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Beethoven's Grosse Fuge

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Beethoven's Grosse Fuge BEETHOVEN’S GROSSE FUGE PREMIERES JAN. 9 | 8 PM DOWNTOWN SERIES PROGRAM BEETHOVEN’S GROSSE FUGE ANTOINE PLANTE, CONDUCTOR LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) GROSSE FUGE, OP. 133 CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) String Quartet in G minor, L.91 I. Animé et très décidé II. Assez vif et bien rythmé III. Andantino, doucement expressif IV. Très modéré – En animant peu à peu – Très mouvementé et avec passion DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op.110a I. Largo II. Allegro molto III. Allegretto IV. Largo V. Largo THIS PERFORMANCE IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY THE HOUSTON ENDOWMENT, THE BROWN FOUNDATION, THE CULLEN TRUST FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, AND THE CITY OF HOUSTON THROUGH HOUSTON ARTS ALLIANCE. LIVE STREAMING OF THIS PERFORMANCE IS PRODUCED BY BEND PRODUCTIONS, INC. MERCURY SEASON 20/21 | 1 MERCURY MUSICIANS ANTOINE PLANTE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR LYNN WYATT CHAIR VIOLIN I Jonathan Godfrey, Concertmaster Sponsored by Randy & Cathy Crath Anabel Detrick Andrés González Rachel Shepard Hannah Watson Rasa Kalesnykaite VIOLIN II Oleg Sulyga, Principal Sponsored by Mrs. Andrew Wilkomirski Maria Lin Jackson Guillen Sean O’Neal Jaya Varma Tinca Belinschi VIOLA Kathleen Carrington, Principal Matthew Carrington Rainey Weber Meredith Harris CELLO Courtenay Vandiver Pereira, Principal Erika Johnson Francis Koiner BASS Deborah Dunham, Principal Paul Ellison Hudson Davis, Lighting Design BEND Productions/Ben Doyle, Videography MERCURY SEASON 20/21 | 2 PROGRAM NOTES Each one of the pieces on this instrumental music appropriate program originated as music to the Austro-German tradition, for string quartet, but is heard but within an output understood here in arrangement for string as impressionist, Symbolist- orchestra, which affords the inspired, and above all, distinctly added effects of sonority created French. And Shostakovich’s by multiple players per part, solos quartet bears a dedication to the against the tutti, the addition victims of fascism, but is stamped of the contrabass part beneath throughout with a motto that the cello, and divisi scoring. The refers to the composer himself, resulting transformation from so that we are left to ponder more intimate chamber music to distinct (and mutually exclusive) more prominent orchestral work inspirations and meanings of the is an enduring attraction. To piece. One further connecting give some prominent examples, thread between the three pieces Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de is more technical: all of them Florence, Schoenberg’s Verklärte focus on a single idea – a fugue Nacht, Barber’s Adagio for subject, theme, or motto – that Strings, and Rouse’s Concerto per ties together the multi-movement corde all originated in quartet or or multi-sectional whole, so that sextet scorings. Shostakovich’s each work stands as a distinctive String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 110, essay on thematic variation and was already arranged for string unity. orchestra by Rudolf Barshai in 1967 while the arrangements of Beethoven’s late-period Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge and compositions, the products of Debussy’s String Quartet Nº 1 are a completely deaf composer the work of Antoine Plante for experimenting aggressively, Mercury. include the largest works of his career (the Ninth Symphony, Op. All three pieces merit the extra 125), the smallest (the Bagatelles, attention of these arrangements Opp. 119 and 126), and variation because each is a fascinating technique on an unprecedented enigma of compositional intent. scale (the Diabelli Variations, Op. Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge 120). There is also a retrospective translates as “great fugue,” but it quality to Beethoven’s late works is so unlike previous fugues that in his incorporation of sixteenth- its form and genre have been century church modes and and continue to be debated. Baroque-era fugal technique. The Debussy’s quartet stands Grosse Fuge, while inspired by out prominently as abstract the fugues of Bach and Handel, MERCURY SEASON 20/21 | 3 PROGRAM NOTES is, as mentioned, of a scope first, in the fugal principle of the and form that transcend the imitative contrapuntal elaboration traditional genre. Beethoven of a fugue subject, and second, originally conceived the Grosse in Beethoven’s genius for musical Fuge as the finale to his String development (motivic and Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130, thematic transformation; tonal but his publisher persuaded him modulation). to substitute a less ambitious (and more easily marketable) The enigma of Shostakovich’s finale while publishing the fugue quartet, which extends to much separately under its own opus of his output and to the man number, Op. 133. himself, lies in the contradictory interpretations of his life and A fugue can be defined as music. In the public and official the exploration of possibilities version of the composer, offered by a predominant musical Shostakovich was a loyal citizen