Monday Evening, May 6, 2019, at 7:30

The Juilliard School presents Argus Quartet Clara Kim and Jason Issokson, Violins Dana Kelley, Viola Joann Whang, Cello With Astrid Schween, Cello

LISA ARNHOLD MEMORIAL RECITAL

CHRISTOPHER CERRONE (b. 1984) Can’t and Won’t

TAN DUN (b. 1957) Eight Colors Peking Opera Shadows Pink Actress Black Dance Zen Drum and Gong Cloudiness Red Sona

LUIGI BOCCHERINI (1743–1805) String Quintet in D major, Op, 40, No. 2, G. 341, Del Fandango Pastorale Minuetto: Allegro—Trio Grave—Tempo di Fandango ASTRID SCHWEEN, Cello

Intermission

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium.

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Alice Tully Hall Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. KATHERINE BALCH (b. 1991) drip music (World premiere; commissioned for the Argus Quartet by Concert Artists Guild, with support from the Adele and John Gray Endowment Fund)

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918) String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 Animé et très décidé Assez vif et bien rhythmé Andantino, doucement espressif Très modéré—Très mouvementé et avec passion

Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, with an intermission Notes on the Program Can’t and Won’t by Gavin Plumley CHRISTOPHER CERRONE Born March 5, 1984, in Huntington, New York Reflecting on her drip music, which re- ceives its premiere this evening, composer Christopher Cerrone is a composer of Katherine Balch alludes to a poem by E.E. opera—with three stage works to date— Cummings. It is a text typical of the writer’s as well as an extensive number of vocal illusory style, suggesting both rootlessness works, so it is unsurprising to learn that his and longing, a sense of push and pull. string quartet, his only such composition so far, began life in song form. Or rather, it did somewhere i have never travelled, gladly not quite reach that state, as he explains: beyond any experience, your eyes have their Can’t and Won’t began life as a song silence: cycle based on texts by one of my fa- in your most frail gesture are things vorite authors, Lydia Davis. The idea for which enclose me, the project would be that I would set a or which i cannot touch because they are few of her very short pieces into songs too near that use a recurring melody. In between these short songs I would compose a All of the works in tonight’s concert pine for long and intense setting of Davis’ story a certain place, a sense of closure, while si- called—appropriately—“Story,” broken multaneously admitting that such a pursuit into three parts. But try as I might, I could is futile or at least perplexed. In Christopher never quite make the piece I wanted to Cerrone’s Can’t and Won’t (2017), the out of her words. It didn’t help that so specter of a piece not quite written, a song many composers I admire had already cycle, breathes wordlessly through the made fantastic settings of her work. Per- score, as the strings seek “a place of com- haps her work is just complete in and of posure.” And there is a similar pulling in itself. But rather than throw aside these Tan Dun’s Eight Colors (1986–88), in which musical ideas, I decided to make a new the contemporary Chinese composer both string quartet out of them, a series of little makes “contact” with native folk materials “songs without words” interspersed with and seeks to “refresh” Western atonality; one long violent and dramatic movement. the colors derive from the tension. The quartet begins with the faintest of Although born in Italy, composer Luigi sounds: the violinist gently tapping on Boccherini explores a different brand of their fingerboard to elicit a quiet ringing local color in his D major string quintet, in- of open strings. Little by little the mu- dicative of the peripatetic life of a jobbing sicians bow their strings, revealing a (though highly urbane) composer during delicate texture of swirling harmonics. the 18th century. And then, finally, we turn A long, stretched-out melody emerges to the fledgling Debussy in 1893, writing from the cello. Suddenly, as the song be- in a genre to which he would never return gins to form, it is cut off sharply, and a vi- and at a point in his career when influences olent round of Ds is fired like bullets from and interests were many, as he sought to the entire quartet. These two elements fashion an idiom “beyond any experience.” make up the main drama, the “can’t” and “won’t” of the form. As the work progresses, the songs without words move higher and higher, forming into techniques of Peking Opera. The quartet a proper melody, while the violent and consists of eight very short sections— rhythmic music descends to the lowest almost like a set of paintings—that share range of the instruments. and develop materials. The subjects are described by the eight interrelated titles As I was writing this quartet it became and form a drama: a kind of ritual perfor- clear that something else was occupying mance structure. Both the timbre and my subconscious. A lot of this past year string techniques are developed from [2017] has been about trying to find some Peking Opera (the vocalization of Opera sense of repose in a deeply chaotic time, actresses and Buddhist chanting can amid constant and often terrifying distrac- be heard). Although a shadow of atonal tions. Can’t and Won’t seems both to ac- pitch organization remains in some sec- knowledge this sense of disturbance yet tions of this piece, I began to find a way also optimistically point toward the hope to mingle old material with new to con- for a place of composure, even if it’s a tribute something to the Western idea temporary one of atonality and to refresh it. I find a dan- ger in later atonal writing that it is too Eight Colors easy to leave oneself out of the music. I TAN DUN want to find ways to remain open to my Born August 18, 1957, in Changsha, China culture and open to myself.

