Takács Quartet the Complete String Quartets of Béla Bartók
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Amanda Tipton Saturday, December 7, 2019, 8pm Sunday, December 8, 2019, 3pm Hertz Hall Takács Quartet The Complete String Quartets of Béla Bartók Edward Dusinberre, violin Harumi Rhodes, violin Geraldine Walther, viola András Fejér, cello This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Charles and Helene Linker. Cal Performances’ 2019–20 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. 23 PROGRAMS Saturday, December 7 String Quartet No. 1, Sz. 40 (Op. 7) Lento Allegretto—Introduzione Allegro vivace String Quartet No. 3, Sz. 8 Prima parte: Moderato Seconda parte: Allegro Recapitulazione della prima parte: Moderato Coda: Allegro molto INTERMISSION String Quartet No. 5, Sz. 102, BB 110 Allegro Adagio molto Scherzo: alla bulgarese Andante Finale: Allegro vivace Sunday, December 8 String Quartet No. 2, Sz. 67 (Op. 17) Moderato Allegro molto capriccioso Lento String Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91 Allegro Prestissimo, con sordino Non troppo lento Allegretto pizzicato Allegro molto INTERMISSION String Quartet No. 6, Sz. 114, BB 119 Mesto—Più mosso, pesante—Vivace Mesto—Marcia Mesto—Burletta—Moderato Mesto The Takács Quartet appears by arrangement with Seldy Cramer Artists, and records for Hyperion and Decca/London Records. The Takács Quartet is Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado in Boulder; the members are Associate Artists at Wigmore Hall, London. www.takacsquartet.com 24 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES Th e Complete String Quartets of Béla Bartók of sonority; daring harmonically yet grounded (1881–1945) in tradition; enormous in their range of ex- Th ere is a particular exhilaration that comes pression. Th ey are fundamental documents with performing the six Bartók string quartets of modern music, integral to the study of the that make up the complete cycle. Our perfor- discipline and the subject of many learned trea- mances have been infl uenced by working reg- tises. But the true importance of these master- ularly with the Hungarian folk group Muzsikas, pieces lies not in their demonstrable mastery whose sense of adventure and joyful abandon of the craft of composition, not in the fi erce has, we hope, crept into our performances of intellect that attended their creation, but in these monuments of 20th-century quartet the way they allow us to share the spirit of one literature. extraordinary man who affi rmed his life—and As with Beethoven cycle programs, we ar- ours—by wresting order from change and con- range the order of the quartets to give a sense tradiction. of Bartók’s musical journey. In the fi rst pro- Change and contradiction came to Bartók gram, the late Romanticism of the Quartet both as a Hungarian, with the waning of the No. 1 is rudely shattered by the explosive old ways of life that provided the bedrock of modernist tendencies of No. 3. To conclude the nation’s culture, and as a musician, with the program, No. 5 shows Bartók at the peak the erosion of the traditional tonal system of his compositional powers, with its extraor- upon which compositions had been founded dinary spectrum of colors, rhythmic vitality, for nearly three centuries. Bartók confronted and range of emotion. Th e second program both of these potential threats in the quartets begins with the Quartet No. 2, which presents by drawing melodic, rhythmic, and textural melancholy and yearning lyricism in the outer inspiration from the indigenous songs and movements and a capricious second move- dances that he collected during his decades ment giddy with excitement and momentum. of fi eld research on the subject, and then forg- We follow this with No. 4, itself a striking ing those musical elements into logical forms journey from its rigid, uncompromising fi rst molded from new tonal alloys that melded con- movement and spectral, nightmarish second vention and innovation. to the humanizing cello solo in the middle In so doing, he mirrored his own life: by movement. Th e humorous fourth movement showing in the Quartets Nos. 1 and 2 (com- and festive dance fi nale leave performers and posed when he was 27 and 34, and the only two audience alike in a completely diff erent place of the quartets bearing opus numbers) how the from where we began. folk sources to which he had devoted his early Of course, the cycle must end with the Sixth years could affi rm his coming of age by provid- Quartet, where Bartók achieved an unprec- ing the basis for establishing his distinctive cre- edented degree of emotional depth—a sense ative voice; by showing in the Quartets Nos. 3 of resignation and even withdrawal from the and 4 (ages 46 and 47) how that musical speech world. could be made to encompass the most rigorous —Takács Quartet discipline and individualism; and by showing in the