Sunday, November 12, 201 7, 3pm Hertz Hall tetzlaff Quartet , Elisabeth Kufferath, violin Hanna weinmeister, viola , cello

PROGRAM

Quartet No. 16 in E-flat Major, (1756 –1791) K. 428 (K. 421b) Allegro non troppo Andante con moto Menuetto & trio Allegro vivace

Alban BERG (1885 –1935) Quartet, Op. 3 Langsam Mässige Viertel

INTERMISSION

Franz SCHUBERt (1797 –1828) Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D. 887 Allegro molto moderato Andante un poco moto Scherzo: Allegro vivace – trio: Allegretto Allegro assai

Recordings available on the CAvi Music and Ondine labels. The Tetzlaff Quartet appears by arrangement with CM Artists.

This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Will and Linda Schieber. Cal Performances’ 2017 –18 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

19 PROGRAM NOTES

Quartet No. 16 in E-flat Major, eras, and by the composer himself, who insisted K. 428 (K. 421b) that the Parisian publisher Sieber pay consider - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ably more for them than for a set of three Of all the famous composer pairs—Bach and concertos. “the ‘Haydn’ Quartets are models of Handel, Bruckner and Mahler, Debussy and perfection,” wrote Homer Ulrich, “not a false ges - Ravel—only Mozart and Haydn were friends. ture; not a faulty proportion. the six quartets Mozart first mentioned his acquaintance with stand as the finest examples of Mozart’s genius.” Haydn in a letter to his father on April 24, 1784, Mozart played the first three of the quartets but he probably had met the older composer (K. 387, K. 421, K. 428) for Haydn on January 15, soon after moving to Vienna three years earlier. 1785, and proudly sent a report on the occasion though his duties kept him across the border to his father in Salzburg, with which he en - in Hungary at Esterháza Palace for most of closed the scores for the new pieces. A month the year, Haydn usually spent the winters in later, on Friday, February 11th, Leopold arrived Vienna, and it is likely that he and Mozart at - for his only visit to Vienna following wolfgang’s tended or even played together at some of the marriage in 1782 (which Papa constantly de - many “ parties” that graced the so - cried). that same evening, Mozart whisked his cial calendars of the city’s music lovers during father to a concert at which he played the new the cold months. true friendship and mutual D- minor (K. 466), the first of admiration developed between the two master six heavily subscribed “Academies” he presented musicians, despite the 24 years difference in that spring. the next night Mozart gave a long- their ages, and they took a special delight in planned party for Leopold and several friends learning from and praising each other’s music. at his flat in Schulerstrasse at which the last Mozart’s greatest testament to his respect for three of the “Haydn” Quartets were introduced. Haydn is the set of six superb string quartets (K. 464 and K. 465 were finished on January composed between 1782 and 1785, and dedi - 10th and 14th; K. 458 was composed the previ - cated to his colleague upon their publication ous November.) Haydn and Mozart were joined in September 1785. “to my dear friend Haydn,” in the performance by their Masonic lodge read the inscription. “A father who had resolved brothers Anton and Bartholomäus tinti. in to send his children out into the great world took a letter to his daughter in Salzburg, Leopold, it to be his duty to confide them to the protec - bursting with pride over the accomplishments tion and guidance of a very celebrated Man, es - and recognition of his son in the imperial city, pecially when the latter by good fortune was at recorded the highlight of that soirée: “Herr the same time his best Friend.” these works are Haydn said to me: ‘i tell you before God and as not just charming souvenirs of personal senti - an honest man that your son is the greatest ments, however, but they also represent a sig - composer known to me either in person or by nificant advance in Mozart’s compositional style, name. He has taste and, what is more, the most for in them he assimilated the techniques of profound knowledge of composition.’” For the thematic development and thorough integra - father who had devoted so much of his life to tion of the instrumental voices that Haydn the training and nurturing of his extraordinary had perfected in his Op. 20 (1771) and Op. 33 son, that moment was, according Alfred Ein - quartets (1781). “they are,” Mozart noted in the stein, “the climax of his life.” dedication, “the fruit of long and laborious en - the E-flat Quartet, K. 428 (corrected to K. deavor,” a statement supported by the manu - 421b in Einstein’s revisions of Ludwig von scripts, which show more experimentation and Köchel’s catalog) was composed in June and correction than any other of his scores. the su - July 1783, just before Mozart and Constanze perior quality of the “Haydn” Quartets was rec - journeyed to Salzburg to convince Papa Leo - ognized both by the publisher Artaria, who pold of the wisdom of their marriage the year paid Mozart the extraordinary fee of 100 ducats, before. (they did not succeed.) the couple’s a sum usually reserved only for complete op - first child, Raimund Leopold, born on June 17,

