MARCH 6 LOEB PLAYHOUSE Hugo Wolf Quartett at a GLANCE Thursday, March 6, 2014 / 7:30 PM / Loeb Playhouse
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HUGO WOQuartett LF MARCH 6 LOEB PLAYHOUSE Hugo Wolf Quartett AT A GLANCE Thursday, March 6, 2014 / 7:30 PM / Loeb Playhouse With respect to the musicians and your fellow patrons, we request your participation in the tradition of withholding applause between movements of a selection. To the same end, we also ask that you silence and discontinue use of all electronic devices. Sebastian Gürtler, Violin Régis Bringolf, Violin Thomas Selditz, Viola Florian Berner, Cello Joseph Haydn String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No.2, (1732-1809) “Joke” (1781) Allegro moderato Scherzo: Allegro Largo e sostenuto Finale: Presto Alban Berg Lyric Suite (1925-1926) (1885-1935) Allegro gioviale Andante amoroso Allegro misterioso Adagio appassionato Presto delirando Intermission Franz Schubert String Quartet in G Major, D. 887 (1826) (1797-1828) Allegro molto moderato Andante un poco mosso Scherzo: Allegro vivace Allegro assai Hugo Wolf Quartett AT A GLANCE Thursday, March 6, 2014 / 7:30 PM / Loeb Playhouse JOSEPH HAYDN String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2, “Joke” Prolific and endlessly imaginative, Haydn virtually invented the string quartet as we know it. In the democratic spirit of the Enlight- enment, he gradually worked out a style in which all four instru- ments were more or less equal partners, thus laying the founda- tion for the carefully balanced quartets of Mozart and Beethoven. Haydn’s chamber music style is compounded of elegance and humor, both of which are on display in the “Joke” Quartet, with its radiant slow movement and whimsical Finale. String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No.2, “Joke” (1781) Allegro moderato ALBAN BERG Lyric Suite Scherzo: Allegro Berg was in his mid-40s when he wrote his best-known piece of Largo e sostenuto chamber music as a cryptic love letter to his paramour, Hanna Finale: Presto Fuchs-Robettin. Like Berg’s opera Wozzeck and other works, the Lyric Suite fuses a strict, modernist 12-tone idiom with a freer Romantic impulse. The suite’s “secret program” made headlines Lyric Suite (1925-1926) Allegro gioviale around the world when it was brought to light by American com- Andante amoroso poser and musicologist George Perle in the June 1977 issue of the Allegro misterioso International Alban Berg Society Newsletter. Adagio appassionato Presto delirando FRANZ SCHUBERT String Quartet in G Major, D. 887 Schubert completed a total of 15 quartets, the first when he was Intermission barely 13, the last some two years before his untimely death. In the mid-1820s, he became fixated on the idea of writing a “grand sym- phony” on the order of Beethoven’s Ninth. Although that ambitious String Quartet in G Major, D. 887 (1826) project never came to fruition, his last three quartets—the G-Major Allegro molto moderato Quartet of 1826 and the quartets in A minor (“Rosamunde”) and D Andante un poco mosso Scherzo: Allegro vivace minor (“Death and the Maiden”), both written in 1824—were clearly Allegro assai conceived on a symphonic scale. Management for the Hugo Wolf Quartet: Marianne Schmocker Artists International, 25 Madison Street, Huntington, NY 11743 THE PROGRAM JOSEPH HAYDN (1732–1809) String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2, “Joke” About the Composer Haydn’s reputation as the “father of the string quartet” reflects not only his extraordinary productivity—he wrote no fewer than 68 quartets, as well as a number of quartet arrangements—but also his pivotal place in music history. In 1732, the year Haydn was born, Bach and Vivaldi were still in their prime. By the time he died 77 years later, Beethoven was diligently ushering in the Romantic era. Haydn’s lifetime thus neatly encapsulated the Classical era, and his music reflects the “Classical” virtues of equilibrium, clarity, and se- riousness of purpose, tempered with a playfulness and often earthy humor that have delighted audiences ever since. About the Work Haydn’s influence was felt throughout Europe, although he spent virtually his entire career either in Vienna or in the idyllic seclu- sion of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy’s country estate in Eisenstadt. His earliest quartets, dating from the mid- to late-1750s, are closely related to the string sonatas, sinfonias, and divertimentos popular with midcentury European audiences. In these works, the cello was largely confined to continuo-style harmonic accompaniment, but in Haydn’s hands both the bass line and the two inner voices became increasingly independent. In the second of his six Op. 33 quartets, written in 1781 and dedicated to Grand Duke Paul of Russia, the cello still plays a mostly supporting role. But Haydn turns convention on its head in the slow movement by allowing the two lower instru- ments to introduce the sweetly majestic theme. A Closer Listen The first violin