Viano String Quartet - Program

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Program

ArtPower presents

Viano String Quartet

February 18, 2022 at 8 pm Dept. of Music's Conrad Prebys Concert Hall Lucy Wang, violin Hao Zhou, violin Aiden Kane, viola Tate Zawadiuk, cello

Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942) Five Pieces for String Quartet Alla Valse Viennese Alla Serenata Alla Czeca Alla Tango milonga All Tarantella Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) Fratres for String Quartet Alberto Ginastera (1916–83) String Quartet No. 1, Opus 20 Allegro violento ed agitato Vivacissimo Calmo e poetico Allegramente rustico INTERMISSION Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) String Quartet in G Minor, Opus 27 Un poco andante; Allegro molto ed agitato Romanze: Andantino; Allegro agitato Intermezzo: Allegro molto marcato Finale: Lento; Presto al Saltarello

Thank You

UC San Diego Partners: Department of Music; The Preuss School Chamber Music

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About the Program Five Pieces for String Quartet Erwin Schulhoff Born June 8, 1894, Prague Died August 18, 1942, Wülzburg, Bavaria The Five Pieces come from a particularly fertile time in Erwin Schulhoff’s career.

Following service in the Austrian Army during World War I, he had made his home in Leipzig for four years during a period of incredible ferment in the world of classical music. In the fall of 1923 Schulhoff returned to his native Prague, and that move seemed to energize his creativity, particularly his interest in writing for string quartet. That December he wrote the Five Pieces for String Quartet, and over the following two years he wrote his two string quartets (as well as a string sextet). The Five Pieces were first performed at an International Society for Contemporary Music concert in Salzburg on August 8, 1924. Schulhoff dedicated the work to Darius Milhaud.

The Five Pieces is a suite of (mostly) dance movements, and each of these dances has a particular national flavor; the movements are quite short, and the Five Pieces may be thought of as a collection of dance miniatures. The title of the opening movement seems to suggest an evocation of the Viennese waltz, but this particular example waltzes rather violently; despite the three-beat rhythmic pattern of the waltz, Schulhoff sets the movement in 4/4. Alla Serenata, the one non-dance movement in the work, features a powerful rhythmic pulse rather than the lyricism one expects from a serenade; Schulhoff enlivens its closing measures with passages that call for both col legno and ponticello bowing. Alla Czeca is a hard-driving dance built on asymmetric meters, and all commentators hear the influence of Bartók and his research into Eastern European folk music on this movement. Longest of the movements, Alla Tango milonga is also the most exotic, full of pulsing, driving energy and sensual tunes. Alla Tarantella dances fiercely along its sharply-accented 6/8 meter. This movement has so much energy that it becomes a wild perpetual-motion that races breathlessly to the abrupt conclusion.

Fratres, for String Quartet Arvo Pärt Born September 11, 1935, Paide, Estonia Though the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is now in his eighties, as recently as forty years ago he was unknown in the West. Trained in Tallinn, Pärt supported himself as a recording engineer for Estonian Radio as he tried to make his way as a composer in a society rigidly controlled by conservative Soviet tastes. Rebelling against the conformity and simplicity of that approach, Pärt began to experiment: first with serialism (at a time when that was forbidden in Soviet music), then with collage techniques, and later with the plainchant of early religious music. Without any knowledge of minimalism as it was then evolving in the United States, Pärt arrived at similar compositional procedures by himself, and his music is built on the same hypnotic repetition of simple materials, in his case often derived from early church music. Pärt emigrated in 1980 and has since lived in Germany.

Fratres exists in a number of different forms. Pärt originally composed it in 1977 for the Estonian early-music group Hortus Musicus, scoring it at that time for string quintet and 4

Program

wind quintet. He then received a commission from the Salzburg Festival for a work for violin and piano based on Fratres, and this version–premiered at Salzburg on August 17, 1980, by Gidon and Elena Kremer–has been widely performed. Pärt subsequently arranged Fratres for the cello section of the Berlin Philharmonic and then for other ensembles; each of these versions is slightly different, fitting in a work which is itself in variation form. Pärt’s arrangement for string quartet dates from 1989. Unlike the violin version, which offers a series of variations above a solemn chord progression, the quartet version concentrates on that ground bass. The structure might be described as a long, slow crescendo, followed by a decrescendo. Over a sustained pedal point, the ground is heard very quietly and in artificial harmonics. It repeats, gradually emerging from that misty beginning, and each repetition is set off by pizzicato strokes. Slowly the sonority evolves from harmonics to natural bowing, growing louder as it proceeds. And then, just as gradually, it fades into the distance and silence.