20 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES i z z a t r e B a i g r o i G

1783, was placed with a nurse in their absence; for the next three-quarters of a century was pre - the baby died on August 18th, though the par - pared to follow that lead, however, so the theme ents seem not have learned of the tragedy until soon rights itself into E-flat Major, though the they returned to Vienna at the end of Novem - seed of chromatic ambiguity planted in the first ber. the emotional richness of Mozart’s new life measures sprouts in many phrases throughout as a husband, father, and family provider was the movement to cloud the bright home key. it almost certainly one of the reasons behind the is such peerless balancing of light and shadow, of increased depth of expression his music began pitting certainty against doubt in musical terms, to show at that time, a quality that appears with that is perhaps the greatest evidence of Mozart’s special force in the Quartet in E-flat Major. genius. there is simply no one else, not even though the elements of good taste and sonor - Haydn, who could have written this movement. ous beauty were always Mozart’s foremost con - the quest to burrow to the bedrock of feeling cerns in his compositions, Homer Ulrich noted continues in the Andante. wrote A. Hyatt King, that “during the last 10 years of his life, he gave “though the movement is in sonata form, there us music in which unrest, a degree of pessi - is little melody which lingers in the memory. mism, and some concern over the prospect the 96 bars are a richly harmonized, dream-like of death are reflected, however faintly.” the un - meditation, a quiet but restless inner searching settled quality of this work, the sense of strain - heightened by the use of chromatic syncopa - ing after strong emotional effect, is established tion. in all of Mozart’s , only the immediately with the main theme, one of Adagio of the great String trio of 1788 [K. 563] the most unusual opening gestures in Classical offers any comparison.” it is indicative of the na - music—an octave leap followed by a tortuous ture of this music that the formal second theme series of tonality-defying intervals played in bears a striking resemblance in its chromati - mysterious unison by all of the participants. cism and melodic leadings to a passage from Hans Keller pointed out that if Mozart had wagner’s Tristan und Isolde , the revolutionary followed the harmonic implications of this ex - work that was still 76 years in the future when traordinary motive, he would have produced Mozart penned these measures. there follows “something even more advanced historically an enormous Menuetto movement that bal - than Tristan .” Neither Mozart nor anyone else ances hammer-blow chords against a limpid

