The Amernet String Quartet
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Presents a FIFTEEN CONSECUTIVE SUNDAY AFTERNOONS ONE SATURDAY TWILIGHT CONCERT IN MEMORIAM: SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 THE AMERNET STRING QUARTET MISHA VITENSON, VIOLIN, MICHAEL KLOTZ, VIOLA FRANZ FELKL, VIOLIN JASON CALLOWAY, CELLO ASSISTING ARTIST ALEXANDER FITERSTEIN, CLARINET FIFTEENTH SUNDAY CONCERT, SEPTEMBER 11, 2016 at 3:00 P.M. EIGHTY-SEVENTH YEAR 2016 www.musicmountain.org 860-824-7126 Steinway Piano AIR CONDITIONED SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2016 THE ARTISTS THE AMERNET STRING QUARTET Lauded for their “intelligence” and “immensely satisfying” playing by the New York Times, the AMERNET STRING QUARTET has garnered worldwide praise and recognition as one of today’s exceptional string quartets. Ensemble-in-Residence at Florida International University since 2004, the group was formed in 1991 while its founding members were students at the Juilliard School and rose to international attention after their first season, winning the gold medal at the Tokyo International Music Competition in 1992 followed by the first prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 1995. Their busy performance schedule has taken the quartet across the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East and they have collaborated with many of today’s most prominent artists. The Amernet has always been committed to the music of our time and has commissioned works from many of today’s leading composers, working closely with composers including John Corigliano, Toshi Ichiyanagi, and Morton Subotnick. The Amernet actively advocates for neglected works of the past, particularly those by composers of the Jewish diaspora and aims to enliven the concert experience through its innovative, curated programming. Please visit www.amernetquartet.com ALEXANDER FITERSTEIN, CLARINET Clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein is considered one of today’s most exceptional artists and has performed in recital and with distinguished orchestras and chamber music ensembles throughout the world. He won First Prize at the Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition in 2001 and a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2009. As a soloist he has appeared with the Belgrade Philharmonic, Czech, Israel, Vienna and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras, Danish National Radio Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, China National Symphony Orchestra, KBS Orchestra of South Korea, Jerusalem Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. He has performed in recital on the “Music at the Supreme Court” Series, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Celebrity Series in Boston, Kennedy Center, the Louvre in Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Tel Aviv Museum and NYC’s 92d Street Y. A dedicated performer of chamber music, Mr. Fiterstein frequently collaborates with distinguished artists and ensembles and regularly performs with the prestigious Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Among the highly regarded artists he has performed with are Daniel Barenboim, Mitsuko Uchida, Richard Goode, Emanuel Ax, Pinchas Zukerman and Steven Isserlis. During the 2015-16 season he performed as a soloist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra on a tour to Asia with concerts in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia and with the Kansas City Symphony and conductor Michael Stern. He also collaborated with the Shanghai and Dover Quartets and appeared at the Music @ Menlo and Montreal Chamber Music Festival. Mr. Fiterstein has a prolific recording career and has worked with composers John Corigliano and Osvaldo Golijov and had pieces written for him by Samuel Adler, Mason Bates, Paul Schoenfield, and Chris Brubeck among others. His most recent recording released by Naxos in 2013 is a performance of Sean Hickey’s Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra with the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony. Mr. Fiterstein was born in Belarus and immigrated to Israel at age of two with his family. He graduated from the Juilliard School and is the clarinet professor at the University of Minnesota. Mr. Fiterstein is a Buffet Crampon and Vandoren Performing Artist. Canaan VFW Couch Pipa Post 6851 Color Guard US Army, Ed Osborne Don Hurlbutt James Brazee Marine Corp League Northwest Detachment 042 Color Guard Marine Corp League, Nick Gandolfo Denis Bailey Brian Richardson Russell Duntz Wayne Wilson, US Navy THE PROGRAM SEPTEMBER 11, 2016 SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: WE WILL NEVER FORGET PRESENTATION OF THE COLORS: COLOR GUARD FROM CANAAN VFW POST #6851 ALL STAND KLEZMER WORKS FOR CLARINET QUINTET Lev Zhurbin Street Song (1978-) Zogechts and Freilachs Sirba (The is the first performance of this work by Lev Zhurbin at Music Mountain) STRING QUARTET IN F MINOR, OPUS 95 “SERIOSO” Ludwig van Beethoven (1810) (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Allegretto ma non troppo Allegro assai vivace ma serioso Larghetto: Allegretto agitato (This is the 34th performance of this quartet at Music