Quatuor Ebène

UMS PRESENTS QUATUOR EBÈNE Pierre Colombet, Violin Gabriel Le Magadure, Violin Mathieu Herzog, Viola Raphaël Merlin, Cello Sunday Afternoon, November 9, 2014 at 4:00 Rackham Auditorium • Ann Arbor 15th Performance of the 136th Annual Season 52nd Annual Chamber Arts Series Photo: Quatuor Ebène; photographer: Julien Mignot. 35 UMS PROGRAM Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart String Quartet No. 16 in E-flat Major, K. 428 Allegro non troppo Andante con moto Menuetto: Allegro Allegro vivace Felix Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 2 in a minor, Op. 13 Adagio — Allegro vivace Adagio non lento Intermezzo: Allegretto con moto — Allegro di molto Presto — Adagio non lento FALL 2014 FALL INTERMISSION Jazz and Crossover Repertoire on the second half of this afternoon’s program will be announced by the artists from the stage. This evening’s performance is made possible by endowed support from the Candis J. and Helmut F. Stern Endowment Fund, which supports an annual presentation on the UMS Chamber Arts series in perpetuity. Media partnership is provided by WGTE 91.3 FM and Ann Arbor’s 107one FM. Quatuor Ebène records for Virgin Classics. Quatuor Ebène appears by arrangement with Arts Management Group, Inc. QUATUOR EBÈNE QUATUOR 36 BE PRESENT NOW THAT YOU’RE IN YOUR SEAT… Duke Ellington famously said: “There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.” This evening’s concert offers only the former, but the selections come in many shapes, forms, and styles. The program begins with two works from the Western quartet tradition, by two of the greatest composing prodigies the world has ever known. As we move from Mozart to Mendelssohn, we may discover how the latter, at the age of 18 and steeped in the music of his elders, had already found a voice that belonged only to him and no one else. The Quatuor Ebène has long been known for the ease with which it moves between different musical worlds. Tonight, you’re going to be not only in your seat, but on the edge of it, as you wait to see what surprises the unannounced second half of the program has in store. String Quartet No. 16 in E-flat present work, the tone is set by a most Major, K. 428 (1783) unusual opening melody, played in unison Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by the four instruments. Three times in Born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria the course of this brief theme, Mozart Died December 5, 1791 in Vienna uses chromatic notes (ones outside the main key) in stressed downbeat positions, UMS premiere: Budapest String Quartet, creating a certain tension which the rest January 1950 in Rackham Auditorium of the movement will have to resolve. Tension and release is what the magical 2014 FALL SNAPSHOTS OF HISTORY…IN 1783: second-movement “Andante con moto” is • The volcano Laki in Iceland begins an eight-month all about as well: its opening melody is of eruption, causing one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in European history irregular length, filled with rhythmic and • The first Waterford Crystal glassmaking business begins harmonic ambiguity. Then the melody production in Waterford, Ireland finds a temporary resting point, followed • Great Britain formally declares that it will cease hostilities with the US by new adventures. • John Broadwood patents the piano pedal in England The third-movement “Menuetto” • The Great Meteor passes over Great Britain was directly modeled on a work by Haydn, the minuet in the same key of E-flat What happens when a genius consciously Major from the String Quartet Op. 33, tries to outdo himself and works twice as No. 2 (known as “The Joke” on account of hard as usual, making a concerted effort to the unusual ending of its finale). Haydn impress an esteemed older colleague and himself had said of his Op. 33, published friend? The result, in that case, may well in 1781, that it was written in a “very be a set of extraordinary masterpieces new and unusual manner” — referring, like the six string quartets that Mozart among other things, to the equality of dedicated to Franz Joseph Haydn. the four instruments, a new technique of Mozart composed these quartets motivic development and, with regard to over a period of three years, between minuets, a more elaborate treatment of 1782 and 1785. The Quartet in E-flat the form and even an anticipation of the came third in the set, after a G-Major work Beethovenian scherzo. What Mozart took (K. 387) that combined grace and rigor from Haydn in this particular instance in a most original way, and the intensely were the heavy, folk-like accents, the tragic d-minor Quartet (K. 421). In the complex phrases and, in the central trio, 37 UMS a very Haydnesque musical “joke”: a long up-to-date the 18-year-old master was. drone in what turns out to be a “wrong” key, This