Takács Quartet 1928, in Brno by the Moravian String Quartet
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CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM NOTES Sunday, February 19, 2012, 3pm Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) primary beneficiary; Zdenka had to go to court Hertz Hall String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters” to get that provision overturned.) The domestic tensions between the Janáčeks flared into a nasty Composed in 1928. Premiered on September 11, quarrel on New Years Day 1928, and Leoš deter- Takács Quartet 1928, in Brno by the Moravian String Quartet. mined to retreat to his cottage in his native vil- lage of Hukvaldy, but he was stuck in Brno for a Edward Dusinberre first violin In the summer of 1917, when he was 63, Leoš week finishing the opera The House of the Dead. Károly Schranz second violin Janáček fell in love with Kamila Stösslová, the He visited Kamila for two days before arriving Geraldine Walther viola 25-year-old wife of a Jewish antiques dealer in Hukvaldy on January 10th, and saw her again from Písek. They first met in a town in central at the performance of Katya Kabanova in Prague András Fejér cello Moravia during World War I, but, as he lived in on the 21st. A week later, from Hukvaldy, he Brno with Zdenka, his wife of 37 years, and she wrote to Kamila that he was beginning “a musi- lived with her husband in Písek, they saw each cal confession,” a new string quartet that he pro- PROGRAM other only infrequently thereafter and remained posed titling “Love Letters,” and which would in touch mostly by letter. The true passion seems call for a viola d’amore—the “viol of love”— to have been entirely on his side (“It is fortu- rather than the usual viola. “Our life is going to Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters” (1928) nate that only I am infatuated,” he once wrote be in it,” he promised. The Quartet, ultimately to her), but Kamila did not reject his company, subtitled “Intimate Letters” and scored for stan- Andante apparently feeling admiration rather than love dard string quartet (the soft tones of the viola Adagio for the man who, with the successful staging of d’amore made it a poor partner for other strings), Moderato his Jenůfa in Prague in 1915 eleven years after was finished in just three weeks. Janáček report- Allegro its premiere in Brno, was at that time acquir- ed to Kamila the intense, almost frantic pas- ing an international reputation as a master com- sion that drove him during its creation: “I’m so poser. Whatever the details of their relationship, glad at how my pen was burning when I wrote Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) String Quartet No. 3, Op. 94 (1975) Kamila’s role as an inspiring muse during the it! How quickly, how pantingly I wrote! How it Duets: With moderate movement last decade of Janáček’s life was indisputable didn’t want to stop! Oh, little soul, we’ll flicker Ostinato: Very fast and beneficent—under the sway of his feelings together! All this feeling, as if it were piled upon Solo: Very calm for her he wrote his greatest music, including itself…as if it had lifted you and me from this Burlesque: Fast, con fuoco the operas Katya Kabanova, The Cunning Little earth, as if everything was joyfully, lovingly hov- Recitative and Passacaglia (La Serenissima): Vixen and The Makropoulos Affair, the song cycle ering; and in that feverish mood, these Intimate Slow — Slowly moving The Diary of the Young Man Who Disappeared, Letters were born.” He fretted that the Quartet the two String Quartets (the second of which was not a suitable match for his fiery emotions: he titled “Intimate Letters”), the Glagolitic Mass “Feelings on their own are sometimes so strong INTERMISSION and the Sinfonietta for Orchestra. that the notes hide, run away. A great love—a It seems fitting, perhaps inevitable, that weak composition. But I want it to be: a great Janáček’s last work—the Second String love—a great composition.” He did not present Claude Debussy (1862–1918) String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (1893) Quartet—was the one most closely bound to his the score to Kamila until a private reading in love for Kamila. By the beginning of 1928, a de- his home on May 18th had soothed his appre- Animé et très décidé cade after they first met, he had sent her over 500 hensions about the piece. On July 29th, Kamila Assez vif et bien rythmé letters which revealed his innermost thoughts and her husband joined Janáček for a holiday in Andantino, doucement expressif and feelings; his most recent ones even referred Hukvaldy. Despite David Stössel’s presence and Très modéré — Très mouvemente et avec passion to her as his “wife,” in quotation