Brentano String Quartet

Sunday, April 10, 2016, 3pm Hertz Hall Brentano String Quartet Mark Steinberg, violin Misha Amory, viola Serena Canin, violin Nina Lee, cello PROGRAM Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750) Selections from The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 Fugues I, V, III, and IX Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809) Quartet in F-sharp minor, Op. 50, No. 4 Allegro spirituoso Andante Menuetto (Poco Allegretto) Finale Fuga (Allegro moderato) INTERMISSION BACH Selections from The Art of the Fugue Fugues VIII, VI, and XI Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Quartet in F-sharp Major, Op. 142 Allegretto Adagio – Allegretto: Adagio Cal Performances' 2015-2016 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PROGRAM NOTES Selections from The Art of the Fugue jects are brought in to comment on and shed Johann Sebastian Bach light on the first (such as in Contrapunctus XI, With The Art of the Fugue, a veritable Bible of which has two additional subjects), or a theme fugal techniques and expression, Bach pro- is turned upside down to be viewed from a new duced a monumental edifice cloaked in mys- angle (Contrapuncti IV, VI, and XI), or it is tery. A compilation of fugues based on a single stated rather more slowly or quickly in order to subject (and its variations), The Art of the Fugue lend it a different weight (Contrapunctus VI). seems to be an exhaustive study of the possibil- Parts support or challenge one another. All ities of the form, a composer testing his mettle, these are familiar concepts to anyone who has expanding his horizons. Such a mammoth been engaged in fruitful debate, and make for achievement from the great composer’s last stimulating repartee. days comes to us only incomplete, as the final —Mark Steinberg fugue trails off unended, thus inviting romantic speculation. Some see in this series of fugues a Quartet in F-sharp minor, Op. 50, No. 4 sort of last will and testament from arguably the Joseph Haydn greatest master of contrapuntal music ever to Joseph Haydn composed his Op. 50 string live. There is the most likely apocryphal story quartets in 1787. Hoping for royal acknowl- of Bach dying as he dictated the final fugue, edgement, and perhaps emolument, he dedi- having just incorporated his own name as a cated the set to King Frederick of Prussia. musical cipher into the fabric of the piece. It has Although the monarch’s response may have long been debated whether the work is in fact a been disappointingly parsimonious—a gold study, theoretical or conceptual, never meant to ring and a thank-you—Haydn fared quite well be performed. Were it meant to be performed in the end, selling the quartets to two different there is much speculation on what instrumen- publishers without either of them knowing, and tation was intended; is it a keyboard work, a pocketing his fee twice. work for a consort of like instruments, for a The Quartet in F-sharp minor, Op. 50, broken consort, a vocal group? The piece is No. 4 is the only minor-key quartet of the six. written in “open score”—on four staves, one per F-sharp minor is altogether an unusual key, as part, with no other indications. There is much it is difficult for string players and does not room for discussion, scholarly musings, and take much advantage of the natural resonance musicological excavation. What is clear to us is of the instruments; but Haydn used it for his that this is a golden treasure trove of riveting Farewell Symphony and for one of his late musical rhetoric, elevated, intricately woven piano trios as well, so he clearly responded to round-table discussions that make for an en- its severe, somewhat astringent tonal flavor. gaging concert experience. It is music for which The first movement of this quartet, designated we have a deep love and which we feel we can unusually spirituoso, features a bold, some- illuminate effectively through the medium of times symphonic palette with a quite wide the string quartet. range of register. It opens with a bold, rhyth- The Art of the Fugue as a whole forms a sort mic unison statement from the whole quartet, of treatise comprising a set of discussions re- to which the first violin responds with a lonely, lated to a common theme. Imagine hosting a tentative figure. However, it is the strength of series of fascinating evenings devoted to dis- the opening gesture, rather than the pathos of coursing on politics, or a specific political prob- the reply, that stamps the movement as a lem, dealing with one main insight on each whole, a depiction of restless, celebra- such evening. In much the same way as such a t o r y Jovian energy. Only at the end of each series of evening sessions would, we find