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Home , Concert residency, Pavel Haas, Pavel Haas Quartet, Quartetto Italiano, Smetana Quartet, String quartet

Photo: Marco Borggreve

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PAVEL HAAS Veronika Jaruskova, Eva Karova, violin Pavel Nikl, Peter Jarusek, Artist Profiles Quartet makes its San Francisco Sunday, April 3, 2011, 7pm debut. Since winning the Paolo Borciani competi- Herbst Theatre tion in Italy in spring 2005, the has performed at the world’s most prestigious halls and recorded three SCHULHOFF Quartet No. 1 award-winning CDs, receiving great acclaim Presto con fuoco from audiences and critics alike. In the 2010–11 season the Quartet returns to Allegretto con moto e con malinconia grotesca the Edinburgh International Festival (where it Allegro giocoso alla slovacca performs a two-concert focus), the Schuberti- Andante molto sostenuto ade, the Dvořák Festival in and Wig- more Hall. It also visits major venues in Berlin, Munich, Geneva, Madrid and San Francisco. In the fall of 2010, the Quartet performed a DEBUSSY Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 four-concert residency for the BBC in London, Animé et très décidé and shortly after this the Quartet gave its inau- Assez vif et bien rhythmé gural as the first ever artists-in-resi- Andantino doucement expressif dence of Glasgow Royal Concert Halls. Recent highlights for the Quartet include Très modéré; Très mouvementé et avec passion performances at Carnegie Hall, Lucerne Fes- tival, Vienna Konzerthaus, Barcelona Palau de la Musica, BBC Proms, the Mariinsky Con- INTERMISSION cert Hall in St. Petersburg and performances at the Louvre, Paris. The Quartet recently toured Australia, the US and , where it HAAS Quartet No. 2, Op. 7 recorded a concert of Janáček and Haas for NHK television. In 2007, the Cologne Philhar- “From the Monkey Mountains” monic nominated the Quartet as ECHO Ris- Landscape (Andante) ing Stars, resulting in a tour to major concert Coach, Coachman and Horse (Andante) halls worldwide. The Quartet took part in the The Moon and I (Largo e misterioso) BBC New Generation Artists scheme from 2007 to 2009. Most recently, the Quartet was Wild Night (Vivace e con fuoco) awarded the 2010 Special Ensemble Scholar- ship of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust The Quartet has released three discs on the label. The first recording of Janáček’s Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters” and Haas’s Quartet No. 2, “From the Monkey Moun- This performance is made possible in part through the generous support of James and tains” was voted one of the CDs of 2006 by The Kathleen Leak. Daily Telegraph, CD of the Week by BBC Radio 3 and Chamber Choice by BBC Magazine. Discography: Supraphon The Quartet’s second disc was released in Fall 2007, featuring the works by Haas Exclusive Management: Arts Management Group, Inc., 37 West 26th Street, and Janáček, featuring Janáček’s Quartet No. 1, New York, NY 10010 “Kreutzer ” and Haas’s Nos. 1 and 3. Gramophone commented, “To describe a

