2020-02 Elias

tapestries of music SSundaysundays withwith ColemanColeman 116th Season 2019-2020 Presented in cooperation with the Caltech Committee on Institute Programs ELLIASIAS STTRINGRING QUUARTETARTET FFebruaryebruary 116,6, 22020020 Sunday, February 16, 2020 3:30 pm Beckman Auditorium, Caltech Coleman Chamber Music Association presents EEliaslias SStringtring QQuartetuartet Sara Bitlloch,* violin Simone van der Giessen, viola Donald Grant, violin Marie Bitlloch, cello *Benjamin Nabarro has graciously agreed to perform with the Elias Quartet during Sara Bitlloch’s maternity leave. Ludwig van Beethoven Quartet in G Major, Op 18, No. 2 (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Adagio cantabile (Allegro) Scherzo (Allegro) Allegro molto quasi Presto Sally Beamish RReedeed SStanzastanzas (b. 1956) I N T E R M I S S I O N Felix Mendelssohn Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13 (1809-1847) Adagio - Allegro vivace Adagio non lento Intermezzo. Allegretto con moto - Allegro di molto Presto The Elias String Quartet appears by arrangement with David Rowe Artists www.davidroweartists.com www.eliasstringquartet.com PProgramrogram NNotesotes The Quartet’s Allegro opening theme, in eight quick By Susan Halpern, copyright © 2019 and short measures, has three distinct melodic elements that Beethoven works over thoroughly and develops richly. In fact, this bright and happy work overfl ows with musical ideas: the fi rst movement alone has more material, some of it heard just in LLudwigudwig vanvan BeethovenBeethoven (1770-1827) passing, than many other composers used for an Quartet No. 2 in G Major; Op. 18, No. 2 entire four-movement work. Some of the movement, Beethoven wrote his fi rst six string quartets between such as the mysterious and meditative passage in 1798 and 1800, and when they were published, the development and the way the cello exuberantly in 1801, the title page bore the legend “composed introduces the recapitulation, is already very [for] and dedicated to His Highness, My Lord the accomplished. Reigning Prince de Lobkowitz etc., etc.” Franz The lengthy second movement begins with a warm Joseph Lobkowitz, who was born two years after the and serene yet serious theme, Adagio cantabile, and composer, had ascended the throne of his Czech has an unusual, contrasting central Allegro that principality in 1784 at the age of twelve. His father interrupts the Adagio to rush along quickly and had been an accomplished musician, the employer almost always quietly. Some critics have faulted of Gluck and a good friend of the composer Carl this movement as well as other slow movements Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian’s son. in Opus 18 as being the weak links in Beethoven’s Prince Lobkowitz’s seat was a country castle at quartets; they see in this movement only a bland Radnice, but he also had grand palaces in Prague and solemn theme that inhibits the listener’s and Vienna. He played the violin and the cello, and satisfaction regardless of how Beethoven manipulates was a talented singer who maintained a complete his material. One such critic, William Youngren, has musical establishment that included a full orchestra said of the fi nal recapitulation of the theme: “When and a chorus. it returns after the Allegro, laboriously ornamented, Soon after Beethoven’s arrival in Vienna from we feel we are back in school after being caught Bonn in 1792, the two young men, Archduke playing truant.” Others, more charitable, such as Rudolph, the Emperor’s son, and Prince Ferdinand Arthur Cohn, see it as a sign of the Beethoven to Kinsky, joined to guarantee Beethoven a generous come in the later works. income for life so that he would remain in Vienna and could give up other work that distracted him The third movement is a Scherzo, Allegro, after from composition. Beethoven, in turn, dedicated the classical model of the minuets in the quartets to Lobkowitz the six Quartets of Op. 18, the Op. of Haydn and Mozart, but with a forceful and 74 Quartet, Symphonies Nos. 3, 5, and 6 (the dramatic quality that is entirely characteristic of last two jointly dedicated also to Count André Beethoven in its change of mood as well as key. In Razumovsky, who commissioned the three Op. 59 this light movement, a little fi gure is thrown back and Quartets), and some shorter works. forth between the violins and then picks up power before it leads the instruments in a transitional The G Major Quartet may have been the fi rst of passage to the recapitulation. the six that Beethoven started and the third that he fi nished, but when he assembled a fi rst The fi nale, Allegro molto quasi presto, rushes group of three for publication, he made this No. through the classical sonata form in a jolly fashion. 