sort of unison explosion that launched the first movement, but now that theme has evolved into something spiky and fierce. Enescu marks this opening statement agité, and it alternates with slower, gentler material marked caressant: “caressing.” The movement develops principally through a violent fugue based on its opening gesture; along the way the principal theme of the first movement makes a reappearance, and the music drives to a huge climax full of massed chords.
This fury subsides, and the music proceeds without pause into the third movement, marked Lentement. This opens with a series of slow, muted chords (once again derived from the seminal theme), and soon the first violin sings the grieving main idea (one of Enescu’s recurring markings in this movement is velouté: “velvety”). Gentle as its opening may be, this movement too rises to a conflicted climax, recalling themes from the opening movement as it proceeds. The finale, which begins without pause, is a sort of grand waltz, full of energy and sweep. The movement drives aggressively to its closing pages, which bring a surprise: the music slows, and the first violin sings a phrase that appears to be derived from the theme of the Beloved in Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. After all the violence of the Octet, this episode—however brief—seems to offer a moment of relief, of purity. And then the furies return to drive the Octet to its surprisingly fierce conclusion.