While Christopher Cerrone searches for String Quintet in D major, Op, 40, No. 2, G. 341, Del Fandango sanctuary, Tan Dun, raised during China’s LUIGI BOCCHERINI Cultural Revolution, with its proscription Born February 19, 1743, in Lucca, Italy of Western music, describes himself as a Died May 28, 1805, in Madrid, Spain composer “swinging and swimming freely among different cultures.” The roots or Today, when such openness and free- rootlessness of this tactic surely derive dom of movement—both literally and in part from his musical education. Hav- metaphorically—have again become hot ing worked as a violinist and arranger at topics of debate, the biography of Lui- the local opera theatre in Beijing (Peking), gi Boccherini makes for dizzying read- Tan Dun discovered formerly suppressed ing. Like the later Lucchesi composer 20th-century Western composers, includ- Puccini, whose great-great-grandfather ing Bartók, Schoenberg, and Boulez, while supported Boccherini’s education, the studying at the newly resurrected Central cellist-composer travelled far and wide. Conservatory of Music. But when Tan Dun His elder brother, a dancer, had done like- moved to New York in 1986, his Chinese wise, paving the way to Vienna, where background continued to manifest itself Boccherini and his father appeared in in his compositions of the late 1980s, as concert for the first time in 1758, return- he explains: ing several times over the course of the next decade. But the life of a nomadic Eight Colors for String Quartet (together musician, even a highly proficient one, with In Distance and Silk Road) marks often proved tiresome during the 18th the first contact in my music between century, as Mozart would soon discover, folk materials and the concentrated, and neither Vienna nor the Italian cities lyrical language of atonality. In these Boccherini visited could offer the virtuoso works I draw on Chinese colors and the cellist permanent employ. He therefore turned to composition, capi- drip music plays with a variety of tiny talizing on the expansion of music publish- dripping sounds, starting with the first ing while exploiting local patronage. Having few minutes in which the string quar- stayed in Genoa and Paris, a particularly tet plays on the string only with metal- prominent publishing center in the mid- lic sewing thimbles, a sound I’ve been 18th century, Boccherini planned to travel kind of obsessed with for a while. Like to London. But, in 1768, Spain beckoned, my first string quartet, with each breath- with a post in the orchestra at Aranjuez ing, which feels like it was written a and, eventually, the patronage of Infante few different composers ago, it tries to Luis Antonio Jaime of Bourbon, young- capture the “intense fragility” that E.E. er brother of King Carlos III. Significantly, Cummings chronicles in his love poem Don Luis employed a string quartet, which somewhere i have never travelled. Boccherini would often join, thereby form- ing the line-up for which he was to become String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 most famous. CLAUDE DEBUSSY Born August 22, 1862, in Saint-Germain-en- The string quintet we hear this evening, Laye, France however, with its finale’s Spanish color, was Died March 25, 1918, in Paris, France written in 1788, three years after Don Luis had died. It was likely composed as part of Points of departure and arrival, from the Boccherini’s contract of 1786 to be Crown past to the “other,” are likewise central Prince (later King) Friedrich Wilhelm (II) of to the work of Debussy at the turn of the Prussia’s “compositeur de notre cham- last century. At the time he wrote his sole ber.” Wilhelm was a keen amateur cellist— string quartet, in 1893, trips to Wagner’s Mozart and Beethoven were similarly com- Bayreuth, experiences of Indonesian missioned by the Prussian monarch—so gamelan music at the Exposition Univer- Boccherini’s favored form suited Potsdam selle, and an increasing devotion to the and Berlin as well as it had Las Arenas, polyphony of Palestrina were dominat- though there is little proof that he ever trav- ing the composer’s thoughts. The sub- elled to Prussia. limation of these influences emerged in works such as the cantata La Damoiselle drip music élue (1893) and Prélude de l’après-midi KATHERINE BALCH d’un faune (1894). While ostensibly the Born in 1991 in San Diego, California most modest of these projects, his string quartet nonetheless had a similarly ma- Moving from 18th-century courtly life to the jor impact when first heard at the Salle present, we encounter Katherine Balch’s Pleyel on December 29, 1893. new work. It marks a return to a form she last approached in 2015, in with each breathing. Its boldness is announced immediately, In that piece there was a noticeable dichot- with a Gallic, swaggering motto. Equally omy of stasis and kinesis, equanimity and unflinching is its sweeping harmonic lan- more restive passages—or what Balch de- guage, quickly breaking free of diatonic scribes as “the intimacy of existence through shackles. The playful pizzicato of the sec- sound.” And the pursuit of tangibility through ond movement returns to the thematic possibly intangible means links that work to thrust. Offering contrast, its singing second one of Balch’s acknowledged literary touch- section is accompanied by shimmers, albe- stones, quoted at the front of the score, just it delivered with a familiar strut. The sense as it does the second of her quartets: of buoyancy soon becomes overwrought, however, as the harmonic palette darkens of the third. Eventually pizzicato snaps and and the viola delivers a series of petulant tremolandos build to a final statement of the cross-rhythms in this gutsy-cum-gossamer motto, bringing us full circle. version of a minuet and trio. Gavin Plumley specializes in the music and The lush Andantino that follows is less fix- culture of Central Europe and appears fre- ated on the central idée, similarly distancing quently on BBC radio as well as writing for itself from the chromaticism of what has newspapers, magazines, opera houses, and gone before. Duly soothed, the finale begins concert halls around the world. He is the drowsily, but souvenirs of the troubled sec- commissioning editor of English-language ond movement soon clash with the modality program notes for the Salzburg Festival.

