Danish String Quartet Playbill 4/20/24

MODLIN ARTS PRESENTS DANISH STRING QUARTET

April 20, 2024 | 7:30 PM

Camp Concert Hall

UNIVERSITY of RICHMOND

MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS

PHOTO CREDIT: CAROLINE BITTENCOURT

Thank You

THANKS TO OUR 2023 -2024 MODLIN ARTS PRESENTS SEASON SPONSORS & COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Louis S. Booth Arts Fund

E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation

Cultural Affairs Committee

Department of Music, University of Richmond

Dewitt Fund for the Arts

A. Dale Mayo Fund

Virginia B. Modlin Endowment

Clinton Webb Fund

Norman and Gay Leahy

William and Pamela O’Connor

THIS ENGAGEMENT OF DANISH STRING QUARTET IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF H. Gerald Quigg Arts EndowmentWelcome

Welcome

WE ARE DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE OUR 2023-2024 SEASON!

At Modlin Center for the Arts, we are committed to providing the University of Richmond campus and our broader community with the best in diverse, thought-provoking, and captivating performances. Each season is cultivated with our attention to showcasing artists who provide insight into our shared humanity. At the University of Richmond, we pledge to you—our patrons and partners, on campus and in our region—that the arts will provide broad access to rich voices, creative passion, and unforgettable experiences.

Modlin is more than our presenting series. We operate as the home for our academic partners within the School of Arts & Sciences, providing spaces for conversation, connection, and collaboration across disciplines. Explore the full range of opportunities from the Department of Music, Department of Theatre & Dance, and University Museums. Don’t miss the extensive calendar of FREE concerts, performances, and exhibits, and make plans to join us.

I hope that you will also consider a contribution to the Modlin Center for the Arts. Your backing is a vital endorsement of the value that Modlin contributes to our cultural landscape. We are deeply grateful to have you include Modlin in your cultural investments. Thank you for being a valued member of our community of the arts.

I look forward to seeing you at Modlin performances in 2023-24 and to hearing what moves you this year!

Paul Brohan, Executive Director

FALL MODLIN ARTS

AUGUST 2023

2023/24 Calendar

 P Ticketed: Paid

 F Free: Tickets/Registration Required

 F Free: No Tickets/Registration Required

 Modlin Arts Presents

 Department of Theatre and Dance

 Department of Music

 University Museums

 Tucker Boatwright Festival

Queer Pioneers: LGBTQ+ History Through the Photographs of Robert Giard

On view 28 Aug - 8 Dec   F

Making Your Mark: Prints and Drawings from the Hechinger Collection

On view 28 Aug - 8 Dec   F

Crystals: Minerals from the Collection

On view through 4 May   F

Therefore I Am: Portraits from the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center

On view through 30 Jun   F

SEPTEMBER

David Esleck Trio

Thu 7 Sep 7:30pm

Marty Stuart

Thu 14 Sep 7:30pm

Volcano Theatre, Book of Life

Sat 23 Sep 7:30pm  

We All Break & Leyla McCalla

Thu 28 Sep 7:30pm 

Family Weekend Concert

Fri 29 Sep 7:30pm   F

OCTOBER

Rhiannon Giddens & The Legendary Ingramettes

Sun 1 Oct 7pm   P

White Pearl

Thu-Sat 5-7 Oct 7:30pm

Sun 8 Oct 2pm   F

Company SBB // Stephanie Batten Bland, Embarqued: Stories of Soil

Fri Oct 6 7:30pm   P

The Acting Company, Odyssey

Wed 11 Oct 7:30pm   P

Sankai Juku, KŌSA–between two mirrors

Thu 19 Oct 7:30pm   P

Davison Plays Davison

Fri 20 Oct 7:30pm

13th Annual Celebration of Dance @ UR!

