Emerson String Quartet, Dec 4, 2018

oneppo chamber music series David Shifrin, artistic director

Emerson String Quartet Eugene Drucker, violin • Philip Setzer, violin Lawrence Dutton, viola • Paul Watkins, cello

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 | 7:30 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Program Joseph Haydn 1732–1809

String Quartet in D major, Op. 71, No. 2 I. Adagio – Allegro II. Adagio III. Menuetto. Allegro IV. Allegretto Eugene Drucker, first violin

Béla Bartók 1881–1945

String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat major, Sz. 102 I. Allegro II. Adagio molto III. Scherzo. Alla bulgarese IV. Andante V. Finale. Allegro vivace Eugene Drucker, first violin

intermission

Antonín Dvořák 1841–1904

String Quartet No. 13 in G major, Op. 106 I. Allegro moderato II. Adagio ma non troppo III. Molto vivace IV. Finale. Andante sostenuto Philip Setzer, first violin

As a courtesy to others, please silence all devices. Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please do not leave the hall during musical selections. Thank you.

Artist Profiles Emerson String Quartet Eugene Drucker, violin Philip Setzer, violin Lawrence Dutton, viola Paul Watkins, cello The Emerson String Quartet has maintained its stature as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles for more than four decades. The quartet has made more than 30 acclaimed recordings, and has been honored with nine Grammys® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize,and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year.”

The Emerson frequently collaborates with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet art form alive and relevant. They have partnered in performance with stellar soloists including Reneé Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.

During the 2018-2019 season the Emerson continues to perform as the quartet-inresidence at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. for its 40th season and returns to perform with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The group’s North American appearances include a performance at New York’s Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, Denver, Vancouver, Seattle, Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, and University of Georgia, among others. The quartet also embarks on two European tours, performing in major venues in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. During the summer of 2019, the Emerson will perform at Tanglewood, Ravinia, and the Aspen Music Festivals.

Other North American highlights include subsequent performances of Shostakovich and The Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy, the new theatrical production co-created by the acclaimed theater director James Glossman and the Quartet’s violinist, Philip Setzer. In spring 2019, the quartet will reprise this work at Stony Brook University and the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The Emerson’s extensive recordings range from Bach to Harbison, including the complete string quartets of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartok, Webern, and Shostakovich, as well as multi-CD sets of the major works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Dvorak. The ensemble has also recorded music by Tchaikovsky, Smetana, Debussy, Ravel, Barber and Ives.

In April 2017, the Emerson released its latest album, Chaconnes and Fantasias: Music of Britten and Purcell, the first CD issue on the new label, Decca Gold. The Quartet has commissioned and performed new works from composers such as Thomas Adés, Kaija Saariaho,Wolfgang Rihm, MarkAnthony Turnage, and Edgar Meyer.

Formed in 1976 and based in New York City, the Emerson Quartet, which took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, is quartet-in-residence at Stony Brook University. In January 2015, the Quartet received the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award, Chamber Music America’s highest honor, in recognition of its significant and lasting contribution to the chamber music field.

The Emerson Quartet enthusiastically endorses Thomastik strings.

Program Notes String Quartet in D major, Op. 71, No. 2 haydn Patrick Campbell Jankowski One of six quartets (Op. 71 and Op. 74) written in the years between Haydn’s two major visits to London and named Apponyi after a Viennese patron, this work, like its companions, was intended as a public showpiece. Consider Haydn’s vastly different state of mind in having his pieces performed widely for public audiences, rather than being played in the intimate yet insular confines of the Esterházy estate. There, Haydn was free to experiment and amaze listeners (which he surely did) but his success was not largely tied to the reviews and sale of his work. Late in life, he enjoyed fame and celebrity, due in part to the impressive qualities of his later compositions.

He used folk-like melodies and stylistic devices, dramatic contrasts, and showy passages amply. Clearly, he knew how to make a splash, though never sacrificed artistry in the process.

The start of the work is almost symphonic in heft: a slow introduction built on thick sustains. Even in the faster passages that follow, Haydn’s imitative writing and conversational style lead the four instruments to sound like many more. A stately adagio features an often ornamented cantabile line in the violin, somewhat operatic in its style, which ventures assertively into dramatic territory. The rhythmic activity is amped up in the minuet and finale, the latter of which resembles the folk dance style of many works from this later period.

What begins as an allegretto suddenly and surprisingly shifts to high gear for an

especially flashy finish. You can imagine the smiling faces and joyous applause of Haydn’s audience at the conclusion. Haydn could probably have imagined them, too.

String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat major Bartók Jacob Adams Bartók’s well-known folk music interests and influences are certainly evidenced in the fifth quartet, with the idiomatic language now so thoroughly ingrained into his compositional voice that it has merged seamlessly into a wholly original sound, one which has been much imitated and never duplicated.

The relentless, hammered repetition that characterizes the opening of Bartók’s fifth string quartet announces a work of bold originality and compositional sophistication unusual even for such a widely-acclaimed composer. 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-arc form as that work. The outer two movements are fast sonata-form movements that share thematic material, the second and fourth movements are parallel slow movements which share common characteristics, and the scherzo middle movement forms the crux of the palindrome. Despite the structural similarities, however, the fifth quartet is decidedly more ambitious, both in conception and content, than Bartok’s previous writings for the genre: it is his longest quartet,

with material elaborated, developed and extended in great depth.

