Takács Quartet Garrick Ohlsson, Piano

Sunday, December 10, 2017, 3pm Zellerbach Hall Takács Quartet Garrick Ohlsson, piano Takács Quartet Edward Dusinberre, violin Károly Schranz, violin Geraldine Walther, viola András Fejér, cello PROGRAM Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756–1791) String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, K. 575 Allegretto Andante Menuetto and Trio. Allegretto Allegretto Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975) String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 122 Introduction: Andantino – Scherzo: Allegretto – Recitative: Adagio – Etude: Allegro – Humoresque: Allegro – Elegy: Adagio – Finale: Moderato – Meno mosso – Moderato INTERMISSION Johannes BRAHMS (1833–1897) Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 Allegro non troppo Andante, un poco adagio Scherzo: Allegro Finale: Poco sostenuto – Allegro non troppo – Presto, non troppo Garrick Ohlsson, piano The Takács Quartet appears by arrangement with Seldy Cramer Artists, and records for Hyperion and Decca/London Records. The Takács Quartet is Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado in Boulder; and the musicians are Associate Artists at Wigmore Hall, London. www.takacsquartet.com Cal Performances’ 2017–18 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PROGRAM NOTES usic recaptures the time that gave it simple Lied. Here we encounter that essence of birth. Its re-creation in concert dupli- Mozart, the elegant craftsmanship and exqui- Mcates the gestures—the bow strokes, site balance of sensibility, the music’s gentle the touch of the keys—that its first performers pathos stopping just at the brink of melancholy. used, past entering present. Almost a hundred The three-part minuet (A–B–A) opens with years ago, T.S. Eliot voiced one of those seem- a poised tune that gives way (twice before the ingly self-evident truths: every new work of art central section, once afterward) to a passage is born of a tradition and in turn casts light on that hints at sterner stuff, then reverts quickly the tradition that spawned it, changing that tra- to character via a six-note, offbeat staccato fig- dition and thus laying the foundation for future ure that rises and falls, reintroducing the cheer- works. In today’s performance, three composers ful first theme. A gently swaying, lush tune re-emerge as individuals, and also as part of makes up the movement’s middle episode. a tradition, one that began before 1789, when The finale returns to the temperament of the Mozart wrote the music that opens this pro- first movement, and what we hear at the outset gram, and that continues today, as we approach is cousin to the theme that opened the quartet. these three from our perspective, on a Sunday Pay special attention to the first six notes, for afternoon in December 2017. this figure recurs again and again, like a rondo but also like a set of simple variations. Brief flir- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart tation with the minor mode is dispensed with String Quartet No. 21 in D Major, K. 575 quickly, and this open-hearted quartet con- People’s quirks can burden them with unfortu- cludes in the affirmative. nate nicknames, and music’s perceived content Mozart’s abundant gifts and his facility can can saddle it with irrelevant subtitles. In 1785 lead us to mistake his music’s beauty for super- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed a song ficiality, and over the centuries he has some- called “The Violet.” The second movement of times been thought an effortless artist of sun - his String Quartet, K. 575, written four years shine, a Thomas Kinkade of music. But one later, resembles the song, so (inevitably) the part of his greatness resides in his music’s fre- quartet is sometimes referred to as The Violet. quent appearance of ease, which is what we Another of its subtitles, Prussian, reflects the find in this quartet. circumstances of its composition. K. 575 is the first of three string quartets Mozart com- Dmitri Shostakovich posed on commission from the music-loving String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 122 Frederick William II, King of Prussia. Mozart When a Russian émigré violist once told me produced this work quickly, before money that “Shostakovich tells the story of the 20th troubles, his wife and son’s ill health, and his century in his music,” he was talking about the new opera, Così fan tutte, diverted his attention, symphonies, all 15 of which he had played with and he completed only two more of the six the Leningrad Philharmonic. Dmitri Shostako - quartets originally planned for the king. Mozart vich never lived to see Leningrad re-named himself attached no titles to these quartets, the Saint Petersburg (as the city was called when last he wrote. he was born there), but we can imagine that his K. 575 opens with an allegretto free of the pleasure at the USSR’s breakup would have emotional ambiguity Mozart