Sat 21 Oct 7:30pm   F

Family Arts Day: Barefoot Puppet Theatre, New Squid on the Block

Sun 22 Oct 1pm-4pm   P

Kenny Barron Voyage Trio

Wed 25 Oct 7:30pm   P

Inon Barnatan, Alisa Weilerstein & James Ehnes, Swan Song, The Schubert Project

Fri 27 Oct 7:30pm   P

Schola Cantorum & Women’s Chorale

Sun 29 Oct 3pm   F

NOVEMBER

ShoutHouse

Fri 3 Nov 7:30pm   P

Jazz & Contemporary Combos

Wed 8 Nov 7:30pm   F

J’Nai Bridges, Mezzo-Soprano

Thu 9 Nov 7:30pm   P

Terence Blanchard, Fire Shut Up in My Bones

Sun 12 Nov 7:30pm   P

Sky Hopinka: Masterclass and Film Screening

Mon-Wed 13–15 Nov 

Popular Music Ensemble

Tue 14 Nov 7:30pm   F

Jazz Ensembles: Little Big Band with Black & White

Wed 15 Nov 7:30pm 

Kiara Vigil: Keynote Lecture

Thu 16 Nov 4:30pm   F

Fairview

Thu-Sat 16-18 Nov 7:30pm

Sat 18 - Sun 19 Nov 2pm 

Global Sounds

Sun 19 Nov 3pm

UR Wind Ensemble

Mon 20 Nov 7:30pm 

Canadian Brass, Holiday Show

Wed 29 Nov 7:30pm   P

DECEMBER

50th Annual Festival of Lessons and Carols

Sun 3 Dec 5pm, 8pm  

Chamber Ensembles

Mon 4 Dec 7:30pm 

University Symphony Orchestra

Wed 6 Dec 7:30pm   F

MODLIN ARTS

2023/24 Calendar

SPRING

 P Ticketed: Paid

 F Free: Tickets/Registration Required

 F Free: No Tickets/Registration Required

 Modlin Arts Presents

 Department of Theatre and Dance

 Department of Music

 University Museums

 Tucker Boatwright Festival

JANUARY 2024

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton

Marsalis, Max Roach Centennial

Thu 25 Jan 7:30pm   P

Richard Becker Piano Concert

Wed 31 Jan 7:30pm   F

FEBRUARY

Hamid Rahmanian, Song of the North

Fri 2 Feb 7:30pm   P

Paul Hanson Piano Concert

Sun 4 Feb 3pm   F

Layale Chaker & Sarafand, with Kinan Azmeh

Fri 16 Feb 7:30pm   P

Emily Riggs, soprano

Sun 18 Feb 3:00 

Zuill Bailey, Cello

Wed 28 Feb 7:30pm   P

Yiman Wang: Keynote Lecture

Tue 20 Feb 12pm   F

Alexa Joubin: Keynote Lecture

Thu 22 Feb 12pm   F

MARCH

MOVING | BODIES BODIES | MOVING University Dancers

39th Annual Concert

Fri-Sat 1-2 Mar 7:30pm

Sun 3 Mar 2pm   F

Doris Wylee-Becker Piano Concert

Sun 3 Mar 3pm   F

Richmond Piano Trio

Mon 4 Mar 7:30pm   F

Martha Graham Dance Company

Fri 22 Mar 7:30pm   P

Brad Mehldau, Piano   P

Sun 24 Mar 7:30pm

Chris Thile, Mandolin

Wed 27 Mar 7:30pm   P

APRIL

Emanuel Ax, Piano

Fri 5 Apr 7:30pm   P

UR Wind Ensemble

Mon 8 Apr 7:30pm   F

UR Jazz & Contemporary Combos

Thu 11 Apr 7:30pm   F

Natu Camara

Fri 12 Apr 7:30pm   P

Schola Cantorum & Women’s Chorale

Sun 14 Apr 3pm  

Popular Music Ensemble

Tue 16 Apr 7:30pm   F

UR Symphony Orchestra

Wed 17 Apr 7:30pm   F

Everybody

18-20 Apr 7:30pm

21 Apr 2pm   F

Danish String Quartet

Sat 20 Apr 7:30pm   P

Global Sounds

Sun 21 Apr 3pm   F

UR Chamber Ensembles

Mon 22 Apr 7:30pm 

Cuban Spectacular

Thu 25 Apr 7:30pm 

MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS PRESENTS

DANISH STRING QUARTET

PROGRAM

Chaconne in G minor (arr. Britten)

String Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Joseph Haydn

1. Allegro con spirito (1732-1809)

2. Menuet. Allegretto & Trio

3. Poco adagio

4. Allegro molto

String Quartet No. 7 in F Sharp minor, Op. 108

Dmitri Shostakovich

1. Allegretto (1906-1975)

2. Lento

3. Allegro

INTERMISSION

Scandinavian folk music

Danish String Quartet (arr.)

Tonight’s performance will last approximately 1 hour 45 minutes, including intermission.

PHOTO CREDIT: CAROLINE BITTENCOURT

PROGRAM NOTES

A string quartet is a musical genre as well as an instrumental ensemble. While the former continues to evolve as composers explore new structures and sonorities, the latter has changed little since the 18th century. But before the emergence of the modern violin, viola, and cello, their role was filled by the viol. This fretted, typically six-stringed instrument came in a variety of sizes, all of which were held vertically between the knees. Henry Purcell (1659-1695) likely wrote his Chaconne in G Minor for a quartet of viols. One of the most important composers of the English Baroque, Purcell is perhaps best known for his chamber opera Dido and Aeneas. As organist at both Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, he also composed many sacred works. The original context of Purcell’s Chaconne is unknown. Its name refers to a compositional form based on a brief, repeated harmonic progression.

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), the composer of such 20th-century masterpieces as the War Requiem and the opera Peter Grimes, greatly admired the music of the Baroque era. This affinity found its fullest expression in his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, based on a theme from Purcell’s incidental music for the play Abdelazar. Britten originally arranged Purcell’s Chaconne for string orchestra, but its parts are easily adapted to the string quartet. His intention here, as with his other arrangements of Purcell’s compositions, was to make the work appealing to an audience unfamiliar with early music. Among Britten’s interventions are a wider dynamic range and greater equality between the instruments than are found in Purcell’s original setting.

