Sunday, November 22, 2015, 7pm Hertz Hall Danish Frederik Øland, Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, violin Asbjørn Nørgaard, Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin,

PROGRAM

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) String Quartet in C major, Op. 54, No. 2 (1788) Vivace Adagio Menuetto: Allegretto Finale: Adagio — Presto — Adagio

Thomas Adès (b. 1971) , Op. 12 (1994) I. Venezia notturno II. Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schon III. Auf dem Wasser zu singen IV. Et… (tango mortal) V. L’Embarquement VI. O Albion VII. Lethe

INTERMISSION

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135 (1826) Allegretto Vivace Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo Der schwer gefasste Entschluss: Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Es muss sein! Grave, ma non troppo tratto; Allegro

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19 PROGRAM NOTES

Joseph Haydn (6<87–6=5>) systematically victimized by publishers String Quartet in C major, Op. :9, No. 7 throughout his career, replied without sympathy, “Thus Herr Tost has swindled you; Composed in @FGG. you can claim your damages in .”) Perhaps to augment their market value, the six By the 1780s, Haydn’s fame in was quartets were issued in two sets of three immense. His music first appeared there in compositions each as Opp. 54 and 55, a January 1764 , when the publisher de la procedure that Haydn apparently approved Chevardiàre brought out “ Six Symphonies ou since he permitted Artaria in Vienna to publish Equators Dialogués ,” which were not them in the same manner soon thereafter. Such symphonies at all but rather Haydn’s Op. 1 entrepreneurial success encouraged Tost to try String Quartets. Nevertheless, the vogue for the his hand at commerce, and by 1790 he had compositions of this “Maître de Musique à abandoned music as a career and settled in Vienne,” as de la Chevardiàre’s edition dubbed Vienna as a cloth merchant. During that same this Viennese master of music, grew rapidly. In year, he married Maria Anna von Jerlischek, a March 1764, Venier issued Haydn’s Symphony wealthy lady attached to the household of No. 2 in C, and six string trios were printed by Prince Nicholas Esterházy, and he used her de la Chevardiàre later that year. The demand fortune as collateral for his burgeoning for Haydn’s music in Paris became so great that business. It is unknown whether Haydn publishers procured pieces by some of his dedicated the Op. 54 Quartets to “the wholesale followers and passed them off as his original merchant Johann Tost” out of admiration for compositions. So pervasive was this practice his playing while in the Esterházy , or that more spurious than authentic for his assistance in the dealings with Sieber compositions appeared under Haydn’s name (Tost also helped with the Viennese publication in Paris between 1775 and 1780. By the time of the Quartets), but the “Tost” Quartets are Haydn contributed his six “Paris” Symphonies among the most lustrous jewels in the diadem to Le Concert de la Loge Olympique in 1786 of the composer’s . and 1787, his compositions had become some The Quartet in C major (Op. 54, No. 2) is, at of the most sought-after music in Paris. once, a tribute to Tost and one of Haydn’s most Haydn capitalized on his Parisian notoriety daring formal experiments. Though Haydn by composing a half-dozen string quartets and here preserved much of the conversation- two symphonies (Nos. 88 and 89) in 1787– among-equals quality of the quartet form that 1788 to sate the French appetite for his works. is among his greatest contributions to this He gave the scores of these new compositions branch of musical composition, the first violin to Johann Tost, the principal second violinist throughout is given a featured role, soaring in his orchestra at Esterháza from 1783 to repeatedly into its highest register, leading the 1788, who left his post in March 1788 to try ensemble in the presentation of thematic his luck in Paris as a soloist; Haydn entrusted material, rising in intricately constructed arches him with negotiating a deal for engraving the above the background of the other instruments. symphonies and quartets with the publisher Indeed, the Adagio almost becomes a miniature Sieber. The sly Tost, however, sold Sieber not concerto movement as the violin drapes its two but three symphonies, the third being a intricate musings across the melancholy piece by Adalbert Gyrowetz that the violinist chorale tune of the lower strings. Haydn’s taste passed off as Haydn’s. (Gyrowetz later had for innovation in this Quartet elicits surprise enormous difficulty persuading French bordering on shock. On the very first page of musicians that this was, indeed, his work. the score, for instance, the main theme begins, When Sieber complained about this shady deal as it should, boldly and with clear purpose, but to Haydn, the composer, who had been before even its first phrase is completed, it

