Sunday, February 24, 2019, 3pm Hertz Hall The Takács Quartet Edward Dusinberre, violin Harumi Rhodes, violin Geraldine Walther, viola András Fejér, cello
PROGRAM
Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732 –1809) String Quartet in D Major, Op. 20, No. 4 Allegro di molto Un poco adagio affettuoso Minuet. Allegretto alla zingarese – Trio Presto e scherzando
Béla BARTÓK (1881 –1945) String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 7 Lento Allegretto Introduzione – Allegro vivace
INTERMISSION
Edvard GRIEG (1843 –1907) String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 27 Un poco andante – Allegro molto ed agitato Romanze: Andantino Intermezzo: Allegro molto marcato – Più vivo e scherzando Finale: Lento – Presto al saltarello
e Takács Quartet appears by arrangement with Seldy Cramer Artists, and records for Hyperion and Decca/London Records. e Takács Quartet is Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado in Boulder and the musicians are Associate Artists at Wigmore Hall, London. www.takacsquartet.com
This performance is made possible, in part, by The E. Nakamichi Foundation. Cal Performances’ 2018 –19 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.
PROGRAM NOTES
Franz Joseph Haydn in a coda whose mood vacillates between ener - String Quartet in D Major, Op. 20, No. 4 vation and frustration. Accustomed to the breadth and expressiveness e temperament changes with a brief and of string quartets by those who followed Franz bracing dance to refresh the emotional palette. Joseph Haydn, we may not recognize his own For a finale, the first violin launches a perpetual- quartets as groundbreaking. ey were. Haydn motion patter song. Suddenly the dynamic level defined what a quartet could be—giving com - drops. Haydn whispers goodbye. posers new ways of thinking about the genre, demonstrating strategies that enabled them to Béla Bartók communicate. String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 7 Haydn composed the six quartets of his As you gather background about the String Opus 20 in 1772, while serving Prince Nikolaus Quartet No. 1 by Béla Bartók, you will learn that Esterhazy as palace music director, a secure po - it reflects the composer’s fascination with folk sition that allowed him the leisure and freedom songs. Perhaps you will encounter the claim to experiment. Around this time, the extrava - that it possesses a wealth of melody—a “super - gant postures of the European Baroque gave abundance,” as the composer’s biographer Hal - way to Sturm und Drang, a movement that sey Stevens writes. Such assertions might lead would morph into Romanticism, with its eleva - you to expect you were in for easy listening. A tion of human feelings and instabilities, and few bars will set you straight. a love of dark forests and craggy mountain Which is not to take issue with those asser - ranges. In two years, Goethe would publish his tions. Bartók completed his First String Quartet novel e Sorrows of Young Werther, which in in 1908. He had recently discovered the music Western literary history ruptured past from fu - of Debussy, and since 1905 he had immersed ture as surely as Haydn’s Opus 20 bade farewell himself in what became another source of in - to the style of earlier quartets. spiration: peasant music. Armed with wax Consider the fourth of the Opus 20 quartets. cylinders and a recorder, Bartók visited villages Treating every member of his ensemble as an in his native Hungary, urging (oen with a individual with a special strength, putting each pint’s encouragement) the men and women on equal footing, Haydn proves that a com - there to sing the old tunes passed down to them poser can span as much emotional territory as but never notated. Soon he expanded his re - a novelist. No lighthearted diversion, this work search to other lands, including Romania, Tur - enters new territory for a string quartet. key, and North Africa. Peasant tunes helped Especially in the first two movements, the in - shape Bartók’s mature style. Yet he did not usu - troverted thematic material casts shadows. ally incorporate folk tunes into his work literally, Anchoring the Allegro is a four-note thrum first the way Aaron Copland used the Shaker song heard in the cello, the others singing a lan - “Simple Gis” in Appalachian Spring. As Bartók guorous melody around it, asserting themselves scholar Peter Laki points out, the composer “did with it, and finally sounding it one last time not quote any actual folk songs in his quartets; until the momentum spends itself. Next comes instead, he isolated certain structural elements a movement made of variations, every member from these folk songs, such as a melodic turn, a contributing his or her own version of a re - rhythmic pattern, or a typical scale.” signed, mournful song. It starts over an accom - Perhaps it was through Debussy that Bartók paniment in a low register, as the first violin assimilated a sense of ebb and flow, structural sings a sparely ascetic tune. e second violin fluidity. Along with that, he filled his stylistic and viola respond to this, supported by cello arsenal with the thousand musical tricks that and first violin. Now the dark-voiced cello steps farmers and wheelwrights and washer-women forward with a lament. Aer the first violin re - demonstrated for him in taverns and fields. All turns with a searching, intense variation of his this seems unlikely preparation for the body of own, he reprises the opening. All members join work that would follow, which includes six
Opposite: Photo by Amanda Tipton PROGRAM NOTES
