CHAMBER MUSIC HOUSTON PRESENTS
Jerusalem Quartet
4) Allegro molto 65 th Season
Alexander Pavlovsky | Sergei Bresler violin
Ori Kam viola | Kyril Zlotnikov cello
TUESDAY 29 OCTOBER 2024
HAYDN Quartet in B-flat major, op.50/1
1) Allegro
2) Adagio
3) Menuetto. Poco allegretto — Trio
4) Finale. Vivace
SHOSTAKOVICH Quartet #12 in D-flat major, op.133
1) Moderato — Allegretto — Moderato — Allegretto — Moderato
2) Allegretto — Adagio — Moderato — Adagio — Moderato — Allegretto
INTERMISSION
MOZART Quartet in C major, K.465, “Dissonance”
1) Adagio — Allegro
2) Andante cantabile
3) Menuetto. Allegro
No photography or audio or video recording is allowed during the performance. Please silence and dim phones and other devices.
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
Quartet in B-flat major, op.50/1 (1787)
Haydn remains, to this day, the most astonishingly prolific producer of great quartets ever to set pen to paper. No other major composer, not even the greats who followed in his footsteps — Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, or Shostakovich — came close to matching his output. Most extraordinary, each of these almost four dozen quartets was an original masterpiece of individual distinction. Haydn was almost 40 years old when this uninterrupted string of jewels first began to appear. Written mostly without commission, they were, during his lifetime, never played in a public concert in Vienna. This was private music, written to suit the composer, without the fanfare which the general public demanded. It was intended for a small, highly-educated audience, and its performance was made possible by the generosity of the highest-ranking members of Viennese society: Princes and Princesses, Archdukes and Counts. What is certain is that many of his gems got lost in the abundant glitter.
The quartet on tonight's program is one such, the first of a set of six, all neglected — for no good reason. They are Haydn’s fifth set of quartets, written when he was already an acknowledged master of the form. The first two quartets were completed in 1787 and the whole set dedicated to Frederick the Great in gratitude for a magnificent gift the King had given him — thus the sobriquet “Prussian”. It might be of interest to note that these were the first quartets Haydn wrote after his famous encounter with the wonderful set Mozart affectionately dedicated to him.
The work opens with a heart-beat rhythm low in the cello which immediately brings to mind Beethoven’s use of this device years later at the beginning of his beautiful D major Piano Sonata, op.28 (1801). A close listen reveals that there is hardly a second theme to speak of and that in fact the structure of this movement is far from the textbook sonata form. So masterful is Haydn’s handling of his thematic material that one hardly notices how limited it actually is and how important, instead, is the rhythmic element.
The Adagio is a lovely set of variations in which the cello plays an important role, perhaps for the benefit of the King, who played rather well. The Menuetto follows: affable, simple in design, and richly treated to counterpoint involving all the instruments. The Finale sounds at first blush like a rondo, but it isn’t. Instead, it is another sonata form movement, this time totally based on a single sprightly theme which seems to have captivated its inventor. Not that this diminishes in the slightest the movement’s perfection: we get to see Haydn pulling musical substance out of thin air like a magician. But he is up to tricks here in more ways than one, so don’t get fooled into clapping too soon! —Nora Avins Klein
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
Quartet #12 in D-flat major, op.133 (1968)
In 1968, recuperating from a leg fracture at the Composers’ Union retreat in the far western outskirts of St. Petersburg, Shostakovich completed his twelfth string quartet. He phoned Dmitry Tsyganov on his birthday to announce he had dedicated the new work to him. Tsyganov was the first violinist of the Beethoven Quartet, the group that had given the premiere of almost all of Shostakovich’s string quartets since the 1940’s. As quoted in Elizabeth
Wilson’s Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, Tsyganov asked if it was a chamber work; “No, no,” Shostakovich replied, “It’s a symphony.”