21 PROGRAM NOTES

lyrical phrase. the central trio provides a re - agreed to take Berg on as a pupil for free. A for - markable harmonic adventure that begins in tunate inheritance in 1905 made it possible for the morose key of C minor but ends in the Berg to leave his government job and devote tonality of B-flat Major, an absolutely unex - himself assiduously to his lessons. He began pected progression made graceful by the suavity composing in earnest under Schoenberg’s tute - and sophistication of Mozart’s style. the finale, lage, and had soon produced the Seven Early a rondo based on the kittenish theme presented Songs , the first work that he was to include in in the opening measures, is, appropriately, the his mature canon. A (Op. 1) fol - most cheerful movement of the quartet. the lowed in 1908, and a set of four songs (Op. 2) spirit and technique of Haydn are strongly evi - and a string quartet (Op. 3) two years later, by dent here, since Mozart borrowed such of his which time Berg considered that his musical friend’s procedures as instrumental interplay, apprenticeship had come to an end. He discon - sudden dynamic changes, and surprising si - tinued formal lessons with Schoenberg in 1910, lences. Perhaps the most Haydnesque passage though the two remained supportive friends occurs near the end of the movement, just be - and creative allies for the rest of their lives. fore the final return of the rondo theme, where in later years, after he had moved to the the melody seems to lose its way, disintegrate, United States, Schoenberg recalled that Berg’s and stop completely before remembering what String Quartet, Op. 3 marked the artistic eman - it was about and dashing toward the end. cipation of his student: “Alban, who had occu - pied himself extraordinarily intensely with String Quartet, Op. 3 contemporary music—with Mahler, Strauss, perhaps even Debussy, whose work i did not Alban Berg, the son of a prosperous salesman know, but certainly with my music—had a for a Viennese export firm, was early intro - burning desire to express himself no longer in duced to art and theater and music, and given the classical forms, harmonies, and melodic id - piano lessons as a matter of course during his ioms and their proper schemata of accompani - youth. Berg’s taste and knowledge of music ment, but in a manner in accordance with the matured rapidly, and by age 16, he had eagerly times, and with his own personality, which had begun to try his hand at composition, though a been developing in the meantime.... One thing series of events during the next few months— is sure: his string quartet surprised me in the the death of his father, failure to pass his high most unbelievable way by the fullness and un - school graduation examinations, the collapse of constraint in its musical language, the strength a passionate love affair—resulted in a depres - and surety of its presentation, its careful work - sion severe enough to cause him to attempt sui - ing-out and significant originality.” Berg’s String cide. He survived and managed to finish school Quartet, written during the spring and early in 1904, after which he went to work as an ap - summer of 1910, was first performed publicly at prentice (i.e., unpaid) accountant in the Aus - a little-noticed concert in Vienna on April 24th trian ministry that oversaw pigs and distilleries. of the following year. when it was given again, Berg’s ambition to be a musician weathered however, by the noted Havermann Quartet at these Kafkaesque difficulties, however, and he the international Society for Contemporary continued to compose. Just at that time, his Music Festival in Salzburg on August 2, 1923, it brother Charley spotted an advertisement in drew the attention of the prestigious assemblage a local newspaper announcing that Arnold of performers and critics in attendance, and was Schoen berg, whose reputation as an iconoclas - directly responsible for the establishment of tic modernist had been firmly established by Berg’s international r eputation. Offers came the premiere of his Verklärte Nacht in 1902, was from quartets and concert series in Germany accepting students in composition. Charley took and Scandinavia to program the work, and Emil some of Alban’s manuscripts to Schoenberg, Hertzka, the influential director of the contem - who saw such promise in the works that he porary music publishing firm Universal Edi -