Meet the Artists Argus’ core mission is to connect with and build up a community of engaged listeners with the strong belief that today’s ensem- bles can honor the storied chamber music traditions of our past while forging a new path forward. Its repertoire includes not just masterworks of the chamber music canon but also a wide range of pieces by living composers. In fall 2017 Argus began a two-year appointment as graduate quar- tet in residence at Juilliard, working closely with the Juilliard String Quartet and making its Lincoln Center recital debut at Alice Tully Hall in May 2018. In 2015–17 Argus served as fellowship quartet in residence at the Argus Quartet Yale School of Music (the first ensemble mentored by the Brentano String Quartet in Violinists Clara Kim and Jason Issokson, vi- that capacity) and, during the 2016–17 sea- olist Dana Kelley, and cellist Joann Whang son Argus was the Ernst Stiefel quartet in are the Argus Quartet, one of today’s most residence at the Caramoor Center for Mu- dynamic and versatile young ensembles. sic and the Arts. Passionate advocates for The quartet won first prize at the 2017 the music of our time, Argus was quartet in Concert Artists Guild Victor Elmaleh Com- residence at New Music on the Point under petition and 2017 M-Prize Chamber Arts the guidance of the JACK Quartet and was Competition. A busy 2018–19 season one of three ensembles to perform works featured debut concerts in New York at from Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Concert commissioning project at Carnegie Hall. Hall. Additional highlights include Chica- Recent commissions include new quartets go’s Dame Myra Hess Concert series, by Donald Crockett, Grammy nominee Eric Washington Performing Arts, UCLA’s Guinivan, 2014 Hermitage Prize winner Clark Memorial Library, Krannert Cen- Thomas Kotcheff, and Guggenheim Fellow- ter for the Performing Arts (Ill.), Purdue ship recipient Juri Seo. Argus has received Convocations (Ind.), Kravis Center for the grants from Chamber Music America and Performing Arts (Fla.), Chamber Music Caramoor in support of its commissioning Society of Detroit, Amherst College, and efforts and has performed works by some Juneau Jazz and Classics. of today’s most important composers, in- cluding Augusta Read Thomas, Garth Knox, Festival, and Music Academy of the West. Jason Eckardt, Christopher Theofanidis, Education and outreach are an import- Martin Bresnick, and Andrew Norman. ant part of the quartet’s mission: It has worked with students through residencies Founded in Los Angeles in 2013 the Argus and masterclasses at Yale, James Madison Quartet has performed at the Ravinia University, Rockport Music, Milken Steans Music Institute, Norfolk Chamber School, Young Musicians Foundation, Cal- Music Festival, Birdfoot Festival, Albany ifornia State University Long Beach, Los Symphony’s American Music Festival, Angeles City College, and Princeton. Cello Biennale Amsterdam, Bang on a Can at the Noguchi Museum, Hear Now Music