String Quartet No. 1, Opus 20 Alberto Ginastera Born April 11, 1916, Buenos Aires Died June 25, 1983, Geneva Alberto Ginastera composed his First String Quartet in 1948, the same year the 32-yearold composer was named director of the Conservatory of Buenos Aires province.

Ginastera noted that this quartet inaugurated what he referred to as his second period of composition, which he called “subjective nationalism.” By this he meant that native Argentine musical materials, employed consciously in his early music, now appeared in his music only unconsciously; the unintentional evocation of native music in this quartet ranges from the sound of a guitar’s open strings in the third movement to the use of what Ginastera himself called “rhythms and melodic motifs of the music of the pampas.” The First String Quartet was premiered by the Mozart Quartet in Buenos Aires on October 14, 1949. Its success with audiences and performers was so great that it was selected for performance at the 25th Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Frankfurt in 1951.

For all of Ginastera’s unconscious use of native Argentine materials, what most strikes a listener is just how traditional the First String Quartet is: it has a sonata-form first movement, an ABA scherzo, a three-part slow movement, and a rondo-finale. The opening Allegro violento ed agitato is aptly named, for it does burst to life with a violent introduction built on asymmetric meters: Ginastera leaps between 5/8, 2/4, 7/8, and 3/4 before the pounding, syncopated main idea appears in the first violin. This theme dominates the opening movement, which rushes to a powerful close. The scherzo, marked Vivacissimo, has proven a particular favorite of audiences. It pulses breathlessly forward, and Ginastera evokes a wide palette of string sound here, alternating pizzicatos, glissandos, harmonics, and ricochet bowing as the musical line leaps smoothly between all four voices. The very ending, where the music winks out in near-silence, is particularly effective.

Ginastera marks the third movement Calmo e poetico, and the terraced entrances of the three lower instruments evoke the notes of a guitar’s open strings: E-A-D-G-B-E. Over this chord, the first violin sings a long theme marked tranquillo, dolce vibrato.

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A declarative cello cadenza introduces the movement’s center section; this rises to a great climax (marked con molta intensita) before the music falls away to end on a final evocation of the “guitar” chord that opened the movement. The brilliant finale is a rondo in ABABA form. Its opening section dances along on constantly-changing meters while the alternate episode, in 5/8 meter, seems to recall the music of Stravinsky; the second appearance of this episode is played entirely pizzicato, and Ginastera generates some striking sounds by requiring much of this to be played sul ponticello: right on the bridge. A final return of the opening material drives the music to a sonorous close on a resplendent D-major chord.

String Quartet in G Minor, Opus 27 Edvard Grieg Born June 15, 1843, Bergen, Norway Died September 4, 1907, Bergen We automatically think of Grieg as a Norwegian nationalist composer–as the composer of music for Sigurd Jorsalfar and Peer Gynt, of Norwegian dances for piano, and of a number of ravishing songs in Norwegian–and so it comes as a surprise to discover an entirely different side of this composer: he was at some deep level dissatisfied with writing purely “nationalistic” music and was drawn to the discipline of the classical forms.

In 1877, when he was 34, Grieg turned to the most demanding of classical forms and wrote to a friend: “I have recently finished a string quartet which I still haven’t heard. It is in G minor and is not intended to bring trivialities to market. It strives towards breadth, soaring flight and above all resonance for the instruments for which it was written. I needed to do this as a study . . . I think in this way I shall find myself again. You can have no idea what trouble I had with the forms, but this was because I was stagnating . . . ” The intensity of Grieg’s language suggests how difficult writing this quartet was for him–and also how important it was. Grieg made the task even more complex by unifying much of the quartet around one simple theme-shape, which is then varied and extended in countless ways across the span of the quartet. He took this theme from his own song Spillemaend (Minstrels), composed two years earlier, in 1875. This shape is stamped out by the four instruments in octaves to open the quartet’s slow introduction, and listeners may take pleasure in following Grieg’s transformations of this theme: it reappears quietly as the second subject of the first movement, is shouted out furiously as part of the Intermezzo’s central episode, opens the finale’s slow introduction, and is threaded ingeniously into textures throughout.

One of the other impressive things about this quartet is its sound: Grieg was not kidding when he said that this music strives to achieve “above all resonance for the instruments for which it is written.” The massed sound of the opening, with the instruments in octaves, establishes this sonority, and at moments the sound of this quartet can verge on the orchestral, with hammered chords and extensive double-stopping. Yet Grieg can relax, and the quartet also has some of those wonderful, effortless Grieg melodies.

