Juilliard String Quartet

SoNoKLECT '06-'07 A Concert Series of Modern Music TERRY VosBEIN, DIRECTOR Juilliard String Quartet The Complete Bart6k Quartets WILSON HALL LENFEST CENTER FOR 'IHE ARTS WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY 25 & 26 MAY 2007 8:30 P.M. FRIDAY NI GHT First String Quartet , Op. 7, Sz . 40 (1908) Lento Allegretto Int rod uzione: allegro Allegro vivace pr esto Third String Quartet, Sz. 85 (1927) Prim a parte- Moderat o Second a par te- Allegro Recapitul azione della prim a part e: Mode rato-a ttacca Cod a: Allegro molto - INTERMISSION - Fifth String Quartet, Sz. 102 (1934) Allegro Ad agio rnolto Scherzo: Alla bulga rese- Vivace And ante Finale: Allegro vivace 2 SATURDAY NIGHT Second String Quartet, Op. 17, Sz. 67 (1915-17) Moderato Allegro molto capriccioso Lento Fourth String Quartet, Sz. 91 (1928) Allegro Prestissimo, con sordino Non troppo lento Allegretto pizzicato Allegro molto - INTERMISSION - Sixth String Quartet (1939) Mesto: Piu mosso, pesante-Vivace Mes to-Marcia Mesto: Burletta-Moderato Mesto 3 Bart6k: A Juilliard Quartet Legacy Celebrati ng its sixtieth ann iversary, the Juilli ard String Qu artet re-creates a se minal moment in its history: the first cycle of the six Bart6k quart ets to be perfo rmed in the United States. Seven performances of the compl ete set across the coun try and in Japan dur ing the anni versary seas on, 2006-07, wi ll recall the landmark 1948 premiere at Tanglewoo d. The Bart6k cycle is one of wha t violist Samu el Rhodes, the ensemble's senior member, describes as "common threads that have been supr emely important to the Juilliard Strin g Qu artet." These long-standing interes ts also include the Beethoven quar tets; commissioning important contemp orary compo sers, mo stly Ameri can, to extend the quart et repert oire and tradition ; and a stron g commitm ent to teaching, both chamb er mu sic and the players' ind ividual instrum ents. Composed between 1908 and 1939, the Bart6k quart ets wer e not well known in the United States in the yea rs just after World War 2. The Juilliard pla yers had to learn the Sixth Quart et from part s copied by hand from the manu script, and the first cycle met with little national attention . Today the six work s are part of the stand ard repertoir e, standin g beside the qu artets of Haydn , Mozart, Beethoven and Schub ert and played even by stud ent ensemb les. The Emerson, Tokyo, Brentano, Saint Lawr ence, Lark, and Colorado Qu artets are among the many tha t, either as a grou p or through ind ividu al memb ers' studi es, learned their Bart6ks at the knee of the group that laun ched them in to general circulation. There had been sporad ic performa nces of ind ividua l qu ar tets in the United States before 1948. The Librar y of Congress, for instance, prese nted a 1934 performanc e of the First Quartet by the Roth Quart et of Budapest , a 1935 Fifth Qua rtet by the Kolisch Qu artet of Vienn a, and , in 1936, a repeat of the First by the Roth Quart et and a Fourth by the Pro Arte Quartet of Brusse ls. Significantly, these were ensemb les from Europe, wh ere Bart6k was better establish ed. Over the next decade four quart ets based in the United States- the Coolidge, Bud apest, University of Wiscon sin Pro Arte, and Gordon-p erform ed single quar tets at the Library. The Juilliard began a series of Bart6k performances there in December 1948 with the Fifth Qu artet. Brought togeth er by Robert Man n, the Juilliard at its birth consisted of Mann as first violinist, Robert Koff as second violinist, Raph ael Hillyer as violist, and Art hur Winograd as cellist. It was Eugene Lehne r, then a violist in the Boston Symph ony Or chestra, who introdu ced the four young men to Bart6k's masterworks . As a member of the celebrated Kolisch Qu artet, he had known and champi oned Bart6k, Schoenber g, Berg, and Webern in prewa r Vienn a. Now an emigre and older man, he refused an invitation to become the new ensemble's foundin g violist. He offered instead to coach the players in the Bart6k quartets. 