For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545 | 1 CD as musically important is to court a certain 1941 and the German invasion of the USSR. At potential for overtone-dominated color, and level of controversy but I’ll stick my neck out that time, Erwin Schulhoff was quickly taken for the clean, forceful articulation of rhythm. and claim extreme importance for this particular into custody, and sent with his son Peter to release.” Early 2010 saw the Quartet release its a concentration camp in Wülzburg, Bavaria. String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 most recent disc: Prokofiev’sQuartets Nos. 1 and He died there 14 months later, of the typhus 2, which was described as “an instant classic.” fever endemic to such camps. His son sur- Based in Prague, the Quartet studied with vived, to die in Prague 50 years later. Born August 22, 1862, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye some of the masters of the quartet world in- We cannot say why Schulhoff did not - Died March 25, 1918, in Paris cluding members of , Quat- grate, east or west, while he had time. Many uor Mosaiques, Borodin and Amadeus Quar- eminent musicians did, to live out their more It is often said that the era of modern mu- tets, as well as with in Basel. or less normal life-spans and achieve greater sic began with a single work in 1894, Claude The Quartet has worked particularly closely or lesser degrees of world recognition. After Debussy’s Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune with Skampa, the legendary violist of the end of the war and the ultimate inclusion for . Before Schoenberg, Stravinsky the , and continues to enjoy of in the Soviet orbit, Erwin or Bartók, Debussy was the first major com- a close relationship with him. Schulhoff’s music had a shadowy currency, no poser to radically break from the continuous The Quartet takes its name from the Czech more. The strong elements of much of his evolution of 19th century Romantic music Pavel Haas (1899–1944), who was best work were out of line with Soviet aesthet- from Beethoven to Wagner. As if from another imprisoned at Theresienstadt in 1941 and tragi- ics. In postwar Prague, it must also be noted, world, Debussy appeared, bearing his magi- cally died at Auschwitz three years later. His Schulhoff’s German cultural orientation and cal music, novel in nearly every dimension. legacy includes three wonderful . Jewish family background did not count as Reacting against the dominant influence of political advantages. Token performances and Germanic music with its logical rigors of form broadcasts of his music took place, occasional and development, he sought a new music of Program Notes recordings were made (never packaged for ex- color, sensation, fleeting mood and relaxed port), and in the 1970’s, some of his previously form that would be distinctively French, as String Quartet No. 1 unpublished work was brought into print by well as distinctively his own. Debussy estab- the Czech state , in very lim- lished a new style known as “Impressionism” Erwin Schulhoff ited editions. Earlier work published by Schott (a term he eschewed) and, more than any of Born June 8, 1894, in Prague in Mainz and Universal-Edition in Vienna, his previous countrymen, a new, internation- Died August 18, 1942, in Wülzburg, Bavaria went out of print or was withdrawn when the ally recognized school of modern French mu- Nazis took over, and none of this material was sic. His subsequent influence was immense, The composer Erwin Schulhoff turned 30 reprinted after the war. This is surely as near to both on classical and popular music. in 1924. He was a native of Prague, Jewish, total oblivion as any composer of Schulhoff’s In 1893, Debussy composed his first im- upper, upper middle class by birth, cultured stature has gotten in the 20th century. portant work, the String Quartet in G minor, and cosmopolitan, a virtuoso pianist from late In 1923, after five years spent in Germany’s Op. 10. It was the only work to which he at- childhood, trained in composition by—among Weimar Republic, Schulhoff returned to tached an or a key designation others—Claude Debussy and . His settle in his native Prague. In the midst of and it was the only work Debussy wrote in a name was getting out in the world by way of a great deal of other work, he accomplished conventional form. Outwardly, the quartet as- his performances and compositions, joined one string quartet per year for the next three sumes the mold of a traditional string quartet with the likes of , Béla Bartók years: String Quartet No. 1 (1924); String Quar- comprising four movements: a first move- and in programs of new tet No. 2 (1925); and earlier, Five Pieces (1923). ment sonata, a rhythmic , a slow, music. His interest in jazz was deep and vital, String Quartet No. 1 is a sonata-sequence in lyrical movement and an energetic finale. But and so was his feeling for the of his which movements of extreme formal com- within this unremarkable template, the music native land, the new First . pression and high rhythmic energy alter- sounds completely new. Debussy expanded This single decade saw the peak of Schul- nate with slower, more expansively lyrical the sound of the string quartet with a variety hoff’s career. The political and economic tur- movements. The opening Presto con fuoco is of novel textures and tonal effects ranging moil of the time drew him into the Communist a flurry of gestural exposition, functioning from delicate subtlety to ravishing grandeur. orbit early in the 1930’s, and led to a substan- largely as a prelude to the second movement. With exotic scales, unconventional chords, tial change in his musical style. His perfor- This is a , in which a simple tune is progressions and key changes, the music mance activities continued, linked to political articulated with satirical broadness and with features melodies and harmonies unique for theater music, broadcast work, and an inter- grotesquely winsome inflections which seem their time. Especially striking is the quartet’s est in music for the masses paralleling, and to aimed at the complexities of certain turn- rhythmic vitality, spontaneous agility and po- some extent, prefiguring the Soviet doctrine of-the-century German masters. Vivacious etic subtlety. With swiftly changing tempi, a of Socialist Realism. By the time his jazz-im- Slovak folk rhythms imbue the brief third wealth of dazzling figurations, cross-rhythms bued No. 2 came to its premiere in movement, which drives with ever-increasing and the special shimmering or hovering pul- Prague early in 1938, it no longer represented intensity to its abrupt finish. TheFinale is the sations typical of his music, Debussy cap- the composer’s current style. In the wake of quartet’s only truly slow movement, with an tures a nuanced experience of time. With the the Munich agreement, Czechoslovakia was icy melody in highest register and harmonics benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see many ele- occupied and dismembered by the Nazis, and supported by a ticking whisper of simple figu- ments of Debussy’s signature style within this Schulhoff was unemployed and in hiding. ration. For a composer whose natural medi- early work: the sensuous languor of l’après- He was given Soviet citizenship, which um was the , Schulhoff shows remark- midi d’un faune, the kinetic energy of La Mer, protected him from the Nazis until June of able grasp of the string quartet medium’s the spice and color of his Iberian Images.

