an ostinato that continues to sound as melodic layers are added. A for Arts and Creativity; to the premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s long and beautifully yearning melody with unexpected harmonic Helix Spirals, a piece inspired by the Meselson-Stahl DNA replication turns passes from first viola to violin in the trio section. Then a reprise discovery; to the Schubert Effect, in collaboration with pianist of the scherzo, beginning pianissimo, includes a gentle reminiscence Shai Wosner at the 92nd Street Y. Other recent highlights include of the middle section with its melody now in the major key. appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Slee Series The expressive heart of the quintet lies in the slow movement, in Buffalo, and New York’s Lincoln Center Great Performers series. The which is a set of variations on two themes, the first minor and the Quartet also continues to be a strong supporter of their friend and second major. Dvořák originally wrote the second theme as a frequent collaborator Kim Kashkashian’s project Music for Food by Thursday • May 6 • 6:00 pm prospective American anthem: a musical setting for “My Country, participating in concerts throughout the United States for the benefit Benjamin Franklin Hall American Philosophical Society ‘Tis of Thee.” The minor-mode portion of the theme is played by of various food banks and shelters. Recent collaborations include those the three lower instruments, with just a faint contribution from the with acclaimed artists violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg; pianists second violin. The first violin does not sound until half way through Anne-Marie McDermott, Orion Weiss, Vijay Iyer, and Shai Wosner; the major-mode melody with an intricately ornamented version of members of the Silk Road Ensemble; Kikuei Ikeda of the Tokyo Quartet; PARKER QUARTET the theme in a delicate staccato throughout the first of the variations clarinetist and composer Jörg Widmann; and clarinetists Anthony KIM KASHKASHIAN, viola that follow. In the second variation it plays a broader melodic line McGill and Charles Neidich. Founded in 2002 and currently based in against a subtle background of a pizzicato second-violin part, a rapid Boston, the Parker Quartet’s numerous honors include winning the repeated-note figure alternating between the two violas, and a Concert Artists Guild Competition, the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK running tremolo line from the cello. The third variation is simpler in at France’s Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, and Cypresses [Sel.] texture, and concentrates on the first half of the theme. The fourth Chamber Music America’s prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award. II. V tak mnohém srdci mrtvo jest (Death Reigns in Many variation, with the cello accompanied by the remaining instruments in a Human Breast) shadowy tremolos, is followed by a concluding variation—a vehement KIM KASHKASHIAN V. Zde hledím na ten drahý list (The Old Letter in My Book) outburst which culminates in a passionate restatement of the original im Kashkashian, internationally recognized as a unique voice IX. Ó duše drahá jedinká (Thou Only Dear One, but for Thee) minor-mode theme. This is balanced by a tender version of the major on the viola, was born of Armenian parents in Michigan. She theme bringing the movement to a satisfying close. studied the viola with Karen Tuttle and legendary violist Walter K BELA BARTÓK The finale is an exuberant rondo. The dotted rhythms in the theme Trampler at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Since fall 2000 she itself are contrasted with smooth intervening episodes in music that is has taught viola and chamber music at New England Conservatory. String Quartet No. 3 bouncy goodnatured and full of joy. It is a testament to the happy time Following Grammy Award nominations for several previous recordings, Prima parte: Moderato— Dvořák spent that summer in the Iowa countryside. Kashkashian received a 2012 Grammy Award in the “Best Classical Seconda Parte: Allegro— © 2018 by Elizabeth Dalton Instrumental Solo” category for Kurtág and Ligeti: Music for Viola. Ricapitulazione della prima parte: Kashkashian has worked tirelessly to broaden the range of technique, Moderato— PARKER QUARTET advocacy, and repertoire for the viola. A staunch proponent of Coda: Allegro molto Daniel Chong, violin; Ken Hamao, violin contemporary music, she has developed creative relationships with Jessica Bodner, viola; Kee-Hyun Kim, cello György Kurtág, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Giya Kancheli, nspiring performances, luminous sound, and exceptional and Arvo Pärt, and commissioned works from Peter Eötvös, Ken Ueno, ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK