Sunday, December 7, 2014, 3pm Zellerbach Hall

Takács Quartet

Edward Dusinberre first violin Károly Schranz second violin Geraldine Walther viola András Fejér

with

Erika Eckert, viola

PROGRAM

Ludwig van B eethoven (1770–1827) 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. , 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 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. ;8< he could not abandon his taste for fine clothes and elegant entertaining, and took on debts, Composed in @EFE. several of which were to the textile merchant Michael Puchberg, a fellow Mason. On April 2, The Marriage of Figaro took Prague by storm 1787, an announcement signed by Mozart ap - when it opened there in December 1786. peared in the Wiener Zeitung stating that he Mozart visited the city a month later to ob - was offering for sale by subscription three new serve the opera’s success for himself, and re - quintets “finely and correctly written” which ported that “here they talk about nothing but would be available at Puchberg’s establish - Figaro .” He was commissioned by Pasquale ment in the Hohe Markt after July 1st. The in - Bondini, the manager of Italian opera at tention was apparently that Puchberg would Prague’s National Theater, to write a succes - keep the proceeds to repay a debt. To create sor to Figaro , and they settled on an opera the promised trio of works (18th-century based upon the popular tale of Don Juan. As publishing practice demanded that instru - soon as Mozart returned to Vienna in mental works usually be issued in sets of February, he engaged Lorenzo da Ponte, three, six, or twelve), Mozart created anew the Figaro ’s librettist, to provide the text for the Quintets in C major (K. 515) and G minor new opera, and immediately began plans for (K. 516), and arranged the magnificent Wind the work’s première in Prague in October. Octet in C minor (K. 388) for five strings Mozart’s head was full of Don Giovanni . So (given the curious Köchel number of 406). why, then, did he put aside this most precious The quintets were completed in April and of his projects to spend a month composing May during a hectic interruption in the com - two string quintets, a medium he had not at - position of Don Giovanni (those same weeks tempted since the B-flat Quintet (K. 174) writ - saw Mozart’s only meeting with Beethoven ten in Salzburg 14 years earlier? We don’t when the 16-year-old Bonn musician came to know for sure. Alfred Einstein thought that Vienna for a fortnight of lessons, and the the works might have been intended for death of Papa Leopold Mozart in Salzburg), Frederick William II, an amateur of the cello but the number of subscribers was so small who had recently succeeded Frederick the that Mozart placed another ad in the Viennese Great on the throne of Prussia and promptly press on June 25th. This, too, was largely ig - appointed cellist-composer Luigi Boccherini nored, and the project was dropped, though as his Kapellmeister . This theory seems base - Artaria & Co. brought out K. 515 in 1789 and less, however, because Mozart devoted the K. 516 a year later. Mozart returned to the dedication of his last three string quartets string quintet form in December 1790 and (K. 575, K. 589, K. 590), composed in 1789– April 1791 with works in D major (K. 593) 1790, to the Prussian king. It is more likely and E-flat (K. 614) for the wealthy Hungarian that Mozart simply needed some money, fast. amateur violinist Johann Tost. They were the The year 1786 was the zenith of Mozart’s last pieces of chamber music that he wrote. career in Vienna. Perhaps because of intrigue In its turbulent, proto-Romantic emotion - but more probably because the geometrical alism, compact form, and harmonic daring, expansion of deep expression in his newest the G minor Quintet has frequently been music did not suit the fickle taste of the compared to the Symphony in that same key

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES

(No. 40, K. 550) composed a year later. pervasive sense of foreboding. The sonatina- Though the Quintet’s closing movement fi - form Adagio , whose pathos is heightened by nally achieves a tonality which Alfred Einstein the muted sonorities of the strings, is among characterized as a “disconsolate major,” the the most moving essays in Viennese unshakable focus of this magnificent musical Classicism, “far more probing, more emo - canvas is deep pathos bordering on tragedy. tional than any other slow movement in all of Tchaikovsky, that melancholy Russian master Mozart’s music,” according to John N. Burk. who revered Mozart above all other com - The finale consists of two broad musical chap - posers, wrote to his benefactor, Mme. von ters. The first is a deeply felt, G minor Adagio , Meck, “No one else has known as well how to a touching cavatina for the violin which serves interpret so exquisitely in music the sense of as the preamble to the second section, which resigned and inconsolable sorrow.” The follows without pause. The music which Quintet’s drama is joined with the first gesture closes the Quintet is a lovely rondo whose of the opening movement, a portentous main G major brightness does not so much dispel theme of broken phrases, sighing chromati - the troubling music that has come before as cism, and unsettled emotion presented by the cast it into bold relief. high strings without a supporting foundation “It is no surprise,” wrote Wolfgang in the bass. The darker instruments then take Hildesheimer, “that the G minor Quintet has over the theme, which is subjected to consid - suffered an excess of emotional interpretation. erable chromatic modification before leading And indeed it does speak a language that in - to the formal subsidiary subject, a sad strain spires us to share in its inexplicable process. given by the violin above the throbbing ac - Alternating between urgency and remoteness, companiment of the lower strings in the it affects us (there can hardly be an exception) somber tonic key of G minor. The music mod - as profoundly tragic. Ultimately we cannot ulates only grudgingly to the structurally con - deny that our receptive potential is reacting trasting tonality of B-flat major, though the not to an abstract progression of notes but to new key does nothing to mitigate the pre - promptings from the rich supply of a magician. monitory nature of the music. The develop - Mozart offers us experiences, suggests associ - ment section is tightly woven and ations with moments we have lived through, argumentative, and bridges to a full recapitu - traumas of the past evading extra-musical lation of the themes from the exposition, comprehension.... We cannot deny that we are which maintain their gloomy demeanor to the moved. Why else should we need music but for end of the movement. its ability to satisfy our longing for emotional With its almost violent changes of dynam - experience, without our having to undergo the ics, its halting rhythmic motion, and its grim deep tumult at its root. In the end, we always expression, the second movement is the least experience Mozart’s music (like Beethoven’s) dancelike of minuets. Though the central trio as the catharsis resulting from one man’s sub - section slips into the key of G major, it offers limation of his personal crisis.” only tentative respite from the movement’s © A?@B Dr. Richard E. Rodda

PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS s r e d n u a S

h t i e K

ECOGNIZED AS one of the world’s great en - such legendary artists as Jascha Heifetz, Rsembles, the Takács Quartet —Edward Leonard Bernstein, and Dame Janet Baker. Dusinberre, first violin ; Károly Schranz, sec - The ensemble also won th e 2011 Award for ond violin ; Geraldine Walther, viola ; and Chamber Music and Song presented by András Fejér, cello —plays with a unique blend the Royal Philharmonic Society in London. of drama, warmth, and humor, combining Based in Boulder at the University of four distinct musical personalities to bring Colorado, the Takács Quartet performs 90 fresh insights to the string quartet repertoire. concerts a year worldwide. The Takács became the first string quar - In 2014–2015, the Quartet performs tet to win the Wigmore Hall Medal on May throughout North America, returning to the 10, 2014. The Medal, inaugurated in 2007, Ravinia Festival and to Lincoln Center for two recognizes major international artists who programs—one with guest violist Lawrence have a strong association with the Hall. Power and the other with pianist Joyce Yang, Recipients so far include András Schiff, and performs with pianist Marc-André Thomas Quasthoff, Menachem Pressler, and Hamelin at Cal Performances, the University Dame Felicity Lott. Appointed in 2012 as the of Connecticut, and Orchestra Hall in first-ever Associate Artists at Wigmore, the Chicago. They also return after many years to Takács present six concerts every season Santiago, Chile, and São Paulo, Brazil. there. Other European engagements in 2014– Meryl Streep performed Philip Roth’s 2015 include the Edinburgh and Bath festi - Everyman program with the Takács at vals, the Louvre in Paris, Amsterdam’s Princeton University on September 19, 2014. Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein, The program was conceived in close collabo - London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, and concerts ration with Mr. Roth. The Quartet is known in Geneva, Florence, Cremona, and Budapest. for such innovative programming. They first In 2012, Gramophone announced that the performed Everyman at Carnegie Hall in 2007 Takács was the only string quartet to be in - with Philip Seymour Hoffman. They have ducted into its first Hall of Fame, along with toured 14 cities with the poet Robert Pinsky,

