Parker Quartet by University of Florida Performing Arts

PARKER QUARTET

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2024 | 2 P.M.

Squitieri Studio Theatre

Program

PARKER QUARTET

Daniel Chong, violin | Ken Hamao, violin

Jessica Bodner, viola | Kee-Hyun Kim, cello

String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 4

I. Allegro con fuoco

II. Allegretto

III. Breit und kräftig

IV. Vivace e con fuoco

The Four Quarters

I. Nightfalls

II. Serenade: Morning Dew

III. Days

IV. The Twenty-fifth Hour

INTERMISSION

String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, Op. 67

I. Vivace

II. Andante

III. Agitato. Allegretto non troppo

IV. Poco allegretto con variazioni

U.S. Representation

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Alexander von Zemlinsky

Thomas Adès

Johannes Brahms

PROGRAM NOTES

String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 4

Alexander von Zemlinsky

Born October 14, 1871 in Vienna; died March 15, 1942 in Larchmont, New York

Alexander Zemlinsky, today a relatively unknown figure, was an important Austrian composer of partly Jewish background. Brahms, and to some extent, Mahler, too, admired and encouraged him in his composition, especially his chamber music works. Zemlinsky was also close with Schoenberg, whom he advised on technical aspects of chamber music. Schoenberg was enthralled with Zemlinsky’s music and lamented the lack of appreciation he was accorded. In 1901, Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister.

Zemlinsky was also well respected as a conductor at the Karlstheater in Vienna, the Vienna Volksoper, the Vienna Opera, the Mannheim Opera, the Berlin State Opera, and the Prague German opera. He became well-known as a perceptive interpreter of Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, and Schoenberg. Both Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky considered him the finest conductor they ever heard.

His musical talent became evident at an early age; he was enrolled at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Konservatorium (Conservatory of the Society of the Friends of Music) to study piano and composition when he was only 13. Brahms at the time was serving as President of the Gesellschaft.

Mahler accepted Zemlinsky’s first opera for production in Vienna and conducted its premiere in January of 1900. Together with Schoenberg, Zemlinsky organized the Viennese Union of Creative Musicians. As years passed, Zemlinsky taught the boy-prodigy composer Erich Korngold, and he gave freely in a kindly and helpful way to the hypersensitive Anton Webern. Among his other students was Alma Mahler, but after the Nazis came to power in 1938, Zemlinsky was forced to emigrate to America where he died a few years later.

Zemlinsky’s music is imbued with early 20th century flavor, yet it also pays allegiance to tradition, at least harmonically. A nostalgic yearning characterizes much of the work; it does not feature any of the lush, chromatic music being written at this time or the brittle cabaret style of some of the music of these years, but rather relies on the Brahmsian influence of the composer’s time as student at the Vienna Conservatoire. Zemlinsky’s music reflects the transition from 19th century Romanticism so evocative of Brahms to an aesthetic that would be more represented by the Second Viennese School and Schoenberg.

In 1893, Zemlinsky’s Symphony in D minor attracted Brahms’ interest, and consequently, Brahms began to follow the young composer’s progress. In March 1896, the Hellmesberger Quartet performed Zemlinsky’s String Quintet in D minor, his longest and most ambitious instrumental work until that time. “It’s bursting with talent,” Brahms declared, but he was, nonetheless, curious about some of the modernist elements Zemlinsky had used, and he invited the young composer to discuss the piece with him. “A conversation with Brahms was no easy matter,” Zemlinsky remarked after that talk.

That same year, Zemlinsky completed his String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 4. Brahms, who was very impressed by the work, recommended it to his publisher, Simrock. Brahms found it not only a very confident work, but also was pleased that it expressed Romanticism much like that which Brahms himself favored. At the time of the quartet’s composition, Brahms arranged for Zemlinsky to receive a monthly stipend so that he could concentrate on his composing. Zemlinsky modeled the formal structures of the outer movements on Schubert’s music as well as on Beethoven’s music of his middle-period. Brahms recognized his own musical tendencies in the intermezzos of the inner movements of the Zemlinsky work. The opening Allegro con fuoco (Quickly and fiery) has three themes in a sonata form. The music is complex; in the first theme, as many as nine rhythmic figures are introduced, expanded, reversed, and even contracted. The development rises to a turbulent climax before the recapitulation brings back the three themes, this time transposed.

