Emerson String Quartet and Calidore String Quartet Emerson String Quartet Eugene Drucker / Violin Philip Setzer / Violin Lawrence Dutton / Viola Paul Watkins / Cello Calidore String Quartet Jeffrey Myers / Violin Ryan Meehan / Violin Jeremy Berry / Viola Estelle Choi / Cello Thursday Evening, October 5, 2017 at 7:30 Rackham Auditorium Ann Arbor Ninth Performance of the 139th Annual Season 55th Annual Chamber Arts Series PROGRAM Richard Strauss Capriccio, Op. 85 (excerpt) String Sextet Calidore String Quartet, Mr. Dutton, Mr. Watkins Anton Bruckner String Quintet in F Major, WAB 112 (excerpt) Adagio Emerson String Quartet, Mr. Berry Dmitri Shostakovich Two Pieces for String Octet, Op. 11 Prelude: Adagio Scherzo: Allegro molto Calidore String Quartet, Emerson String Quartet Intermission Felix Mendelssohn Octet in E-flat Major, Op. 20 Allegro moderato con fuoco Andante This evening’s performance is made possible by endowed support from the Ilene H. Forsyth Chamber Scherzo: Allegro leggierissimo Arts Endowment Fund, which supports an annual UMS Chamber Arts performance in perpetuity. Presto Media partnership is provided by WGTE 91.3 FM and WRCJ 90.9 FM. The Emerson String Quartet appears by arrangement with IMG Artists. Emerson String Quartet, Calidore String Quartet The Calidore String Quartet appears by arrangement with Opus 3 Artists. In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance. The photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited. 3 CAPRICCIO, OP. 85 (EXCERPT) (1941­­­–42) hands of Strauss’s official librettist, music of that period. At the same Joseph Gregor, however, the opera time, Strauss remained faithful to his Richard Strauss did not progress to the composer’s own post-Romantic idiom, which no Born June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany satisfaction and was temporarily one handled more beautifully or more Died September 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen set aside in favor of other projects. convincingly than he. Eventually, Strauss returned to the UMS premiere: Moscow Virtuosi conducted by Vladimir Spivakov; idea with Krauss’s help; in 1941–42, February 1996 in Rackham Auditorium. the composer, then in his late seventies, completed what would Snapshots of History…In 1942: remain the last of his 15 operas. In · The movie Casablanca premieres in New York City the final version, incidentally, almost · 13-year-old Anne Frank makes the first entry in her diary nothing of Casti’s story was retained, · The majority of Japanese Americans are forcibly relocated to internment beyond the fact that there were a poet camps and a composer onstage. Capriccio begins with a prelude scored, most unusually in opera, as a An opera about the relationship poet Olivier, tipping the balance, ever string sextet. The inclusion of a piece between music and words in opera? so slightly, in the direction of Strauss’s of chamber music in a stage work has On the face of it, this sounds like a own art form. its own symbolic meaning. As the first sure recipe for disaster; yet in Richard Strauss wrote the libretto of the scene of the opera makes clear, this Strauss’s hands, what started out opera himself, in collaboration with music is being played, as a work by as a treatise on music and drama the conductor Clemens Krauss. Flamand, to entertain the Countess became a living piece of music and They were inspired by an 18th- and her guests, including the Theater drama in its own right. In Capriccio, century original by Giovanni Battista Director, who sleeps through the the characters spend a lot of time Casti, set to music by Antonio whole performance. The sextet discussing what is more important in Salieri and performed as a double represents “absolute” music, without opera, the music or the words. But the bill with Mozart’s Impresario (Der words or program, which doesn’t discussion is not entirely academic, Schauspieldirektor) in 1786. Casti’s interest the man of the theater, as the protagonist, a beautiful young libretto, titled Prima la musica e poi although the sensitive Countess is Countess, is wooed by a Poet and a le parole (First the music, and then deeply moved by it. Composer, and could really use some the words) was brought to Strauss’s The parts of the six string help from art theory in deciding which attention by the famous writer Stefan instruments in the prelude are woven man to choose. Don’t expect a definite Zweig, who had come across it at together in a rich polyphonic tapestry answer to the dilemma, though. the British Library in London. Zweig, that anticipates Strauss’s masterpiece With inimitable elegance and grace, who had been Strauss’s operatic from 1945, Metamorphosen for 23 solo Strauss leaves the issue open at the collaborator after the death of Hugo strings. The sextet is on a smaller end of the opera. Still, if one listens von Hofmannsthal in 1929, was barred scale, yet