Samuel Adler the Piano Quintet Was Recorded in the Oktaven Studio
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Acknowledgments Samuel Adler The Piano Quintet was recorded in the Oktaven Studio. String Quartet No. 8 | Piano Quintet | String Quartet No. 9 Recording Engineer: Ryan Streber The String Quartets were recorded by October 24-25, 2009 at Harrison Studios, Belchertown, Massachusetts. Recording Engineers: Jeff Harrison & Daniel Fedora, Harrison Digital Productions. Co-Producers: Samuel Adler & Eva Szekely String Quartet No. 9 and Piano Quintet are published by Theodore Presser. String Quartet No. 8 is published by Ludwig Masters-Kalmus. Cover Image: Leitmotif Studies 13 ©2012 David H. Aaron Photo credits: Samuel Adler: David Aaron The Esterhazy Quartet: Carole Patterson www.albanyrecords.com TROY1426 albany records u.s. Esterhazy Quartet 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 Jerome Lowenthal piano albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd tel: 01539 824008 © 2013 albany records made in the usa ddd waRning: cOpyrighT subsisTs in all Recordings issued undeR This label. classes and workshops at more than 300 universities worldwide, and in the summers has taught at major music festivals such as Tanglewood, Aspen, Brevard, Bowdoin, as well as others in France, Germany, Israel, Spain, Austria, Poland, South America and Korea. Adler has been awarded many prizes including an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Charles Ives Award, the Lillian Fairchild Award, the MTNA Award for Composer of the Year, and a Special Citation by the American Foundation of Music Clubs. Adler was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship; he has been a MacDowell Fellow for five years and; during his second trip to Chile, he was elected to the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts “for his outstanding contribution to the world of music as a composer.” In 1999, he was elected to the Akademie der Kuenste in Germany for distinguished service to music. While serving in the United States Army, Adler founded and conducted the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra and, because of the Orchestra’s great psychological and musical impact on European culture, was awarded a special Army citation for distinguished service. In 2003 he was presented with the Aaron Copland Award by ASCAP for Lifetime Achievement in Music. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001, and then inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2008. The Composer Adler has appeared as conductor with many major symphony orchestras, both in the U.S. and samuel adler was born March 4, 1928, Mannheim, Germany and came to the United States in 1939. abroad. Recordings of his music appear on RCA, Gasparo, Albany, CRI, Crystal and Vanguard. He is the composer of more than 400 published works, including 5 operas, 6 symphonies, 12 concerti, 8 string quartets, 4 oratorios and many other orchestral, band, chamber and choral works and songs, which have been performed all over the world. He is the author of three books and has also contrib- uted numerous articles to major magazines and books published in the U.S. and abroad. The Music Adler was educated at Boston University and Harvard University, and holds honorary doctorates String Quartet No. 8 from Southern Methodist University, Wake Forest University, St. Mary’s Notre-Dame and the St. Louis My Eighth String Quartet was commissioned by the Franciscan Chamber Players, The Pro Arte Quartet, Conservatory. He is Professor-emeritus at the Eastman School of Music where he taught from 1966 to The Ying Quartet and the Westbrook Quartet and written in 1988. 1995 and served as chair of the composition department from 1974 until his retirement. Before going During the summer of 1987, a great friend of music in Rochester, New York died. His name to Eastman, Adler served as professor of composition at the University of North Texas, Music Director was Andies Roodenburg, who was a doctor by profession and an excellent violinist ‘by passion’. at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, Texas, and instructor of Fine Arts at the Hockaday School in Dallas, After his death, the members of the Cleveland Quartet called me and asked me to write a short work Texas. From 1954 to 1958 he was music director of the Dallas Lyric Theater and the Dallas Chorale. in his memory so that they could begin their 1987-88 season with the tribute to their good friend Since 1997 he has been a member of the composition faculty at the Juilliard School of Music in New Dr. Roodenburg. I wrote a short elegy called Herinnering, the Dutch word for remembrance. Adries was York City, and was awarded the 2009-10 William Schuman Scholars Chair. Adler has given master born in Holland and loved his native tongue. It was this short work that started my thought process for the Eighth String Quartet. Because The first movement is full