2 | For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545 Debussy’s quartet is equally fascinating tets, destroyed early works or cautiously ap- finished and completed only after his death. for its cyclic design. César Franck based sev- proached the genre for the first time as ma- When Czech society began to break eral of his compositions on a cyclic principle ture artists, while Debussy, at just 31, wrote down under the pressure of the Nazi pres- where a signature musical theme recurs in a single quartet, a brilliant work of stunning ence, Haas, like other Jewish , every movement. Earlier, Hector Berlioz fea- originality, now a masterwork secure in the took whatever steps he could to protect tured his idée fixe, a signal leitmotif in every repertory. his interests. In his case, this included di- movement of the Symphonie fantastique. De- vorcing his wife in order to shield her from bussy applied the same concept: The open- String Quartet No. 2 anti-Semitic policies. Haas was deported to ing theme of his quartet recurs in all four Terezín in 1941. movements. But unlike earlier designs where Pavel Haas Reports of Haas’s life there usually in- the theme appears, essentially unchanged, Born June 21, 1899, in , clude the information that he was ill and de- within each movement as an isolated, near- Died October 17, 1944, in Auschwitz pressed upon his arrival and only returned ly extraneous element, Debussy uses his to some kind of creative productivity when theme to generate the majority of the quar- Pavel Haas was born into a wealthy and the energetic and intrepid tet’s intrinsic music. Using ingenious trans- prominent Jewish family in the Moravian put several sheets of blank music paper in formations of melody, harmony, texture and capital of Brno. He became an important front of him and urged him to return to his rhythm, Debussy creates a diversity of music composer of theater and film music, though work. While in Terezín, Haas wrote several that clearly derives from the initial theme. the war years severely limited his profes- works including, most notably, the Study The first and second movements together sional development and in 1941 he was sent for Strings, immortalized in a clip from the contain at least seven variations. The last to Terezín. Although at first he was too ill and 1944 Nazi propaganda film created to show movement supplies its own new variations as depressed to compose, he later became part the camp as a kind of idyllic spa for Jews. On well as a cyclic reprisal of the previous move- of the rich musical life of the camp, writing October 16, 1944, Haas was placed in a trans- ments in reverse order, leading the quartet several works that are considered classics of port to Auschwitz, and upon arrival, was im- right back to the beginning. That such an ap- that time. He was deported to Auschwitz in mediately gassed. parently rigid thematic unity is unobtrusively mid-October 1944 and immediately killed. Haas’s String Quartet No. 2 is a suite of disguised within a rich variety of music is tes- A compositional prodigy, Haas studied at four programmatic essays inspired by his tament to Debussy’s fertile imagination and the school of the Philharmonic in Brno un- vacations spent in the rustic Vysočina his remarkable skill as a composer. til he was drafted into the Austrian army in highlands (popularly known as the Mon- Initial reactions to his quartet ranged from 1917. He remained in Brno during that time, key Mountains), nestled between Bohemia praise, to bewilderment and scorn including and in 1919 began the serious study of com- and Moravia, not far from Brno. Haas was such wonderfully revealing sneers as “orgies position at the Brno conservatory. Later a master tone painter. The first movement of modulation” and “rotten with talent.” De- (1920–22) he became a part of the master evokes colorful images of nature—chirp- bussy shortly set to work on another quartet, class of the conservatory led by Leoš Janáček, ing birds, mist-shrouded hills and scud- but abandoned the project, turning instead whose effect on Haas was profound. ding clouds. The second movement bril- to the orchestra, a more potent vehicle for his Starting in his early 20s, Pavel Haas wrote liantly mimics the squeaks and groans of visionary music. Debussy wrote very little several notable scores for both stage and a wobbly cart careening down a country additional chamber music, returning to the film, and reached his maturity as a composer road. The third movement is a wistful genre only at the end of his life to complete in the mid-1930s with such works as the op- meditation in the muted hues of a Whistler three of six planned . It is amazing era The Charlatan, String Quartets 2 and 3, “nocturne,” the fourth a kind of modern- to consider the many first-rate composers and the Suite for Oboe. A major work from day Walpurgis Night. who labored over numerous string quar- this period, a large symphony, was left un-

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