22 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES tion, agreed to issue the work and Berg’s future May, and we cannot sit in any garden yet. scores. the premiere of the opera two Awful!” thus did report from years later, in Berlin in December 1925, marked Vienna on his sorry condition in the spring of Berg as one of the leading creative figures of 1826 to his friends Eduard von Bauernfeld and his generation. Ferdinand Mayer hofer, who were away enjoy - Berg’s String Quartet hovers in the richly ex - ing an extended tour through Carinthia and pressive zone that marks the boundary of late Upper Austria without him. the mood of the 19th-century chromatic harmony and modern often-lonely bachelor composer was further atonality. the sophistication and ease with dampened by news that the 58-year-old which he handled this revolutionary new lan - Michael Vogl, previously one of the leading guage in such an early work is remarkable, rival - lights of the Schu bertiads and an important ing in its technique and eloquence Schoen - early interpreter of Schubert’s vocal music, had berg’s Quartet No. 2 of 1908. the plan of Berg’s finally become engaged to be married. Bauern - quartet is unusual, consisting of just a thought - feld and Mayer hofer asked Schubert to join ful and lyrical opening movement and an agi - them in Linz, but, as usual, he barely had suffi - tated finale. though the forms of the two cient funds to meet his needs in Vienna and had movements are extensions of traditional struc - to pass on their invitation. He got only as far as tures (sonata and rondo), they are difficult to the suburb of währing that summer, where he follow on initial acquaintance because of the stayed with the family of the devoted musical continuous development of thematic motives, amateur Franz von Schober. the complex interplay among the instruments, Despite his declarations of inactivity, Schu - and the equivocacy of the harmonic vocabulary. bert completed a number of songs on texts by Repeated hearings reveal the sterling formal Shakespeare at währing in 1826, and set to logic and expert handling of motivic materials paper the String Quartet in G Major, which that inform the quartet, but until that level proved to be his final work in the form. He had of familiarity is achieved, the listener can be last broached the genre two years earlier with caught up in the ceaseless ebb and flow of the the quartets in A minor (D. 804) and D minor music’s sounds and feelings, of tension finely (D. 810, Death and the Maiden ), and the new accumulated and sensitively released, and of the G-Major Quartet may have been spurred by the vast range of innovative sonorities and timbral successful performance of the Death and the combinations that a modern master can draw Maiden quartet at the Viennese residence of the from the most tradition-laden of all chamber lawyer Josef Barth on February 1, 1826, as well ensembles. Following the 1923 Salzburg per - as by his attendance at the premiere of Beet - formance of his String Quartet, Berg summa - hoven’s Op. 130 Quartet (with the Grosse Fuge rized its effect upon him in a letter to his wife: as finale) on March 21st. though Schubert “the Havermann played it indescribably beau - dated the finished score of the G-Major Quartet tifully. i tell you— and I can tell only you —that i “June 10 –20, 1826,” he had almost certainly reveled in the sound and the solemn sweetness begun sketching this enormous creation during of my own music. the so-called wildest and the preceding weeks. the composer (as violist) riskiest passages were pure euphony in the clas - played through the piece informally with some sic sense. it was a glorious evening.” friends on March 7, 1827, and included the first movement on the only public concert entirely String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D. 887 of his works held during his lifetime, given in Franz Schubert the hall of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde “it is very sad and miserable here—boredom on March 26, 1828. that event, prompted and has taken the upper hand too much…. i am not sponsored by his circle of devoted friends, was working at all. the weather is truly appalling; a significant artistic and financial success, and the Almighty seems to have forsaken us alto - he used the proceeds to celebrate the occasion gether, for the sun simply refuses to shine. it is at a local tavern, pay off some old debts, acquire