of energy and really never stops moving breathlessly from beginning to end. quartets usually do not perform short pieces on their concerts, I felt I wanted to flesh out this little It features short melodic fragments that are immediately developed and lead to the next fragment built piece into a full length quartet. Herinnering with some modifications became the first movement and on similar elements. Another feature of this movement is the fact that there are very few moments the rest of the work was to be the celebration of the unusual life of Dr. Roodenburg. when all four instruments are playing, rather duets and trios predominate the texture of this movement The first and third movements are variants of one another and represent the serious side of this person. and give each instrument an opportunity to be clearly heard. The second is a scherzo recalling the humor, both funny and sardonic, which was always present in The second movement is a true contrast to the first. After a somewhat mysterious introduction, this man. The final movement is a summation of a life fully lived. A life of triumphs and defeats, yet the viola introduces a biblical chant, which forms the basis of all the material in this movement. In always vital and exciting. other words, the rest of the movement is a series of variation on this very beautiful chant that I have used in another work, and whose characteristics are so memorable that it can be recognized at all Quintet, for Piano and String Quartet points in the performance of this movement. My Piano Quintet was written the 2000-2001 season commissioned by the American String Quartet. It Movement number three is an attempt to write a Mendelssohnian Scherzo. I have always loved is in one continuous movement divided into two distinct parts. the scherzi from both his chamber and his orchestral works and here have tried to find a way to The first part is a slow introduction basically exposing the material that will pervade the entire translate the light and fluffy quality of his works into my vocabulary. To make it more humorous, I have work. There is a constant dialogue between the piano and the strings with the cello taking a prominent quoted some melodies that seem not to belong, but that came naturally to me while writing this piece. part especially in the beginning. The entire string quartet more and more begins to answer the piano After developing the first idea quite thoroughly, there follow several variations of it and the tempo gets and leads to a peaceful close of the first section. faster and faster until it ends breathlessly. A broad theme by the quartet in unison with an animated piano accompaniment opens the The final movement once again returns to the material of the first movement and develops these second part marked ‘Fast and Energetic’. Again much of the movement comes from a constant fragments even more than was heard in the beginning. It begins with vigorous scales that lead to a dialogue between the strings and the piano offset at times by a more calm second theme. Both of these dance like pattern forming the main ideas of this entire movement. There is very little contrast, but themes are then developed and there comes a partial recapitulation of the first and second theme the dance like figures constantly remind one of the purpose, which is to represent a perpetual dance material that brings this 13 minute piece to a heroic end. and a triumphant conclusion to the work. —Samuel Adler String Quartet No. 9 The Ninth String Quartet was commissioned by and is dedicated to the Esterhazy Quartet to celebrate their 40th anniversary. It was composed in 2010 and premiered that year by the Esterhazy Quartet. The work is in four movements: 1. Fast with much energy 2. Slowly and contemplative 3. Fast with humor 4. Fast and rhythmic about the recent Albany recording: “The coruscating playing of the Esterhazy Quartet can scarcely be The Performers over-praised. Any composer would be gratified to have his work presented in such stellar fashion.” The Throughout its distinguished career the esterhazy Quartet comprised of Eva Szekely, Esterhazy Quartet also appears on Albany’s “The Wide Missouri,” performing music of Michael Horvit. violin, Susan Jensen, violin, Leslie Perna, viola, and Darry Dolezal, cello, has delighted In addition to collaborating with contemporary composers, the Esterhazy Quartet actively promotes audiences on three continents, performing at venues such as the Haydn Festspiele the advancement of the string quartet art form through master classes, seminars and workshops for in Austria, the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and the Beethoven Society in young performers and composers, including an annual residency for composers at the Berklee College Santiago de Chile. The Esterhazy Quartet has garnered international accolades from of Music in Boston, and a yearly summer chamber music seminar at the University of Missouri.