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES disintegrates into fragments and silence. A won the Second Prize in the BBC Young second try produces the same indecisive result. Musician of the Year Competition in 1989. Only when the music drops into a wildly That same year he entered King’s College, unrelated key does it seem able to sustain itself, Cambridge, where his principal teachers but then needs some quick shifts of harmony included Hugh Wood, Alexander Goehr, and to get back into its proper formal track. All of Robin Holloway, and he began establishing his this within just the first two-dozen measures. reputation as a composer when the BBC Similar musical legerdemain is performed in Philharmonic under Mathias Bamert played the Menuetto . The strains that fill the movement’s his Chamber Symphony at the Cambridge outer sections—so pleasing in themselves that Festival in 1990; he graduated from their relationship to the little two-note falling Cambridge in 1992 with highest honors. Other motive which served as the first movement’s works of sharply defined but greatly varied second theme could easily be overlooked— character quickly brought Adès to wide stand in startling juxtaposition to the solemn, prominence—the piano solos Still Sorrowing minor-mode plaint that occupies the central and Darknesse Visible , the song cycles Five Eliot episode. Most unconventional of all, however, Landscapes and Life Story , and Catch and Living is the Quartet’s finale. The movement begins, Toys for chamber orchestra—and in 1993 he as some finales do, with a stately introduction was appointed Composer-in-Association to the in slow tempo. This introduction, though, Hallé Orchestra; he composed These Premises grows and grows, until it seems that it will take Are Alarmed in 1996 for the Hallé’s inaugural over the entire movement. Just as that thought concert in the new Bridgewater Hall in settles in, however, Haydn breaks off his Manchester. His , based Adagio , and sends in a rambunctious Presto , on the story of the uninhibited Duchess of the perfect music for a spirited ending. But just Argyll, created an international sensation when when the music appears headed for its closing it was premièred at the Cheltenham Festival in gestures, the Presto halts on an inconclusive 1995, and it has since been heard in , harmony, the music draws a short breath, and Berkeley, Aspen, Magdeburg, New York, the movement turns its closing measures over Helsinki, Brisbane, and Aldeburgh. In 1997, to the stately music with which it began. One of Adès was appointed Britten Professor of the wonders of Haydn’s genius is the manner in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music; which such daring, even brazen originality is he has also served as Artistic Director of the molded into music of polish, suavity, and Aldeburgh Festival and Music Director of the apparent inevitability. Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. He was Resident Composer with the Los Angeles Thomas Adès (b. 6><6) Philharmonic from 2005 to 2007, and held the Arcadiana, Op. 67 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer Chair at Carnegie Hall in 2007–2008. He is also Composed in @HHC. Premièred on November @E, active as a pianist and conductor, with many @HHC, in Cambridge, England, by the concert and broadcast performances in Endellion Quartet. Europe, America, and Japan. Adès’s quickly accumulating list of distinctions includes the Not since the youthful days of Paris Rostrum (1994, for , judged has a young British composer created such the best piece by a composer under 30), 1997 excitement as Thomas Adès. Adès ( ah -diss), Royal Philharmonic Society Prize (for ), born in London on March 1, 1971, studied Elise L. Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music piano with Paul Berkowitz and composition Society of Lincoln Center ( 1998 , for with Robert Saxton at the Guildhall School of Arcadiana ), Salzburg Easter Festival Prize Music before first coming to notice when he (1999), Munich Ernst von Siemens Prize for PROGRAM NOTES