23 PROGRAM NOTES

a new piano, and buy a ticket for Nicolò Paga - tually restored, and the cello and then the vio - nini’s sensational debut in Vienna three days lin tentatively continue the lyrical theme, but later. Schubert offered the quartet for publica - the melody is cut short once again by the vehe - tion to Schott in February 1828, along with the ment music. Finally, emotion spent, the move - Quartet in D minor, three operas, the Mass in ment tries to resume the mood of the opening, A-flat, the E-flat Piano trio, and several dozen but the earlier serenity has been replaced by a songs, but he was refused. the work was not wary enervation occasioned by the menacing played publicly again until 1850, and the score corridors through which the music has passed. was issued only in the following year. the anxious character of the quartet contin - Robert Haven Schauffler wrote of the G-Major ues in the quicksilver Scherzo, whose elfin trans - Quartet, “the chief characteristics of the music figurations of its basic motive—six quick notes are a forward-looking modernity surpassing followed by three longer ones—bring to mind even that of the D-minor Quartet, the rhapsodic Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Over - quality of certain themes, much of Schubert’s ture, composed in Berlin by that 17-year-old characteristic wavering between major and mi- wonder just one month after this quartet. the nor, the antiphonal play of upper against lower central trio, in the style of the Austrian Ländler , strings, a more marked orchestral quality, a ten - provides the only untroubled passage in the dency toward horizontal rather than vertical entire quartet. “it sounds like a glimpse of par - counterpoint, and a diffuseness that stretched the adise after the storm and stress of the first two work to an inordinate length.” the first move - movements,” commented John Reed in his ment is launched by a swelling chord that slips study of Schubert’s final years. from G Major to G minor as it leads to a tiny the finale is cast in the form of a vast rondo, leaping motive in craggy dotted rhythms. the though the episodes do not differ markedly in main theme, based on the leaping motive, is character from the traversals of the principal presented in full in a haunting passage of shiv - subject. the movement’s theme is a tarantella ering mystery. tightly knit extrapolations of the melody that summarizes the flexing between first theme serve as transition to the subsidiary the major and minor forms of the tonic triad subject, a syncopated construction in chordal that has energized so much of the work. this texture that incorporates the dotted rhythm of music of brilliance and energy and soaring the opening. the extensive development sec - spirits requires enormous feats of virtuosity, en - tion, largely concerned with permutations of durance, and musicianship from the ensemble the long swelling note and the craggy figure of to close this quartet, which, John Reed wrote, the beginning, is marked by unsettled harmonic “is in the technical sense perhaps Schubert’s motion and considerable rhythmic agitation. most considerable—and most carefully consid - the music quiets, becomes fragmented, and ered—chamber work.” pauses on an expectant harmony only to lead —© 2017 Dr. Richard E. Rodda to the recapitulation, in which the earlier the - matic materials are extensively reworked to Tetzlaff Quartet provide further formal and expressive expan - Praised by the New York Times for its “dramatic, sion while satisfying the requirements of the energetic playing of clean intensity,” the tetzlaff movement’s sonata form. Quartet, formed in 1994, is one of today’s lead - the Andante, one of Schubert’s most daring ing string quartets. Ensemble members Chris - and original formal experiments, contrasts tian tetzlaff, tanja tetz laff, Hanna weinmeister, music of irreconcilable differences. the move - and Elisabeth Kuf ferath take time off from their ment opens with a long, lyrical song for the successful in di vidual careers to tour several cello. without warning, the music suddenly times each season, performing concerts that turns ferocious and violent, explosive with regularly receive great critical acclaim. snapping rhythms, quaking tremolos, fiery Highlights of the quartet’s 2017 –18 season scales, and abrupt dynamic shifts. Calm is even - include a fourth North American tour with the

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current performances on the west Coast (in - the most distinguished chamber musicians, in - cluding at the Orange County Performing Arts cluding recital partners and Center and the Green Music Center in Sono- Lars Vogt. He plays a Peter Greiner violin. ma), the chamber music societies of Cleve land and Cincinnati, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, Shri ver Elisabeth Kufferath (violin ) is a frequent guest Hall in Baltimore, and Zankel Hall at Car ne gie at international music festivals including Lu - Hall. in Europe, the quartet appears in London, cerne, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Ravinia, Cologne, , and Hannover, along and Aspen. Her regular chamber music part - with a number of other cities. Additional recent ners include Lars Vogt, , isabelle Euro pean engagements include performances Faust, and Jens Peter Maintz. Kufferath is cur - at Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Paris’ Auditorium du rently a professor of violin at the Hochschule Louvre, ’ BOZAR, Vienna’s Musikver - für Musik und theater in Hannover. She plays ein, ’s Herkulessaal, Amsterdam’s Con - a Peter Greiner violin. cert gebouw, and London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Hanna Weinmeister (viola ), currently first con - the quartet’s first recording, music by Schoen - certmaster at Opernhaus Zürich, has collabo - berg and Sibelius, was released by CAvi Music rated with , , in 2010. Subsequent recordings include Berg’s , and Benjamin Schmid, among and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet others. She plays a Peter Greiner viola. No. 2 in 2014 and the group’s most recent CD of Schubert and Haydn quartets, released in 2017, Tanja Tetzlaff (cello ) has appeared with many both on the Ondine label. of Europe’s major international orchestras under conductors such as Daniel Harding, Christian Tetzlaff (violin ), d escribed as “one of Lorin Maazel, and Paavo Järvi. She is especially the most brilliant and inquisitive artists of the dedicated to chamber music and regularly plays new generation” ( The New York Times ), is a reg - with Lars Vogt, Martin Fröst, and Carolin wid - ular guest with the world's leading orchestras mann. She plays a violoncello of Giovanni Bap- and festivals. He also enjoys collaborations with tista Guadagnini from 1776.

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