St. Lawrence String Quartet
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PROGRAM: SUNDAYS WITH THE ST. LAWRENCE SundaY, APRIL 27, 2014 / 2:30 pM / BiNG CONCERT HALL ST. LAWRENCE STRING QUARTET ARTISTS PROGRAM St. Lawrence String Quartet Joseph Haydn: Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 20, no. 1, Hob. III:31 (1772) Geoff Nuttall, Violin Allegro moderato Mark Fewer, Violin Minuet: Un poco allegretto Lesley Robertson, Viola Affetuoso e sostenuto Christopher Costanza, Cello Finale: Presto Jessica Rivera, Soprano George Tsontakis: String Quartet No. 7 for String Quartet and Soprano (2014) I. Prelude II. The Swallows Sundays with the St. Lawrence is presented in III. Coffin of Snow (Rossetti) partnership with Music at Stanford and generously IV. Whitman supported by Paul and Iris Brest. *INTERMISSION* Giuseppe Verdi: String Quartet in E Minor, op. 68 (1873) Allegro Andantino Prestissimo Scherzo fuga: Allegro assai mosso PROGRAM SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Please be considerate of others and turn off all phones, pagers, and watch alarms, and unwrap all lozenges prior to the performance. Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Thank you 40 StanFORD LIVE MAGAZINE APRIL/MAy 2014 JOSEPH HAYDN (1732–1809) remained fascinated by the tranquil abstractions into complexities of maturity QUARTET IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 20, strength of purpose that Haydn draws out is part of a human “gift package.” NO. 1, HOB. III:31 (1772) of the four instruments and paid tribute to its composer in the slow movement of In Going Forth by Day, there is Mozart greatly admired Joseph Haydn’s his own E-flat quartet, K. 428, a work storytelling, but the underlying collection of six string quartets, Op. over which he labored long and hard and abstractions that jettison each “story” 20. Beethoven copied them by hand to that he dedicated to Haydn. In the finale, are allowed to separate and telescope better understand their inner workings. Haydn uncorks the bottle and releases outward into mystical realms. Truths In 1885, Brahms became the proud sparkling contents that are succinctly and are “let go,” contradictions reconciled, owner of Haydn’s original manuscript playfully developed in three-bar phrases complexities are explained, and simply copy of the quartets, which he kept until from the movement’s opening ideas. and elegantly so. the end of his life. Haydn broke new ground with his Op. 20, and publishers —© 2013, Keith Horner When Amy Anderson kindly sent me could not get copies to print fast enough. the carol of the bird of death from Walt An unauthorized printing by a Berlin Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the publisher gave the collection its opus GEORGE TSONTAKIS (B. 1951) Dooryard Bloom’d” as a possible text number and nickname, Sun Quartets, STRING QUARTET NO. 7 FOR STRING to set, the focus on the course I would from the rising sun on the cover of the QUARTET AND SOPRANO (2014) take became clear. “Lilacs,” like Four publication. In another edition, issued Quartets had come very much alive for toward the end of Haydn’s life, his I am finding it not easy, if uneasy, to write me through the setting of the Whitman official Viennese publisher, Artaria, words about a piece of music that is in work by my teacher Roger Sessions. The acknowledged that it was with these sympathy with and inspired by something seed was replanted; all seemed to fall into quartets that “Haydn so decisively found visual. It is, as they say, a bit “beyond my place. The parallel universe I would seek his fame.” This is music designed to move pay grade,” but here are some thoughts I to create was now defined—of birds, of and stir the emotions, rather than merely have been conjuring up, perhaps more or death’s gentle power and dominance, and please and entertain. less abstract, in note form. They may be of transcendence and rebirth. helpful to some. Each quartet has a distinctive character. The choice of Herman Melville’s haunting The urbane, unhurried opening I set out to express sentiments parallel to Civil War poem “Shiloh: A Requiem” movement of this E-flat quartet allows those I sensed in Bill Viola’s Going Forth came on the heels of my decision to use each instrument a role within the whole, by Day, not so much as a reaction to his “Lilacs” and has swallows creating a whether taking the lead, partnering in beautiful and lyrical work but to touch huge and seemingly depleted space where a duo texture, bringing a musical line upon a common tangent and move away soldiers died. The image reminded me to a three-part discussion, or—mostly in a mirrored direction. Stasis verses immediately of Viola’s walking humanity, in the central development section— motion, transformation, transcendence, pacing horizontally, through a spacious contributing