THE GERTRUDE CLARKE WHITTALL FOUNDATION iN tHE lIBRARY oF cONGRESS STRADIVARI ANNIVERSARY CONCERT CECILIA STRING QUARTET Saturday, December 17, 2016 ~ 8:00 pm Coolidge Auditorium Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building In 1935 Gertrude Clarke Whittall gave the Library of Congress five Stradivari instruments and three years later built the Whittall Pavilion in which to house them. The GERTRUDE CLARKE WHITTALL FOUNDATION was established to provide for the maintenance of the instruments, to support concerts (especially those that feature her donated instruments), and to add to the collection of rare manuscripts that she had additionally given to the Library. This concert commemorates the 150th anniversary of Canada's confederation, and is presented in association with the Embassy of Canada. Tonight's Pre-concert Conversation: Cecilia String Quartet & Composer Kati Agócs Whittall Pavilion, 6:30 pm (No tickets required) Please request ASL and ADA accommodations five days in advance of the concert at 202-707-6362 or [email protected]. Latecomers will be seated at a time determined by the artists for each concert. Children must be at least seven years old for admittance to the concerts. Other events are open to all ages. • Please take note: Unauthorized use of photographic and sound recording equipment is strictly prohibited. Patrons are requested to turn off their cellular phones, alarm watches, and any other noise-making devices that would disrupt the performance. Reserved tickets not claimed by five minutes before the beginning of the event will be distributed to stand-by patrons. Please recycle your programs at the conclusion of the concert. The Library of Congress Coolidge Auditorium Saturday, December 17, 2016 — 8:00 pm THE GERTRUDE CLARKE WHITTALL FOUNDATION iN tHE lIBRARY oF cONGRESS STRADIVARI ANNIVERSARY CONCERT CECILIA STRING QUARTET MIN-JEONG KOH, VIOLIN | SARAH NEMATALLAH, VIOLIN CAITLIN BOYLE, VIOLA | RACHEL DESOER, CELLO • Program WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) String Quartet in D minor, K. 421 (1783) Allegro moderato Andante Menuetto and Trio. Allegretto Allegretto ma non troppo SOFIA GUBAIDULINA (b. 1931) String Quartet no. 1 (1971) iNtermission KATI AGóCS (b. 1975) Tantric Variations (2015) | U.S. Premiere FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) String Quartet in E minor, op. 44, no. 2 (1837) Allegro assai appassionato Scherzo. Allegro di molto Andante Presto Agitato 1 About the Program WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART, String Quartet in D minor, K. 421 Mozart's professional situation in 1781 was increasingly unacceptable. He was in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, who seldom permitted the young upstart composer to perform outside engagements. Mozart, in turn, was insulted that the status of musicians in the palace hierarchy was little higher than that of scullery maids (although this rank was standard in the eighteenth century). Ultimately, the Archbishop, weary of Mozart's complaints, released him on June 9, 1781. Mozart was now free to follow his artistic goals: he resumed teaching and composing, became reacquainted with Haydn, and met other musicians, including Dittersdorf and Vanhal-with whom he eventually began playing quartets. Mozart always revered Haydn as the master composer of the string quartet and paid homage to his mentor with the set of six quartets dedicated to Haydn. The Quartet in D minor, K. 421, dated June 1783, is the second of the set and one of several string quartet works by the composer in a minor key. The first movement of K. 421 is a stately Allegro moderato that, combined with the somber key of D minor, threatens to become stodgy; however, intermittent triplets and sextuplets prevent the doldrums. The second movement, marked Andante, is a lilting affair that begins in F major, but quickly modulates through several keys before it returns to the original. Mozart cunningly eschews the usual quaint minuet style in the Menuetto, and, instead employs a martial-like theme with dotted rhythms. The following trio, however, is more characteristic with dainty skipping figures in the first violin. The finale, marked Allegro ma non troppo, is a theme and variations, which Mozart fashions on the string quartets of Haydn. The latter's quartets often contain such a movement, but Mozart-apart from the early quartet, K. 170-used it only twice: in tonight's quartet and the Quartet in A major, K. 464. Norman Middleton (1951-2015) Former Senior Music Specialist Library of Congress, Music Division Check out scans of selected Mozart correspondence in our digital collections! Holograph letter written by Mozart to his sister, Nannerl. It was composed in Milan and dated March 3, 1770. The letter is part of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation Collection, and formerly was in the possession of the Wittgenstein family of Vienna. It is one of the earliest extant letters to his sister, whom he addresses as "Cara Sorella Mia." The body of letter chronicles the experiences of the young composer in Milan, but it is the postscript that reveals Mozart the boy, who begs Nannerl to "Kiss mamma's