Artis Quartet

artis quartet

oneppo chamber music series David Shifrin, Artistic Director February 18, 2013 • Morse Recital Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

Oneppo Chamber Music Series

artis quartet Tuesday, February 18, 2014 • 8:00 pm • Morse Recital Hall David Shifrin, Artistic Director peter schuhmayer, violin • johannes meissl, violin herbert kefer, viola • othmar müller, cello

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756–1791

String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575 I. Allegretto II. Andante III. Menuetto: Allegretto IV. Allegretto

Alexander von Zemlinsky 1871–1942

String Quartet No. 4, Op. 25 I. Präludium: Poco adagio II. Burleske: Vivace III. Adagietto: Adagio IV. Intermezzo: Allegretto V. Thema mit Variationen VI. Finale: Doppelfuge: Allegro molto, energico

intermission

Johannes Brahms String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 1833–1897 I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Quasi minuetto, moderato IV. Finale: Allegro non assai

As a courtesy to the performers and audience, silence all electronic devices.

Please do not leave the hall during selections. Photography or recording of any kind is prohibited.

Artis Quartet

Founded in Vienna in 1980, the Artis Quartet (Peter Schuhmayer, violin; Johannes Meissl, violin; Herbert Kefer, viola; Othmar Müller, cello) began their international career in 1985 with concerts at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Théatre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Santa Cecilia (Rome) and many others.

In Vienna they have performed an annual cycle of concerts at the Wiener Musikverein since 1988. Notable moments in their history have included an invitation to play all twenty-three Mozart quartets in both Tokyo and Vienna during the Mozart Year 1991. In 1997 they performed the complete Schubert quartets at the Concertgebouw, De Doelen (Rotterdam) and the Musikverein. They have appeared at many of the world’s major music festivals including Salzburg, Schleswig Holstein, the Berliner

Festwochen, Ravinia, Bournemouth, Hong Kong and Paris. Their more than 30 CDs have won awards such as the Echo Klassik, Indie Award, Grand Prix du Disque and the Diapason d´Or. Their most recent recording of quartets

by Egon Wellesz was awarded the 2009 Midem Classical Award in Cannes. Permanently resident in Vienna, the members of the Artis Quartet teach at the Universities of Vienna and Graz.

Peter Schuhmayer plays on a violin by Johann Rombach (2001). On loan from the Austrian National Bank’s collection of musical instruments are Johannes Meissl’s violin (Guarneri, 1690), Herbert Kefer’s viola, (Guadagnini, 1784) and Othmar Müller’s cello (Amati 1573).

Notes on the Program

wolfgang amadeus mozart String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575 While visiting Berlin in the spring of 1789, Mozart performed for the King of Prussia, Frederick William II, and the accomplished cellist and prominent patron of music requested a set of six string quartets. Despite a commission that certainly would have paid well, Mozart returned to Vienna in June and found it very difficult to get to work. His letters during that time speak of the physical pain he was suffering from rheumatism, toothaches, headaches, and insomnia. Furthermore, his wife was struggling with a foot condition at the same time that she was pregnant for the fifth time. All of this was compounded by the fact that they were desperately short of money, after having already borrowed considerably from friends and acquaintances. Things were so bad, there is this unbelievable anecdote: In trying to promote a series of concerts to get back on his feet, Mozart managed to sell a grand total of one subscription.

Considering all of this, it is certainly not surprising that he felt little enthusiasm for writing quartets.

Despite these exceedingly difficult circumstances, Mozart somehow managed to complete the D major quartet (K. 575) within a month of his return from Berlin. The first of what would ultimately be three ‘Prussian’ Quartets, there is no better example of how Mozart was able to separate his troubled physical and emotional condition from the spiritual and musical side of himself. Listening to the optimistic and buoyant sounds of the work, one would never guess that it was crafted under such adversity.

Because it was written at the urging of King Frederick of Prussia, an excellent cellist, the cello plays an important role throughout.

The principal theme of the first movement is essentially a rising arpeggio and a descending

scale. It is stated by the first violin, repeated by the viola, and extended by the first violin and cello. The second theme, a rising arpeggio followed by a long held note, is introduced by the cello, but with all four players getting a crack at it. The development and recapitulation are both conventional, and continue the movement’s good spirits through to the end.

The second movement is in ternary, or A-B-A, form. The thickly textured melodic contour of the A section contrasts with a soaring phrase that passes from instrument to instrument over a repeated note accompaniment in the B section.

In a short coda, the first violin has a quickly rising run that is answered in the second violin with a long note and a four-note turn. The cello and first violin then echo this exchange to conclude the movement.

The Menuetto starts with the same four-note turn that came at the end of the second movement.

The music glitters with sharp contrasts between soft and loud, staccato (short notes) and legato (long notes). The trio showcases the cello, which sings out cantabile melodies (again featuring the four-note turn) in some of the instrument’s highest ranges. The Menuetto is repeated after the trio.

The serenely happy last movement features the cello introducing the main theme, which starts with the same rising arpeggio as the first movement’s themes. The contrasting interludes of the movement’s rondo form all spring from similar ascending arpeggios, but Mozart mixes up different keys, settings, and instrumentation to make them sound like fresh new material.

The premiere of K. 575 was given at Mozart’s lodgings in Vienna on May 22, 1790, most likely with the composer playing viola.