to the four-part texture. The and a strata of warm mysticism versus forest of trees and light, brown and green musical ideas evolve incrementally from detachment are the principles that I nature. They glide forward, like Melville’s the opening phrases with an economy take away, “hear,” and translate into swallows, but with no sense of returning, that increasingly became a hallmark of music. Searching for and finding, and like Melville’s soldiers. The forest walkers Haydn’s quartet writing. Though cast then letting go, in sequence but at the only “progress,” to somewhere, but in regular four-bar phrases, the minuet same time, all at once. Perhaps there is seemingly, anywhere. keeps harmonic surprises in store, while a residue of my closeness to T. S. Eliot’s its central trio section deliberately avoids Four Quartets and my reactive work Nothing to me has explained the anything remotely predictable. Four Symphonic Quartets that imbues loneliness of what death might at first this work as well. One does not lose deliver more than Christina Rossetti’s The heart and soul of the quartet lies in such poignant residues but brings them four short lines in “Dead in the Cold”; its slow movement, Affetuoso e sostenuto forth as a kind of creative “fertilizer” here, death’s victim a song-singing thrush. (“Tender and sustained”). Its solemn, to inform the next work—or, actually, It reminds me that truth need not be four-part chorale-like texture is inward one may not be able to help it from lengthy and that a microscopic world looking and elusive. Certainly, Mozart happening. The piling up and colliding of may be as enormous as a cosmos. encoremediagroup.com 41 PROGRAM: SUNDAYS WITH THE ST. LAWRENCE The movement that contains the whether it is good or bad,” he wrote, and teamwork and great respect to Rossetti as its inner seed begins “only that it is a quartet.” the composer. Since winning both the and ends in a “deluge,” and here Banff International String Quartet conscious pictures of Viola’s panel This was 1873. In the same summer, the Competition and Young Concert by the same name are at work. 40-year-old Brahms was also arranging Artists International Auditions in 1992, private performances of his two earliest the quartet has delighted audiences Whitman’s “gray-brown bird” carols quartets. Brahms felt the weight of with its spontaneous, passionate, and to us the wonders and lyrical beauty the Austro-German tradition on his dynamic performances. Alex Ross of death as if there is no other way shoulders, and it shows in his writing. of the New Yorker magazine writes, to reconcile with it. To me, this is In Italy, the land of opera, Verdi was “The St. Lawrence are remarkable not not so unlike Viola’s “resurrection” free from a similar legacy of quartet simply for the quality of their music of his man from a river as rescue and symphonic writing. With a career making, exalted as it is, but for the joy “witnesses” look on or his depiction built on a tradition of writing for the they take in the act of connection.” of a parent’s final boat ride, a human voice, he was, at heart, a lyrical peaceful voyage on a calm lake or composer with a genius for singing lines Whether playing Haydn or premiering river. The soul just floats away, as in and dialogue between parts. Melodies a new work, SLSQ has a rare ability Whitman’s words, “I float this carol abound in his quartet. The opening to bring audiences to rapt attention. It with joy, with joy to thee O death.” movement is based on five melodic ideas, reveals surprising nuances in familiar the first drawn from some of Amneris’s repertoire and illuminates the works As it happens, Melville, Rossetti, and music in Aida. A later melody, high in of some of today’s most celebrated Whitman all lived in essentially the the first violin, has a Mendelssohn-like composers, often all in the course of one same time period and were mature airiness. All the ideas and motifs are evening. John Adams has written two during the course of the Civil War, developed with a genuine seriousness of critically acclaimed works expressly for although Rossetti was English born. purpose. Verdi knew the string quartet the quartet, including String Quartet repertoire thoroughly and kept copies (2009) and Absolute Jest (2012), which —© 2014, George Tsontakis of the quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and it premiered with the San Francisco Beethoven by his bedside. An elegant, Symphony in 2012. In 2011, SLSQ beautifully structured slow movement premiered Qohelet, a work by Osvaldo GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813–1901) follows, again full of melodic writing. Golijov, also composed for the group. STRING QUARTET IN E MINOR, OP. 68 There’s more from the opera house in (1873) the third movement, beginning with SLSQ maintains a busy touring schedule.