Mountain) INTERMISSION CLARINET QUINTET IN B MINOR, OPUS 115 Johannes Brahms (1891) (1833-1897) Allegro Adagio Andantino; Presto non assai, ma sentimento Con moto (This is the 15th performance of the Clarinet Quintet at Music Mountain) ADAGIO FROM THE STRING QUARTET IN B MINOR, Samuel Barber OPUS 11 (1936) (1910-1981) Molto adagio; Molto allegro (This is the 9th performance of all or part of the Barber Opus 11 Quartet at Music Mountain) RETIRING OF THE COLORS: COLOR GUARD FROM CANAAN VFW POST 6851 ALL STAND (The United States Flag displayed on the Music Mountain Flagpole flew over the US Capitol in March, 2014) This program uses the same typefaces and design as the original Music Mountain programs of the 1930s. The typefaces are New Century Schoolbook and TommyOpil by Opticraft. The cover drawing is from the first Music Mountain poster in the 1930’s. PROGRAM NOTES September 11, 2016 KLEZMER WORKS FOR CLARINET QUINTET Lev Zhurbin (1978-) Hailed by the New York Times as “dizzyingly versatile... an eclectic with an ear for texture... strikingly original and soulful”, Ljova (Lev Zhurbin) was born in 1978 in Moscow, Russia, and moved to New York with his parents, composer Alexander Zhurbin and writer Irena Ginzburg, in 1990. He divides his time between composing for the concert stage, contemporary dance & film, leading his own ensemble LJOVA AND THE KONTRABAND, as well as a busy career as a freelance violist, violinist & musical arranger. Among recent projects is a commission from the City of London Sinfonia, a string quartet for Brooklyn Rider new works for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, The Knights, Sybarite5 and A Far Cry, as well arrangements for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Alan Pierson and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, tenor Javier Camarena, conductor Alondra de la Parra, the Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade, composer/guitarist Gustavo Santaolalla, and collaborations with choreographers Aszure Barton, Damian Woetzel, Christopher Wheeldon, Katarzyna Skarpetowska (with Parsons Dance) and Eduardo Vilaro (with Ballet Hispanico). STRING QUARTET IN F MINOR, OPUS 95 “SERIOSO” Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Beethoven’s Opus 95 Quartet is the only one Beethoven supplied with a subtitle “Serioso,” an obvious reference to the prevailing somber mood of the piece. The composer’s grow- ing deafness, precarious health, frustration in love, financial insecurity and unhappy family life combined to make him angry, bitter and deeply despondent. In a letter to his old friend Dr. Franz Wegeler on May 2, 1810 he wrote “If I had not read somewhere that no one should quit life voluntarily while he could still do something worthwhile, I would have been dead long ago and certainly by my own hand. Oh, life is so beautiful but for me it is poisoned forever.” Although quite short, the “Serioso” Quartet, which Men- delssohn called Beethoven’s most characteristic work, is certainly not a miniature. It is a compressed, concentrat- ed composition, highly integrated movement to movement, with an emotional range that far exceeds its limited length. Usually classified as one of the final works of Beethoven’s middle period, many of its pages anticipate the exalted third period quartets that would follow fourteen years later. The F Minor Quartet first entered the Music Mountain repertory on September 15, 1935 in a performance by the Gordon String Quartet, Music Mountain’s founding quar- tet. QUINTET FOR CLARINET AND STRINGS IN B MINOR, OPUS 115 By Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) One of the two true masterpieces of the literature for clarinet and string quartet (The other being the Mozart Clarinet Quintet) The Brahms Clarinet Quintet has long been a beloved work for its joy, its melancholy, its rapture, its sadness. Written in 1891 in what one scholar refers to as “a surge of fresh creative power” Brahms was inspired by the clarinetist Richard Muhlfield, whom he called the greatest wind player alive. Brahms wrote not only the Clarinet Quintet for him but also the Clarinet Trio in A Minor, Opus 114 and the two Clarinet Sonatas of Opus 120. It is interesting to learn more about this artist who was able to inspire the greatest composer of his generation to start composing again after he had resolved to retire. Richard Muhlfield was born in 1856, the youngest of four brothers, all of whom were musically trained. He played the violin and clarinet in the spa orchestra at Salzungen under his father until 1873 when he went to the court orchestra at Saxe-Meiningen as a violinist. In 1879 he was made the orchestra’s principal clarinetist, a post he held until his death in 1907. Among the conductors of the orchestra were the great Hans von Bulow and Fritz Steinbach, who introduced Muhlfield to Brahms. Muhlfield was asked to play for Brahms and the result was this late blooming by the composer and four great works for clarinet. Muhlfield gave the premiere of all of them. The Quintet and the Trio on December 12, 1891 with the Joachim Quartet joining him in the Quintet and for the Trio, Brahms at the piano and Robert Hausman, the Joachim Quartet’s cellist, playing the cello part.