hand for me 1000000000000 [one trillion] times." [ML30.8d] Visit http://loc.gov and http://go.usa.gov/x8eqP for more! 2 SOFIA GUBAIDULINA, String Quartet no. 1 "Whatever I write is just an attempt. For us human beings nothing is ever realised as we imagine. What we do is just attempts. That's our lot. So be it." -Sofia Gubaidulina1 Sofia Gubaidulina is regarded by some as one of the most compelling living composers. She was born in Chistopol, in the former Soviet Tatar Republic in 1931.2 Piano is her primary instrument and she began composing early on in her formal music studies, which took her to the Kazan Conservatory and Moscow Conservatory. Gubaidulina relocated to Germany in 1992, where she now lives outside of Hamburg. Her music, humility, and artistic integrity have earned reverence from many leading performers, most notably Gidon Kremer, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Simon Rattle, and Valery Gergiev. Her career under the Soviets was complicated, as officials did not appreciate the avant-garde and (for the time and place) very experimental nature of her music. Frequently compared to composers Edison Denisov (1929-1996) and Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998), Gubaidulina has succeeded in staying true to her individual compositional idiom in her art music, though for many years she composed film scores that are distinct from her concert repertoire. She joined the Soviet Composers Union in 1961 and won a U.S.S.R.-wide competition for young composers in 1963. Despite these early affiliations with sanctioned musical activities, Gubaidulina was limited in her ability to travel outside of the Soviet Union for many years. In the 1970s and 1980s her music was increasingly performed in Western Europe, with a boom coming after the removal of Soviet travel restrictions in 1986. She first visited the United States in 1987 for projects in Kentucky and New York.3 With a musical output that includes orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal, and stage works, Gubaidulina has achieved success at the highest levels of the classical music industry in the United States and Europe. She has been composer-in-residence at the Salzburg Festival, a visiting composer at Tanglewood, is a member of the Akademie der Künste (Berlin), is an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has received honorary doctorates from Yale and the University of Chicago. She was awarded the Great Distinguished Service Cross of the Order of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany. Gubaidulina has received commissions from many leading ensembles and figures, including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Kronos Quartet, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Stuttgart Bach Academy, Arditti Quartet, violinist Gidon Kremer, and conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky. The Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in the Library of Congress commissioned Gubaidulina's Dancer on a tightrope for violin and piano 1 Quoted in Stuart Jeffries, "Sofia Gubaidulina: unchained melodies," The Guardian, October 31, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/31/sofia-gubaidulina-unchained-melodies. 2 The Tatar people trace their ancestry back to nomadic groups that spoke a Turkic language and historically lived in parts of Mongolia, Siberia and Crimea. Modern Tatars live mostly in Tatarstan, a republic within Russia, in the Volga region. Other Tatar communities are domiciled across Kazakhstan, Siberia, and Crimea. See "Tatar," Encyclopædia Britannica, April 16, 2014, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tatar. 3 Michael Kurtz, Sofia Gubaidulina: A Biography, transl. Christoph K. Lohmann, ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), 270-271. 3 (1993).4 Offertorium (1980, rev. 1982/1986), her violin concerto, and Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ According to St. John (2000) are two of Gubaidulina's most widely acclaimed works that have found success on the international stage. Gubaidulina's musical style is influenced by many traditions, including folk traditions from Eastern cultures, 20th-century electronic music, and the Western art music tradition. During Gubaidulina's youth (under the Soviets) she and her friends learned Western repertoire "underground," as much of the trending art music at the time was banned by the regime-to the point of surprise inspections being conducted of dorm rooms at the conservatory in Moscow. Despite these restrictions, she came to know and appreciate the music of composers like Charles Ives and John Cage. In an interview with Vera Lukomsky, Gubaidulina reports having been attracted to the music of Wagner, the great Russian romantics, composers of the Second Viennese School, Josquin, and Bach, who has been a "constant devotion."5 According to Valentina Kholopova, Gubaidulina's music is often related to specific "philosophical, spiritual, religious and poetic ideas."6 Her style has evolved throughout her lengthy career and has included an emphasis on the Fibonacci sequence, with relation to pitches employed mathematically in the construction of compositions.