string quartets that at least one writer, Stevens, Edvard Grieg believes “worthy of being placed beside those String Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 27 of the Viennese masters.” Many music lovers think of Edvard Grieg as a As you listen, consider these words of Peter two-hit composer, those hits being his Piano Laki’s: Bartók’s “non-traditional harmonies can Concerto and his incidental music for Ibsen’s sound harsh and dissonant at first hearing, but Peer Gynt, which actually includes a subset of he used them in such a coherent and logical hits such as “Morning Mood” and “In the Hall way that the ear soon accepts them as a natural of the Mountain King.” If you claim you’re idiom.” e ear soon discovers the “melodic familiar with this string quartet, you will either super abundance” that at first seems submerged. be an especially cultivated listener, or you’ll e signposts leading the way through this be making it up. While his Piano Concerto is music are oen difficult to spot. e quartet among the most loved of all concert pieces, opens as the two violins engage in a dirgelike Grieg’s String Quartet No. 1 is one of the least duet. Soon cello and viola join them, imitating known. the opening lines. e four players enter a give- Unlike the handful of works that have earned and-take easily absorbed by the ear yet complex Grieg his place in the repertory, this quartet of in its implications: for all the beauty that resides 1878 offers few tunes that drill their way im - in the rich textures, the indeterminate tonality mediately into the ear—despite the fact that it is unsettling. Already, scarcely more than a includes hints of folk music, or that references minute having passed, we’ve been promised an to Grieg’s song “Spillemaend” (“e Minstrel”) interesting journey. run through it (this tune appears initially about Rising to an impassioned crest and subsid - two minutes in, introduced as the roiling sub - ing, the action turns now to the cello, whose sides and the first violinist commences with a commanding bow strokes introduce a heated lyrical interlude; it reappears in the introduc - viola solo. As the textures lighten, the cello re - tion to the final movement and again at the very sponds with a flowing, affirmative passage. e end). And while composers such as Liszt and violins reprise the opening, and again, with all Tchaikovsky admired the quartet, critics treated four players participating, the texture fills and it badly, faulting it not for what it contained, but the music rises to a transcendent moment. for what it lacked—meaning it failed to meet Without a break, the second movement begins, their conventional expectations, which Grieg now at a faster tempo. had never aimed to fulfill at all. e third movement opens with the cello de - For this is no orthodox piece of chamber claiming an introduction in a voice that could music. Having just heard quartets by Haydn be mistaken for speech. e first violin answers and Bartók, your ears will be accustomed to this in a soaring passage that ends in an ethereal music that moves not only in a horizontal line, register. In the ensuing Allegro , traces of folk from start to finish, but which also (and at the songs emerge. e tempo broadens, leading to same time) moves vertically, lending a sense a fugato passage that gives way to a frenzied of depth to any given moment. Grieg’s quartet dance. Aer a moment of reflection, momen - moves primarily in one straight line. It is ho - tum builds to a triumphant conclusion. mophonic with a vengeance. All that is an unoriginal way to describe very So you may be startled by the Grieg. Perhaps original music (even though the path this music it will sound as though something is missing. travels, from darkness to light, is as archetypal I once reacted like this when, aer a long bout as it gets). You’re not likely to leave this concert of reading Henry James’ architecturally elabo - humming tunes from Bartók, but his music is rate sentences, I turned to Graham Greene’s likely to remain with you. Which tells you more spare prose. e experience was something like than what anyone could say about what he has the uncharacteristic ease of liing a 20-pound given us here. weight aer a week of working out with 100
PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES pounds. is is not to say that either Graham Today we encounter Grieg more oen on Greene or Edvard Grieg are lightweights, nor pops programs than in “serious” concerts, but that more is necessarily better. But we ought to this quartet shows how wrong we are to pigeon- be prepared for what lies ahead. As Grieg’s crit - hole him. As much as the unexpected disso - ics were not. nances must have riled critics in 1878, this Grieg’s string writing here has been called music’s hand-wringing passion—which dis - “semi-orchestral,” a nod to its big sound, plays a little-known side of Grieg—is contained achieved with an abundance of double stops. within a musical structure based more on e music unfolds like a narrative, seeming to motifs and rhythm and dramatic gesture than reflect psychological states more than to present on any conventional form—the sort of form a musical argument. It advances in episodes Grieg’s critics sought in vain to find here. Little (punctuated throughout with a gesture like that did they know he was pointing in a direction heard in the keyboard chords that open Grieg’s others would one day follow. Piano Concerto) and includes heated drama —Larry Rothe presented in big, silent-movie gestures; tender, dreamy interludes; elegant salon music (the Larry Rothe is author of Music for a City, Music lyrical sections of the bipolar second move - for the World and co-author of For the Love ment); and the dances of Grieg’s native Norway of Music. (he may call the last movement a saltarello, but Italy never spawned music like this).