The second movement, Allegretto, a bit of a quirky scherzo, takes its inspiration from the third movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. The framing sections are marked “Im volkston” (“In folksong style”) while the middle section is Presto. The beginning of the movement introduces his “self “motif, which he would use for many of his works. For it, he presents what would become an emblematic phrase of three notes: C-sharp, D-sharp, F-sharp.

The third movement, Breit und kräftig, (“Broad and powerfully strong”) is slow and stately. It opens dramatically but becomes more elegiac with time. The final movement, Vivace e con fuoco, (Very quickly and energetically and fiery), is the most like Brahms in melody and in its rhythmic complexities. Brahms’s favorite motif, F – A – F, (‘frei aber froh,’ meaning free but happy) provides the outline for Zemlinsky’s main theme, in which he pays a subtle homage to his mentor. The movement features a dialogue between the cello and first violin, alternating expressions of the theme throughout.

The Four Quarters String Quartet, Op. 28

Thomas Adès

Born in England in 1971

The British composer, Thomas Adès writes in a personal, intimate, and deeply communicative way. He succeeds in conveying pure emotion; his work has been likened to a mixture of that of the 20th century composers Ligeti and Kurtag, but with a sprinkling of the kind of innovation found in the 18th century works of Mozart.

Adès’ successes came early. When he was 17, he composed Five Elliot Landscapes, now known as Op 1. A year later, his Chamber Symphony was performed at a Cambridge Festival by the BBC Philharmonic. After graduating from Cambridge, he joined the Hallé Orchestra as Resident Composer. In 1993, he wrote Living Toys for the London Sinfonietta. Adès’ first opera, Powder her Face, was a large success. The acclaim was renewed with his second opera, The Tempest, premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2004. Adès is also a highly regarded pianist and conductor, and for 10 years, he was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival.

Adès composed The Four Quarters in 2010; the Emerson Quartet, for whom it was commissioned, played its premiere at Carnegie Hall, in New York, on March 12, 2011. The commission was awarded in the context of the composer’s 2007–2008 appointment to the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall. The subject of the quartet is the passage of time during a 24-hour period. Each of its movements, or quarters, focuses on a particular time of day. Adès’ quartet begins at dusk and then goes on to sunrise and continues until sundown. In the first movement, Nightfalls, the violins are instructed to play without vibrato in the opening, giving forth a raw and dark sound. The meditative mood is interrupted by contrasting dynamics with loud outbursts immediately softening, causing an unsettling, elusive feeling.

Eugene Drucker, a founding member of the Emerson Quartet, explained his feelings about the second movement, a scherzo: “Serenade-Morning Dew is almost entirely pizzicato with many explosive chords interspersed with quieter plucking. One could imagine that the pizzicato explosions are like drops of dew on blades of grass, scintillating as they catch the sunlight. The propulsive second movement provides an effective contrast to the meditative opening of the quartet.” In the second half of the movement, there are widely spaced chords and bowed passages that have been said to evoke the spreading of the sun’s rays.

About the third movement, Days, Drucker explained, “The ostinato of pulsating repeated notes in Days may be meant to evoke the feeling of the passage of time. It begins quietly, builds to a sonorous and emphatic climax.” In the loud climax, all four instruments play the rhythmic pattern together but then divide into two groups. Drucker remarks that the music then “subsides to a quiet if somewhat uneasy ending.”

The music critic Paul Griffiths explained the third movement’s complex rhythm: “Days is a study in monotony, but within a context, of course, of constant change. The second violin begins by repeating middle C sharp to a repeating rhythm of short-short-long, short-long, short-long (13 beats, therefore) placed against a shifting frame of time signatures, the other instruments playing in harmony mostly below, until they are drawn into the second violin’s rhythm and disturb its equanimity. After this it is scale-wise motion that comes forward as an alternative, until, startlingly, everyone arrives at fortissimo chords on the nagging 13-beat rhythm. Then quiet again, the music unwinds.”