Young Composers (1999), a 1999 Mercury alludes to the eponymous Schubert Lied. The Prize nomination (for the recording of Asyla on title of movement V [ L’Embarquement ] derives EMI), 2000 Grawemeyer Prize (for Asyla , the from Watteau’s painting The Embarkation from youngest composer to receive that prestigious the Island of Cythera in the Louvre. Movement award, the largest international prize for VII [ Lethe ] bears the name of the mythical River composition, since its inception in 1985), and of Oblivion. The second [ Das klinget so herrlich, an honorary doctorate from the University of das klinget so schön ] and sixth movements [ O Essex (2004); in November 2010, he was Albion ] inhabit pastoral Arcadias, respectively named Musical America ’s “Composer of the Mozart’s ‘Kingdom of Night’ [i.e., recalling the Year.” London’s Barbican Centre staged a enchanted bells by which Papageno calms retrospective festival of Adès’s work in 2007 . His Monostatos and his slaves in the Act I finale of most recent opera, , commissioned The Magic Flute ] and more local fields [i.e, the by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, elegiac Nimrod movement of Elgar’s Enigma was greeted with great acclaim upon its Variations ]. At the dead centre is the fourth première in London in February 2004; the movement [ Et... (tango mortale) ], bearing part work received its American première at Santa of the Latin inscription on a tomb which Fe Opera in July 2006, was first staged, with Poussin depicts being discovered by shepherds: the composer conducting, at the Metropolitan Et in Arcadia ego (‘Even in Arcady am I’).” Opera in 2012, and is seen, again under his baton, at the Vienna Staatsoper in 2015. (6<<5–6=7<) The distinguished critic Andrew Porter String Quartet No. 6; in F major, Op. 68: wrote of Adès’s creative personality, “In work after work—non-repeating, non-formulaic, Composed in @GAE. Premièred on March AB, untainted by ‘hype,’ each score an excited new @GAG, in Vienna by the Schuppanzigh Quartet. adventure—he has created personal sounds and forms while generously and gratefully Beethoven’s last year was one of emotional and embracing sonic and technical inspiration physical stress, occasioned not only by the suggested by masters from Couperin and declining state of his health (deafness, of Mussorgsky to Ligeti and Kurtág.... The old course, as well as gout and a serious and painful basics are freshly heard and ordered: the clash or intestinal inflammation), but also by the consonance of note against note; the force of an difficult relationship with his nephew Karl, intervallic leap; ticking time against time whose custody he had won from his widowed disordered; traditional timbres invaded and sister-in-law in a vicious court battle in 1820. challenged by strange sounds never made Karl had proven to be a continuing trial for the before.... Thomas Adès is the bright new star of bachelor Beethoven, and by 1825 (he was 19), British music.” he had acquired an unsavory local reputation Of Arcadiana , composed in 1994 for the as a financial deadbeat, womanizer, and Endellion Quartet and premièred on November general ne’er-do-well. Beethoven harangued 16th at that year’s Cambridge Elgar Festival, him incessantly about his conduct (much of Adès wrote in a preface to the score, “Each of which was probably brought on by teenage the seven titles which comprise Arcadiana rebellion against his gruff and domineering evokes an image associated with ideas of the uncle), and by July 1826, matters came to a idyll, vanishing, vanished or imaginary. The head with Karl’s attempted suicide. To spite his odd -numbered movements are all aquatic, and uncle, Karl chose to shoot himself in the head would be musically continuous if played in the Helenenthal, one of the composer’s consecutively. Movement I [ Venezia notturno ] favorite spots in all of Vienna, but he was not suggests an ethereal Venetian barcarolle. sufficiently dedicated to this exercise to make Movement III [ Auf dem Wasser zu singen ] a success of it. Karl was hospitalized until late

