Takács Quartet
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Sunday, December 7, 2014, 3pm Zellerbach Hall Takács Quartet Edward Dusinberre first violin Károly Schranz second violin Geraldine Walther viola András Fejér cello with Erika Eckert, viola PROGRAM Ludwig van B eethoven (1770–1827) String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130 (1825–1826) Adagio ma non troppo — Allegro Presto Andante con moto ma non troppo Alla danza tedesca: Allegro assai Cavatina: Adagio molto espressivo Finale: Allegro INTERMISSION Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Quintet for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello in G minor, K. 516 (1787) Allegro Menuetto: Allegretto Adagio ma non troppo Adagio — Allegro Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Ludwig van Beethoven (8==7-8>9=) but Beethoven, exhausted, was unable to begin String Quartet No. 8: in B-flat major, Galitzin’s quartets until May. “I am really im - Op. 8:7 patient to have a new quartet of yours,” badg - ered Galitzin. “Nevertheless, I beg you not to Composed in @FAC–@FAD. Premièred on mind and to be guided in this only by your in - March A@, @FAD, in Vienna, by the spiration and the disposition of your mind.” Schuppanzigh Quartet. The first of the quartets for Galitzin (E-flat major, Op. 127) was not completed until “I sit pondering and pondering. I have long February 1825; the second (A minor, Op. 132) known what I want to do, but I can’t get it was finished five months later; and the third down on paper. I feel I am on the threshold of (B-flat major, Op. 130) was written between great things.” These words of Beethoven, writ - July and November, during one of the few pe - ten in 1822, were prophetic. At the time, he riods of relatively good health that Beethoven was still involved in the five years of enjoyed in his last decade. (Beethoven com - Herculean labor that finally yielded up the pleted the Opp. 131 and 135 Quartets the fol - Missa Solemnis in 1823, a task that demanded lowing year to round out this stupendous all of his concentration lest it be crowded from ultimate series of his compositions.) Galitzin his thoughts by a head (and sketchbook) full received his three new scores in fine copies by of yet unconnected ideas for a new symphony, the middle of 1826, and promised payment “in into which, he was convinced, he needed to a day or two.” The Prince, for all his good in - somehow take the unprecedented step of in - tentions and evident sympathy for Beethoven’s tegrating a chorus. The string quartet, a genre creative process, however, found himself, as he for which he had not written in a dozen years, put it, “awkwardly placed” at the time, and the was also on Beethoven’s mind, as evidenced bill remained unpaid. (During the preceding by a letter of June 5, 1822, to the Leipzig pub - year, one of Galitzin’s children died, his wife lisher Carl Friedrich Peters urging him to con - fell gravely ill, and his indirect involvement in sider issuing a new quartet that he would have a revolutionary movement brought him to the ready “very soon.” Burdened by poor health, edge of bankruptcy.) Beethoven sued for his financial difficulties (Rossini was appalled at money without success, and the account was the squalor of Beethoven’s small, dank apart - not finally settled until 1852 (!) between ment when he visited him that year), the emo - Galitzin’s son and Beethoven’s heirs. tional drain of being guardian to a worthless The première of the B-flat Quartet was nephew, and the obsession with finishing the given by the ensemble of violinist Ignaz Missa and the Ninth Symphony, it was, how - Schuppanzigh, a champion of Beethoven’s ever, to be some time before he was able to re - works in earlier years and the first musician turn to quartet writing in earnest. in Austria to undertake public quartet con - On November 9, 1822, Prince Nikolas certs. Schuppanzigh had been in Russia for Galitzin, a devotee of Beethoven’s music and some time and only returned to Vienna at the an amateur cellist, wrote from St. Petersburg end of April 1823, when he resumed his series asking Beethoven for “one, two or three quar - of concerts, which once again became major tets, for which labor I will be glad to pay you events in the city’s musical life. There had whatever amount you think proper.” been problems with the performance when Beethoven was elated by the commission, and Schuppanzigh’s quartet gave the première of he replied immediately to accept it and set the the E-flat Quartet (Op. 127) in March 1825 fee of 50 ducats for each quartet, a high price, (exacerbated by Beethoven being unable to but one readily accepted by Galitzin. The music, deliver the parts for this extraordinarily diffi - however, took somewhat longer. The Ninth cult music until just two weeks before the con - Symphony