The structure may be briefly described: the portentous slow introduction leads to the nervous main subject, marked Allegro molto ed agitato (it is worth noting that two of the quartet’s movements are marked agitato, a third marcato). The second subject of this sonata-form movement is an attractive derivation of the fundamental theme-shape, and

this movement makes its dramatic way over a very long span. Particularly impressive is the ending of this movement: over ponticello accompaniment from the upper voices, the cello winds the movement down with a long melody marked cantabile e molto espressivo, and the music drives to a sudden close on a Prestissimo derived from the original themeshape.

Grieg marks the second movement Romanze, suggesting music of an expressive character, and then alternates two quite distinct kinds of music: the melting lyricism of the opening gives way to a hard-driving Allegro agitato; the music moves between these quite different poles before a relaxed ending. The Intermezzo, marked Allegro molto marcato, begins with the same massive sound that opened the quartet. This movement— in ternary form—has a quicksilvery quality, flowing quickly between different kinds of expression: con fuoco gives way almost instantly to tranquillo. After a slow introduction, the Finale turns into a racing dance movement–it is a saltarello, an old Italian dance that features leaping (the finale of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony is a saltarello). There is a subtle rhythmic sense here (2/4 will flow effortlessly into 6/8) as the music dances its way to a full-throated climax and a ringing close in G major.

Program notes by Eric Bromberger

About the Artists Praised for their “huge range of dynamics, massive sound and spontaneity” (American Record Guide), the Viano String Quartet is the First Prize Winner of the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition and the current Nina von Maltzahn String Quartet-in-Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music. Formed in 2015 at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, the quartet has performed all over the world in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Place Flagey, Izumi Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, and Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The 2022–23 season brings the Viano String Quartet on extensive tours throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States, with recital debuts in New York City, Hannover, Zurich, Budapest, Cologne, Heidelberg, Eisenstadt, San Diego, Denver, Calgary, Newport, and Philadelphia, among other cities. The quartet will also return to Southern Methodist University, where they are in residence through the 22/23 season.

Since the 2020 Covid pandemic, the Viano String Quartet has been actively presenting virtual and socially distanced live concerts for various organizations, including the Dallas Chamber Music Society, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Friends of Chamber Music of Troy, Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society, Salt Lake Chamber Music Society, Women’s Musical Club of Toronto, Schneider Series at the New School, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and the Banff International String Quartet Festival. With their colleagues in the Calidore String Quartet, they presented a movement of the Mendelssohn Octet while distanced across countries in a film project The Way Forward.

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The quartet achieved incredible success in their formative years, with an unbroken streak of top prizes. In addition to their career-defining achievement at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, they received the Grand Prize at the 2019 ENKOR International Music Competition and second prize at the 2019 Yellow Springs Chamber Music Competition. At the 2018 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition they received Third Prize, the Haydn Prize for the best performance of a Haydn quartet, and the Sidney Griller Award for the best performance of the compulsory work, Thomas Ades’ The Four Quarters. They received the Silver Medal at the 2018 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and Third Prize at the 2017 9th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition before any of the members turned 20.

Committed to engaging with communities outside the concert hall, the Viano String Quartet has given presentations for school children and students of all ages through residencies in Bellingham, Washington—the “Play it Forward” residency, a collaboration between the Bellingham Festival of Music and the Whatcom Symphony to reach school children in the northern Washington State area—Northern Michigan University, and the Santa Monica Conservatory. In 2019 they gave multiple performances of “Over the Top”, a Musical Encounter Interactive presentation they scripted, developed and performed at the Colburn School for inner city school children.

At the Curtis Institute, the Viano String Quartet is chiefly mentored by the Dover Quartet and other members of the Curtis faculty, including Shmuel Ashkenasi, Pamela Frank, Ida Kavafian, Arnold Steinhardt, Steven Tenenbom, and Peter Wiley. As the inaugural ensemble-in-residence at the Colburn Conservatory of Music from 2019–21, they were mentored extensively by Martin Beaver, Scott St. John, Clive Greensmith, Paul Coletti and Fabio Bidini. The Vianos have also received coachings from artists such as David Finckel, Gary Hoffman, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and members of the Alban Berg, Brentano, Emerson, Miró, Shanghai, St. Lawrence, and Takács String Quartets. They have attended the Ravinia Steans Chamber Music Institute, St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Great lakes Chamber Music Festival, and the McGill International String Quartet Academy.

Over the years, the quartet has collaborated in performance with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Rodolfo Leone, Eliso Virsaladze, and Orion Weiss, and look forward to collaborations with Inon Barnatan, Michelle Cann, and Roberto Diaz in the upcoming season.

The name “Viano” was created to describe the four individual instruments in a string quartet interacting as one. Each of the four instruments begins with the letter “v”, and like a piano, all four string instruments together play both harmony and melody, creating a unified instrument called the “Viano”.

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