The string quartets of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) are among the most revered works ever written for this combination of instruments. Early dissemination helped establish their composer as “the father of the string quartet.” The six quartets of Op. 20 date from 1772, when Haydn was Kapellmeister (music director) at the court of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy in Hungary. All six are unusually somber, which some attribute to Haydn’s unhappiness living at the provincial and perpetually swampy Esterházy estate. While the textures and structures of Op. 20 helped establish norms for the nascent genre of the string quartet, the G Minor Quartet, the third of the series, includes some unusual features. Both its first and second movements begin with uncharacteristically asymmetrical phrases, and all four movements conclude quietly. The third movement, marked Adagio, gives unusual attention to the viola, and especially the cello, contributing to greater equality among the four parts. The spirited fourth movement, predominantly in the minor mode, surprises with a G-major cadence in its final bars.

While Haydn’s first published work was a string quartet, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) did not explore this genre until after completing his fifth symphony. Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp Minor dates from a tumultuous period in his life. Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 had freed the composer from the looming threat of his most powerful

critic, but just a few years later he lost both his wife and his mother, and then his second marriage failed. Shostakovich composed this, his shortest string quartet, in 1960, to memorialize his first wife. The work exhibits a high degree of thematic unity. Its first movement contrasts descending and ascending motives with nervous repeated notes. The ghostly second movement follows immediately, its thin texture further reduced through extended octave doubling of the viola and cello. The third movement is actually two movements fused together: a furious Allegro with a brief fugue based on a motive from the second movement gives way to a waltzlike Allegretto that recalls a melody from the first.

- Dr. Linda Fairtile, Head Music Librarian

Parsons Music Library, University of Richmond

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The Danish String Quartet celebrates its 20th Anniversary in 2022-23, and the GRAMMY®-nominated quartet continues to assert its preeminence among the world’s finest string quartets. Formed when they were in their teens, they are renowned for impeccable musicianship, sophisticated artistry, exquisite clarity of ensemble, and, above all, and an unmatched ability to play as one. Performances are characterized by a rare musical spontaneity, giving audiences the sense of hearing even treasured canon repertoire as if for the first time. They exude a palpable joy in musicmaking that has made them one of today’s most highly acclaimed and in-demand classical quartets, performing sold-out concert halls around the world. Their inventive and intriguing programming and repertoire choices have produced critically acclaimed original projects and commissions as well as popular arrangements of Scandinavian folk music.

This season, the Danish String Quartet continues its DOPPELGÄNGER series, an ambitious four-year international commissioning project.

DOPPELGÄNGER pairs world premieres from four renowned composers— Bent Sørensen, Lotta Wennäkoski, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Thomas Adès—with late major chamber works by Schubert. Each season, the Quartet performs a world premiere on a program with its doppelgänger— the Schubert quartet or quintet that inspired it—culminating in 2024 in the premiere of a quintet by Adès, after the String Quintet in C major. This season’s new work, by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, premieres in April 2023 and is paired with Schubert’s String Quartet in A Minor, “Rosamunde.” The DOPPELGÄNGER pieces are commissioned by the Danish String Quartet with the support of Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures, Vancouver Recital Society, Flagey in Brussels, and Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. The Quartet performs 28 concerts in North American this season over the course of three separate tours. Additionally, they are Artist in Residence at London’s Wigmore Hall.

The Danish String Quartet’s most recent recording project is PRISM, a series of five discs on ECM New Series that explores the symbiotic musical and contextual relationships between Bach fugues, Beethoven string quartets, and works by Shostakovich, Schnittke, Bartok, Mendelssohn, and Webern. Four of the five recordings have been released on ECM, and the fifth, PRISM V, is slated for 2023. The most recently released is PRISM IV (2022), which was an “Editor’s Choice” in Limelight magazine. The Quartet’s discography reflects the ensemble’s special affinity for Scandinavian composers, with the complete quartets of Carl Nielsen (DaCapo, 2007 and 2008) and Adès, Nørgård & Abrahamsen, their debut on ECM in 2016. They also released two

discs of traditional Scandinavian folk music, Wood Works (Dacapo, 2014) and Last Leaf (ECM, 20127), which was one of the top classical albums of the year, as chosen by NPR, Spotify and The New York Times, among others. A third folk recording is planned for release in 2023 on ECM. The Quartet takes an active role in reaching new audiences through special projects. In 2007, they established the DSQ Festival, which takes place in intimate and informal settings in Copenhagen. In 2016, they inaugurated a concert series, Series of Four, in which they both perform and invite colleagues to appear.

They are the recipients of many awards and prestigious appointments, including Musical America’s 2020 Ensemble of the Year and the BorlettiBuitoni Trust. The Quartet was named in 2013 as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and appointed to The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two). The Quartet was the awarded the 2010 NORDMETALL-Ensemble Prize at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival in Germany, and in 2011, they received the Carl Nielsen Prize, the highest cultural honor in Denmark.

Violinists Frederik Øland and Rune Tonsgaard Sørenson and violist Asbjørn Nørgaard met as children at a music summer camp where they played soccer and made music together. As teenagers, they began the study of classical chamber music and were mentored by Tim Frederiksen of Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Music. In 2008, the three Danes were joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin. Learn more at www.danishquartet.com.

PHOTO CREDIT: CAROLINE BITTENCOURT

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