【HKU MUSE House Programme】Slavic Soul: Quatuor Danel

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10 DEC 2023 | SUN | 3PM Grand Hall, The University of Hong Kong

Quatuor Danel Marc Danel, violin | Gilles Millet, violin Vlad Bogdanas, viola | Yovan Markovitch, cello WEINBERG

String Quartet No. 5, Op. 27 Melodia Humoreska Scherzo Improvisation Serenade

SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 Largo Allegro molto Allegretto Largo Largo

String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11

MENDELSSOHN Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20, 1st Movement Allegro moderato ma con fuoco with Cong Quartet

Today's concert is recorded by RTHK Radio 4. Broadcast details will be announced later.

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Moderato e semplice Andante cantabile Scherzo. Allegro non tanto e con fuoco Finale. Allegro giusto

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TCHAIKOVSKY

- INTERMISSION -

Marc Danel, violin | Gilles Millet, violin Vlad Bogdanas, viola | Yovan Markovitch, cello

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The Quatuor Danel was founded in 1991 by Marc Danel and has been together in the current constellation since cellist Yovan Markovitch joined the group in 2014.

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The Quartet takes a place at the forefront of the international music scene with important concert performances worldwide and a row of ground breaking CD recordings. They are famous for their bold, concentrated interpretations of the string quartet cycles of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Shostakovich, and Weinberg. Their lively and fresh vision on the traditional quartet repertoire has delivered them subsequent praise from public and press. The other part of their force lies in the collaboration with major contemporary composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pascal Dusapin, Jörg Widmann, and Bruno Mantovani.

Russian composers have a special place in the Quatuor Danel's repertoire. The Quartet has championed string quartets by Shostakovich all over the world and recorded the complete cycle in 2005. This box set was re-issued by Alpha and still counts as one of the benchmark interpretations of Shostakovich's quartets.

They have recorded the cycle again (semi-live) in 2022 in collaboration with Gewandhaus Leipzig. The Danel is the first quartet ever to perform and record the other great cycle of the 20th century: the 17 string quartets by Mieczysław Weinberg.

They have featured the Shostakovich and Weinberg c ycle s at Phillip s Collec tion Washington, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, and TivoliVredenburg Utrecht, Philharmonie de Paris, and Elbphilarmonie Hamburg. In autumn 2022 De Singel in Antwerp and the new concert hall in The Hague (Netherlands) pre sented the complete Sho stakovich.

Complete Beethoven cycles sounded in Jerusalem, Taipei, Lyon, Baden Weiler, Manchester, and TivoliVredenburg Utrecht.

The Quartet's diary takes them to the major concert halls in Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna, Hamburg, Milano, Taipei, Tokyo, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Quatuor Danel is a regular guest at festivals such as Ottawa, Kuhmo, Cork, Lofoten, Schleswig-Holstein, Bregenz, Luzern Zaubersee, Richter Festival, Enescu Festival, Montpellier, Folle Journée de Nantes where they perform with for example Leif Ove Andsnes, Pascal Moragues, Alexander Melnikov, Klemens Hagen, Marc André Hamelin, and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.

The Danel is in residence in the London Wigmore Hall for two seasons from 2023.

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Latest CD-release includes the complete Tchaikovsky quartets and Sextet Souvenir de Florence for CPO and currently they are preparing the (re-)release of the Shostakovich cycle, recorded in the Gewandhaus Leipzig by label Accentus.

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Education is also at the heart of the activities of their practice. The Quartet is resident at the University of Manchester, where they uphold a tradition of coaching and collaborations with world-renowned musicologists. Since 2015, they also teach regularly at the Netherlands String Quartet Academy in Amsterdam. They gave classes at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), University of Maryland, and Skidmore College, at the Taipei National University of the Arts, at Conservatoire of Music and Dance Lyon, the Conservatoires of Lille and Nice, and at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival.

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CONG QUARTET

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Francis Chik, violin | Ayaka Ishiwatari, violin Caleb Wong, viola | Cheng Yan-ho, cello Cong Quartet is a professional string quartet in demand based in Hong Kong and the Netherlands. They have performed around Asia, Europe, and the United States. The Quartet believes that the humanistic experience of chamber music is a treasure to the community. Currently a quartet under Le Dimore del Quartetto from Italy, a young artist group of the Musethica in Europe, as well as a quartet at the Netherland String Quartet Academy in Amsterdam. Cong Quartet is the winner of Musique à Flaine 2023 Artistic Residency, and was previously the Ensemble-in-Residence and Artist in Residence of the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2019-2022. They won top prizes from 2019 Salzburg Mozart International Chamber Competition in Tokyo, the 2021 Kreutzer International Competition, and 2022 Virtuoso Belcanto Festival Chamber Music Competition.

