Sunday, April 10, 2016, 3pm Hertz Hall Brentano

Mark Steinberg, violin Misha Amory, Serena Canin, violin Nina Lee, PROGRAM (1685-1750) Selections from The Art of the , BWV 1080 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 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. What is going on here? PROGRAM NOTES

In Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin writes the bearer of eternal truth, the rational, and the “Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I beautiful, in service of eternal life, the object of don’t know, but they have scarcely seen their which, he claims, is enjoyment. Kovrin, the garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, writer, frets that he is mad, that the monk is not perhaps, life only offers the choice of remem- real, to which the apparition replies “I exist in bering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or; it your imagination, and your imagination is part takes strength to remember, it takes another of nature, so I exist in nature.” Later in the tale, kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do Kovrin’s wife espies him talking to what seems both. People who remember court madness to be an empty chair (speaking of joy as the through pain, the pain of the perpetually re- normal state of man) and declares him mad. curring death of their innocence; people who Doctors are called on to “cure” him of his mad- forget court another kind of madness, the mad- ness. Parted from his hallucination he grows ness of the denial of pain and the hatred of in- weary, heavy, ordinary, and unhappy. The gar- nocence; and the world is mostly divided den is in ruins. His marriage is in ruins. At his between madmen who remember and mad- deathbed, the Black Monk appears to him one men who forget. Heroes are rare.” Shostakovich last time and says to him, “Why did you not be- was often criticized for what many considered lieve me? If you had believed me then, that you to be a cowardly stance in the nearly impossible were a genius, you would not have spent these political climate of the mid-20th century USSR. two years so gloomily and so wretchedly.” Upon His truer nature, that of an artist, however, his death, Kovrin is found in a puddle of blood evinced heroism in his ability to live as a wit- with a “blissful smile” on his face. ness in his world without extinguishing an Analogies with Shostakovich’s own fraught ember of hope, belief, and goodness. And here life and the radiance of his gift are easily made. in the 14th quartet we find some writing that is The tale speaks of joy that is perpetually avail- utterly guileless, as if Shostakovich is holding able, even when it looks to all the wretched on to some part of himself protected as one world to be madness. And it may be that would protect a child from the harshness of the Shosta kovich wanted to make a connection be- outer world. It is an uneasy amalgam of Edenic tween this story and the 14th quartet. There is purity and the depiction of struggle, toggling a reference to Braga’s Angel’s Serenade in the between them and bringing them into con- story, sung by Kovrin’s wife with the accompa- frontation without resolution. (Again, a niment of a violin, about “a maiden…who Schubertian state of affairs.) heard one night in her garden mysterious This quartet marks the end of a nearly year- sounds, so strange and lovely that she was long fallow period that caused the composer obliged to recognize them as a holy harmony much anxiety. His compositional voice was his which is unintelligible to us mortals, and so flies truth; lack of access to that voice left him bereft. back to heaven.” Shostakovich arranged the ser- At the same time as he was writing the quartet, enade in the same year as he wrote this quartet Shostakovich was planning a one-act opera (surely in preparation for the opera), and the based on Chekhov’s short story “The Black climax of the second movement of this work Monk,” a project that was ultimately to go un- may very well refer to it (an idea put forward by realized. But themes in this story may illumi- Laurel Fay). Shostakovich called this his “Italian nate some of the characteristics of the 14th bit” and it gave him much pleasure. The second quartet. In the story, a glorious, fertile garden, a movement begins with a first violin line that is sort of Eden, plays a large role, and there is a pre-echo of the confessional song of the cello, much concern about the garden becoming bar- the main protagonist of this work, to follow. It is ren and unkempt. Chekhov describes as well an a sort of empathy offered before the fact, and apparition, the eponymous Black Monk, who when the climax is reached with the cello appears to the protagonist to tell him that he is singing up high with parallel support from the a genius writer, that he is divinely chosen to be first violin (the two remaining original players

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES of the Beethoven Quartet) there is a sense of a a powerful sort of alchemy here, a return to a partnership that enables a reaching beyond. childlike state of play, an ability to see without There is a possibility that Shostakovich at one being overtaken. (César Aira: “Children have a point contemplated suicide and intended the very special attachment to the incomprehensi- eighth quartet to be his final work in 1960. In ble; there’s so much they don’t understand at that work, the motif of three repeated notes is that age, they have no choice but to love it, used often to chilling and disturbing effect. blindly, like an enigma, but also like a world. It Here the last movement of the 14th quartet teaches them what love is.”) The movement starts with the same repeated notes (used al- deals in memory and the holding of memories, ready at the start of the piece), in this instance, some intense and painful, without being con- however, cautiously impish, and Shostakovich sumed. The music wanders and drifts and fi- uses them to spell out in musical notes cellist nally vanishes, despite everything, with a Sergei Shirinsky’s nickname, Seryozha, There is blissful smile on its face. —Mark Steinberg

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The Brentano String Quartet has appeared Christine Brandes), and a new viola quintet by throughout the world to popular and critical ac- Felipe Lara (performed with violist Hsin-Yun claim since its inception in 1992. In 2014, the Huang). In 2012, the quartet provided the cen- ensemble succeeded the Tokyo Quartet as tral music (Beethoven Op. 131) for the ac- artists-in-residence at Yale University, depart- claimed independent film A Late Quartet. ing from their 14-year residency at Princeton The Brentano String Quartet has worked University. The quartet also currently serves as closely with other important composers of our the collaborative ensemble for the Van Cliburn time, among them Elliot Carter, Charles International Piano Competition. Wuorinen, Chou Wen-chung, Bruce Adolphe, The group has performed in the world’s most and György Kurtág. The ensemble has also prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and been privileged to collaborate with such artists Alice Tully Hall in New York; the Library of as soprano Jessye Norman and Richard Congress in Washington, DC; the Concert - Goode and Mitsuko Uchida. gebouw in Amsterdam; the Konzerthaus in The ensemble is named for Antonie Vienna; Suntory Hall in Tokyo; and the Sydney Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Opera House. The Brentano String Quartet Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” the intended made its first European tour in 1997, and was recipient of his famous confession of love. honored in the UK with the Royal Philhar - monic Award for Most Outstanding Debut. The ensemble is known for its imaginative The Brentano String Quartet appears by projects combining old and new music, such as arrangement with David Rowe Artists. Fragments: Connecting Past and Present and Bach Perspectives. Among the quartet’s latest www.davidroweartists.com collaborations with contemporary composers is a new work by Steven Mackey, One Red Rose, The Brentano String Quartet records for AEON commemorating the 50th anniversary of the as- (distributed by Allegro Media Group). sassination of President John F. Kennedy. Other recent commissions include a by www.brentanoquartet.com Vijay Iyer, a work by Eric Moe (with soprano