Yet, it is indeed a string quartet, but not in the usual mold. It is in only two movements (more about that later) and shockingly, it starts with a twelve-tone row employing the music system invented by Arnold Schoenberg at the beginning of the 20th century, then developed into the so-called Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern). In this method, a sequence of random, non-repetitive notes using the twelve tones in the Western musical scale (i.e. any one of the white and black piano keys contained in an octave) is laid out, each note independent of and equally as important as the others, with no tonal center, no key signature, no home key. Once set, the sequence is to be strictly maintained. Earlier in his career, Shostakovich had denounced this mechanistic musical language. Now, at age 62, after more than forty years of composing, he had changed course. He justified his excursion into that territory: “If a composer sets himself the aim of writing in a purely didactic manner at all costs, then he is artificially limiting himself. But using the elements of this system is fully justified when directed by the actual compositional concept.” (Wilson). He pointed out there was even an atonal example in Mozart. (Indeed there is: an astonishing bridge in his Symphony no.40, between the exposition and the development of the last movement; a full orchestral unison, forte, chromatic passage of diminished fourths and sevenths that has no tonal center whatever!)
But what was Shostakovich’s concept? This is an unanswered question because immediately following the opening measure of the first movement Moderato in which the solo cello introduces an angular eleven-note tone row, the very next measure is in the unmistakably tonal key of D-flat major, as is most of the rest of this subdued, understated movement. You may recognize a few repeats of the tone row: once by the cello, at times by the violin, and twice by the viola, always returning immediately to the tonal realm. So is this contrast between tonal and atonal a teaching demonstration? Or an attempt to demonstrate to the younger generation that he is up-to-date? Or something from the expressive heart.
Of note, the first 33 measures of this movement are played without the second violin. It is believed this was in homage to the memory of the recently deceased original second violinist of the Beethoven Quartet, Vasili Shirinsky.
Far from the calm of the first movement, the second movement, absent a key signature, starts with a stridently agitated Allegretto. One could understand the characterization as symphonic as this movement is long, intense, dramatic, and divided into five sections of varying temperament and tempo, with a final key change. The first violin intones the tone row twenty measures or so after the opening outburst; this theme will thereafter be an occasional participant in the various segments of this long, deeply felt movement. Passages of fury contrast with two Adagios which include a twice-repeated dirge — a vigorous recurring rhythmic pattern seems to telegraph distress. Shostakovich chose to employ a wide variety of string-writing techniques to augment the emotional impact: pizzicato (plucked strings), sul ponticello (on the bridge), muted strings on and off, overlapping long, sleek scales in all four voices, accents and trills. Together they provide an engrossing experience for the audience as much as a challenge for the performers. The final section of this long, passionate essay sums up of the quartet’s many themes and concludes in a bright burst of saturated, triumphant chords in the unambiguous key of D-flat major. Shostakovich was exceptionally pleased with this work. — Nora Avins Klein
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Quartet #19 in C major, K.465, “Dissonance” (1785)
In January 1785, Leopold Mozart traveled to Vienna to visit his son, presumably to help celebrate Wolfgang's 28th birthday. The Weiner Zeitung recorded that during the visit, Mozart and his friends, who included Haydn, played six new string quartets of the young composer. They appear in Mozart's own catalog of works collectively as his op.10, the Dissonant as op.10 no.6.
Even genius “stands on the shoulders of giants." For Mozart, those shoulders were Haydn’s, whose ground-breaking op.20 and op.33 quartets constituted the then-known heights of string quartet writing. Mozart spent his first year in Vienna studying them in detail; the outcome was a set of six of among the most exquisite string quartets ever set on paper, written without commission for his own purposes. Here one will find an abundance of lyricism, of drama. of emotional depth, cast in exquisite form and painted in rich musical colors not previously heard in chamber music. Among the most startling of the group was the last, nicknamed Dissonant, because of the astonishing tonal clashes in the introduction. Try listening to this with 1785 ears. Imagine hearing the darkly “wrong notes” of this slow introduction, deliberately drawn out before settling on the "right" ones. Where is the tonal home base in this introduction? Where is the melody? Where is the music headed? One might have heard sonorities like these in the Renaissance music of a Gesualdo or in a recondite passage of Bach (in fact, Mozart had made his first acquaintance with Bach's manuscripts shortly before writing this quartet and his own music would ever after bear that influence). But such harmonies were not part of the vocabulary of the style galant of Mozart's day. So nonconformist was this introduction that in V the following decades muddle-headed music editors undertook to correct Mozart's “mistakes” until good scholarship prevailed!