often creates with been subdued. He understood fortune’s rapid his special brand of piquant harmony. We hear changes and remained wary of celebration. first a broad melody, generous and elegantly re- Alternately condemned and feted by the au- laxed, establishing a mood that saturates the rest thorities—condemned for “bourgeois” music of the movement. and feted with the Stalin Prize after making Whether or not Mozart had “The Violet” in artistic amends—he never knew what would mind when writing the Andante, this second bring glory or a visit from the secret police. His movement is indeed songful, more aria than symphonies, big public statements, sometimes Opposite: Takács Quartet PROGRAM NOTES got him in trouble. The somber Eighth, from Johannes Brahms the dark days of World War II, earned a verdict Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 as “defeatist,” while the lighthearted Ninth, from Johannes Brahms concentrated Romantic sin - 1945, failed to please those looking for a paean cerity into classical structures. Those structures to Mother Russia after the Great Patriotic War. led him toward concision and directness, much Shostakovich reserved his most private thoughts as the restrictions of the sonnet forced Shakes - and pessimism for more intimate mediums, peare and Milton and Keats to plunge deeper especially the string quartet. He wrote 15 quar- into their wells of imagination. To say that tets, necessary listening if you want to know this Brahms found his emotion in the form is over - composer. statement, but structural demands sparked The String Quartet No. 11 dates from 1966 expressive discoveries. and was introduced that year by the Beethoven The harshest critic of his own work, Brahms Quartet, the ensemble that had premiered all honed his material until he was satisfied. His of Shostakovich’s quartets since No. 2, in 1944. F-minor Piano Quintet is an example. It began Long indebted to these musicians, Shostakovich life in 1862 as a string quintet. Brahms’ friend had been shaken when the Beethoven’s second the violinist Joseph Joachim praised the ideas violinist, Vasili Shirinsky, died in 1965. Opus but warned that they were buried in the sonic 122 is dedicated to Shirinsky, but the music texture. So Brahms recast the quintet as a sonata reflects more than the pain of loss. The brief for two pianos. He liked that version. Still he cultural thaw that USSR Party Chairman Nikita couldn’t win. Hearing the two-piano work, Clara Khrushchev had initiated came to an end with Schumann urged the composer to orchestrate his ouster in 1964. The new party chief, Leonid it. Instead, he rewrote the piece for piano and Brezhnev, was no friend of expressive freedom, string quartet. In the contrasting sounds of forcing artists to tread carefully. Sadness per - keyboard and strings, he believed he had finally meates this quartet, and so does anger. found the form that realized his ideas most per- Seven short sections comprise the work, fectly. This was in 1864. At age 31, he was al- played without pause. (1) The Introduction ready a composer to be reckoned with. (If you opens with the lament of a solo violin. Soon the are not familiar with this music in its version others join this keening prelude. (2) In the for two pianos, you owe yourself the treat of Scherzo, a nervous chugging figure is passed hearing it that way and can access recordings around, fugue-like, and punctuated by glissandi via YouTube. The resonant writing for the key- that sound increasingly like fingernails on a board duo produces a sonority that lovers of blackboard. (3) A furious low grinding opens Brahms will find utterly characteristic, a sound the Recitative, twice repeated after brief pauses. such as Schumann must have had in mind when The outraged energy spends itself and dies in he called Brahms’ piano sonatas “veiled sym- a subdued recollection of the Scherzo. (4) A phonies.”) skeletal dance dominates the Etude, solo violin Brahms could write music of heart-piercing in highest register. (5) A tick-tock begins the sweetness and poignancy. Not here. The quin- Humoresque and grows into a pounding osti - tet is a big, tightly built drama dominated by the nato, above which a violin screams. (6) The minor mode. In it, Brahms assumes his King dark-hued Elegy hints at the funeral march of Lear posture, gritty and serious. Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. (7) The Finale The Allegro non troppo begins with a stern opens sotto voce, with deep-voiced murmurs. theme, outlined slowly and quickly gathering Recollections of earlier sections ghost through momentum. The lyrical second theme trans- the music, among them the Scherzo with forms into a march-like passage, re-emerges its glissandos, the opening lament, and the in its lyrical guise, and leads to a chorale that Etude’s eerie dance. Fury ebbs, and the music rounds out the exposition. In the development, fades, gone.

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