04-12 JSQ.qxp_GP 4/2/18 12:27 PM Page 1 Thursday Evening, April 12, 2018, at 7:30 The Juilliard School presents Juilliard String Quartet Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes , Violins Roger Tapping , Viola Astrid Schween , Cello Part of the Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) String Quartet No. 5 in A major, Op. 18, No. 5 Allegro Menuetto Andante cantabile Allegro JAMES MACMILLAN (b. 1959) String Quartet No. 2, Why is This Night Different? Intermission BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127 Maestoso—Allegro Adagio ma non troppo e molto cantabile Scherzo: Vivace Finale Performance time: approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, including one intermission The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not permitted in this auditorium. Information regarding gifts to the school may be obtained from the Juilliard School Development Office, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-6588; (212) 799-5000, ext. 278 (juilliard.edu/giving). Alice Tully Hall Please make certain that all electronic devices are turned off during the performance. 04-12 JSQ.qxp_GP 4/2/18 12:27 PM Page 2 Notes on the Program general revision took place late in the process, including a substantial re-writing by James Keller of the quartets in F and G. It is no surprise that by the time Beethoven finished pen - String Quartet No. 5 in A major, ning the six, he should have learned Op. 18, No. 5 lessons that he wanted to incorporate into LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN the earliest of them. Born in Bonn, Germany, probably on December 16, 1770—he was baptized on The sunny Fifth Quartet is the one most the 17th overtly molded on Mozart. Of Mozart’s Died in Vienna, Austria, on March 26, 1827 quartets, the most famous (then as now) were the six he published in 1785 bearing Ludwig van Beethoven’s early string quar - a dedication to Haydn. One in that set is tets were born into the lineage of his great particularly relevant to the work played predecessors Haydn and Mozart, yet they here—Mozart’s Quartet in A major (K.464). already strained in new directions. Succinct Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny reported, themes capable of extensive develop - “Beethoven once saw at my house the ment; imaginative melodic manipulation; score of six quartets by Mozart dedicated startling dynamic contrasts; complete, to Haydn. He opened the fifth in A and sometimes radical, formal mastery—these said: ‘That’s what I call a work! In it, are all evident in his first set of six quar - Mozart was telling the world: Look what I tets, Op. 18, which he composed from the could do if you were ready for it!’” We summer or autumn of 1798 to the summer know that Beethoven copied out at least of 1800. They were introduced at private the last two movements of that quartet. house-concerts given on Friday mornings at the Vienna home of Prince Karl Lobkowitz, Apart from sharing a key, the Mozart and the Austrian aristocrat to whom the set is Beethoven quartets align in their ordering dedicated. These were attended by the of movements; it would be more charac - city’s cultural and philanthropic elite, and teristic of Beethoven to place his slow shortly after Beethoven’s quartets were movement second and his minuet (or unveiled, patrons showed an increasing scherzo) third. Notwithstanding impres - interest in commissioning works from the sive melodic, harmonic, and structural intractable genius. niceties, Beethoven hews to relatively standard procedures in this work. Still, The three sketchbooks in which Beethoven this is no mere imitation of Mozart; at recorded and worked out his ideas for some places Beethoven emulates his these quartets reveal that they were com - predecessor but at others he offers an posed in a different order from how they original, personal response to Mozart’s were positioned when published, in 1801. model. On the whole straightforward and The D-major Quartet (Op. 18, No. 3) was uncomplicated, the piece builds in impres - the first to be written; the F-major (No. 1) siveness as it unrolls, achieving in its and G-major (No. 2) followed, probably in third movement a particularly expressive that order; and those in A major (No. 5), B-flat set of variations and, in the finale, a major (No. 6), and C minor (No. 4)—possibly delightful balance of good humor and in that order—came last. At least some contrapuntal vigor. 