The near-ominous introduction over, gloom is banished. A melodic and cheerful theme in the celebratory key of C major bursts upon the scene first in the violin, then in the cello, which will play a prominent role in this work. The slow heart beat pulse in the cello which had propelled the introduction now extends into the body of the movement at double speed, forming the backbone of the sunny first theme. Repeated notes in the bass line serve as a rhythmic underpinning not only of the first theme here but also in the movements to follow. As we move on to the development section of this first movement, the clouds return and the mood darkens. Later, as in so much of Mozart's music, when the opening theme returns it is with embellishments, as if to emphasize the importance of the phrase.
The Andante cantabile is among Mozart's great slow movements. Its bold harmonies and beautiful melodies owe nothing to formula and everything to inspiration. The insertion, once again, of quiet, almost ominous pulsating rhythms—carried primarily in the cello—adds a deeper dimension to a melodic beauty which might otherwise have been merely lovely.
The Menuetto starts out in graceful simplicity before moving to more richly sonorous territory; it leads to a trio section which telegraphs an atmosphere of angst, again in part by the devise of pulsating currents, this time distributed among the instruments.
The finale, a Molto allegro virtuoso tour de force, which initially fools one into expecting a rondo is, in fact, more complicated. It incorporates sonata form. One can only imagine the awe and delight on Papa Haydn’s face when he heard—and apparently played at Mozart’s birthday party—this utterly original quartet which gives way at the end to such a gay. inven-
tive and playful finish, worthy of the cheerful father of the string quartet himself, to whom the quartet was dedicated. —Nora Avins Klein
Jerusalem Quartet
“Passion, precision, warmth, a gold blend: these are the trademarks of this excellent Israeli string quartet.” Such was The Times’s impression of the Jerusalem Quartet. Since the ensemble's founding in 1993 and subsequent 1995 debut, the four Israeli musicians have embarked on a journey of growth and maturation. Their breadth of repertoire and stunning depth of expression have firmly established their unique place in the string quartet tradition. The ensemble has found its core in a warm, full, human sound and an egalitarian balance between high and low voices. This approach allows the quartet to maintain a healthy relationship between individual expression and a transparent and respectful presentation of the composer's work. It is also the drive and motivation for their continuing refinement of its interpretations of the classical repertoire as well as exploration of new epochs.
The Jerusalem Quartet is a regular and beloved guest on the world’s great concert stages. The 2024/25 season will mark the Quartet’s 30th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, the Quartet will put a spotlight on the cycle of Shostakovich’s 15 quartets, which it will present in ten cities worldwide including St. Paul, Cleveland, and Portland, Ore., London, Zurich, Amsterdam, Cologne, and Sao Paulo. Additional highlights this season include performances in Houston, Miami, Boston, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Iowa City, Cincinnati, and Monterrey, Mexico, among other North American cities, and a return to the Konzerthaus in Berlin; the Théatre Champs-Elysées in Paris, and London’s Wigmore Hall.
The Jerusalem Quartet’s numerous recordings have garnered many awards and accolades including the Diapason d'Or and the BBC Music Magazine Award for chamber music. After releasing 16 albums for the Harmonia Mundi label starting in 2005, the quartet now records exclusively for the BIS label. The Quartet’s inaugural release for BIS, in December, will include Shostakovich's Quartets 2, 7, and 10. Previous releases for Harmonia Mundi include a unique album exploring Jewish music in Central Europe between the wars including a collection of Yiddish Cabaret songs from Warsaw in the 1920s, featuring Israeli Soprano Hila Baggio. In 2020, the Jerusalem Quartet released the second (and last) album of its complete Bartók cycle.
The Jerusalem Quartet appears by arrangement with David Rowe Artists.