was completed in February 1823, cert), and Beethoven granted them the honor CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES of introducing the B-flat Quartet with some one hand, the word implies a sort of informal trepidation. Perhaps that is why he chose to music-making with little regard for creating a spend the evening of the première (March 21, unified structural whole, and is certainly not 1826) in a local Viennese café waiting for applicable to this movement, which develops news. Karl Holz, the second violinist of the en - logically and inexorably from the motivic semble and a close friend of the composer, germs sown in its opening measures. On the brought a good report: the performance had other hand, the movement’s very process of gone well and the audience was generally en - organic growth makes it difficult to classify as thusiastic, though everyone seemed puzzled one of the traditional Classical formal types, by the Quartet’s slow movements and, espe - and is probably the quality in this music which cially, by its finale, a gigantic construction in occasioned Schumann’s appellation of implied fugal style. Holz tried to humor the composer musical miscellany, “intermezzo.” Placed as by telling him that the audience demanded emotional and stylistic foil between this encores of the lighter second and fourth movement and the deeply felt Cavatina is a movements. Beethoven was incensed. “Yes, Danza tedesca (“German Dance”), whose these delicacies! Why not the Fugue? … strict periodic construction, swaying rhythm, Cattle!! Asses!!!” Despite the composer’s epi - and buoyant spirits are much in the popular thets, the first hearers of this Quartet were a manner of Beethoven’s day. Karl Holz re - highly sophisticated lot, perhaps the most ported that Beethoven “wrote the Cavatina knowledgeable and sympathetic audience in (‘short aria’) amid sorrow and tears; never did all of Europe at the time, and Beethoven must his music breathe so heartfelt an inspiration, have ultimately found some merit in their and even the memory of this movement misgivings, for nine months later he replaced brought tears to his eyes.” Beethoven here ren - the Grosse Fuge with an alternate finale of dered his grand emotion into music of pro - more modest dimensions. It was the last found simplicity and purity. In but one music that he completed. The Fuge , in both its extraordinary passage, marked “ beklemmt ” original version and in a piano duet tran - (“oppressed”), does the first violin break into scription, was published separately as Op. 133 a kind of anguished free recitative whose ob - two months after his death. streperous rhythm challenges the solemn gait The B-flat Quartet comprises six move - of the lower instruments and threatens to rup - ments balancing profundity and humor. ture the music asunder. The emotion is Indeed, both of these sentiments are embod - purged, however, and the violin rejoins its ied in the very first page of the Quartet, which companions to murmur once again the theme boldly contrasts a solemn Adagio proclama - of the opening. tion with a skittering Allegro strain of Baroque Beethoven left the question of the Quartet’s rhythmic vivacity. (Beethoven had much ear - finale unsettled, so that the work may be per - lier tried a similar experiment in the famous formed with either the Grosse Fuge of the orig - “Pathétique” Sonata, Op. 13, of 1799.) These inal version or the substitute movement that two thematic cells together comprise the main he provided for it shortly before his death. theme, and are juxtaposed throughout the This latter movement, a splendid piece of movement. A lyrical episode, embellished music, was written in the manner of continu - with the fast scales of the Allegro , provides ous thematic expansion and development that contrast as a second theme. The following was central to the style of his last years. With Presto movement is actually a tiny, quicksilver its thrusting rhythms and brief returns of its scherzo that is graceful, witty, and thoughtful Gypsy-tinged opening theme, the movement all at the same time. Robert Schumann called has about it a rondo quality, though it is far the Andante con moto an “intermezzo,” a term advanced over the Classical version of that that is both perceptive and inaccurate. On the form in its tonal structure and in its stubborn PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES unwillingness to be bent into the tonic key of Viennese, his local popularity began to wane. B-flat major. Though he tried to economize by moving from his spacious apartment in the Schullerstrasse near St. Stephen’s Cathedral Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (8=;<–8=?8) (now a Mozart museum known as the “Figaro Quintet for Two Violins, Two Violas, and House”) to a smaller flat at 224 Landstrasse, Cello in G minor, K.