Season 20102010----20112011 The Philadelphia Orchestra Sunday, November 2121,, at 3:00 22262666thth Season of Chamber Music ConcertsConcerts————PerelmanPerelman Theater Dvořák Terzetto in C major, Op. 74, for two violins and viola I. Introduzione: Allegro, ma non troppo— II. Larghetto III. Scherzo: Vivace IV. Tema con variazioni: Poco adagio David Kim Violin Daniel Han Violin Anna Marie Ahn Petersen Viola Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 I. Largo— II. Allegro molto— III. Allegretto— IV. Largo— V. Largo David Kim Violin Daniel Han Violin Anna Marie Ahn Petersen Viola Thomas Kraines Cello (Guest) Intermission Schubert String Quintet in C major, D. 956 I. Allegro, ma non troppo II. Adagio III. Scherzo: Presto—Trio: Andante sostenuto IV. Allegretto Leonidas Kavakos Violin (Guest) MeiMei----ChenChen Barnes Violin (Guest) CheChe----HungHung Chen Viola Derek Barnes Cello Efe Baltacıgil Cello This program runs approximately 2hours. Terzetto in C major, Op. 74, for two violins and viola Antonín DvDvořáořáořáořákkkk Born in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, SeSeptemberptember 8, 1841 Died in Prague, May 1, 1904 Antonín Dvořák was born in a small Bohemian village to a non-musical family, but his talents were so evident—he played organ at church while still a little boy, and picked up violin and viola by ear—that even his parents knew something special was afoot. They sent him to Prague at age 12, where he studied at the National Conservatory. After graduation, young Antonín became a violinist for the Czech National Orchestra under the direction of Bedřich Smetana, whose opera The Bartered Bride and orchestral suite Má vlast (My Homeland) would give Czech music a classical voice. But Dvořák’s career as a composer stalled. Little of what he wrote before the age of 30 survives. In fact he went virtually unnoticed as a composer until 1873, when his choral work Hymnus won a prize adjudicated by the great German composer Johannes Brahms and Europe’s most powerful music critic, Eduard Hanslick. Beyond giving Dvořák the award, Brahms and Hanslick recognized a talent that had the potential to raise Czech music to the next level of importance and sophistication. With Brahms’s help, Dvořák’s music was published by the prestigious house of Simrock, and with Hanslick’s praise in his pocket he began to get prominent commissions. The remainder of Dvořák’s career consisted of one triumph after another, as he became known around the globe. He was invited to America, where the vast plains and diverse influences caused him to write two of his most famous scores: the Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World”) and the String Quartet nicknamed the “American.” The year 1887 found Dvořák at the top of his game. In one week of January that year he composed the Terzetto in C major, Op. 74. It is a perfect example of Hausmusik (“house music”), which is simply music originally intended not for the concert hall or recital but for friends to play their own entertainment. A piece of house music is first and foremost an interesting work for the musicians to perform, for they, and not an audience, are the market the composer and publisher attempt to reach. Dvořák wrote the Terzetto with two specific musicians in mind: the violinist Jan Pelikan of the National Theater Orchestra, and Pelikan’s student, violinist Josef Kruis. When, in a reading of the work, Kruis fell short of the skill level necessary, Dvořák, in sympathy, composed a second, simpler Terzetto, Op. 75a. In a sense, however, it was Dvořák who failed to fulfill the task of writing Hausmusik by composing, in the first Terzetto, a much richer and technically more demanding score than might be playable by an average musician. Part of the reason for this may have been that he used himself as a model for the violist; he was, in fact, violist for the first readings of the score by Pelikan and Kruis. Like many great composers before and after—Mozart and Hindemith are but two— Dvořák was particularly attracted to the viola, and fond of the instrument’s ability to negotiate the alto range. The viola’s middle place in the range of string instruments means it defines the texture of a string score. The soprano-range violin gets the melody, the cello provides the bass, and in between, the viola fills out the rest—but it is precisely how the filling-out is done that goes far to give a composition its particular character. Despite the fact that in the Terzetto the viola is actually the de facto bass, the viola line throughout the score still carries with it the nature of a defining inner part. There are sections, including most of the scherzo, where the viola accepts the role of providing a bass. But for most of the time, the