-Jacob Adams

Notes on the Program

alexander von zemlinsky String Quartet No. 4, No. 25 Zemlinsky’s music is distinguished by deep emotion and intense drama, remaining within an extended post-Brahmsian tonality. Like Brahms, he returned to chamber music regularly throughout his career, excelled at counterpoint, and was fascinated with variation forms and technique. His four string quartets are his most significant legacy in the chamber genre.

The String Quartet No. 4 was composed in 1936, but the numbering is misleading. Zemlinsky had composed an unnumbered string quartet in 1893, and after his Quartet No. 3 in 1924 he wrote two independent movements for string quartet in 1927. Quartet No. 4 was written just after the death of Alban Berg and is dedicated to his memory. Zemlinsky uses Berg’s Lyric Suite as a structural model (though, unlike Berg, Zemlinsky never dabbled in serial technique).

It was never performed during the composer’s lifetime, and remained unpublished until 1974.

The tone of the work is both elegiac and pessimistic. The six movements alternate between slow and fast, in a neoclassical idiom that approaches Hindemith more than Stravinsky.

Subtle references to Zemlinsky’s favored colleagues appear throughout the quartet; in style it reflects Berg’s urbane earthiness, blended with a touch of Mahler’s grandiosity. Quotes from Bach and Wagner are carefully woven into the musical fabric.

The first movement, Präludium, is a chromatically-infused, lyrical introduction with intensely polyphonic textures. Dark and low, marked senza espressione, it moves into a more energized middle section before dying away to a barely audible pppp at the end.The Burleske is a rondo of rhythmic and metric variety. Pizzicato triplets at the start set the tone for the scampering chromaticism

that runs throughout the movement. This is followed by a concentrated Adagio (marked, however, with a tempo of Adagietto) in threepart form that also fades to a very soft conclusion.

The joyous Intermezzo presents an immediate volte-face to the previous Adagio, while developing the same principal theme through dancing dotted-note figures and flowing lines.

The Thema wit Variationen are based on a “Barcarolle” melody that is as far removed from a Venetian boat song as can be imagined.

Although it remains, for the most part, in compound meter, the time signature changes often.

It is a slow theme, considerably ornamented, and presented by unaccompanied cello. Three variations follow: the first two are highly contrapuntal, while the third is in a brighter mood.

The Finale is a double fugue, beginning with a descending line of chromatic neighbor pitches in a simple rhythmic cell. Triplet figures dominate the middle of the movement, before building to a furioso and prestissimo conclusion.

—Kansas City Chamber Music Society

johannes brahms String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 Many lovers of Brahms’ music assert that his most personal voice emerged in his chamber music. His chamber works display his ability to create rich textures and to conceive of complex and intimate dialogues between multiple voices.

They follow the models laid by his classical predecessors while also blurring and subverting their boundaries.

Brahms was deeply conscious of the music of the past, and he made as many as 20 abortive attempts to write a string quartet, a genre where

Notes on the Program

he felt overshadowed by Beethoven. His first two quartets, Op. 51, which appeared in 1873, are likely the result of years of labor. They mark a new level of formal compactness and density in Brahms’ output.

The quartet in A minor’s first movement combines lyrical lines with a sense of continuous development and tight integration of its motives.

It begins with a long-breathed and melancholy melody played by the first violin. The first three notes of the melody, F A E, which recur as a motto throughout the movement, may be a reference to Brahms’ close violinist friend Joachim’s personal credo: “Frei aber einsam” (free, but lonely). The second theme, a simpler melody played in parallel thirds and set to pizzicato accompaniment in the cello provides relief from the heavy mood in the opening. The close of the exposition is extended by a presentation of the opening motto in canon, which also serves to lead to the development section. The development continues with imitative treatment of a vigorous dotted rhythm from the opening melody, and a closing theme from the exposition is gradually contracted into a passionate climactic statement played in octaves by the whole quartet.

The cello leads a re-transition by playing a transposition of the opening melody against a new accompaniment. The upper strings continue to develop the opening motto until they transform gradually and imperceptibly into a restatement of the opening material.

The first violin opens the second movement with a gentle melody in A major set to sinuous accompaniment played by the viola and cello.

Each phrase is expanded until the last phrase reaches a tender climax and the second violin makes a brief conclusion. The central section, in the submediant minor, begins with a fierce canon between the first violin and cello against tremolo accompaniment. As in the first move-

ment, the quartet finds a unique way of returning to the opening material that blurs the boundaries between sections. The gentle closing cadence of the middle section bleeds into a restatement of the opening tune, played in D major by the viola. The quartet breaks away from the original opening, and the first violin gives a longer statement of the opening melody in F major. The quartet digresses again, and finally the cello begins the full restatement of the melody in the original key of A major. The closing material is extended to provide a gentle coda.

The imaginative third movement shows Brahms’ penchant for frequent tempo changes. It begins with a hushed and ghostly minuet in A minor.

The minuet serves as a frame to a lively central scherzo section in A major (Allegretto vivace), which forms a complete miniature sonata. In lieu of a development section, the quartet returns briefly to the tempo and character of the minuet section. The quartet makes a free recapitulation of the scherzo material, and a brief coda leads back to the key of A minor. The quartet then makes a free and shortened restatement of the opening minuet.

The last movement opens with a vigorous tune marked by a hemiola rhythm that gives a particularly Hungarian flair; this melody also opens the development and coda and colors the character of the movement. The recapitulation ends with an extended closing section that develops and augments fragments of the melody until the rhythmic energy almost completely dissipates. The quartet then makes a rapid and furious conclusion.

–David Heetderks

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Robert Blocker, Dean