St. Lawrence String Quartet and Sarah Rothenberg Zilkha Hall, 7:00 Pm Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts Friday, October 28, 2016; 7:30 Pm St

Da Camera Sarah Rothenberg Pre-concert conversation with members of the artistic and general director St. Lawrence String Quartet and Sarah Rothenberg Zilkha Hall, 7:00 PM Zilkha Hall, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts Friday, October 28, 2016; 7:30 PM St. Lawrence String Quartet: Fractals St. Lawrence String Quartet (Geoff Nuttall, violin; Owen Dalby, violin; Lesley Robertson, viola; Christopher Costanza, cello) Joseph Haydn String Quartet in F Minor Op. 20, No. 5 (Hob.III:35) (1772) (1732-1809) Allegro moderato Menuetto Adagio Finale: Fuga a due soggetti John Adams Second Quartet (2014) (Houston Premiere) (b. 1947) Allegro molto Andantino-Energico INTERMISSION Ludwig van Beethoven Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 (1825-26) (1770-1827) Adagio, ma non troppo e molto espressivo Allegro molto vivace Allegro moderato Andante, ma non troppo e molto cantabile Presto Adagio, quasi un poco andante Allegro This program is sponsored by Claudia and David Hatcher. This program is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. 16 Haydn: String Quartet in F Minor the criticism of some Berlin commen- musical style places the propulsive Joseph Haydn left his home in rural tators in the early 1770s who found gestures and rhythms associated with Austria at a young age to train as a Haydn’s music lacking in contrapun- such so-called minimalists as Terry musician, and spent his early years as tal interest. Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich a choirboy at St. Stephens Cathedral The F Minor Quartet, op. 20, no. at the service of a soaring lyricism in Vienna, where he acquired a wide 5, one of the three quartets in this set and more traditional structures, all of range of musical skills. Released from that concludes with a fugue, otherwise which has earned him the label “post- the cathedral after his voice matured unfolds a traditional four-movement minimalist.” in his teens, Haydn initially set out design: a first movement sonata form; Adams has written periodically as a freelance musician, but in 1761, a slow second movement; a minuet for string quartet, beginning with not yet thirty, he secured employment and trio; and a fast finale. Somewhat three works for the Kronos Quartet: with the Esterházy court and spent es- unusually, all four movements use the John’s Book of Alleged Dances (1994) sentially the remainder of his life in same tonal center of F, with the slow for string quartet and electronics; the service of this Hungarian noble movement, a lovely siciliana, in F Ma- Fellow Traveller (2008); and the First family. jor as opposed to the more dramatic Quartet (2008). Subsequently, the While in his twenties, Haydn F Minor of the other movements. The composer wrote two works for the St. wrote pieces for string quartet, a mu- fugal finale is especially exceptional in Lawrence String Quartet, since 1998 sical ensemble for two violins, viola, that it is a double fugue, meaning that in residence at Stanford University: and cello newly coming into fashion, rather than develop just one subject, Absolute Jest for string quartet and or- and after a hiatus of some ten years, Haydn develops two themes, both of chestra (2012) and the Second Quartet returned to the genre, bringing forth, them stated quickly at the start: the (2014). “What I appreciate about my as was the custom of the day, groups first subject by the second violin, the friends in the St. Lawrence,” Adams of six quartets under particular opus second subject, by the viola. has written, “is their willingness to let numbers, beginning with opus 9 When Haydn published the opus me literally ‘improvise’ on them as if (completed 1770), opus 13 (1771), and 20 set in 1800, he dedicated the work they were a piano or a drum and I a opus 20 (1772). Haydn continued to to the Baron Nikolaus Zmeskall von crazy man beating away with only the write quartets, especially in the 1780s Domanovecz. An official in the Hun- roughest outlines of what I want. They and ’90s, and by the end of his life, his garian Court Chancellery based in Vi- will go the distance with me, allow me catalog included over 60 such works, enna, Zmeskall was also a composer, to try and fail, and they will indulge works that helped solidify the central- cellist, and string quartet enthusiast, my seizures of doubt, frustration and ity of the string quartet to western and a fixture on the Viennese cham- indecision, all the while providing in- art music and that served as models ber music scene, often hosting cham- tuitions and frequently brilliant sug- for Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and ber-music gatherings at his home. gestions of their own.” many other practitioners of the genre. However, Zmeskall remains better Both Absolute Jest and the Second The opus 20 set, known as the remembered for his