that major section does the music find a quieter this set of fugues exhibits a certain shared place where it can repose briefly. “aboutness,” rooted in descent from a common The second movement showcases a particu- fugue subject. Sometimes other, secondary sub- lar genius of Haydn’s, the expression of great PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES beauty through simple means. Here we tained suspenseful pedal points, unexpected have a patient Andante setting wherein harmonic shifts, massive unisons, and not least a melody walks up and down the scale, harmo- of all, the abrupt strength of the emphatic clos- nized glowingly, measured out in the plainest ing cadence. of musical periods. In the course of the move- —Misha Amory ment, major-key sections alternate strophi- cally with minor-key ones, returning in a Quartet in F-sharp Major, Op. 142 different variation each time, a favorite slow- Dmitri Shostakovich movement form for the composer. The major- Beginning in stark bleakness with the 11th key music is radiant, unassuming, reflective; the quartet, Shostakovich’s tetralogy of quartets, minor-key darker, more troubled, more sophis- dedicated to each of the members of the ticated. The final return of the major-key Beethoven Quartet in turn, finds its peroration section sets the cello part in its high, bel with the 14th, open to the fragile possibility of canto register (a star turn for the cello-playing light. The Beethoven Quartet premiered each King Frederick?), where it plays a close duet of Shostakovich’s quartets starting from the sec- with the second violin before concluding the ond and thus served as the mouthpiece for movement with emphatic chords. some of the composer’s most vulnerable and in- The third movement is on the one hand a timate utterances. The 11th had been dedicated typical, genial Haydn minuet; on the other, it is to Vasily Shirinsky, the second violinist of the a subtly unifying force for the other movements quartet, who had passed away. The Beethoven of the quartet. Like the first movement, it fea- Quartet considered disbanding at the time and tures some “large” writing—grand arpeggios, it was in part at Shostakovich’s urging that they unison writing to provide emphasis, a wide reg- continued. The dedicatee of the 14th is Sergei ister. From the second movement, it inherits a Shirinsky, brother of Vasily and the cellist of the preoccupation with the tension between major ensemble, still playing when the 14th quartet and minor; although the movement as a whole was written (1972-1973). A genial and enthusi- is in a major key, the main section of the min- astic man, he had known Shostakovich for uet has minor-key “coloring,” and the entire trio nearly 50 years at the time. So this grouping of is in minor, a grave, contrapuntal examination. four quartets begins in absence and finds its It is this trio section that prefigures the Finale, way toward a sense of presence, continuity, and in its rather learned interplay of voices, its evo- the perpetuation of a musical voice. cation of elevated discourse. Shostakovich has always seemed to me to The final movement is a fugue, a form where have a sort of spiritual link with Schubert in his the voices enter one at a time, each in its depiction of forces that are fateful and inhuman, turn stating the “subject”—the topic that is to his lyrical gift, and in his recognition of states be discussed, so to speak. Haydn, in his Op. 20 of radiance that are clearly seen from without, at quartets, had undergone a period of fascination a distance. Some of this is in evidence at the with fugal finales. This one, with its severe start of the Quartet in F-sharp Major . A group intervallic outline and light rhythmic character, of three repeated notes is an favorite Shosta - recalls the finale of Op. 20, No. 6, which itself kovich motif: a series of knocks, a brutal insis- can perhaps claim a lineage back to tence, a rupture in time. Here are six intoned Bach’s Musical Offering. With the present fugue, notes, the idea doubled, a set-up for a serious however, there is no claim to a great polyphonic reckoning with the forces that be. However, as edifice such as that one; here we have a move- it recedes it reveals an innocent, insouciant ment less than three minutes long, wherein all theme, goodnatured and scarcely recognizable is lightness, grace, and wit. Many an erudite as the Shostakovich of the previous quartets. As fugal trick is employed, but the listener is it progresses we are thrown a few cheeky notes equally likely to be struck by the move- as if the composer peeks out from behind to as- m e n t ’s dramatic gestures: sudden silences, sus- sure us it is still him.

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