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
e Takács Quartet , now in its forty-third semble will perform extensively in the United season, is renowned for the vitality of its inter - States, including two concerts at New York’s pretations. e New York Times recently lauded Lincoln Center, and at the University of Chi- the ensemble for “revealing the familiar as un - cago and Princeton. A tour with Garrick Ohls - familiar, making the most traditional of works sohn will culminate in a recording for Hyperion feel radical once more,” and the Financial Times of the Elgar and Amy Beach piano quintets. described a recent concert at London’s Wig - e latest Takács CD, to be released this coming more Hall: “Even in the most fiendish reper - spring, features Dohnányi’s two piano quintets toire these players show no fear, injecting the and his second string quartet, with pianist music with a heady sense of freedom. At the Marc-André Hamelin. same time, though, there is an uncompromising In 2014 the Takács became the first string attention to detail: neither a note nor a bow-hair quartet to win the Wigmore Hall Medal. e is out of place.” Based in Boulder at the Univer - honor, inaugurated in 2007, recognizes major sity of Colorado, Edward Dusinberre, Harumi international artists who have a strong associ - Rhodes (violins), Geraldine Walther (viola), ation with the hall. Recipients so far include and András Fejér (cello) perform 80 concerts a András Schiff, omas Quasthoff, Menahem year worldwide. Pressler, and Dame Felicity Lott. In 2012 During the 2018 –19 season the musicians Gram ophone announced that the Takács was will continue presenting their four annual con - the only string quartet to be inducted into its certs as Associate Artists at London’s Wigmore first Hall of Fame, along with such legendary Hall. In August 2018 the quartet appeared at artists as Jascha Heifetz, Leonard Bernstein, the Edinburgh, Snape Proms, Menton, and and Dame Janet Baker. e ensemble also won Rhein gau festivals. Other European venues later the 2011 Award for Chamber Music and Song in the season include Berlin, Cologne, Baden- presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society Baden, Bilbao and the Bath Mozartfest. e en - in London.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Well known for its innovative programming, e members of the Takács Quartet are the Takács Quartet performed Philip Roth’s Christoffersen Faculty Fellows at the University Everyman program with Meryl Streep at Prince - of Colorado Boulder, where they have helped ton in 2014, and again with her at the Royal to develop a program with a special emphasis Conservatory of Music in Toronto in 2015. e on chamber music and where students work in musicians first performed Every man— which a nurturing environment designed to help them was conceived in close collaboration with Roth— develop their artistry. rough the university, at Carnegie Hall in 2007 with Philip Seymour two of the quartet’s members benefit from the Hoffman. ey have toured 14 cities with the generous loan of instruments from the Drake poet Robert Pinsky, collaborate regularly with Instrument Foundation. e Takács members the Hungarian folk group Muzsi kas, and in are also on the faculty at the Music Academy 2010 collaborated with the Colo rado Shakes - of the West in Santa Barbara, where they run an peare Festival and David Law rence Morse on a intensive summer seminar, and Visiting Fellows drama project that explored the composition of at the Guildhall School of Music. Beethoven’s late quartets. Aspects of the en - e Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at semble’s interests and history are explored in the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Edward Dusinberre’s book Bee thoven for a Later Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai, Age: e Journey of a String Quartet , which takes and András Fejér, while all four were students. the reader inside the life of a professional string It first received international attention in 1977, quartet, melding music history and memoir as winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at the it explores the circumstances surrounding the International String Quartet Competition in composition of Bee tho ven’s quartets. Evian, France. e group also won the Gold e Takács records for Hyperion Records, Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux and its releases for that label include string Competitions and First Prizes at the Buda - quartets by Haydn, Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, pest International String Quartet Competition Debussy, and Britten, as well as piano quintets (1978) and the Bratislava Competition (1981). by Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André e quartet made its North American debut Hamelin), and viola quintets by Brahms (with tour in 1982. Aer several changes of person - Lawrence Power). For their CDs on the Decca/ nel, the most recent addition is second violinist London label, the quartet has won three Gram - Harumi Rhodes, following Károly Schranz’s o phone Awards, a Grammy Award, three Japa - retirement in April 2018. In 2001 the Takács nese Record Academy Awards, Disc of the Year Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of at the inaugural BBC Music Magazine Awards, the Knight’s Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and Ensemble Album of the Year at the Clas - and in March 2011 each member of the group sical Brits. Full details of all recordings can be was awarded the Order of Merit Commander’s found in the Recordings section of the quartet’s Cross by the President of the Republic of website (www.takacsquartet.com). Hungary.
PLAYBILL