idea, the fugue subject, within of the Soviet Union whose imitative counterpoint. Rather music reflected the aims of than a set form, the fugue is more Soviet society. In the revisionist a through-composed process version, he was a longstanding of introducing the subject in but closeted political dissident successive voices, combining whose music subtlely and cleverly it with independent lines, expressed anti-Soviet messages. and subjecting it to a variety The composer dedicated his Op. of contrapuntal procedures 110 to the “memory of the victims (fragmentation, expansion, of fascism and war.” At the time inversion, for example). he composed the quartet, in an Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge takes intense three-day burst in July this process as his point of 1960, Shostakovich was at work departure, but the final product on the music commissioned for could be heard as a sequence of a collaborative Soviet and East movements in different meters German movie, Five Days – Five and tempos, or as a theme and Nights. The movie tells the story variations composition in which of the Soviet rescue of Dresden the counterpoint surrounding that art treasures at the end of World theme is ever-changing, or even War II and shortly after the allied as a sonata form overlaid onto a fire-bombing of the city. As part fugue. No single interpretation of this commission, Shostakovich of the piece wins out, hence its visited the ruins of Dresden and enigmatic nature. Rather, the saw film footage of the vast key to comprehending it lies, conflagration of February 1945. MERCURY SEASON 20/21 | 4 PROGRAM NOTES In that context the quartet And yet, both the pro- and anti- portrays his reaction to the Soviet interpretations sketched devastation and tragedy of a war here are ideologically simplistic brought about by German fascists readings of a sophisticated piece and ended by Soviet socialists. by a complex individual. We can That’s one interpretation, but confidently connect the piece another dismisses the dedication with its immediate inspiration as public posturing while taking of the fiery destruction of account of the motto that Dresden and with the larger pervades this somber piece – the calamity of World War II, while pitches D, E-flat, C, B-natural – as also perceiving the musical the key to a more personal and epitaph that Shostakovich politically subversive message. That sequence of pitches, which ultimately created for himself. in the more traditional German But whether the piece harbors a nomenclature is D-Es (or S)- message about the Soviet state, C-H, is a musical cryptogram for pro or contra, or transcends the composer’s name: D[mitry] the question altogether is an SCH[ostakovich]. (This much unresolved debate that has is uncontroversial: for example, unfolded in the decades since B-flat, A, C, B-natural spells out Shostakovich’s death. Bach; E-flat, C, B-natural, B-flat, E, G spells out SCH[oen]BE[r]G; The Debussy quartet confronts both of these composers, along us a question more of style than with Shostakovich and many of meaning. Debussy is best others used such self-identifying known for his French modernist cryptograms.) In the revisionist rejection not only of German view of the composer and his Romanticism, Wagnerism in music, the D-S-C-H motto in particular, but also of the Austro- Shostakovich’s quartet reveals the German instrumental tradition composer himself as the victim (i.e., Bach through Brahms), in of an oppressive and menacing which abstract musical forms Soviet state. That the quartet quotes several of Shostakovich’s were created by means of key earlier works – the First and Fifth relationships within functional Symphonies, a Jewish folk tune harmony and by longstanding he used in his Second Piano techniques of thematic Trio, an aria from his opera Lady development. Debussy’s most Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – popular instrumental works, often only intensifies the focus on the described as impressionist or composer as subject. atmospheric and sometime MERCURY SEASON 20/21 | 5 PROGRAM NOTES associated with Symbolist poetry, distinctly untraditional and is overwhelmingly programmatic: Debussyan, the quartet features for example, Prélude à l’après- his constantly syncopated midi d’un faune, Nocturnes, and rhythmic style (accented weak La mer for orchestra; “Pagodes” beats and offbeats, triple vs. from Estampes, “Clair de lune” duple subdivisions of the beat), from the Suite bergamasque, modal and pentatonic scales that and the programmatically titled underlie a tonal style independent preludes from his two collections of traditional harmonic of Préludes (think, for example, progressions, and a variety of of “La fille aux cheveux de lin” or effects and articulations that “La cathédrale engloutie”), all for emphasize the importance of solo piano. tone color (extended murmuring trills over different pitch Debussy’s chamber music and intervals, multiple and sometimes the string quartet in particular simultaneous ostinatos, pizzicato alter this picture. The quartet chords). – confidently titled “Premier quatuor” although a second Alongside these details is a quartet never emerged, and persistent theme – altered in labeled as Op.
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