musicianship are the hallmarks of the Grammy Award-winning Thomas Larcher, Lera Auerbach, and Tigran Mansurian. Marlboro String Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 97 IParker Quartet. The ensemble is now in its seventh year as faculty and the Viennese school represented by her mentor, Felix Galimir, Allegro ma non tanto members of Harvard University’s Department of Music in the group’s were major influences in developing her love of chamber music. Allegro vivo role as Blodgett Artists-in-Residence. Recent seasons included Ms. Kashkashian is a regular participant at the Verbier, Salzburg, Larghetto performances and residencies around the US and Europe, including Lockenhaus, Marlboro, and Ravinia festivals. She has long-standing Finale: Allegro giusto at the University of Iowa, the University of Chicago, the Wigmore duo partnerships with pianist Robert Levin and percussionist Robyn Hall, the University of South Carolina, the Schubert Club, Skidmore Schulkowsky, and played in a unique string quartet with Gidon Kremer, College, and Kansas City’s Friends of Chamber Music. The Parker has Daniel Phillips, and Yo-Yo Ma. Ms. Kashashian is a founding member of been influential in projects ranging from the premiere of a new octet Music for Food, an initiative by musicians to fight hunger in their home Please note: For everyone’s safety, we require that you wear your mask by Zosha di Castri alongside the JACK Quartet at the Banff Centre communities. at all times and that it fully covers your mouth and nose. If you should test positive for the coronavirus after attending this event, please notify us at 215-569-8080 immediately. We thank you for your attendance and cooperation! Cypresses [Sel.] [1887] String Quartet No. 3 [1927] as if the dancers tripped over one another. The end of the section was ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK BÉLA BARTÓK best characterized by Kárpáti in his bookBartók’s Chamber Music: “The Born September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Bohemia Born March 25, 1881, in Sînnicolau Mare, Romania composer’s ‘scalpel’ continues to strip off the thematic and motivic Died May 1, 1904, in Prague, Czech Republic Died September 26, 1945, in New York, NY layers—penetrating right down to the ‘skeleton’ of the themes.” This is followed by the return of the slow tempo (Ricapitulazione della n 1865, the famous Bohemian composer, Antonín Dvořák, was he string quartets of Béla Bartók have long been recognized as prima parte) in which the short motifs of the work’s opening are working as a viola player in the orchestra pit of the Prague Provisional one of the peaks of 20th-century chamber music. In these six “reconfigured” to form a completely new musical entity. Finally, the Theatre, which had lured Smetana back from Göteborg to be its Tmasterworks, Bartók created a classical sense of harmony and Coda presents the main thematic material of the Seconda parte in a I balance using entirely new and non-classical means—an achievement condensed version, culminating in a climactic ending. conductor. To help make ends meet Dvořák gave piano lessons, and became smitten with unrequited love for one of his pupils Josefína to which few of his contemporaries can lay claim. His nontraditional © 2019 by Bret McCandless Ermáková. He composed 18 love songs for her, setting them to poems harmonies can sound harsh and dissonant at first hearing, but he by Gustav Pfleger-Moravský, who was a member of theMájovci (“May used them in such a coherent and logical way that the ear soon String Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 97 [1893] PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM School”). This was a significant group of Czech writers, who, after the accepts them as a natural idiom, organically evolving from the past. ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK fall of the old order in the Revolution of 1848, reintroduced Czech It is noteworthy that each of the quartets has a different sequence of movements, and there is not a single one that adheres to the classical as a literary language and promoted liberty, democracy and social n 1893 after an exhaustive season in New York during which he allegro-adagio-scherzo-finale scheme. Devising the unique form justice. Pfleger-Moravský’s Cypress poems tell of unrequited love and continued to compose as well as fulfil his many obligations asa to best serve his intentions in each case was one of Bartók’s most of the attractiveness of death, given the circumstances. The cypress visiting celebrity, Dvořák was delighted to accept an invitation to tree is rich in associations with death. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid important contributions to the genre of the string quartet. I spend the summer in the Midwest town of Spillville, IA. This tiny The Third and Fourth Quartets, written in short succession, have tells how Cyparissus accidentally killed his pet deer, a gift from Apollo, farming community of Czech immigrants who preserved the language, been seen as the acme of Bartók’s modernism. In fact, it may well be and then threw himself onto the ground in inconsolable grief and was culture, and customs of their native land provided Dvořák with an that at first hearing, the listener’s attention is engaged by the highly metamorphosed into a cypress tree whose sap formed droplets like environment he loved best. Within a few weeks he had composed advanced harmonic and rhythmic idiom of these works. Yet the folk- tears on the trunk. his American quartet and just three days after its completion he music influence is never too far from the surface, only the “setting” is More than 20 years after writing the songs, Dvořák took 12 of launched on a companion-piece scored for string quintet. Dvořák’s really “strict” this time. For all its “modernity,” the Third Quartet is full the songs and in 1887 revised them for string quartet in a grouping first completed chamber work, very much an apprentice piece, had of references (sometimes veiled, sometimes more overt) to Hungarian entitled Echo of Songs. However, he found it difficult to interest his been a quintet with two violas. Now, more than 30 years later he folk music. Bartók’s strategy consists of using only one parameter of publisher in a suite of small pieces for the string quartet medium and embarked on another work for the same ensemble. Surrounded in his folk sources at a time: he will either quote a typical pentatonic the work was “lost” until years after Dvořák’s death. Finally, in 1957, Spillville both by friends of Czech origin and by African Americans and cadence from Hungarian folk music (G-C-A) without the rest of the Dvořák’s original arrangements with the title Cypresses for string Native Americans playing and singing music, Dvořák quickly absorbed tune, or use a symmetrical melodic structure derived from folk music quartet were published in full. In most of the movements, the first these influences so that we hear in this work themes based on the but filled out by markedly non-folkloric pitch material. In this way, violin takes the part originally written for voice. In the other parts, pentatonic scale, often used in folk music around the world, and the traditional and non-traditional elements of his style are fused in Dvořák, who was by 1887 a master of chamber music composition, rhythms that suggest those of Indian Americans drumming. a seamless unity. builds seamless string textures. As Otakar Šourek, an authority on The quintet begins, with a slow introduction. The main theme The Third Quartet is in a single movement but is divided into Dvořák’s chamber music, comments: “It is unnecessary to analyse begins pianissimo, but soon reaches a resplendent climax. As it dies four clearly demarcated segments. A slow Prima parte and a fast the thematic structure of these miniature pieces... They are simple away, accompanied by a drum-like repeated-note figure in dotted Seconda parte are followed by a varied recapitulation of Part I and songforms, calmly local in character, based on a single main thematic rhythm on the first viola, Dvořák introduces his second subject, based a Coda based on Part II. The Prima parte is a masterful example of idea, their form developing naturally from the line and mood of the on the same rhythmic idea. This energetic theme moving constantly “organic growth:” a complex and variegated movement arises from words to which they are set and not in accordance with any purely between the keys of G Minor and B-flat Major predominates in the two or three tiny motifs that are themselves interrelated. One of the musical principles of construction. They are, however, undoubtedly central development section, and in the recapitulation. The main most important moments comes at the end of the section, where pieces of true Dvořák charm and individuality...” theme is not heard until the end when it reappears fortissimo, and these tiny motifs coalesce into a long, pentatonic musical phrase © 2015 by Elizabeth Dalton in emphatic octaves. During the closing moments, the atmosphere (played by the second violin and the viola). The Seconda parte becomes calmer, and Dvořák reintroduces the material of introduction, brings together a string of themes in various dance meters, both to bring the music full-circle. symmetrical and asymmetrical. The dance becomes more and more The rhythmically dynamic second movement is a scherzo and trio. excited; the themes are developed in contrapuntal imitation, almost It begins with the second viola tapping out a tricky one-note rhythm,