marks. He was an alarming change in his health three weeks then seriously considering ending his own long- before, Janáček wrote in Kamila’s album that he time marriage, which had never been very hap- was contented: “You are sitting beside me and py and had turned absolutely icy after Zdenka I am happy and at peace. In such a way do the Cal Performances’ 2011–2012 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. came to realize the depth of her husband’s pas- days pass for the angels.” On a walking expedi- sion for Kamila the preceding spring. (Janáček tion into the surrounding hills on August 8th, even re-wrote his will to make Kamila his eleven-year-old Otto Stössel went missing, and 18 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 19 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Janáček, though seriously ill, joined the search despite Janáček’s claim to jollity, is occupied tenor Peter Pears, and he told his doctors that he reported that his old friend was “very sick, party. He became flushed and overheated, took by a frozen drudge of a theme in plodding he would not submit to surgery until the score his hands trembling.” On December 4, 1976, to his bed, and the following day was diagnosed rhythms, the sort of music that Shostakovich was finished. The opera was sketched by the end Britten died at Aldeburgh. Exactly two weeks with pneumonia. On August 12, 1928, five used to portray emotional numbness. The heart- of the year, and orchestrated and completed by later, the Amadeus Quartet gave the premiere at weeks after his 74th birthday, he died in the beat of this theme’s rhythm is sustained by the March 1973. In May, Britten entered a London Aldeburgh of the Quartet No. 3, Britten’s last hospital at Ostrava. His last composition, his viola as the underpinning for a warm melody— hospital for his surgery, but he suffered a slight major composition. testament to the love that had renewed his pas- Kamila’s theme—that is yet another variant of stroke during the operation, and he was generally Peter Evans, who published a study of sions and fired his creative spirit, his “Intimate the Quartet’s opening gesture. This music grows weakened and without full use of his right arm Britten’s music in 1979, wrote of the Quartet Letters,” was premiered just a month later in to a climax before the first subject returns; the thereafter. He convalesced during the summer No. 3, “The profound impression the work Brno by the Moravian String Quartet. movement ends with a brief review of its themes. by reading Haydn and Eliot, and strengthened made at its premiere might appear an inevi- Janáček explained to Kamila that the “The finale,” Janáček explained, “won’t fin- his right hand by writing letters to friends. He table consequence of the occasion, but greater Quartet’s opening movement depicted “my im- ish with fear for my pretty little vixen, but with had to miss the premiere of Death in Venice at familiarity confirms that the simplicity of the pression when I saw you for the first time.” A great longing and its fulfillment.” The move- the Aldeburgh Festival in June, but was cheered Quartet’s language and the serenity to which it bold motive of halting gestures, probably rep- ment, a quirky hybrid of sonata and rondo, by good reviews for the opera and excellent ones aspires represent a distillation, not a dilution, of resenting the composer, is given by the violins returns often to its boisterous opening strain, for Pears in the role of Aschenbach. Britten was Britten’s expressivity during the most poignant above a tremulous note in the cello. The viola, though in modified forms. A leaping motive of able to attend a private performance of Death in period of his life.” Britten himself said that he glassy-toned in its sul ponticello (“at the bridge”) trilled notes, a sort of second subject, provides Venice in September at Aldeburgh, and he trav- wanted the Quartet “to end with a question,” effect, gives out a haunting phrase of unsettled thematic contrast. The two ideas are played eled to London when the opera was given at and the five movements that lead to that clos- tonality that the composer’s biographer Jaroslav against each other throughout the movement in Covent Garden the following month. ing moment are introspective and contemplative Vogel wrote “expresses the chilling mystery of unpredictable, frequently startling ways before By spring 1974, Britten was again up to do- and equivocal, and even, in the Burlesque, wryly an encounter with an utterly new and poten- the Quartet arrives at a triumphant exclamation ing some creative work, first revising his early humorous. There is no hint here of anger or fear, tially great experience.” A leaping, flickering ar- in its closing measures.