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Home , Ferenc Farkas, Juilliard String Quartet, String quartet

Thursday Evening, December 12, 2019, at 7:30

The presents Juilliard String Areta Zhulla and Ronald Copes, Roger Tapping, Astrid Schween,

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) No. 1 in F major, Op. 18, No. 1 Allegro con brio Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato : Allegro molto Allegro

GYÖRGY KURTÁG (b. 1926) 6 Moments musicaux, Op. 44 Invocatio (Un fragment) Footfalls (… as if someone were coming) Capriccio In memoriam Sebok˝ György Rappel des oiseaux ... (Étude pour les harmoniques) Les adieux (in Janáceks˘ Manier)

Intermission

BEETHOVEN Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo Allegro molto vivace Allegro moderato—Adagio Andante, ma non troppo e molto cantabile Presto Adagio quasi un poco andante Allegro

Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes, including an intermission

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium.

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Alice Tully Hall Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. Notes on the Program published, in 1801. The D-major quartet (Op. 18, No. 3) was the first to be written; the By James M. Keller F-major (No. 1) and G-major (No. 2) followed, probably in that order; and the A major String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18, (No. 5), C minor (No. 4), and B-flat major No. 1 (No. 6)—possibly not in that order—came last. Some revision took place late in the Born: December 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany process, including major rewriting of the ear- Died: March 26, 1827, in liest pieces; by the time Beethoven finished penning the six, he had learned lessons he When, in 1792, Ludwig van Beethoven left wanted to incorporate into the initial few. his native Bonn to seek his fortune as a He acknowledged this in an 1801 letter to pianist and a in the heady cultural his violinist friend Karl Amenda, to whom capital of Vienna, he was entering a world he had previously sent the original version dominated by the spirit of the late lamented of the F-major quartet: “Be sure not to hand and the still on to anybody your quartet, in which I have living, universally revered Franz Joseph made some drastic alterations. For only now Haydn. Given the interest they had shown have I learned how to write .” (The in the medium of the string quartet, it was recorded the early inevitable that Beethoven should follow in “Amenda version” of the first movement for their footsteps. a CD insert to Lewis Lockwood’s 2008 book Inside Beethoven’s Quartets.) Beethoven immediately strained in new directions. Succinct themes capable This is an overwhelmingly cheerful, optimis- of extensive development, imaginative tic piece, at least in its first, third, and fourth melodic manipulation, startling dynamic con- movements. Nonetheless, abrupt tonal trasts: These are all evident in Beethoven’s shifts and textural contrasts in the opening first set of six quartets, Op. 18, which he Allegro con brio hint at the gruffness and composed from the summer or autumn unmitigated drama that would increasingly 1798 to summer 1800. After these, he characterize Beethoven’s —but here set the genre on the back burner for sev- they are only hints. The third and fourth eral years. His Op. 18 quartets played an movements pick up the sunny good humor, important part in launching his eventual but the second inhabits quite distinct terri- renown. They were introduced at a series tory. Amenda reported that the composer of private house-concerts at the Vienna told him that, in composing it, he “thought home of Prince Karl Lobkowitz, to whom of the scene in the burial vault in Romeo the set is dedicated. These performances and Juliet.” The movement’s dark, D-minor were regularly attended by the city’s cultural recesses unroll as an aria that is by turns and philanthropic elite. Shortly after these doleful, tender, and passionate. quartets were unveiled, patrons showed increasing interest in commissioning works from this intractable but inescapable genius.