work makes some unmistakable after which matters are straightened out by allusions to Beethoven’s quartet in the a sudden shift to the “right” key. The finale is same key (Op. 132), published only that Mozart’s take on another of Haydn’s favorite same year (and written two years earlier). movement types: a fast contradanse with The allusion occurs in the “Allegro vivace” plenty of virtuoso runs as well as various section of the first movement, audibly harmonic and melodic surprises. modeled on the analogous passage in the Mozart’s “Haydn” quartets did not Beethoven quartet. fail to produce the desired effect on their But Mendelssohn made other dedicatee. When Haydn heard these allusions in this piece as well, most works, he said the following immortal notably to one of his own works: a short words to Mozart’s father Leopold: “Before song called “Frage” (“Question”). The God and as an honest man, I tell you that question “Ist es wahr?” (“Is it true?”) your son is the greatest composer known appears in the “Adagio” introduction to to me either in person or by name. He the quartet — reminding those familiar has taste, and, what is more, the most with the late Beethoven quartets of the profound knowledge of composition.” “Muss es sein?” (“Must it be?”) motto of Op. 135. This theme frames the entire work, as it reappears at the very end of the last String Quartet No. 2 in a minor, movement. Op. 13 (1827) In between, there is, first of all, a Felix Mendelssohn fiery and tempestuous fast movement; Born February 3, 1809 in Hamburg, Germany its coda is particularly dramatic, ending Died November 4, 1847 in Leipzig on a declamatory formula straight FALL 2014 FALL out of an operatic recitative, delivered UMS premiere: Tetzlaff Quartet, April with great passion by the first violin. 2011 in Rackham Auditorium The second movement begins like a “song without words” — to borrow the SNAPSHOTS OF HISTORY…IN 1827: name Mendelssohn would give later • Beethoven dies on March 26 • Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed, a to his celebrated series of short piano landmark of Italian literature, is published pieces. Yet in the quartet, songfulness • Slavery is abolished in New York State soon yields to an intense contrapuntal • Eugène Delacroix paints one of his greatest canvases, The Death of Sardanapalus development that erupts in an animated • Friedrich Wöhler isolates aluminum for the first time middle section. A meter change (from 3/4 to 4/4) accompanies a change in mood Few composers in the 1820s were more from introspection to exuberant self- familiar with Beethoven’s recent works expression. In symmetrical fashion, the than was Mendelssohn. At a time when contrapuntal music returns, followed Hummel, Clementi, and Spohr were at by a recapitulation of the “song without the height of their fame, not everyone words.” The movement thus ends in the recognized that Beethoven dwarfed same lyrical manner in which it began. all of them; yet in Mendelssohn’s eyes, The third movement is an Beethoven reigned supreme as the most “Intermezzo” opening with a gentle important composer of the time. The melody in a comfortable “Allegretto con moto” tempo that is soon changed QUATUOR EBÈNE QUATUOR String Quartet No. 2 in a minor, written the year of Beethoven’s death, shows how to a much faster “Allegro di molto” for a 38 BE PRESENT playful episode in contrapuntal style. This melodic flow, which then continues with episode fulfills the function of a trio or even more energy than before, until the middle section, but unlike most trios, it arrival of the final “Adagio.” is longer and more substantial than the The slow ending and the large opening “main” section. That main section number of thematic links between eventually returns, but the material of the the movements are both highly trio doesn’t quite go away; both themes are unusual structural features, which are heard together in the movement’s coda. particularly surprising from a composer The finale begins with the same whose style is often (mistakenly) labeled dramatic recitative with which the first as conservative. In fact, Mendelssohn movement ended. This time it leads into an was engaged in some rather daring aria — a melodic theme of great emotional structural experiments here. Op. 13 was, intensity. As the movement continues, incidentally, his first string quartet, even several elements of previous movements though it is sometimes referred to as reappear: first the “Beethovenian” No. 2. (The official No. 1, which was the passage from the first movement, then first to be published, is the E-flat Major the contrapuntal idea from the second, work that received the opus number 12; and finally (as mentioned before), it was written two years after the present the opening of the “Is it true?” motto.

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