viola is in real dialogue with the violins, an equal partner in a contrapuntal discussion of sophistication and breadth. Marked simply “Introduction,” the opening AllegroAllegro,,,, ma non troppo is deceptively easy- going, a three-part (ABA) movement that does little more than let us hear the instruments, gauge their balance, and prepare for what’s coming. The A section is a simple lyrical melody; the B section provides some bustling sixteenth notes for contrast. Then, suddenly, just as the return of the A section seems about to go into its final measures, there is a shocking change from C major in the direction of an E-major cadence. The E-major tonic chord is delayed, however, until the start of the second movement, played without pause after the first. This is the Larghetto, marked dolce and molto espressivo, and as ethereal a piece as Dvořák ever penned. The ensuing Scherzo (VivaceVivaceVivace) is an A-minor furiant, or rapid-fire Czech folk dance, with a three-beat meter that sometimes gives the illusion of being in two. The gently contrasting Trio in A major is reminiscent of a Brahms allegretto. The final movement (PocoPoco adagioadagio) is a set of variations on a theme surprisingly in C minor rather than C major, though the fleet, inventive variations do eventually lead to a C-major conclusion. By this movement, the Hausmusik aspect of the score has long been overtaken by virtuoso elements that now come to the foreground for all three instruments. —Kenneth LaFave String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 Dmitri Shostakovich Born iiinin St. Petersburg, September 25, 1906 Died iiinin Moscow, August 9, 1975 At Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, one imposing tombstone is emblazoned with the musical notes D—E-flat—C—B. It’s the grave of Dmitri Shostakovich, whose initials, in German transliteration, those notes spell: D(mitri) SCH(ostakowitch). (In German musical notation, E-flat is “S” and B-natural is “H.”) This four-note musical motif was Shostakovich’s signature during the second half of his career. It shows up prominently in many of his scores, including the Tenth and Fifteenth symphonies, the First Violin Concerto, and the First Cello Concerto. But nowhere is it as ubiquitous as in the String Quartet No. 8, a somber meditation on death that, despite its surface bleakness, is the most widely played of the composer’s 15 string quartets, and one of the most-played string quartets written in the 20th century. The “DSCH” motif dominates the Quartet for the very good reason that the work was intended as a farewell. In 1960, when the piece was composed, Shostakovich was at an emotional lowpoint. Decades of fighting Stalinist control of his artistic output had taken their toll and he was a nervous wreck, his face “a bag of tics” as one friend commented. And although Stalin had been dead for seven years, Shostakovich’s relationship with the Soviet authorities in 1960 remained problematic at best. That was the year he finally joined the Communist Party, an act so fraught with ethical implications that the decision must have caused him great anxiety. We still don’t know for certain if the decision was entirely his, or if he was in some way coerced into joining. We do know his psychic strength was strained by the act of acquiescing to a political system that had repeatedly opposed his art. The composer’s physical health as well was in peril. In 1958 he had begun to notice chronic pain in his right hand. Joints and muscles in that hand started to shut down. Slowly the pain overtook him and by 1960 he could barely play the piano. (In 1965 the condition would be diagnosed as polio.) According his friend Lev Lebedinsky, Shostakovich’s response to all this was to plan his suicide. In just three days in July 1960, he penned his suicide “letter”: the String Quartet No. 8, with its three-out-of-five Largo movements, dirge-like overall character, and obsessive employment of “DSCH.” The writing of the Quartet proved less a valedictory than a purgative, however, so Shostakovich went on living—and composing, including seven more string quartets. The suicide story, uncorroborated by other sources, may or may not be true. But it’s clear that Shostakovich had by this time entered a morbid phase of his artistic life. Death would be the subject of many remaining works, such as the Symphony No. 14. If the String Quartet No. 8 is not a literal farewell, it is certainly the beginning of a series of goodbyes. The Quartet’s first movement, marked Largo, begins with the “DSCH” motif intoned in turn by all four instruments and played in various keys until, 28 measures in, the cello, viola, and second violin all fall softly onto their bottommost open notes in a gesture of release.