WEEK ONE | JUNE 16 tune in the way Schubert might have; he interrupts it first with a dramatic pause and announcement, takes it up again, a little more broadly, then seems to veer into very weird and unexpected harmonies—that may have had the players and listeners at early performances looking at each other nervously—before brightening up again and plunging on. A play of light and dark runs through the whole piece—a quality that must have also entranced Schubert, who took such interplay to extreme lengths. The scherzo presents some strange, unsettling moments. The main section is in his bouncy/folky mode; the “trio” section is anything but: it keeps veering unexpectedly between dark, almost atonal passages—you won’t hear harmonies like this again until Chopin—and very bright, “Invitation to the Dance”-type passages. The main section returns, as one does in a scherzo, but rather than finishing there, he reprises the dark, foreboding music from the trio, then caps it with a silly “button”—an unsettling effect that looks toward the dark scherzos of Mahler. In the same way it keeps balancing dark and light, so too is the “Archduke” balanced on the cusp between Beethoven’s “middle” and “late” style. In fact it marks an important, if sad, event in his life. The work’s first performance was a disaster because of his deteriorating hearing, and it was the last time he played piano in public. A whole new, interior journey had begun. © Paul Epstein 2022
THURSDAY, JUNE 16 | 7:30 P.M. TRAVELS IN THE SOUNDSCAPE Temple Beth El Sponsored by Josette Silver ANTON NEL, piano GILLES VONSATTEL, piano YURA LEE, violin PHILIP SETZER, violin KEVONNA SHUFORD, viola CLIVE GREENSMITH, cello
PAUL WATKINS, cello DAVID SHIFRIN, clarinet RANDALL SCARLATA, baritone ROLSTON STRING QUARTET, Shouse ensemble VIANO STRING QUARTET, Shouse ensemble
PROGRAM Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet in C major, Op. 33, No. 3, “The Bird” Allegro moderato Scherzo: Allegretto Adagio ma non troppo Finale: Rondo – Presto Rolston String Quartet
Valerie Coleman (b. 1970)
Shotgun Houses (2018) Shotgun Houses Grand Avenue Rome Shifrin, Viano String Quartet
INTERMISSION Perry Goldstein (b. 1952)
Birding by Ear: Six Songs on Texts by Richard Powers (WORLD PREMIERE) White-throated Sparrow Mockingbird Lyre Bird Famous Bird Sayings Barred Owl The Morning Chorus Vonsattel, Setzer, Watkins, Scarlata
W. A. Mozart (1756-91)
Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major, K. 493 Allegro Larghetto Allegretto Nel, Lee, Shuford, Greensmith
Soovin Kim
Tai Murray
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