starts the ball rolling with an amiable melody in E- flat major, whose signature motif—a brisk upbeat figure comprised of two rising 16th-notes—underpins the entire Allegro moderato. With characteristic economy, Haydn ingeniously varies and extends THE PROGRAM this simple thematic idea, transferring it from one voice and register to another in a lighthearted game of hide and seek. The jovial Scher- zo is equally sophisticated in its unassuming way: Haydn plays with the eight-bar phrase structure by repeatedly inserting “extra” bars that thwart the listener’s expectation of predictable regularity. The Largo e sostenuto picks up the triple meter of the Scherzo, but this time in a radiantly lyrical vein, with sudden dynamic contrasts and sharply accentuated syncopations that provide a hint of drama. Listen for the half-step oscillations in the accompanying voices, an- other subtle thematic link to the Scherzo. The high-spirited Finale is the first violin’s show from start to finish, right up to the whimsical false endings that give the quartet its nickname, “Joke.” Performance Time: approximately 22 minutes Premiere: Composed in 1781, Haydn’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2, “Joke,” received its Carnegie Hall premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on February 12, 1978, Haydn Quartet (Marvin Morgenstern and Alvin Rodgers, violins; Karen Tuttle, viola; and Alan Shulman, cello). ALBAN BERG (1885–1935) Lyric Suite About the Composer In May 1925, Berg traveled to Prague to attend a performance of ex- cerpts from his opera Wozzeck. “My brain is on fire,” he wrote excit- edly to his wife, Helene, in Vienna. His heart would soon be burning, as well. Although Berg repeatedly reassured Helene that there was nothing between him and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a well- to-do Czech industrialist, in reality they were conducting a torrid affair that would end only with the composer’s death in 1935. Helene would go to her own grave in 1976 innocent of her husband’s infidel- ity. Unknown to her, American composer and musicologist George Perle had already tracked down an early published score of the Lyric Suite that Berg had inscribed to Hanna as “a small monument to a great love.” The work’s “secret program” created a sensation when Perle published it in 1977. About the Work The printed preface to the miniature score that Berg presented to Fuchs-Robettin misleadingly stated that the suite’s structure was “mostly lax,” the six movements being “but loosely connected.” Nothing could have been farther from the truth. In page after page of handwritten annotations, the infatuated composer provided a comprehensive key to the love story that inspired his work. Berg meticulously mapped out every bar of music, down to the level of in- dividual pitches, tempos, and even note durations. As an organizing principle, he relied not only on the 12-note method of composition developed by his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, but also on the num- bers 23 and 10 (which had special significance for the lovers) and the musical equivalent of his and Hanna’s initials: In German notation, the notes A, B, H, and F correspond to A, B-flat, B-natural, F. A Closer Listen To the average listener, of course, neither the arcane formal struc- ture of the Lyric Suite nor its elaborate “secret program” is as impor- tant as the visceral impact it makes in performance. Whatever com- plexities lie beneath the surface, the warm-blooded sensuality and rhapsodic lyricism of Berg’s richly colored score make it eminently accessible, even on first hearing. The composer helpfully provided a roadmap to the listener’s emotional journey in the Italian adjectives attached to the movement titles: jovial, amorous, mysterious, pas- sionate, delirious, and desolated. The music limns these changing moods, its fevered intensity unrelenting until, at the end, the four instruments fade out one by one, the musical staves literally disap- pearing from the printed page. Performance Time: approximately 25 minutes Premiere: Completed in 1926, Berg’s Lyric Suite received its Carn- egie Hall premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on May 21, 1973, with the Concord String Quartet (Mark Sokol and Andrew Jennings, violins; John Kochanowski, viola; and Norman Fischer, cello). Berg’s version for string orchestra received its US premiere at Carnegie Hall on October 22, 1931, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Erich Kleiber. FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828) String Quartet in G Major, D. 887 About the Composer By the time he reached his late 20s, Schubert had moved far beyond the prodigious facility of his teenage years. Toward the end of his short life, he became fixated on the idea of writing a “grand sym- phony” on the scale of Beethoven’s Ninth. Although that project never got off the drawing board, he hinted at its nature in the three great string quartets that he produced between 1824 and 1826.