PROGRAMME NOTES MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG (1919-1996) String Quartet No. 5, Op. 27 For a long time, Mieczysław Weinberg's compositional output was neglected and ignored; his String Quartet No. 5 was no exception. Composed in 1945, the quartet was seldom performed, and little is known about its compositional background. The truth is, few people knew it existed.

Weinberg was a classic example of posthumous fame. A Polish-Jew, he fled the Nazis to Russia in 1939, but only fell victim to Stalin's anti-Jew campaign.

The celebrated composer Dmitri Shostakovich saw his talent, filed an appeal for him, and invited him into his own artistic circle. While Shostakovich provided him with mentorship and friendship, he failed to earn him public recognition. Occasionally, the young composer's works were taken up by top performers like Emil Gilels and Kirill Kondrashin, but those occasions were rare. He could barely afford a career at home, let alone abroad. He remained a somewhat obscure figure at his death in 1996. His posthumous rise to fame in many parts of the world remains a curious case to many.

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Consisting of five movements, the quartet employs classical forms and relatively tonal harmonies. Titled Melodia, the first movement opens with an expressive monophonic melody played by the first violin, which is subsequently answered by the cello with repeated short motives in the bass. Other parts soon join the cello, resulting in a sharp polarity between sustaining melodies and contrasting short motives. This polarity persists in much of the movement and contributes to a tension that is further intensified by frequent changes of metre. The second movement, Humoreska, is a witty setting in a fluid tempo. It features a recurring set of dotted rhythm accompanied by plugged strings that alternate between two voices. The subsequent entry of a diatonic, legato melody in the middle section creates a

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Completed six years after his relocation to Russia, the composer's String Quartet No. 5 bore witness to the hardship he endured in the country. He worked diligently, and that effort is evident in his nearly 30 compositions between 1943 and 1948. But in 1946, the Russian political campaign of Zhdanovshchina, an anti-West cultural policy that devastated even esteemed figures like Prokofiev, rendered this quartet and his other works banned from performance or publication. Subsequent persecution would put him in prison until 1953.

drastic shift of mood. That melody, played by the second violin and the viola, appears first in A minor and then ventures boldly into multiple tonal centres, provoking a neo-romantic vibe. The third movement is a blazing Scherzo that resembles Shostakovich's earlier style. Titled Improvisation, the fourth movement opens with a monophonic melody played by the first violin—but unlike its counterpart in the first movement, this unaccompanied melody features frequent pauses that suggest spontaneity. In the middle section enters a slithering bass line played by the cello and the viola, which consists primarily of cunning trills and sliding chromatic tones. Titled Serenata or Serenade, the finale opens with an unruffled plugging motive of the viola and a somewhat tranquil melody of the cello, before it takes a sharp turn for the ominous—in a shocking manner, the previous viola motive transforms itself into a heavy form of shuffling, joined first by the second violin and later also by the cello. Meanwhile, the first violin's melody stands alone, unsupported.

Conflicting texture and increasing dissonance eventually bring the movement to a brief but abrupt pause, before the first violin takes over with weighty repeated tones.

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DMITRI DMITRIYEVICH SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110

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Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 is known not only for its artistic achievement, but also for its unusually short genesis and the controversy over its connotations.

The quartet was completed in three days, from 12 to 14 July 1960, during the composer 's visit to the eastern German city of Dresden, which had been carpet-bombed by Allied planes 15 years earlier. According to the Soviet authority, the piece was dedicated to "the victims of fascism", and its authorised score must bear the inscription "in memory of victims of fascism and war". But his son Maxim, deserted to the West, considered it a tribute to "the victims of authoritarianism". His daughter Galina believed it to be autobiographical and had been dedicated to the composer himself.

Meanwhile, his friend Lev Lebedinsky said it was intended to be an epitaph or a suicide note. In any case, the piece was completed soon after the composer, hesitantly, joined the Communist Party.

Musical inscriptions and quotations are used extensively in this quartet. The composer's personal musical inscription—the German letter names D-SC-H (equivalent to the English letter names D-E flat-C-B)—is used as a fournote motive for the fugal passage that starts the piece. The first movement incorporates a theme that also appears in his First and Fifth Symphonies.

An exotic-sounding melody from his Second Piano Trio is inserted into the second movement. The melody, which he called 'Jewish theme', was so named because he thought it could "appear to be cheerful when it is actually tragic".

The third movement inscribes the notes D-S-C-H again, as it incorporates another theme from his First Cello Concerto. Moreover, a melody from the aria Seryozha, my love in his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is borrowed to construct the fourth movement.