The three bound sketch books Beethoven employed for recording and working out his ideas for these quartets reveal that the pieces were composed in a different order from how they were positioned when 6 Moments musicaux, Op. 44 Kurtág has acknowledged Schumann, GYÖRGY KURTÁG Stravinsky, Bartók, and Webern as exerting Born: February 19, 1926, in Lugos (Lugoj), particular influence over his developing Romania style. To Schumann’s example we owe Lives in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, outside Kurtág’s propensity for stringing together Bordeaux, France numerous short pieces into extended cycles or suites; they represent practically Though born in Romania and now living all of what could be called larger forms in in France, György Kurtág is a Hungarian Kurtág, who has mostly taken a pass on composer, having moved to in such time-honored genres as the sym- 1946 and taken Hungarian citizenship two phony or concerto. Many of his works are years later. At the Academy of miniatures after the manner of Webern, and Music in Budapest, his teachers included even his longer movements may adhere Sándor Veress and Ferenc Farkas (for com- to a Webernesque aphoristic style. Few position), Pál Kadosa (for ), and Leó 20th-century did not feel the Weiner (for ). He wanted to profound impact of Stravinsky, and Bartók study with Bartók too, but Bartók’s hope to would, of course, loom prominently behind return to was sidelined by World any modern Hungarian composer. Kurtág War II, and he died in 1945 while still in acknowledged him when he remarked, exile in America. In 1957, Kurtág traveled “My mother tongue is Bartók, and Bartók’s to Paris, where he studied with Olivier mother tongue was Beethoven.” Messiaen and ; and in Cologne, he was bowled over by the works Kurtág wrote his 6 Moments musicaux of Stockhausen and Ligeti. Returning to (the title derives from Schubert’s short Hungary, he embarked on what he con- piano pieces) from 1999 to 2005, drawing siders his real career as a composer, in part on earlier works—most prominently and he joined the piano and chamber- from pieces in his ongoing “pedagogical music faculty at his alma mater. He has performance pieces” for piano that he never taught composition per se, but he collects under the title Játékok (Games). has coached many musicians privately, Musical and aesthetic salutes lurk in sometimes assisted by the pianist Márta these brief soundscapes. The late pianist Kurtág, his wife and artistic collaborator. György Sebok˝ is explicitly honored in the fourth movement and the composer Leoš Beginning in the mid-1950s Kurtág won Janácek˘ in the last. The fifth movement, numerous Hungarian awards. By now, “Rappel des oiseaux ... (Étude pour les he is a much-decorated senior statesman harmoniques)”—a piece dedicated to vio- of music, including among his honors list Tabea Zimmerman—certainly alludes the Ernest von Siemens Music Prize of to Kurtág’s teacher Messiaen; and the Germany (1998), the Sonning Award of second, “Footfalls,” which borrows its title Denmark (2003), the Grawemeyer Award from Samuel Beckett, is accompanied in for Music Composition from the University the score by a bleak, even funereal poem of Louisville (2006), the Golden Lion of the by the turn-of-the-20th-century Hungarian Venice Biennale in Italy (2009), and the poet . Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal in the U.K. (2013). Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 In his late works, Beethoven often played LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN fast and loose with traditional forms. Here he expands the standard four-movement No listener at the premieres of Beethoven’s layout to a seven-movement structure—or, Op. 18 quartets could have conceived that perhaps more accurately, a single vast anyone would ever write the sort of music movement of seven discrete sections with that pervades his late . By no protracted breaks between. Or is seven the time he embarked on his final five too many? Perhaps one should say there (plus the ), Beethoven was are only six, since the third is only 11 pretty much surviving on a planet of his measures long and can easily be viewed own, cut off by deafness from the hearing as a mere prelude to the fourth, just as the world, wrapped up utterly in his uniquely sixth can be seen as an introduction to the advanced compositional technique and seventh—at which point we would find emotional expression. ourselves in the general neighborhood of a Classical quartet layout after all. Yet even The first three of his late quartets were writ- those short movements pack a punch: ten at the urging of the composer’s Russian The listener feels as if the entire weight patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin. Beethoven of a full-scale movement has been packed finished the third of them in November into these dense supernovas, which might 1825 but was so captivated by the possibili- explode at any time. The traditional - ties of the genre that he immediately began allegro form is not discarded entirely, but to sketch another, with no commission here Beethoven holds its drama in reserve attached. This would become the C-sharp for the final movement. Where one would minor quartet (Op. 131) which, along with have expected a in the opening his final quartet (Op. 135), he would com- movement we find instead a restrained but plete the following summer. As a group, imposing, widely modulating slow these late quartets embrace both the highly (which we might have guessed Beethoven personal and the broadly universal, plumb- would have used in his finale) emerging bit ing depths of emotional expression while by bit out of silence to proclaim its melan- reveling in arcane technical devices. We choly. Nothing in this work is predictable, need not play favorites when it comes to on through to the concluding movement, Beethoven quartets, but—without insisting rugged and gruff overall but often changing too much on what may have been meant character before it reaches its final, crashing as a casual comment—the composer did chords. suggest to his friend Karl Holz that he loved James M. Keller is the longtime program this one most of all. He sent this work to annotator of the New York Philharmonic his publisher (who had annoyingly specified (Leni and Peter May Chair) and the San that he expected an “original” work) with Francisco . His book Chamber a note attached: “Scrambled together with Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford pilferings from one thing and another.” This University Press) is available in hardcover, sent the publisher into a panic, but a week paperback, and e-book formats. later Beethoven restored order into the relationship by writing to assure him that the quartet’s music really was new. LISA-MARIE MAZZUCCO

About the Juilliard String Quartet With unparalleled artistry and enduring to premiere in 2020–21 alongside late quar- vigor, the Juilliard String Quartet (JSQ) tets by Beethoven, and recently premiered continues to inspire audiences around the One Hundred Years Grows Shorter Over world. Founded in 1946, JSQ draws on a Time by Lembit Beecher. deep and vital engagement to the classics while embracing the mission of champi- Adding to its celebrated discography, an oning new works, a vibrant combination album of works by Beethoven, Bartók, and of the familiar and the daring. Each per- Dvo˘rák is set to be released by Sony Classical formance is a unique experience, bring- during the 2019–20 season. In 2018, JSQ ing together the four members’ profound released an album on Sony Classical featur- ing the world premiere recording of Mario understanding, total commitment, and Davidovsky’s Fragments (2016), together unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders with Beethoven’s Quartet, Op. 95, and of the string quartet literature. Bartók’s Quartet No. 1. Celebrating one of the great collaborative relationships in The 2019–20 season brings JSQ to concerts American music, Sony Classical’s reissue in Amsterdam, Vienna, Chicago, New York, of the quartet’s landmark recordings of San Francisco, New Orleans, and Sarasota, the first four string quartets among others, in addition to its annual together with the 2013 recording of Carter’s appearances at the chamber music societ- Quartet No. 5 traces a remarkable period in ies of Detroit and Philadelphia. The quartet the evolution of both the composer and the also visits the newly established Tianjin ensemble. The quartet’s recordings of the Juilliard School, giving master classes. In Bartók and Schoenberg quartets, as well as keeping its mission of supporting the cre- those of Debussy, Ravel, and Beethoven, have won Grammy Awards, and in 2011 ation of invigorating new repertoire, JSQ JSQ became the first has commissioned German composer Jörg ensemble to receive a lifetime achieve- Widmann (Advanced Certificate ’95, clari- ment award from the National Academy of net) to write two quartets for the ensemble Recording Arts and Sciences. Devoted master teachers, the members Each May JSQ hosts the five-day interna- of the Juilliard String Quartet offer classes tionally recognized Juilliard String Quartet and open when on tour. JSQ is Seminar. Each summer JSQ works closely string quartet in residence at Juilliard and on string quartet repertoire with students at its members are sought-after teachers on the Tanglewood Music Center. the string and chamber music faculties.