PREVIEW NOTES

ECCO Thursday, March 13 – 8:00 PM Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center Program Four on the Floor Divertimento in B‐flat Major, K. 137 Judd Greenstein Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Composed: 2006 Born: January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria First PCMS Performance Died: December 5, 1791 in Vienna, Austria Duration: 10 minutes Composed: 1777 Greenstein describes Four on the Floor as a “ridiculously First PCMS Performance virtuosic piece, requiring remarkable individual energy Duration: 11 minutes and endurance, and a degree of precision that only a This work and the Divertimento in F, K. 247 were written top‐rate string quartet can provide.” to commemorate the name day of Countess Maria Select Madrigals Antonia Lodron, a family friend and member of the Carlo Gesualdo Salzburg aristocracy. The works are nearly identical in Born: c 1561 in Naples, Italy structure and dimension, the principal difference being Died: September 8, 1613 in Avellino, Italy an extended theme and variations movement in the Composed: 1594‐96 later work in place of the shorter andante in this one. First PCMS Performance Virtuosity Duration: 5 minutes David Ludwig Gesualdo's six books of Madrigals constitute the main Born: 1974 in Bucks County, PA body of his work. Books I and II are rooted in standard Composed: 2012 practice, but when compared to contemporary settings Philadelphia Premiere of the same poetry. Book III shows a decreased reliance Local composer David Ludwig is on the faculty at Curtis, on pre‐existing settings, and by Book IV, all the texts where he studied with , used are original. Books V and VI did not appear until and . He comes from a musical 1611, but in these editions, Gesualdo states that they family; his grandfather was the pianist and were printed only to protect the works from plagiarists. his great‐grandfather the violinist Adolf Busch. String Quartet in F Major[Arr.] Gymnopédies Maurice Ravel Erik Satie Born: March 7, 1875 in Ciboure, France Born: May 17, 1866 in Hanfleur, France Died: December 28, 1937 in Paris, France Died: July 1, 1925 in Arcueil, France Composed: 1903 Composed: 1888 Last PCMS performance: Modigliani Quartet, 2012 First PCMS performance Duration: 28 minutes Duration: 9 minutes

Inspired by Satie’s reading of Gustave Flaubert’s Perhaps the most frequently played 20th century string Salammbô, this three‐movement arrangement of one of quartet, Ravel’s masterpiece is the work of an already Satie’s most recognizable pieces has a tonal center that mature artist. The opening movement's pianissimo is encircled by undulating harmonic shifts. Satie eschews second theme is as hollow and melancholy as the first melodic development in favor of repetition and theme is warm and inviting. In the second movement, juxtaposition of melodic elements, which, together with Ravel moves into the pizzicato world that Debussy the static harmonic language, imbue the work with its explored in the scherzo movement of his Quartet. In the characteristic dreamy quality. slow movement, parts from earlier in the quartet return in new guises. And the finale, which plunges straight into a frantic 5/4 meter at its start, lightens up in the middle and then ends with a bang.