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Miró Quartet with Elinor Freer
This concert is sold out. Please contact Lori Hopkinson at lori@bowdoinfestival.org or 207-373-1400 to be placed on a waiting list. Concert also livestreamed at bowdoinfestival.org/festivalive.
Miró Quartet
Daniel Ching, William Fedkenheuer, violin • John Largess, viola • Joshua Gindele, cello
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major, K. 493
I. Allegro
II. Larghetto
III. Allegretto
Elinor Freer, piano
ALBERTO GINASTERA
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20
I. Allegro violente ed agitato
II. Vivacissimo
III. Calmo e poetico
IV. Allegramente rustico
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10
I. Animé e très décidé
II. Assez vif et bien rythmé
III. Andantino, doucement expressif
IV. Très modéré
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major, K. 493 (1786)
Haydn is often regarded as the grandfather of two of chamber music’s most venerated configurations — the string quartet and the piano trio — genres in which Mozart excelled, too, following in the elder composer’s footsteps. Yet the piano quartet was a later-blooming form. Unlike the string quartet — which matured relatively early into a rarefied genre destined for professional-caliber musicians, each capable of sustaining individualistic yet interdependent lines in consort — piano chamber music proceeded to develop primarily in the sphere of aristocratic entertainment. This allowed adept keyboardists to showcase concerto-like virtuosity accompanied by a light string complement, often two violins and a cello. Sometimes a bass would join in; sometimes a flute or oboe would replace a violin.
The two piano quartets written by Mozart in 1785–86 — the first of which will be performed later this week — distinguish themselves from this model, and that is partly what makes them so noteworthy. On the one hand, Mozart, a star pianist, continued to showcase his skill with effervescent keyboard writing. On the other hand, rather than reducing the strings to a subsidiary role, Mozart devised means of distributing the thematic material between the piano and string cohort. He did this not simply by trading melodic and accompanimental roles, but by simulating the techniques of galant conversation and discourse, as musicologist Edward Klorman has demonstrated with respect to K. 493. Melodic snippets are introduced by the pianist, for example, as an idea may be proffered in speech; this is taken up and developed by the violinist. A note of consternation is intoned by the viola, leading the other musicians down a melodic and harmonic detour, ultimately to be resolved by the piano. In other words, each instrumentalist appears, at different moments, to possess the agency to steer the conversation into new directions, inspiring agreement, or occasionally dissent, from fellow interlocutors. While such galant repartee crops up throughout Mozart’s chamber music, in the case of this chatty piano quartet, we might even hear echoes of Mozart’s operatic style — after all, just before composing K. 493, Mozart had completed K. 492: The Marriage of Figaro.
ALBERTO GINASTERA
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20 (1948)
Born in Buenos Aires to parents of Catalan and Italian descent, Alberto Ginastera made it his mission to forge an Argentinian voice in concert music through the integration of traditional European forms with local and folkloric elements — a project shared by many South and Central American composers of his era, including the Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos, a generation his senior. Ginastera did this in two main phases, which he described in his own terms: first, his “objective nationalist” style, featuring direct quotations from Argentine melodies and rhythms within a tonal framework; and then, starting in around 1947, his “subjective nationalist” style, where these same elements were increasingly abstracted and submerged. This transition came on the heels of an extensive fifteen-month tour of the United States over 1945-47, where he visited leading universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia) and conservatories (Juilliard and Eastman), and studied under Copland at Tanglewood.
Ginastera’s First String Quartet reflects the fruits of this maturation, as the composer recognized in the program note he wrote for the work:
I wrote my First String Quartet in Buenos Aires, in 1948. This work was awarded the “Carlo Lopez Buchardo” prize that same year in the first national competition for composers organized by the Wagnerian Society of Buenos Aires. It was selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music for its XXVth Festival program in Frankfurt (1951) and on that occasion was performed by the Koechert Quartet.
It consists of the usual four movements — Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio and Rondo — wherein rhythms of Argentine folk music can still be perceived through a re-creation of an imaginary folklore. In this Quartet I find that some characteristics of my own artistic personality materialize for the first time: strong and incisive rhythms, adagios that are anxiety-ridden, lyrical and contemplative and atmospheres that are mysterious, nocturnal and surrealistic.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10 (1893)
Debussy’s only String Quartet dates from an important formative period, during which the composer, thirsting for novel artistic means, became increasingly drawn to the Symbolists. These poets and artists sought a somewhat mystical mode of indirect expression, making use of techniques of suggestion, metaphor, and quasi-synaesthetic sensory manipulation to “paint,” as Stéphane Mallarmé put it, “not the thing, but the effect it produces.” During the early 1890s Debussy began attending the Tuesday meetings of Mallarmé’s collective, “les mardistes.” He composed song cycles to the poetry of Paul Verlaine (Fêtes Galantes and Mélodies), and even tried his hand writing and setting his own Symbolist verses (Proses lyriques). A breakthrough composition, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, an instrumental adaptation of Mallarmé’s poem, dates from this period, and it was in 1893 that Debussy discovered the plays of Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck and undertook his opera with Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande serving as libretto.
In the midst of this experimentation, Debussy’s decision to write a “String Quartet” might appear comparatively old-fashioned, and Debussy’s publisher, Jacques Durand, recalled his own surprise upon hearing of the composition. The resulting work, however, is anything but traditional. The entire quartet draws upon a single motif — the syncopated rhythm and ornamental flourish with which the work opens — which reappears in the subsequent movements, by turns playfully shrouded in pizzicato textures, and throbbingly plaintive with the use of the mutes.
The quartet was premiered by an ensemble led by the famed violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, whom Debussy had met in 1893. Despite a formidable performance by all accounts, the difficulty and complexity of the piece produced a tepid reception. As Durand recounted: “As soon as the work was printed, Ysaÿe came to give it a first performance in Paris. The success was immense, the interpretation was first rate. We, my father and I, set about recommending the Quartet to all the violinists capable of playing it; we graciously offered it to several ensembles. Our repeated efforts were in vain. People did not want to bother with this music which was reputed to be unplayable.” According to Durand, ensembles only warmed to the work over time, as tastes became increasingly attracted to musical “novelty.” “The most frustrating part,” he continues, “is that certain personalities, to whom we had previously offered the Quartet, came back later to ask us for it, claiming they’d never known about it before!”
Program Notes by Peter Asimov