04-12 JSQ.qxp_GP 4/2/18 12:27 PM Page 3 String Quartet No. 2, Why is This Night His Second String Quartet, named Why is Different? This Night Different? , was composed in JAMES MACMILLAN 1998 and premiered that same year in Born July 16, 1959, in Kilwinning, London by the Maggini Quartet. It unrolls Ayrshire, Scotland in a single continuous movement compris - Currently residing in Glasgow, Scotland ing four clearly apprehended sections. The title comes from the seder, the Passover The music of James MacMillan—Sir James meal commemorating the flight of the since he was awarded a knighthood in the Children of Israel from Egypt. Mr. MacMillan 2015 Queen’s Birthday honors—startles writes, “The youngest present asks ‘Why listeners with its combination of vivacious is this night different from all other nights?’ energy and emotional intensity. Where many before the father relates the tale of flight of his contemporaries who are drawn to and liberation from slavery. The drama of expressing spiritual ideals in music turn to the story, the centrally important figure of a sort of minimalist mysticism, MacMillan the child in the ritual, the closeness achieves that end through music of greater between elation and despair and between complexity, reflecting his early attraction joy and fear together suggested the arche - to the compositions of Lutosławski or types which lie behind my musical inter - Penderecki and later admiration for such ests. They provided the initial spark of diverse figures as Harrison Birtwistle, inspiration for this piece.” Alfred Schnittke, and Sofia Gubaidulina. He continues: “Certain concerns prevalent MacMillan studied music at the University in some of my works of the 1990s, namely of Edinburgh and the University of a sense of ambiguity between darkness Durham, which awarded him a Ph.D. in and light and the confrontation of extremes, 1987. His predilections include an interest resurface here in my Second String in Scottish folk music, Renaissance music, Quartet. In terms of mood there is an firmly held Roman Catholic religious attempt to present a sense of celebration beliefs, and concern for social and political within a context of danger and violence. morality. Around 1990 he remarked: Children’s themes appear again as they did “There are strong Scottish traits in [my in my opera Ines de Castro, Cello Concerto , recent music], but also an aggressive and and Symphony: ‘Vigil.’ However, the themes forthright tendency with a strong rhythmic used here are quotations of and allusions physicality, showing the influence of to melodies written by me as a child some Stravinsky, Messaien, and some minimal - 30 years before.” ist composers. … The ‘modernist’ zeal of the post-war generation of composers String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, who attempted to eschew any continua - Op. 127 tion of tradition is anathema to me. I LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN respect tradition in many forms, whether cultural, political, or historical, and in keep - No listener at the premieres of Beethoven’s ing up a continuous, delicate scrutiny of old Op. 18 quartets—the composer included, forms, ancient traditions, enduring beliefs, surely—could have conceived that anyone and lasting values one is strengthened in would ever write the sort of music that one’s constant, restless search for new pervades string quartets clustered at the avenues of expression.” end of his life. By the time he embarked on 04-12 JSQ.qxp_GP 4/2/18 12:27 PM Page 4 his final five (and the Grosse Fuge , destined four-movement format of most Classical forever to sound avant-garde), Beethoven string quartets: fast first and last move - was pretty much surviving on a planet of ments (here with a slow introduction to his own, cut off by deafness from the hear - the first), separated by a slow second ing world, showing rather little interest in movement and a scherzo. That’s where musical developments around him, wrapped the resemblance to tradition pretty much up in his uniquely advanced compositional ends—and it almost didn’t make it that technique and emotional expression. far, since, for a while, Beethoven contem - plated expanding even this work to six The first three of his late quartets were movements. (The extra movements written at the urging of the composer’s would have been one titled La Gaité , Russian patron Prince Nikolas Galitzin, to falling between the first two movements whom Op. 127 is dedicated. The composi - as they now exist, and a searching Adagio tion of the E-flat-major Quartet was carried preceding the Finale .) The composer out mostly from May 1824 to February referred to his music of this period as 1825, and the piece was first performed involving “a new kind of part-writing,” an on March 6, 1825, in Vienna, by the intensely polyphonic style in which each Schuppanzigh Quartet. This long-suffering line operates with considerable indepen - ensemble had done yeoman’s service for dence while still blending into the overall Beethoven over the years but in this case harmony (though not always in a way that they had only two weeks in which to make listeners might anticipate).