Sunday, December 10, 2017, 3pm Zellerbach Hall Takács Quartet , piano

Takács Quartet Edward Dusinberre, violin Károly Schranz, violin Geraldine Walther, viola András Fejér, cello

PROGRAM (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.

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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. these themes enter myriad byways, revealing

Opposite: Garrick Ohlssohn. Photo by Dario Acosta.  PROGRAM NOTES

dramatic possibilities Brahms continues to ex- Jan Swafford, in his 1998 biography Johannes plore in the recapitulation. The extended coda Brahms, points out how, in this work, the com- starts in wistful reserve and grows into a great poser matched formal means and expressive tragic capstone. ends, moving forward in his creative evolution. The piano begins the Andante with a tune Swafford continues: “Of the subtleties com- that becomes the foundation of this movement, posers aspire to and only occasionally manage which is so songful you may be tempted to to achieve over the course of long pieces, [the] hum along. feeling of unity—within emotional variety—is Angry plucked cello strings open the Scher - one of the most elusive. It has little to do with zo, which quickly knots itself into a ball of con- technique as such, or motivic and tonal rela- centrated force, giving way to a heroic march. A tionships as such; it cannot be taught, can nervous figure intrudes, crazed and obsessive. hardly be analyzed, only felt intuitively by com- At its height it exhausts itself, introducing a lyri- poser and listener alike. For Brahms this began to cal episode—a brief respite, for again the fierce happen, perhaps, with the F-minor Quintet…. cello leads to a reprise of the opening section, [T]he emotional intensity he achieved in it tension rising to its most fevered. seems at times anguished, at times (in the A grave introduction recalls the first move- scher zo) demonic, at times tragic. Yet the whole ment’s opening, now at a glacial pace, and intro- quintet remains a unified dramatic plot with- duces a finale built on that movement’s scale. out becoming monochrome: one story.” The Allegro proper is a clipped dance with dis- —Larry Rothe tant Gypsy roots. Mournful strings offer con- trast. The coda returns to the movement’s slow Larry Rothe is the author of Music for a City, introduction, builds in speed and volume, Music for the World: 100 Years with the San and compacts the emotional strands of this Francisco Symphony and co-author of For the movement into a projectile. Its explosion marks Love of Music. the end.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The Takács Quartet, now entering its 43rd the ensemble returns to Copenhagen, Vienna, season, is renowned for the vitality of its inter- Luxembourg, Rotterdam, the Rheingau Festi - pretations. The New York Times recently lauded val, and the Edinburgh Festival. They perform the ensemble for “revealing the familiar as un- twice at Carnegie Hall, presenting a new Carl familiar, making the most traditional of works Vine work commissioned for them by Musica feel radical once more,” and the Financial Times Viva Australia, and the Seattle Commissioning described a recent concert at the Wig more Club. In 2017 the ensemble joined the summer Hall: “Even in the most fiendish repertoire these faculty at the Music Academy of the West in players show no fear, injecting the music with Santa Barbara. They return to New Zealand and a heady sense of freedom. At the same time, Australia, and perform at Tanglewood with though, there is an uncompromising attention pianist Garrick Ohlsson, at the Aspen Festival, to detail: neither a note nor a bow-hair is out and in more than 40 other concerts in presti- of place.” Based in Boulder at the Univer sity of gious North American venues. They will also Colorado, the Takács Quartet performs 80 con- tour with pianist Marc-André Hamelin. The certs a year worldwide. latest Takács recording, released by Hyperion In Europe during the 2017–18 season, in in Sep tember, features Dvořák’s String Quintet, addition to their four annual appearances as Op. 97 (with Lawrence Power) and String Quar - Associ ate Artists at London’s Wigmore Hall, tet in A-flat Major, Op. 105.

 PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Last season, the Takács presented complete André Hamelin), and viola quintets by Brahms six-concert Beethoven quartet cycles here at Cal (with Lawrence Power). Future releases for Performances, in London’s Wigmore Hall, and Hy per ion include a Dvořák disc with Lawrence at Princeton and the University of Michigan. Power, the Dohnányi piano quintets with Marc- Complementing these cycles, Edward Dusin - André Hamelin, and piano quintets by Elgar berre’s book, Beethoven for a Later Age: The and Amy Beach with Garrick Ohlsson. For Journey of a String Quartet, was published in the their CDs on the Decca/London label, the mu- UK by Faber and Faber and in North America sicians have won three Gramophone Awards, by the University of Chicago Press. The book a Grammy Award, three Japanese Record Aca - takes the reader inside the life of a professional de my Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural string quartet, melding music history and mem- BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble oir as it explores the circumstances surrounding Album of the Year at the Classical Brits. Full the composition of Beethoven’s quartets. details of all recordings can be found in the The Takács became the first string quartet recordings section of the Takács Quartet’s web- to win the Wigmore Hall Medal in May, 2014. site: www.takacsquartet.com. Inaugurated in 2007, the honor recognizes The members of the Takács Quartet are major international artists who have a strong Christoffersen Faculty Fellows at the University association with Wigmore Hall. Recipients so of Colorado at Boulder and play on instru- far include András Schiff, Thomas Quasthoff, ments generously loaned to them by a family Menahem Pressler, and Dame Felicity Lott. In founda tion. The quartet has helped to develop 2012 Gramophone announced that the Takács a string program with a special emphasis on was the only string quartet to be inducted into , where students work in a nur- its first Hall of Fame, along with such legendary turing environment designed to help them de- artists as Jascha Heifetz, Leonard Bernstein, and velop their artistry. The Takács is also a Visiting Dame Janet Baker. The ensemble also won the Quartet at the Guildhall School of Music and 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song Drama, London. presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at in London. the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor The Takács Quartet performed Philip Roth’s Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai, Everyman program with Meryl Streep at Prince - and András Fejér, while all four were students. ton in 2014, and again with her at the Royal It first received international attention in 1977, Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. The winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the quartet is known for such innovative program- International String Quartet Competition in ming, and this particular presentation was con- Evian, France. The quartet also won the Gold ceived in close collaboration with Roth. The Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux quartet first performed Everyman at Carnegie competitions and First Prizes at the Budapest Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour Hoffman. International String Quartet Competition in The ensemble has toured 14 cities with the poet 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. Robert Pinsky, collaborates regularly with the The quartet made its North American debut Hungarian Folk group Muzsikas, and in 2010 tour in 1982. Violinist Edward Dusinberre collaborated with the Colorado Shakespeare joined the Takács in 1993 and violist Roger Festival and David Lawrence Morse on a drama Tapping in 1995. Violist Geraldine Walther project that explored the composition of Beet - replaced Tapping in 2005. In 2001 the Takács hoven’s last quartets. Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of The Takács records for Hyperion Records, the Knight’s Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and their releases for that label include string and in March of 2011 each member of the quartets by Haydn, Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, quartet was awarded the Order of Merit Com - Debussy, and Britten, as well as piano quintets mander’s Cross by the President of the Republic by César Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc- of Hungary.

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Garrick Ohlsson (piano) has established him- grammed, and returning later in the season self worldwide as a musician of great inter- with Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1. pretive and technical prowess. Although long An avid chamber musician, Ohlsson has col- re garded as one of the world’s leading expo- laborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, and nents of the music of Chopin, Ohlsson com- Tokyo string quartets, and is currently touring mands an enormous repertoire ranging over with the Takács Quartet. Together with violin- the entire piano literature and he has come to ist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, be noted for his masterly performances of the he is a founding member of the San Francisco- works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, as based FOG Trio. Ohlsson can be heard on the well as the Romantic repertoire. To date he has Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, BMG, at his command more than 80 concertos, rang- Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, Hyperion, ing from Haydn and Mozart to works of the and Virgin Classics labels. 21st century. A native of White Plains (NY), Ohlsson be - This season that vast repertoire can be sam- gan his piano studies at the age of eight, at the pled in concertos ranging from Chopin, Mo - Westchester Conservatory of Music; at 13 he zart, Beethoven, Brahms, Barber, and Busoni entered the , in . in cities including St. Louis, Washington (DC), He has been awarded first prizes in the Busoni Cincinnati, San Francisco, Portland (OR), and Montreal piano competitions, the Gold Prague, Stockholm, Wroclaw, and Strasbourg. Medal at the International Chopin Competition In recital he can be heard in New York (Alice in (1970), the Avery Fisher Prize (1994), Tully Hall), Seattle, Denver, Houston, Los the University Musical Society Distinguished Angeles, and Puerto Rico. He will appear twice Artist Award in Ann Arbor (MI, 1998), and during the season with the Indianapolis Sym - the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Perfor - phony—first playing two Prokofiev concertos mance from the Bie - in a weekend in which all five will be pro- nen School of Music (2014).

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