Sunday, August 4 • Music And Movies

Open House: Music and Movies Norfolk Chamber Music Festival | Sunday, August 4, 3:00 pm

Part I : Songs Of The Early Cinema Part II: Silent Film Comedy Shorts

Joanna Seaton voice, percussion — Donald Sosin piano

FEATURING

Get Out and Get Under (1920)

Starring Harold Lloyd Director, Hal Roach

The Model T Ford that Harold adores keeps breaking down on the way to the theater where his girlfriend / co-star is waiting.

Battle of the Century (1927)

Starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy Director, Clyde Bruckman

Stan faces the champ in the boxing ring; then the duo launch the biggest cream pie fight ever filmed. Newly restored!

The Count (1916)

Starring / Director, Charles Chaplin

One of the finest of Chaplin’s Mutual shorts. Charlie masquerades as a count at a society party. Funny dining and dancing, with all going well until the real count turns up.

HAYDN: String Quartet No. 55 in D Major, Op 71, No. 2, HOB III: 70

20 MINUTES

Haydn’s string quartets found enthusiastic favor with London audiences during the composer’s first visit there in 1791. Back in Vienna, Haydn fashioned his Opus 71 quartets specifically for public performance in preparation for his return to London, likely explaining the jolting chords of the D Major Quartet’s slow introduction and the brilliant passagework for all four players that follows. That slow introduction itself, while brief, is unique to Haydn’s mature quartets, and its octave drops in the first violin portend the falling octaves that will cascade across all four parts in the first theme of the Allegro. After the octaves leaps invert upwards and rise to the end of the effervescent first movement, a meditative, heartfelt Adagio unfolds in its wake. The terse, selfassured minuet that follows fills in the gaping octave leaps from the first movement, while its curious, practically themeless trio seems anything but filled-in. The Finale begins in a jovial, sometimes rowdy Allegretto, but accelerates through scampering sixteenth notes to a brilliant finish. — Graeme Steele Johnson

BARTÓK: String Quartet No. 5

The relentless, hammered repetition that characterizes the opening of Bartók’s fifth string quartet announces a work of bold originality and compositional sophistication. Written for a commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in 1934 and premiered the following year by the Kolisch Quartet, the work seems to pick up squarely where Bartók’s fourth quartet had left off in 1928; it follows the same five-movement arch form as that work. The outer two movements are fast sonata forms that share thematic material; the second and fourth movements are parallel slow movements sharing common characteristics; and the scherzo middle movement forms the crux of the palindrome. Despite the structural similarities, the fifth quartet is decidedly more material — elaborated, developed, and extended in great depth. His well-known folk music interests are on display, with the idiomatic language now so thoroughly ingrained into his compositional voice that it has merged seamlessly into a wholly original sound, much imitated

30 MINUTES

since but never duplicated. The dramatic and dissonant power of the quartet’s opening belies the first movement’s sonata form structure. Both the second and fourth movements feature hauntingly beautiful passages showcasing Bartók’s beloved “night music” style, in which all manner of coloristic effects are utilized to convey the stillness and space of nature in repose. The Scherzo, subtitled “alla bulgarese,” is the most overtly folk-influenced movement, characterized by its asymmetrical nine-bar rhythmic structure taken from Bulgarian folk dances. The last movement is a tour de force of virtuosity. Its endless forward drive is interrupted towards the end with a bizarrely comical passage marked “Allegretto, con indifferenza,” (Allegretto, with indifference). After dramatic chords, the second violin presents a naïve melody that grows increasing buzzing and out of tune, before the vigorous rhythmic momentum reasserts itself to conclude things. — Jacob Adams

BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in e minor, Op 59, No. 2

34 MINUTES

The three quartets Beethoven composed for Count Andreas Rasumovsky, the Russian ambassador in Vienna, fall into the middle or “heroic” period of Beethoven’s oeuvre. Written in 1806, these works show Beethoven expanding the norms of quartet writing, particularly regarding the quartets’ great length and technical difficulty. One of the unusual features of this set of works is the inclusion by Beethoven (probably at Rasumovsky’s request) of Russian folk music into the fabric of these quartets. In the e minor quartet, a Russian tune (later used by Mussorgsky in Boris Godunov) is employed as the contrasting major theme of the third movement scherzo. Musicologist Joseph Kerman wrote of this moment: “It sounds as though Count Razumovsky had been tactless enough to hand Beethoven the tune, and Beethoven is pile-driving it into the ground by way of revenge.” The most celebrated movement of the quartet is the second, which has some of the reverent quality found in the famous Heiliger Dankgesang from the Opus 132 quartet. According to multiple sources, Beethoven was inspired to write this movement as he contemplated the night sky and thought about the music of the spheres. — Jordan Kuspa