Rubens Quartet W/ Dimitri Murrath, Viola and Judith Serkin, Cello Thursday, March 19, 2015 – 8:00 PM American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut Street

PREVIEW NOTES Rubens Quartet w/ Dimitri Murrath, viola and Judith Serkin, cello Thursday, March 19, 2015 – 8:00 PM American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut Street Program Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3 doing so. Although Janáček did not attempt a line‐by‐ Ludwig van Beethoven line re‐creation of Tolstoy's story, the music clearly Born: December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany suggests certain programmatic correspondences. Died: March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria Composed: 1798‐1800 String Sextet in G Major, Op. 36 Last PCMS performance: Ysaÿe Quartet in 2012 Johannes Brahms Duration: 23 minutes Born: May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany Died: April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria Dedicated to Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz, the six Composed: 1864‐73 quartets of Op. 18 constitute Beethoven's most Last PCMS performance: ambitious project of his early Vienna years. The quartet Tokyo Quartet w/ Michael Tree and Peter Wiley in D Major (No. 3) was the first composed. Its opening, Duration: 39 minutes with nearly all of the motion in the first violin supported by sustained harmonies, resembles the beginning of Brahms’ second sextet is dedicated in spirit to Agathe Haydn's Quartet, Op. 50, No. 6, also in D Major. The first von Siebold, a German singer who was the composer’s movement begins with an emphasis on the dominant‐ “last love” and who had recently ended their seventh chord, while the second theme group flirts with relationship, much to Brahms’ dismay. Three times near the minor dominant, allowing an unusual excursion into the end of the first‐movement exposition the first and C Major. The rest of the quartet comprises a second violins, together, spell "Agathe" by playing the conventional movement pattern, but the Presto finale is pitches A‐G‐A‐D‐H‐E ("H" is the German designation for a sonata, not a rondo. Although it is not labeled as such, B natural). Instead of placing a slow movement second, the third movement is a minuet, albeit with some Brahms follows the Allegro with a somewhat gloomy, unusual, forward‐looking touches. minor mode Scherzo in 2/4 meter. A jocular central section, shifting to the major and a 3/4 meter, provides Quartet No.1, Kreutzer Sonata a foil to the mood of the Scherzo. The pensive Adagio, a Leos Janáček set of five variations with a coda, contains some of the Born: July 3, 1854 in Hukvaldy, Czech Republic densest contrapuntal layering of the sextet. The stormy Died: August 12, 1928 in Moravská Ostrava, Czechoslovakia finale is a combination of rondo and sonata forms. The Composed: 1923 opening six measures reappear several times on Last PCMS performance: Jerusalem Quartet in 2014 different harmonies, dominating the texture of the Duration: 18 minutes movement. Janáček subtitled this work "Kreutzer Sonata" after the story by Leo Tolstoy upon which it is based. The title of Tolstoy's story, of course, is taken from Beethoven's ninth violin sonata. According to Josef Suk, who led the premiere of this quartet, Janáček wished with this work to protest the tyranny of men over women; in the Tolstoy story upon which the work is based, a female heroine seeks refuge from an unhappy marriage in the arms of an amoral seducer and dies tragically after .

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