CAL PERFORMANCES ABOUT THE ARTISTS collaborate regularly with the Hungarian folk dition to the cycle record ing, group Muzsikás, and in 2010 they collabo - the ensemble’s other Decca recordings include rated with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival Dvořák’s String Quartet in E-flat major, and David Lawrence Morse on a drama proj - Op. 51, and Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81, ect that explored the composition of with pianist Andreas Haefliger; Schubert’s Beethoven’s last quartets. “Trout” Quintet with Mr. Haefliger, which The Quartet’s award-winning recordings was nominated in 2000 for a Grammy; string include the complete Beethoven quartet cycle quartets by Smetana and Borodin; Schubert’s on the Decca label. In 2005 , the late Beethoven Quartet in G major and “Notturno” Piano quartets won Disc of the Year and Chamber Trio with Mr. Haefliger; the three Brahms Award from BBC Music Magazine , a string quartets and Piano Quintet in F minor Gramophone Award, Album of the Year at with Mr. Schiff; Chausson’s Concerto for vio - the Brit Awards, and a Japanese Record lin, piano, and string quartet with violinist Academy Award. Their recordings of Joshua Bell and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet; the early and mid dle Beethoven quartets and Mozart’s String Quintets, K. 515 and collected a Grammy Award, another 516, with violist György Pauk. Gramophone Award, a Chamber Music of The members of the Takács Quartet are America Award, and two further awards from Christoffersen Faculty Fellows at the the Japanese Recording Academy. University of Colorado Boulder. The Quartet Their collaboration with Hyperion has helped to develop a string program with a Records in 2006 started with a recording of special emphasis on chamber music, where Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” and students work in a nurturing environment de - “Rosamunde” quartets. A disc featuring signed to help them develop their artistry. The Brahms’s Piano Quintet with Stephen Hough Quartet’s commitment to teaching is en - was released to great acclaim in November hanced by summer residencies at the Aspen 2007 and was subsequently nominated for a Festival and at the Music Academy of the Grammy. Other recordings for Hyperion in - West in Santa Barbara. They are also Visiting clude Brahms’s Quartets Opp. 51 and 67; a disc Fellows at the Guildhall School of Music and featuring the Schumann Piano Quintet with Drama in London. Mr. Hamelin; the complete Haydn “Apponyi” The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 Quartets, Opp. 71 and 74; the Schubert at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Quintet with c ellist Ralph Kirshbaum; and the Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor three Britten quartets and the Brahms viola Ormai, and András Fejér, while all four were quintets with violist Lawrence Power. students. It first received international atten - Upcoming Hyperion recordings include tion in 1977, winning First Prize and the the two Janáček quartets and Smetana’s “From Critics’ Prize at the International String My Life”; the Debussy Quartet and the Franck Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Piano Quintet with Mr. Hamelin; and Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Dvořák’s Quartet, Op. 105, and his Viola Portsmouth and Bordeaux competitions and Quintet, Op. 97, w ith Mr. Power. first prizes at the Budapest International The Quartet has also made 16 recordings String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the for the Decca label since 1988 of works by Bratislava Competition in 1981. The Quartet Beethoven, Bartók, Borodin, Brahms, made its North American début tour in 1982. Chausson, Dvořák, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Violinist Edward Dusinberre joined the and Smetana. The ensemble’s recording of the Quartet in 1993 and violist Roger Tapping in six Bartók string quartets received the 1998 1995. Violist Geraldine Walther replaced Gramophone Award for chamber music and, Mr. Tapping in 2005. In 2001, ensemble was in 1999, was nominated for a Grammy. In ad - awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight’s

PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and in Her performing engagements have in - March 2011 each member of the Quartet cluded the El Paso Pro Musica International was awarded the Order of Merit Commander’s Chamber Music Festival, the Australian Cross by the President of the Republic Festival of Chamber Music, the Garth Newell of Hungary. Music Festival, Vail Bravo!, Music in the Mountains Chamber Music Festival, the Sitka Violist Erika Eckert is Summer Music Festival Autumn Classics, currently Associate Niagara International Chamber Music Professor of Viola at the Festival, and Fontana Chamber Arts. University of Colorado Ms. Eckert has also performed chamber music Boulder. Ms. Eckert has recitals at the international french horn, flute, also served on the facul - and double-reed conventions and solo ties of the Cleveland performances at the SEAMUS and ICMC Institute of Music, electronic music conferences. Baldwin Wallace College, Her teaching engagements have included and the Chautauqua Institution in New York, presenting viola and chamber music pedagogy where she served as the coordinator of the sessions and coordinating the chamber music chamber music program for the Music School program at the American String Teachers Festival Orchestra for three summers. In sum - Association International Workshops in mer 2012, she was on the faculty of the Brisbane, Australia, and Stavanger, Norway; Brevard Music Center and the North serving on the faculties of the Perlman Music American Viola Institute. Program, the Quartet Program, and the As co-founder and former violist of the Takács Quartet Seminar; and coaching cham - Cavani String Quartet, Ms. Eckert performed ber music at the ninth conference of the on major concert series worldwide, garnered Suzuki Association of the Americas, the an impressive list of awards and prizes, in - International School for Musical Arts, the cluding first prizes at both the Walter W. Chamber Music Connection, the Interlochen Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and Arts Academy, the Chamber Music Wyoming the Cleveland Quartet Competition. She has Young Artist Program, Britt Institute appeared on NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, and NPR. Chamber Strings, and the Madeline Island In recent seasons, Ms. Eckert has performed Music Camp Adult Chamber Music Program. as guest violist with the Takács Quartet, ap - Ms. Eckert serves on the board of the Rocky pearing with them in Canada, Colorado, Mountain Viola Society and for three years Tennessee, Oregon, and Vermont. She has also served as an adjudicator for the National performed on numerous faculty recitals at the Foundation for Advancement in the Arts’ Arts University of Colorado as well as soloing with Recognition and Talent Search, the exclusive the Music in the Mountains Purgatory Festival nominating agency for the Presidential Orchestra, Four Seasons Chamber Orchestra, Scholars in the Arts, and she appeared in their the University of Colorado Symphony Academy Award –nominated documentary, Orchestra, the Boulder Bach Festival, and the Rehearsing a Dream . Boulder Chamber Orchestra.

CAL PERFORMANCES