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES

September, after which he and Uncle Ludwig Beethoven chided Dembscher for not spent the next three months at the Gneixendorf attending the première of the Quartet the estate of the composer’s brother Johann, a preceding month, and refused him use of the successful apothecary, when it was decided to parts. Dembscher asked , the get the lad out of Vienna (where suicide was a composer’s amanuensis during those months, crime) by enlisting him in the army. Beethoven to intervene, and he suggested that appealed for help to Stephen von Breuning, a Dembscher send , whose member of the Austrian War Council and his quartet had given the première, an long-time friend and patron (the Violin honorarium of 50 florins, the price of a Concerto was dedicated to him), who found a subscription to his concerts. “Muss es sein?” place for Karl in Field Marshal Joseph von Dembscher asked. “Es muss sein!” Holz Stutterheim’s regiment at Iglau. Uncle and replied. When Holz recounted this exchange, Beethoven exploded into laughter, and nephew returned to Vienna in December, immediately tossed off a comic little vocal staying along the way at a miserable inn canon (WoO 196) whose motive and text were whose damp, drafty rooms exacerbated based on Holz’s reply: “It must be, it certainly Beethoven’s illnesses. (Karl was sent for a must. Put cash on the table.” doctor immediately upon their arrival in the The F major Quartet was composed mostly city, but stopped first for a game of billiards.) during August and September 1826, as much The nephew was finally bundled off to the to keep Beethoven’s mind off Karl’s army on January 2, 1827; ten weeks later, hospitalization as to fulfill the commission Beethoven was dead. Karl served for five from Schlesinger, and it was largely sketched undistinguished years in the military and then by the time uncle and nephew arrived at became a farm manager. The estates that he Gneixendorf at the beginning of October; the inherited first from Ludwig and, in 1848, from score was completed before the end of the Johann allowed him to live in comfort until month. Beethoven’s health deteriorated his death at the age of 52 in 1858. rapidly after his return to Vienna in The creation of the Quartet in F major, December, however, and plans for the quick Beethoven’s last complete work (his only première of the work collapsed; it was not subsequent music was a new finale for the given publicly until the Schuppanzigh Quartet Op. 130 Quartet to replace the ), played it in Vienna on March 28, 1828, one wrapped around the painful events of his final year and two days after its composer’s death. months. The earliest sketches date from April The score was published by Schlesinger the 1826, when he misled the Berlin publisher previous September, when it appeared with a Moritz Schlesinger, for whom he had agreed dedication to Beethoven’s friend Johann the previous year to supply two quartets but Wolfmayer, a cloth merchant who on several to that date had delivered only the Op. 132, by occasions replaced the composer’s ratty top implying that “a new quartet [i.e., Op. 135] coat with a fine new one and who, a decade will be finished in two or three weeks at the earlier, had commissioned (and paid an latest.” Though it was to be three months advance of 1,000 florins) for a Requiem Mass before Beethoven undertook serious work on Beethoven was still planning to write at the the Quartet, at least one thematic idea for the time of his death. piece is known to have originated in April— The Op. 135 Quartet, the shortest such the text/music epigram that heads the finale: work that Beethoven composed except for “Muss es sein? Es muss sein! ” (“Must it be? It Op. 18, No. 2, stands in its sunny demeanor must be!”). Ignaz Dembscher, a court official and compact scale as a kind of optimistic and long-time friend and admirer of the pendant to the visionary profundities of the composer, asked if he could borrow the parts other late quartets. Holz reported Beethoven for the Op. 130 Quartet so that he could give telling him that this brevity was occasioned by a performance of the new piece at his home. what he contended was the underpayment of PROGRAM NOTES fees by his publisher (“If he sends me short sublime introspection and rapturous stillness, money, I’ll send him short quartets”), but it rarely rises above a stage whisper. Over the seems more likely, as with the Fourth and opening theme, which serves as the subject for Eighth symphonies, that he was simultaneously a series of free variations, Beethoven wrote, relaxing after the rigors of creating a vast “Süsser Ruhegesang, Friedengesang ”—“Sweet musical canvas (the seven-movement Quartet, restful song [or lullaby], song of peace.” It is Op. 131) and allowing the more unbuttoned not impossible that this phrase had side of his creative personality to emerge. “The autobiographical import for the composer, F major Quartet does not attempt to plumb the then 56 years old and seriously ill. Just as the depths of human experience,” wrote Roger Quartet was nearing completion, he wrote to Fiske, “yet it achieves something very near his old friend Franz Wegeler, “I still hope to perfection in its own humorous, epigrammatic give several more great works to the world, and way.” The qualities of relaxation and good then, like a tired child, to end my earthly cheer are exhibited by the opening movement, existence among friendly souls.” a self-conscious evocation of the gracious and The cryptic legend heading the finale— Der genteel chamber works with which Haydn and schwer gefasste Entschluss. Muss es sein? Es muss Mozart dominated Viennese musical society sein! (“The difficult resolution. Must it be? It when Beethoven first arrived in the city from must be!”)—apparently arose from the playful Bonn three decades before. The half-dozen canon that Beethoven wrote for Dembscher in distinct motives comprising the main theme are April, but six months later, when the motives discussed in a warm conversational manner by derived from its syllables gave rise to the the participants before the music passes onto its principal theme of this movement, it may have formal second subject, initiated by a rocket taken on a more philosophical implication for phrase shot into the highest reaches of the the composer—the quintessential question of violin’s range from the launching pad of a the acceptance of his own mortality. (The scurrying arpeggiated accompaniment in triplet manuscript is inscribed in French in the rhythms. The exposition is not repeated. The composer’s hand, “ Dernier [last] quatuor de tiny development section is allowed enough Beethoven .”) The slow introduction, the only time only to engage the triplet accompaniment tragic passage in the entire work, is hewn from and a single idea from the first theme before the the falling shape of the motive “ Muss es sein? ” colloquium returns to the expressive and formal but the main body of the sonata-form security of the recapitulation. movement forges its joyous resolve from the If the first movement borrows its demeanor rising reply: Es muss sein! Once, to join the from the late 18th century, the scintillating development to the recapitulation, the tragic Vivace , the Quartet’s scherzo, is decidedly a music returns, but its melancholic emotions are product of Beethoven’s final creative period. soon dispelled by the Quartet’s jubilant close. The syncopations, cross accents, and “The F major Quartet is the work of a man harmonic abruptness of the outer sections of who is fundamentally at peace,” wrote J.W.N. this three-part movement (A–B–A) are drawn Sullivan. “It is the peace of a man who from the expressive and technical realm of the has known conflict, but whose conflicts are quartets immediately preceding this one, now reminiscent. There is no real conflict while the central trio posits a melody that tries depicted in the last movement; the portentous to fly completely beyond the limits of the question meets with a jovial, almost exultant violin and a whirring accompaniment figure answer, and the ending is one of perfect whose dogged repetitions nearly transform it confidence. It would appear that at the end of into some kind of demonic ostinato. his life, the inner Beethoven, the Beethoven George R. Marek stated, flatly, “I think that who expressed himself in music, was content.” the slow movement is the most beautiful piece of music ever composed.” This Lento , music of © A?@D Dr. Richard E. Rodda