The last movement, The Twenty-Fifth Hour, features a musical pun: the meter is 25/16, an extraordinary time signature that reflects the movement’s title; in performance, the meter is broken down into the more regular groupings of 4+4+3 and 4+4+3+3. The difficulty of this complex pattern creates a dancelike feeling with a singing quality. Presumably, The Twenty-Fifth Hour points to a feeling of time beyond what is in the normal 24-hour day. Regardless of the technical difficulties or the thematic aspects of the work, Drucker recalled that what impressed him most about The Four Quarters is the way “the beauty of its textures and the sense of overarching shape comes across in each of the four movements.” Overall, this dazzling work presents fascinating musical material full of satisfying ideas.

String Quartet No. 3, in B-flat major, Op. 67

Johannes Brahms

Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, in Vienna

Brahms’ feelings about the importance of the string quartet as the ultimate expression of the composer’s craft may help to account for why he wrote 20 or more quartets over two decades before he would allow his first two string quartets to be published. The long delay had two causes. One was the burden of being in the position of following Beethoven, while the other was that he needed a way to deal with the complex polyphony that was an inherent part of his musical thought in order that his work could make the impression he wanted with only four instruments. The sextets of the 1860s, perhaps because the group was 50 percent larger, had given him a satisfactory medium, but a quintet had failed. In the 1870s, he felt confident, at last, that he knew what to do with four players; his Op. 51 Quartets succeed as works in which fullness of expression is unhindered by economy of means.

In 1875, Brahms resigned from his position as conductor of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music), feeling that three years there were sufficient, recognizing that the position would not further his quest to be granted the conducting contract he desperately desired in his hometown, Hamburg. After the completion of the season, he left Austria, journeying to a country hamlet, Ziegelhausen, near Heidelberg, where he could concentrate on composing but still enjoy the company of musicians from nearby cities when he desired.

Brahms was relieved to have time he could devote solely to composition. He did not miss not having a regular post and resolved never again to take one. Since he had no family to support, the income from his composition satisfied his modest needs as well as allowed him to be generous with friends. His only obligation and responsibility was to his music. His youth was past, and the calm wisdom of middle age had arrived. His mood and his compositions seemed to match. He wrote to one friend that summer, “Life here is very jolly.” To another, he communicated that he was working on some “useless trifles in order to avoid a serious encounter with a symphony.” One “trifle” was this cheerful quartet, another was his blithe Symphony No. 2, and between times, when he tired of these two optimistic works, he turned to polishing the score of his huge, dramatic Symphony No. 1, whose existence had not yet been revealed to the musical world.

This quartet, Op. 67, was to be Brahms’ third and last. At the time of its composition, he seemed to have been content with the work. Like its predecessors, this quartet, which he confided was his favorite of the three he composed, is dedicated to a physician. Its composition was easier for Brahms than those that came before. In August 1876, he wrote to Dr. Engelmann, “I am about to give birth to a string quartet and I shall not need the help of a medical man. I do not think forceps will be necessary.” The quartet was written quickly; the Joachim Quartet gave it its first performance on October 30, 1876, in Berlin.

Haydn’s spirit is ubiquitous in this work. From the jolting beginning of the playful Vivace first movement with its cor de chasse (“hunting call”) of cross-accented duple rhythm, Brahms’ displaced accents and shifting rhythms recall Haydn at his wittiest. There is much syncopation, and simultaneously, Brahms uses 6/8 and 2/4 meters, making a combination of three against two.

The serene second movement, Andante, is a romantic three-part song with some agitated dramatic moments in the minor-key middle section. Third is an extraordinary scherzo-form movement, Agitato (Allegretto non troppo), music of lyric passion played principally by the viola, Brahms’ favorite instrument, with the other three instruments accompanying and playing with mutes. Brahms presumably called this “the most amorous, affectionate [movement] I have written.”

The last movement, Poco Allegretto con variazioni, recalls the variation-finales of Haydn’s generation but with a new twist. The movement is made up of eight variations on a theme and then a coda. Each of the instruments is highlighted, giving the theme varied shapes and colorations in these variations, but not only in the first two variations but also in selected other sections, Brahms’ favored viola again has the leading voice. In the last two variations, the seventh and eighth, and in the closing coda, Brahms superimposes themes from the first movement of the quartet onto the variation theme, boldly using a cyclic device to unify his work.