equally intriguing in its carefully to the music and reads from working with the composer juxtaposition of distant chords and between the lines of the libretto, one after the rise of the Nazis to power. its combination of broad cantabile may get the impression that after Nevertheless, he was willing to (singing) melodies with more all is said and done, the Countess’s help out from behind the scenes by tempestuous episodes. The action feelings about the composer Flamand suggesting subjects and placing of the opera takes place in a château may be just a few Fahrenheit degrees them at the disposal of librettists near Paris around 1775 (well before warmer than her friendship with the who were not blacklisted. In the the French Revolution), and the music contains numerous allusions to the 4 5 STRING QUINTET IN F MAJOR, WAB 112 (EXCERPT) (1879) TWO PIECES FOR STRING OCTET, OP. 11 (1924–25) Anton Bruckner Dmitri Shostakovich Born September 4, 1824 in Ansfelden, Austria Born September 25, 1906 in Saint Petersburg, Russia Died October 11, 1896 in Vienna Died August 9, 1975 in Moscow UMS premiere: This piece has never been performed on a UMS concert. UMS premiere: This piece has never been performed on a UMS concert. Snapshots of History…In 1879: Snapshots of History…In 1925: · The University Musical Society is founded in Ann Arbor and the Michigan · The Chrysler Corporation is founded Wolverines compete in their first season of intercollegiate football · Mount Rushmore National Memorial is dedicated in South Dakota · Thomas Edison applies for the patent for his incandescent light bulb · Adolf Hitler publishes Volume I of Mein Kampf · Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming proposes the concept of worldwide Standard Time “He made a sour face and expressed idea (only briefly interrupted by a the hope that, when I turn 30, I will no mysterious slow passage) goes on a It was between his Fifth and Sixth highly-advanced tonal language in longer write such wild music.” This is breath-taking journey through some Symphonies that Anton Bruckner which distant keys may be juxtaposed how 19-year-old Dmitri Shostakovich fantastic imaginary scenery. The composed the only major chamber in startlingly novel ways. His mastery related to his friend, pianist Lev journey ends rather abruptly, with the work of his mature years. Those who of imitative counterpoint is also amply Oborin, what Maximilian Steinberg, music stopping dead in its tracks, just call the String Quintet a “symphony in evidence, as is his predilection his professor of composition at the after the excitement has reached its in disguise” may be exaggerating, for great dynamic contrasts and Leningrad Conservatory, had said highest point. yet there are many moments in the mighty fortissimo climaxes followed about the Two Pieces for String piece where the composer was by sudden retreats into pianissimo. Octet. Composed around the same clearly thinking in orchestral terms. Like Bruckner’s great symphonic time as the First Symphony, which In Bruckner’s lifetime, the Quintet slow movements, the “Adagio” of the made Shostakovich internationally was more successful than many of String Quintet covers an enormous famous, these two short works are the symphonies; it was published ground from intense introspection to certainly wild enough. The young immediately and it even inspired powerful dramatic outbursts before it composer positively relished being Bruckner’s great rival Brahms to concludes in a whisper. “naughty,” piling up unusual harmonic compose his own first string quintet, and rhythmic irregularities that in the same key of F Major no less were bound to upset his teacher (Op. 88), just a few years later. but appealed to an artistic audience Of this grandiose four-movement in the young Soviet Union that was work, we shall hear the “Adagio” hungry for innovation. The “Prelude” tonight — a movement that originally begins with a solemn but completely stood in second place but was later unpredictable adagio section and switched with the scherzo, which continues with faster music, intensely preceded it in the published score. chromatic and filled with nervous The “Adagio” opens with a quietly energy. There are bits of imitative meandering, hymn-like melody counterpoint and some virtuosic riffs — or rather a highly idiosyncratic for the first violin before the opening combination of melodic phrases that adagio returns. The “Scherzo” evolve in an utterly unpredictable ratchets up the dissonance level manner. Bruckner was famous for his even higher as a vigorous rhythmic 6 7 HEROES ON SPEED-DIAL without his persistent and sometime This is the early 1970s, so I’m really promise and desire, and we want to do by Doyle Armbrust merciless provocations during dating myself. Shumsky was a mentor everything we can to push them and “Who was your teacher?” It’s one lessons, the doors he opened, or the to all of us.