Jupiter Quartet with Jon Nakamatsu

JUpiter Quartet with Jon Nakamatsu

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Jupiter String Quartet
Nelson Lee, Meg Freivogel, violin • Liz Freivogel, viola • Daniel McDonough, cello

JOHANNES BRAHMS
String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1    

CARLOS SIMON
Warmth from Other Suns

CÉSAR FRANCK
Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 14
Jon Nakamatsu, piano

program notes

JOHANNES BRAHMS 

String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1 (1873)

Johannes Brahms took a while to complete his first two string quartets. According to Max Kalbeck’s early biography of the composer, he threw out over twenty initial attempts. This may be apocryphal — the number might have been lower — but his perfectionism with this genre was quite real. He was hesitant to contribute to the symphonic and string quartet literatures in part because he felt “the tramp of a giant” behind him, referring to the expectation that he follow in Beethoven’s footsteps. In 1865, Brahms mentioned in letters that he was working on a String Quartet in C minor. But it took him eight more years to finish this piece and the Quartet in A minor, with which he paired it for release as his Op. 51. In correspondence with his publisher, he excused the delay by comparing himself (in a self-effacing manner) to Mozart, who “made a very special effort to write six beautiful quartets, so we must certainly exert ourselves a bit to make one or the other [of my quartets] tolerable.”

A reviewer in Vienna admitted being slightly overwhelmed when he first heard the results of Brahms’s exertion, maintaining that the C minor Quartet was “a deeply serious composition which will receive its due appreciation only after repeated performance.” The opening and closing movements are built from very short melodic fragments, which have a thrilling, explosive energy but rarely combine into anything plainly singable or tuneful. Another contemporary reviewer, Hermann Dieters, recognized in this approach an intentional continuity with the late quartets of Beethoven. Decades later, Arnold Schoenberg described Brahms’s writing in his Op. 51 Quartets as “progressive”, claiming it (somewhat anachronistically) as a precursor to the developmental splinters typical of modernism, and specifically atonal and twelve-tone music.

The charming, odd third movement of the C minor Quartet is highly characteristic of Brahms’s mature style. In place of a theatrical, accent-filled scherzo, he writes an Allegretto molto moderato e comodo (to be played comfortably and in a moderate tempo). The long, lazy chromatic line in the violin (marked semplice or “simple”) sways along, taking its time. The music is subtly playful but also incredibly patient, revelling in the caprice and pathos of single intervals and of little moments of interaction among the different voices of the quartet.

Program Note by Nicky Swett

CARLOS SIMON

Warmth from Other Suns (2019)

Warmth of Other Suns is a terrifying expression of the duality of wanting to find rest, yet never being able to call a place home. This musical journey is based off of the thrilling book, The Warmth of Other Suns by Pulitzer Prize novelist, Isabel Wilkerson. Wilkerson’s book describes the Great Migration where many African Americans fled from southern states which were filled with the hot stench of Jim Crow. The Great Migration would take them to a new part of America where the promise of more economic opportunity hung before them with wavering uncertainty. The author centers the story around three main characters. My aim was to embody the feelings of the main characters and express their spirit musically.

Rays of Light

The piece opens with high pitched violins using harmonics seemingly breaking through clouds and refracting in the most unusual yet beautiful way. A symbol of hope, promise, and a future. This promise is quickly interrupted by the fear of never feeling safe, which many African Americans must have felt during this time in history. This agitation and fear theme can be felt in the cello.

The three main characters all come to a point where they must question whether or not they will decide to leave their “home” which is a place of unrest in the hopes of a better life which may or may not fulfill its promise. African Americans are a people who have believed in the promise of a better future despite the oppression they have constantly faced.

Flight

Though “Ray of Light” represents hope, questions/answers, and uncertain promises, “Flight” represents the unrest that is brought forth when the decision is made to act on the pursuit of the uncertain promise of a better life. The decision of the great departure evokes fear on both sides of society. African Americans took a risk to journey through a racist country to find another home while many white southerners feared an economical crash if African Americans fled the south. These feelings of unrest and fear can be felt throughout the second movement through jolting rhythms, syncopated melodic lines, call and response, and rapid perpetual movement.

Settle

The third movement, “Settle” echoes the material of the first movement that brought great hope and promise, but now, the movement is more grounded with rich harmonic support. The arrival of a new place where the sun gives warmth, comfort, and rest. Perhaps a place to finally call home. 

Program Note by Leah Claiborne

CÉSAR FRANCK 

Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 14 (1879)

“Modulate, modulate, modulate!” With these words, Franck reportedly exhorted his students (including a resistant Claude Debussy) never to settle too comfortably into any one key. Although Franck was professor of organ, not composition, at the Paris Conservatory, young composers knew to flock to his classes for legendary lessons in improvisation that shaped many students’ approach to writing music more than their composition professors ever did.

Franck brought this advice to bear in his own mature works, such as this Piano Quintet, steeped in increasingly dense chromatic harmonies. Franck’s style was not only harmonically dense but also thematically so, with melodies and motifs developed and resurrected from one movement to the next, creating what is known as “cyclical” form. However, in the context of late–nineteenth-century France, such chromaticism and cyclicality were generally thought of as “German” musical characteristics, a designation that appeared especially threatening to some French composers and critics in light of Wagner’s soaring popularity. Indeed, the reception of Franck’s Piano Quintet was fraught — many were enraptured by its stormy energy, while others were severe in their distaste.

The tales of two such detractors provide colorful context. One was César Franck’s wife, Felicité. She had become aware (it was no secret) of her husband’s irrepressible lust for one of his students, the composer Augusta Holmès; believing Holmès to be the source of the Quintet’s emotive expression, Felicité Franck had no tolerance for the work. The other detractor was the composer Camille Saint-Saëns, who played piano at the premiere. Franck, so pleased with the performance, seized the chance to publicly dedicate the work to Saint-Saëns during a curtain call — leading the latter to turn around and leave the stage. We can only speculate at Saint-Saëns’s reasons for this humiliating stunt. A staunch nationalist, perhaps he was offended by the perceived Germanic flavor of the work (this became the source of ongoing disputes between the two composers in the 1880s). Or perhaps there were personal reasons: Saint-Saëns himself had proposed marriage several times to Holmès, and may, too, have resented the work’s association with her. If Saint-Saëns’s relationship with Franck had become testy, he nevertheless paid homage to the elder composer in 1890 — as one of the pallbearers of his casket.

Program Note by Peter Asimov