friendship with Quartet build on fragments of mu- “Sun” quartets (thanks to the cover Beethoven, who in 1810 dedicated to sic from late Beethoven: the single- illustration of an early edition of the him his own String Quartet in F Mi- movement Absolute Jest from various music), and written on the threshold nor. scherzo movements from Beethoven’s of Haydn’s maturity, helped establish late quartets; and the two-movement Adams: Second Quartet Second Quartet from Beethoven’s important precedents with respect One of this nation’s foremost com- to the genre as a whole, including a late piano music. Specifically, the first posers, John Adams grew up in New movement of Second Quartet devel- certain seriousness of tone and com- England and received a bachelor’s plexity of texture, as epitomized by ops motives from the scherzo move- and master’s degree in music from ment of Beethoven’s Sonata in A-flat the fugues that conclude three of the Harvard. He taught for several years quartets (the fugue being a piece, asso- Major, Op. 110; and the quartet’s sec- at the San Francisco Conservatory of ond movement, from the same piano ciated with the previous Baroque peri- Music, and to this day makes his home od, and especially the work of Bach, in sonata’s opening movement. Adams in the Bay Area. Best known for his claims to have been inspired in this which a short melody is introduced by operas Nixon in China, The Death of one part and successively taken up by direction by hearing a performance Klinghoffer, and Doctor Atomic, he has by the San Francisco Symphony of others and developed contrapuntally received numerous awards, including by interweaving the parts). It has been Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, based on the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for a piece for themes of Pergolesi, although his own suggested that this latter development chorus and orchestra, On The Trans- – the use of more elaborate counter- treatment in these pieces seems less migration of Souls, commissioned in like Pulcinella than those more freely point – might have been spurred by response to the attacks of 2001. His 17 neoclassical works by Stravinsky, like his late forties and early fifties makes finale. the Capriccio for piano and orchestra. this transcendental achievement all These seven movements can be Adams himself explained in conversa- the more amazing. viewed as an elaboration of the quar- tion, This was not an easy time in tet’s traditional four-movement form, It’s Beethoven that’s been passed Beethoven’s life. He was almost total- that is, if one considers movements through a hall of mirrors, it’s been ly deaf, and suffered a host of other one, three, and six slow introductions, passed through some Einsteinian health problems, including heart, kid- in which case, the quartet can be seen universe where time and struc- ney, stomach, and liver ailments. He as having a fast first movement (with ture and also the harmonies keep also struggled financially. In addition, a fugal introduction); a slow move- getting warped, and I don’t mean in 1816, unmarried and childless, he ment (with a recitative-like introduc- that that it’s warped in a gro- obtained guardianship of his deceased tion); a scherzo movement; and a fast tesque way; the music is highly brother’s nine-year-old son Karl fol- finale (with a songful introduction). identifiable as to where it comes lowing a contentious custody battle But if the work inhabits the vestigial from, and in no way is the piece with the boy’s mother, and for the re- a satire or a deconstruction of it. remains of traditional four-movement It’s a kind of trope on it. mainder of his life – that is, for those form, Beethoven seems more inter- years corresponding to his late peri- ested in creating rather one long, un- Commissioned by Stanford Live, od – he faced ordeals related to both interrupted, complex piece, as evident the Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, maintaining custody of the young lad by the music’s frequent changes of the Juilliard School, and the Wigmore and raising the boy, a task for which key and its unifying use of certain mo- School, the Second Quartet received he did not seem particularly well-suit- tives and themes, including the return its first performance on January 18, ed. After Karl’s failed suicide attempt of the fugue subject in the last move- 2015, by the St. Lawrence Quartet at in the summer of 1826, at a time when ment. Stanford University’s Bing Concert Beethoven was at work on his very Two quick observations regarding Hall. last quartets, the composer finally ac- influence might be made. First, as es- Beethoven: Quartet in C-sharp Minor quiesced to his nephew’s request to pecially evident in the first movement, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his join the army, and dedicated the C- Beethoven came to this remarkable String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op.

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