Marlboro Music Festival and William Pleeth master classes and was on the faculty of UMass Amherst, Hartt School of Music, Mount Holyoke College, and Interlochen. As a member of the Boston Trio and Lark Quartet Schween performed at major ven- Astrid Schween ues around the world and received many In 2016 New York-born cellist Astrid honors including the Naumburg Chamber Schween (Pre-College ’80; B.M. ’84, M.M. Music Award with the Lark, which, during ’85, cello) joined the Juilliard String Quar- her tenure, produced critically acclaimed tet, succeeding Joel Krosnick and became recordings for the Arabesque, Decca/Argo, a member of Juilliard’s cello faculty. She New World, CRI, and Point labels, and made her debut as soloist with the New commissioned numerous works. Recent York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and faculty appointments include the Sphinx her teachers included Harvey Shapiro, Leon- Performance Academy, Tanglewood, and ard Rose, H.T. Ma, Bernard Greenhouse, the Perlman Music Program, where she and Jacqueline Du Pre, with whom she succeeds cellist Ronald Leonard. studied in London. She has participated in BOARD OF TRUSTEES Jazz Wynton Marsalis, Director of Juilliard Jazz Bruce Kovner, Chair Aaron Flagg, Chair and Associate Director J. Christopher Kojima, Vice Chair Katheryn C. Patterson, Vice Chair Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts Julie Anne Choi Ellen Marcus Brian Zeger, Artistic Director Kent A. Clark Greg Margolies Kirstin Ek, Director of Curriculum and Schedules Kenneth S. Davidson Nancy A. Marks Monica Thakkar, Director of Performance Activities Barbara G. Fleischman Stephanie Palmer McClelland Keith R. Gollust Christina McInerney Lila Acheson Wallace Library and Doctoral Fellows Program Mary Graham Lester S. Morse Jr. Jane Gottlieb, Vice President for Library and Information Resources; Joan W. Harris Stephen A. Novick Director of the C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellows Program Matt Jacobson Susan W. Rose Jeni Dahmus Farah, Director, Archives Edward E. Johnson Jr. Jeffrey Seller Alan Klein, Director of Library Technical Services Karen M. Levy Deborah Simon Teresa E. Lindsay Sarah Billinghurst Solomon Pre-College Division Laura Linney William E. "Wes" Stricker, MD Yoheved Kaplinsky, Artistic Director Michael Loeb Yael Taqqu Ekaterina Lawson, Director of Admissions and Academic Affairs Vincent A. Mai Damian Woetzel Anna Royzman, Director of Performance Activities

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