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MBODYING the quintessential elements of a The Danish String Quartet’s 2015–2016 sea - Echamber music ensemble, the Danish son includes a release of their début disc on String Quartet has established a reputation for ECM Records, a first-time tour of China as their integrated sound, impeccable intonation well as summer performances at the Mostly and judicious balance. With their technical Mozart Festival, Maverick Concerts, Cape Cod and interpretive talents matched by an infec - Chamber Music Festival, Toronto Summer tious joy for music-making and “rampaging Music Festival, and Ottawa Chamberfest. energy” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker ), the International highlights include concerts in quartet is in demand worldwide by concert Berlin, Copenhagen, Glasgow, and London, and festival presenters alike. Since making and a début at the Louvre Museum in their début in 2002 at the Copenhagen Paris. With increasing popularity, the Danish Festival, the group of musical friends has String Quartet is considered one of the most demonstrated a passion for Scandinavian sought-after chamber ensembles in the world. composers, who they frequently incorporate Their repertoire is diverse, from Nielsen, into adventurous contemporary programs, Abrahamsen, Adès, and Shostakovich to while also proving skilled and profound per - Beethoven, Mendelssohn, , and formers of the classical masters. In 2012 , Haydn. Currently in their third season with The New York Times selected the Quartet’s the CMS Two program, they will perform all concert as a highlight of the year, saying the four of the Nielsen string quartets in the Rose performance featured “one of the most pow - Studio and the final concert of a six-concert erful renditions of Beethoven’s Op. 132 String Beethoven cycle at Alice Tully Hall. This past Quartet that I’ve heard live or on a recording.” November, the Quartet launched their record - This scope of talent secured them a three- ing of Danish folksongs entitled Wood Works, year appointment in the coveted Chamber released by the Dacapo label and distributed Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS by Naxos, at SubCulture in New York. It was Two Program that began in the 2013–2014 selected by NPR as one of the best classical al - season. The Quartet was also named as a bums of 2014 , and the Quartet was featured BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist for on an NPR Tiny Desk Concert performing 2013–2015. works from the highly acclaimed album. ABOUT THE ARTISTS