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The quartet contains five movements that are sonically connected to their neighbours; as a result, it may actually sound like an extended composition without breaks. The first movement is slow and almost mournful. Dissonance, chromaticism, and abrupt alteration of dynamics all contribute to its almost distressing atmosphere. In a startling manner, the second movement interrupts the previous ambience with percussive sounds, extreme tempo, and clashing rhythms between instruments. The absence of breaks between the two movements simply intensifies the shock. The third movement is a waltz-like rondo of tremendous tonal ambiguity. While G is clearly established as the tonal centre, the frequent clashing of the B and B-flat notes create a simultaneous existence of G major and G minor. This slightly distorted application of traditional harmony creates an unsettling, almost ghostly, mood beyond dissonance. Deliberately slow, the fourth movement features the alarming motive of dies irae, a component in the Requiem Mass and Officium Defunctorum (Office of the Dead) that depicts the frightening aspects of the Judgment Day. Meanwhile, it alternates frequently between violent dischords and gentler octaves that are unnaturally elongated. These treatments all contribute to a strong sense of unsettlement, even pessimism. Equally slow, the last movement is like a contrapuntal lament.

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11 Tchaikovsky 's String Quartet No. 1 has been associated with famous individuals such as Leo Tolstoy and Helen Keller. According to the composer's diaries, the Russian literary giant bursted into tears during the quartet. Keller, blind and deaf, reacted so intensely to the second movement that she smiled and cried alternately, as she tried to feel the quartet's vibrations through a resonant tabletop. She later explained that the piece showed her "the sweep and surge and mighty pulse of life", and a miracle in which "sight is given the blind, and deaf ears hear sweet strange sounds".

This quartet was one of Tchaikovsky's early compositions. When it was completed in February 1871, the composer was not known for his great symphonies and virtuosic concertos; nor for his enchanting ballets like Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. Those works, which would someday make him immortal, had not been written. Having broken up with the Belgian mezzosoprano Désirée Artôt, whom he described as his only true love, he held an unflattering teaching post at the Moscow Conservatory, and lived a somewhat obscure life gardening at home.

The quartet was premiered in Moscow a month after its completion, with notable success.

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The quartet's four movements—a song-like slow movement and a scherzo sandwiched between two fast movements—seem almost conventional at first glance. After all, Beethoven had championed this setting decades earlier.

What Tchaikovsky managed to create here, at the outset of his career, is an impeccable sense of poetry and drama, which foretells the composer's subsequent ballet and orchestral outputs that would fill the world with awe.

The opening movement is moderate in tempo and uncomplicated in mood.

It is developed around two chordal melodies that are equally ambiguous in rhythm; between them, fast and ornated contrapuntal lines provide powerful contrasts that are needed to maintain a delicate balance within the movement. The main theme of the second movement is one of the most memorable melodies in classical music. It is reported to be a folk tune that the composer heard from a labourer during his visit in Kamenka, Ukraine in summer 1869. Muted strings and counter-motives provide the tune with additional charm. The third movement, a scherzo, resembles a folk dance; it

is passionate, remarkably contrasting in dynamics, and filled with surprising rhythmic accents. The finale is a fast sonata movement that showcases the composer's ability to bend musical materials to his will—through devices including canon, rhythmic alteration, thematic transformation, and rapid alternation of polarising textures.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY (1809-1847) Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20, 1st Movement

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Octet in E-flat major was composed when Mendelssohn was at the tender age of 16, and it remains a benchmark for early musical maturity. The following year, the young composer's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, now a classic, would confirm his reputation as a composer of unquestionably first rank, and that the achievement he demonstrated in the present Octet had been no accident. Harold C. Schonberg, the eminent 20th century critic, simply concluded that his genius and early maturity were "something unparallel far eclipsing Mozart—or anybody else in history". Indeed, even the prodigious Mozart revealed a learning curve in his early works; Mendelssohn appeared to have achieved maturity from the very beginning.

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After completing the Octet on 15 October 1825, the young composer presented a copy of its manuscript to his friend, violinist Eduard Rietz, as a present for his 23 rd birthday. Rietz received the piece with apparent enthusiasm, and performance of it was promptly arranged. The piece quickly became popular among musicians and the public. The tonal equilibrium it maintains among an unusual group of instruments—two combined string quartets—were also frequently praised.

The Octet contains four movements, and each of them has its own sets of distinctive characters: from elegant to eerie, from contemplative to restless, from intimate to orchestral, from straightforward to fugal. Allegro moderato ma con fuoco, the movement being performed in this concert, is the first and the longest of the four. It opens with an elegant solo melody accompanied by thick layers of tremolos and syncopated tones, suggesting a hidden turbulence beneath a façade of grace. The solo melody is then overwhelmed by webs of short counter-motives, resulting in tremendous tension, before a new tonality takes over. A second melody is introduced in the new key by the fourth violin and the first viola. Also introduced is a gentler set of

accompaniment that creates a more cheerful ambience. A tonally unstable development soon follows, setting previous melodic materials in quick succession, before the opening theme returns and brings the movement to an end.

Programme notes by

Chung-kei Edmund Cheng

PhD in Musicology, HKU

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© Marco Borggreve