Quartets Nos. 5 and 6 (ages 53 and 58) * * * how the experience of life (and art) could both sharpen and mellow the personality to refl ect Th e string quartets of Béla Bartók are monu- the wisdom of maturity. Bartók’s six string ments of music, virtually unsurpassed by any quartets transcend the mere notes that are their body of work of any other composer: unim- medium to record the unfolding and renewing peachable in their form and technique, with of a human spirit, a process of creativity and the tiniest motivic atom set spinning elegantly communication that perfectly embodies the through the universe of an all-embracing composer’s artistic credo: “I cannot conceive of structure; ingenious yet masterful in their use music that expresses absolutely nothing.” 25 PROGRAM NOTES String Quartet No. 1, Sz. 40 (Op. 7) minor Quartet, Op. 131. Formal contrast is Th e year 1907, when he was 26, was a crucial provided by the movement’s central section, time both personally and professionally for based on a descending theme in worried Béla Bartók. In January, he was appointed to rhythms (marked “very impassioned”) initiated the faculty of the Budapest Academy of Music by the viola above a drone in the cello. (As a as a teacher of piano, and he soon became means of unifying the overall structure of the recognized as one of Hungary’s most talented quartet, the opening interval of this melody— keyboard virtuosos and pedagogues. By 1907, a falling half-step—serves as the germ from he had begun to establish himself as a com- which the themes of the two later movements poser and a folk music researcher, though his grow.) A return of the opening canon, fl oating original works to that time, largely under the high in the violins, rounds out the movement’s sway of late German Romanticism, had not yet form. An inconclusive harmony leads without revealed his distinctive creative personality. He pause to the next movement. was then also much occupied with thoughts Th e form of the spectral Allegretto is related of Hungarian nationalism (he even eschewed to Classical sonata-allegro with three themes: business suits for a short period in favor of a falling melody of short phrases introduced traditional peasant dress), and the manner in by the second violin aft er a hesitant introduc- which the music he was documenting on his tion; a fl owing waltz-like strain given by the research trips through the Transylvanian coun- inner strings above an ostinato murmur from tryside could be most eff ectively incorporated the cello and fi rst violin; and a quiet, subdued into his original works. motive accompanied by pizzicato notes from Th e String Quartet No. 1, Bartók’s fi rst pub- the cello. Aft er a tightly woven development lished chamber work and his earliest generally sec tion, however, the themes are recapitulated recognized masterpiece, is an important docu- not in their expected order, but in reverse, a ment of that formative time in his life. Th ough technique that creates a structural symme- certainly touched by elements of program- try (1–2–3–development–3–2–1) for which matic autobiography (Ernö Lendvai found in Bartók showed great fondness in many of his it “fi rst descent—then ascent. Th e entire work later compositions. possesses a dramatic [progression] because the It is in the fi nale that Bartók moved beyond ‘return to life’ [Kodály’s description of the fi - the extended Romantic style of the earlier nale] is brought about by catharsis, a purifying movements toward the characteristic com- fever”), the quartet is, above all, a purely musi- positional idiom, grown from the distinctive cal record of the profound evolution of Bartók’s melodic leadings and fi ery dance rhythms of stylistic language from its Germanic, Romantic Hungarian folk music, that informs his great- origins to its mature basis in the quintessential est works. Th e movement is introduced by a elements of Hungarian folk song. Elliott An- preludial paragraph in which the cello makes tokoletz paired it with Strauss’ Elektra, also bardic pronouncements that are separated by completed in 1909, as “epitomizing late Ro- excited punctuations from the upper strings. mantic music on the threshold of a new chro- Th e main part of the movement is a sort of matic idiom.” modern sonata-rondo whose structural de- Th e fi rst movement is a darkly emotional marcations are oft en blurred by the continuous essay grown from the harmonic richness of thematic working-out. Th e movement’s sec- Wagner’s Tristan, and not unrelated to the ripe ond theme, however, a folkish tune similar to Expressionism of Schoenberg’s 1899 Verklärte the one on which Kodály based his “Peacock” Nacht. Th e work begins with a close canon Variations of 1939, is placed in high relief by in slow tempo on a lamenting theme, whose its slow tempo and Impressionistic trilled ac- imitative technique was probably infl uenced companiment.