2. In German-speaking countries it is often called Beginning with a neat and self-contained melody that the Komplimentierungsquartett (Compliment explores new keys, the craft of this movement is Quartet), a nickname that English-speakers have in some ways much like that of Haydn. Contrasting resisted. It sprang from some imagined likeness themes are developed and then recalled with between the graceful opening phrases used as a diff erent key relationships. Yet the later Beethoven musical gesture and the physical motion which is again hinted at in the various ways he treats the a gentleman of the time might have made in descending three-note arpeggios, at times with removing his hat and bowing in greeting, paying his energy, at times broodingly, and at times formally. compliments to a lady. continued from previous page The reed has many different associations. SSallyally BBeamisheamish (b. 1956) ‘The Reed of God’: a Christian metaphor for Quartet No. 3, “Reed Stanzas” Mary: the channel through which the spirit is breathed. The ‘accursed’ reed of Celtic Sally Beamish composed Reed Stanzas for the belief: the reed through which Jesus was Elias String Quartet as a commission by BBC Radio given vinegar to drink, on the cross. And the 3 in early 2011; the Elias String Quartet premiered it reeds used in the making of wind instruments, on July 25, 2011 at the Cadogan Hall as part of the including the bagpipe and accordion. The Sufi BBC Proms Chamber Music Series. poet Rumi describes the reed fl ute as a symbol Beamish wrote Reed Stanzas while she was on the Isle of longing and separation: the reed, separated of Harris in the Outer Hebrides, a landscape with from its home, utters a heart-breaking lament. great topographical contrasts from sandy beaches to Reed Stanzas takes the form of variations angular grey mountains and areas of desolate scrub. on a Celtic-inspired theme announced by the She was thinking especially of the scrub, as well as a second violin, which opens and closes the work similar landscape in the area of England where she in the manner of Pibroch (the classical music lived previously. “Reed” in the work’s title connotes of the Highland bagpipe). I have explored the areas of marsh and fen. intricate ornamentation used in Pibroch, Beamish has lived in Scotland since 1990; in this highlighting its similarities to birdsong, work, she turns to one the country’s indigenous and to Arabic reed flute (ney) playing. The musical traditions, expressly using the second piece also refers to the multiple reeds of violinist’s talent as a Scottish fiddle player as well the accordion (these days made of metal) – as violinist. Inspired by bird songs as well as the an instrument used in traditional music of music of her countryman, Benjamin Britten, the many cultures. The idea of the loneliness and work’s title comes from the composer’s memories of vastness of landscape underpins the quartet, wind blowing in the reed beds at Snape Maltings in while each variation, or ‘stanza’, has its own Suffolk, England. The second violin, sounding like a metre and mood. highland bagpipe, begins and ends the work with variations on a Celtic-inspired theme. The word “Stanzas” in the title is significant structurally; Beamish has composed the work as Beamish wrote a program note for the piece, quoted a series of short episodes, many of which are only here in full: a minute in length. Beamish’s background as a Donald Grant, the second violinist in the Elias, string player gives the work an idiomatic rigor. is well known as a traditional Scottish fi ddle The modal solo melody for Donald Grant begins player. I have incorporated this skill into a quartet in the distance, as he walks onstage, playing an work, drawing on Donald’s Gaelic roots. The evocative folk-like melody; shaped by characteristic ‘second violin range’ of a quartet is similar to slides from the Highland bagpipe tradition, it that used by traditional fi ddle, inhabiting the conveys loneliness. Notably, almost the whole piece throaty, rich soundworld of the lower strings, is pitched in the higher registers of the instruments. and the distinctive clarity of the upper strings in Each episode or “stanza” reveals a new approach to their lower positions. This leaves the fi rst violin to the work’s melodic drive, yet it is not always clear explore the heights of the E string, so that the two whether Beamish is developing material or creating violins are almost like diff erent instruments. variations. I wrote part of the quartet in a cottage The music is fluid but with few melodies, and overlooking the machar of the Isle of Harris, one senses those that are discernible are fragments, in the Outer Hebrides, listening to Britten’s adding to the feeling Beamish projects of loneliness. quartets in between working. These works The work conjures not only the signifi cance of always remind me of my former life as a landscape, but also our relationship to nature.

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