4 Many years later Hillyer, whom Lehner recomm end ed for the violist's job, recalled tha t the group thought, apropos Bartek : "' People are not going to like this.' And it turned ou t that they didn 't, very much . But we had such faith in him [Lehner] and the mu sic itself, after we'd played it a lot, that we just didn 't care about the reaction . ' We did it and it's good for you, listen to it,' we thought. And peopl e began to see w hat's in it." By 1948, at the invitation of Tanglewood 's found er, Serge Kou ssevitzky, the two yea r-old Juilliar d was ready to spring the cycle on the un suspecting world . The premiere took pla ce on July 10 and 17. But it wasn't until the repeat of the set in New York, in two concerts in March and Apri l 1949, that the world took notic e. In a lengthy commenta ry in the Herald Tribun e the prescient Virgil Thomson declared the six works "the cream of Bartek 's repertor y, the essence of his deep est thought and feeling, his most powerful and hum ane communi cation . They are also, in a centur y that has produ ced richly in that medium , a handfu l of chamb er mu sic nu ggets that are pure gold by any standard s." Chamb er musi c in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s was largely the pro vince of Europ ean emigres, epitomi zed by the Budap est Quart et, which stood as an emblem of the genteel, Old World values embodi ed in the genr e. Encour aged to be darin g by William Schuman, then presid ent of the Juilliard Schoo l, its first resid ent quartet brok e w ith the tradition . But new mu sic was a hard sell. Hillyer recalled that, to get Bartek onto a prestigi ous chamber mu sic series in Buffalo, New York, where the Budap est was a main stay, the Juilliard had to agree to play the Barte k first on the progr am. That way, listeners could arr ive late if they chose. The Juill iard was not to be det erred . Subsequen t cycles followed at Harvard and Princeton (1949), the Ojai Festival (1950), in Berlin (1951, in 12 concerts includin g Beethoven and Bart6k cycles), New York (1952), San Franci sco and Berkeley (1953), Vienna (1955), and at the Edinbu rgh Festival (1958). Oth er per formances of Bart6k , as well as other twenti eth-centur y compo sers, were salted in am ong these program s. Now that someone was actuall y pla ying twentieth -centur y quart ets, scores arri ved at the Juilliard 's doorstep by the dozen. The first of thr ee Juilliard recordin gs of the cycle, in 1949, onl y four years after Bart6k's death , helped to spre ad the wo rd. Characteristically, the grou p did it the hard way. Because magneti c tape was still new and unreli able, the whol e job was don e without the editin g and splicin g that make most recordings compo sites of man y takes. Subsequ ent cycles wer e relea sed in 1963 and 1983. Reviewin g the third set in the New York Times, Bernard Holland wrote, "Those who still own those scratchy, muffled first recordin gs from the 1940s will rejoice in the new version's revelation of detail, but perhaps they will miss the incredibl e white heat of the early performanc es. No thing since seems to hav e matched this dem onic dr iving power." 5 Th anks to this missionary wo rk, the Bartoks were coming into general acceptan ce by the 1960s and 1970s. Durin g those yea rs the Juilliard played cycles not only in New York and Chicago but also at the University of Texas, Vassar College and in Guelph , Ontario . Ther e was not a single year durin g the same period in which the Juilliard did not carry at leas t one Bartok-a nd often carried as many as five--on its pr og rams. At the Library of Congress the Juilliard remained the dr iving Bartok force. Toda y's Juilliard String Qu artet goes out into the world not as the bra sh yo un g men of the 1940s, but as consumm ate masters. Over the cour se of the 2006-07 season they will perform the Bartok cycle in Dallas, New York, El Paso, Houston, Lexington (Virginia), and Tokyo and at the Ravinia Festival. Extensive tours will take the Bartok s to other cities and campu ses across the United States, Europe , and the Far East. The count less ensembl es playing the Bartok quart ets alongside the Beethov ens toda y are benefi ciarie s of a tradition that four Juilliard up starts established fifty eight years ago. The Juilliard , in turn , carri es on a traditi on that goes back to the Kalisch Qu artet and , before that , the Schuppa nzigh Qu artet, which insisted on playing the Beethoven quart ets when they were new and misund erstood.

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