In addition to their New York perform - The Danish String Quartet was awarded ances, the Quartet’s robust North American First Prize in the Vagn Holmboe String schedule takes them to Ann Arbor, Seattle, Quartet Competition and the Charles Hennen Orange County, Santa Barbara, Phoenix, International Chamber Music Competition in Buffalo, Durham, Humboldt, Cedar Falls, and Holland, and the Audience Prize in the Calgary this season, as well as two weeks of Trondheim International String Quartet residency activities and performances at Cal Competition in 2005. They were awarded the Performances. The Quartet will make their 2010 Nordmetall Ensemble Prize at the début at the Savannah Music Festival in spring Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in 2016. Last season, the Quartet presented the Germany and, in 2011, received the presti - U.S. première of Danish composer Thomas gious Carl Nielsen Prize. Agerfeldt Olesen’s Quartet No. 7, “The In 2006, the Quartet was Danish Radio’s Extinguishable,” at the University of Chicago Artist-in-Residence, giving them the oppor - Presents series and subsequently performed tunity to record all of Carl Nielsen’s string the work in St. Paul, Santa Barbara, Pasadena, quartets in the Danish Radio Concert Hall, New Haven, Gainesville, Jacksonville, and subsequently released to critical acclaim on Laramie. In addition to its commitment to the Dacapo label in 2007 and 2008. In 2012, highlighting Scandinavian composers, the the Quartet released an equally acclaimed Danish String Quartet derives great pleasure recording of Haydn and Brahms quartets on in traditional Scandinavian folk music. the German AVI-music label. They recorded The Danish String Quartet made their works by Brahms and Fuchs with award-win - West Coast début in summer 2013 at ning clarinetist Sebastian Manz at the Music@Menlo. They returned to Menlo in 2014 Bayerische Rundfunk in Munich, released by to perform programs of Haydn and Beethoven AVI-music in 2014, and recently signed with quartets as part of a busy summer festival ECM Records for future recording projects. schedule that also included performances in Violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Ireland, France, and at home in Denmark. Tonsgaard Sørensen and violist Asbjørn Since winning the Danish Radio P2 Nørgaard met as children at a music summer Chamber Music Competition in 2004, the camp, where they played both football and Quartet has been greatly desired throughout music together, eventually making the transi - Denmark, and in October 2015 they presented tion into a serious string quartet in their teens the ninth annual DSQ-Musikfest, a four-day and studying at Copenhagen’s Royal Academy event held in Copenhagen that brings together of Music. In 2008, the three Danes were musical friends the Quartet has met on its trav - joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen els. In 2009, the Quartet won First Prize at the Sjölin. The Danish String Quartet was prima - eleventh London International String Quartet rily taught and mentored by Professor Tim Competition, as well as four additional prizes Frederiksen and have participated in master from the same jury. This competition is now classes with the Tokyo and Emerson string called the Wigmore Hall International String quartets, Alasdair Tait, Paul Katz, Hugh Quartet Competition, and the Danish String Maguire, Levon Chilingirian, and Gábor Quartet has performed at the famed hall on Takács-Nagy. Visit the Quartet online at several occasions. They returned to Wigmore www.danishquartet.com. Hall in March 2015 to perform a program of Haydn and Shostakovich.

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