The dramatic and dissonant power of the quartet’s opening belies the first movement’s traditional sonata form structure.

In typical Bartók fashion, the melodic material presented in the exposition returns in reverse order in the recapitulation, thus aligning itself to the arc form of the overall piece. 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 quartet’s 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, both from composer and for performer. Its endless forward drive is interrupted towards the end with a bizarrely comical passage marked “Allegretto, con indifferenza.” After dramatic chords, the second violin presents a quaint melody that grows increasingly buzzing and out of tune, before the vigorous rhythmic momentum reasserts itself to conclude the work.

String Quartet No. 13 in G major dvoŘ ák Jordan Kuspa Antonín Dvořák spent the years 1892–1895 as the director of the newly-formed National Conservatory of Music in New York City.

While in America, Dvořák encouraged his students to pursue the development of a distinctly American compositional style,

based largely on the folk tunes of the land, particularly Negro spirituals. While Dvořák enjoyed several happy and productive years in America, by the end of his tenure he was homesick for his native Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). After a salary dispute with the patron of the National Conservatory, Jeanette Thurber, Dvořák returned to Europe for good in the summer of 1895. A few months later, he had completed his penultimate string quartet.

Dvořák’s excitement at returning to his native land is palpable in the G-major quartet. While in America, he had often attempted to focus his musical style through a prism of American influence, as in the beloved String Quartet in F major, Op. 96, dubbed the “American.” Freshly inspired by his familiar surroundings, Dvořák seemingly poured the essence of Czech folksong into the G-major quartet, creating a work of boundless melodic expression. Like Schubert, one of the other great melodists to write string quartets, Dvořák had a special skill for constructing ingenious accompanimental textures to underpin his inexhaustible fount of melodic invention.

In particular, the cascades of rushing triplet figures heard throughout the first movement provide a telling example of Dvořák’s attention to contrapuntal and textural detail.

The G-major quartet begins with a pair of themes that weave themselves around each other as the first movement unfolds. The dark and melancholy second movement begins in E-flat major before moving through many distant keys. Here, the violin is featured, playing the first statement of a theme that we might be tempted to think was

Program Notes, cont.

Oneppo Chamber Music

2018–2019 Season derived from or inspired by American spirituals. The scherzo (in B minor) is typical of the Viennese model employed from the time of Beethoven, and the fourth and final movement (in the home key of G major) brings this energetic and often exuberant work to a rousing close.

jan 29

Brentano String Quartet lamentations Haydn “Consumatum Est” and “Eli, Eli” from the Seven Last Words of Christ; Shostakovich Elegy for String Quartet; Carter Elegy for String Quartet; Lekeu Molto Adagio sempre cantante e doloroso; Bartók String Quartet No. 2 in A minor

feb 26

About the Oneppo Chamber Music Series

Jordi Savall with Le Concert des Nations Music from the film Tous les Matins du Monde, featuring works by Couperin, Lully, and more

apr 16

Chamber music is an integral part of the Yale School of Music, and this concert series presents many of the world’s leading concert artists on the stage of Morse Recital Hall.

A Far Cry gravity: a progression of works for strings. Pärt Silouan’s Song; Xenakis Aroura; Kernis Musica Celestis; Bartók Divertimento for String Orchestra; Golijov Tenebrae

May 7

Competition Winners Performances by the winners of the School’s annual Chamber Music Competition

Ever since Sprague Memorial Hall was built in 1917, it has been home to chamber music performances. The origins of this series can be traced to concerts organized

by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, widely considered the godmother of chamber music in America.

Samplers 2018–2019 Season Samplers are still available. Save up to 15% off single-ticket prices when you purchase a Pick 3 or Pick 5 package.

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Upcoming Events dec 5

Lunchtime Chamber Music 12:30 pm | Joseph Slifka Center Free

dec 5 Russian Liederabend

Yale Opera An evening of Russian song.

7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Free dec 6 New Music for Orchestra

New Music New Haven

A program of new orchestral music by the School’s student composers performed by the Yale Philharmonia, with guest conductor Julian Pellicano.

7:30 pm | Woolsey Hall

Free dec 8 Yale Percussion Group

YSM Ensembles 7:30 p.m. | Morse Recital Hall

Free dec 12 Guitar Chamber Music

YSM Ensembles 7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Free

jan 16 Peter Serkin, piano

Horowitz Piano Series Visiting professor of piano Peter Serkin performs Bach’s enduring “Goldberg” Variations and works by Mozart.

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall

Tickets start at $28, students $11 jan 18 Peter Oundjian, principal conductor Yale Philharmonia

The Yale Philharmonia performs Shostakovich Symphony No. 11, an arresting musical portrait of resistance.

7:30 pm | Woolsey Hall Tickets start at $12, Yale faculty/ staff/ students $5 jan 25 The Pat Martino Quintet Ellington Jazz Series

Guitarist Pat Martino’s playing is at once intellectual and spiritual and marked by a sublime viruosity.

7:30 pm | Morse Recital Hall Tickets start at $22, students $10

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