PARKER QUARTET

Daniel Chong, violin | Ken Hamao, violin Jessica Bodner, viola | Kee-Hyun Kim, cello

Internationally recognized for their “fearless, yet probingly beautiful” (The Strad) performances, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Parker Quartet has distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation, dedicated purely to the sound and depth of their music. They are renowned for their fresh and unique approach to the great classics while being passionate ambassadors for music of our time. Inspired performances and exceptional musicianship are hallmarks of the Quartet, having appeared at the world’s most illustrious venues since its founding in 2002.

Recent seasons have included performances around North America and Europe, including Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Music Toronto, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Strathmore, San Antonio Chamber Music Society, University of Chicago, the Schubert Club, 92nd Street Y, Da Camera of Houston, UCLA’s Clark Library, and Kansas City’s Friends of Chamber Music. Recent festival appearances include Big Ears, Norfolk, Lake Champlain, Bridgehampton, Skaneateles, San Miguel de Allende, and at the Banff Centre.

The Quartet’s 2024-2025 season includes concerts at Carnegie Hall and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Additionally, the Quartet will work with and record works by Paola Prestini, as well as curate a project which includes a newly commissioned quintet by Anthony Cheung for the Quartet and mezzosoprano Fleur Barron. This project centers on themes of nature and heritage while weaving poetry and music throughout the program.

Throughout the 2022-2023 season the quartet celebrated their 20th anniversary with The Beethoven Project, a multi-faceted initiative which included performances of the complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets; the commissioning of six composers to write encores inspired by Beethoven’s quartets; the creation of a new video library spotlighting each Beethoven quartet; and bringing Beethoven’s music to non-traditional venues around the Quartet’s home base of Boston, including homeless shelters and youth programs.

The Quartet is committed to working with composers of today—recent commissions include works by Augusta Read Thomas, Felipe Lara, Jaehyuck Choi, Zosha di Castri, Paul Wiancko, Anthony Cheung, Wang Lu, Michi Wiancko, Sky Macklay, and Jeremy Gill. Celebrating the process of creation, the Quartet recorded three new commissions by Kate Soper, Oscar Bettison, and Vijay Iyer as part of Miller Theatre’s Mission: Commission podcast. The Quartet regularly collaborates with a diverse range of artists, which have included pianists Menahem Pressler, Anne-Marie McDermott, Orion Weiss, Shai Wosner, Billy Childs, and Vijay Iyer; clarinetist and composer Jörg Widmann; clarinetists Anthony McGill and Charles Neidich; flutist Claire Chase; and violist Kim Kashkashian, featured on their recent Dvorˇák recording. The Quartet also continues to be a strong supporter of Kashkashian’s project Music for Food,

participating in concerts throughout the United States for the benefit of various food banks and shelters.

Recording projects continue to be an important facet of the Quartet’s artistic output. Described by Gramophone Magazine as a “string quartet defined by virtuosity so agile that it’s indistinguishable from the process of emotional expression,” their newest release for ECM Records features Dvorˇák’s Viola Quintet as well as György Kurtág’s Six Moments Musicaux and Officium breve in memoriam The Strad also declared the album as “nothing short of astonishing.”

Under the auspices of the Monte Carlo Festival Printemps des Arts, they recorded a disc of three Beethoven quartets, of which Diapason “admired the group’s fearlessness, exceptional control, and attention to detail.” The Quartet can also be heard playing Mendelssohn on Nimbus Records, Bartók on Zig-Zag Territoires, and the complete Ligeti Quartets on Naxos, for which they won a GRAMMY® Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

The members of the Parker Quartet serve as Professors of the Practice and Blodgett Artists-in-Residence at Harvard University’s Department of Music. The Quartet also holds visiting residencies at the University of South Carolina and Walnut Hill School for the Arts.

Founded and currently based in Boston, the Parker Quartet’s numerous honors include winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize at France’s Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, and Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award.