Program Notes - April 29, 2008
The Orion Quartet
String Quartet in A minor, op. 13
Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), wrote this remarkable work at the age of 18, by which time he was for all practical purposes a thoroughly trained and accomplished composer. It was the first of his quartets that he allowed to be published.
Mendelssohn had been deeply impressed by the late string quartets of Beethoven, who died in the year in which this piece was written. Scholars have found traces of Beethoven’s influence in this work’s harmonic language and contrapuntal procedures. Another obvious influence is a song of Mendelssohn’s entitled “Question” (“Is it true that you always wait for me by the arboreal wall?”). A phrase from that song is quoted in the slow introduction to the first movement and heard again at the end of the finale. Mendelssohn himself stated in a letter that the spirit of that love song pervades all four of the quartet’s movements.
After the energetic and sometimes restless first movement comes a serene slow movement, opening with a soulful song. The second theme, a kind of plaintive musical question, assumes great importance and is treated canonically at some length. Toward the end the opening theme returns, but the “questioning” theme persists up to the quiet close.
The brief third movement contrasts a simple folk-like tune with a central episode of scampering fairy music of the type so familiar from numerous other Mendelssohn scores. Note how the very end of this short movement combines two very different musical ideas into a single satisfying whole.
The elaborate final movement has several important elements. It begins with a kind of passionate quasi-operatic recitative, leading to an agitated allegro based on a galloping rhythmic pattern. The “questioning” theme from the slow movement returns several times in violin recitatives over dramatic accompanying tremolos. Then at the end the chorale-like opening theme from the first movement, with its reference to the waiting lover, is restated in full, leading to a slow and thoughtful close.
String Quartet No. 4
Lowell Liebermann
This brand-new piece received its world premiere by the Orion String Quartet in Rochester, New York, early in February of this year. It was commissioned by the Canandaigua Lake Chamber Music Festival, a summer festival held in Canandaigua, New York, not far from Rochester. Orion Quartet violinist Daniel Phillips is an artistic adviser to the festival.
The piece is in a single movement that lasts about 23 minutes. The extended movement is composed of three quite distinct sections. The first, much the longest, is slow and reflective in character, a kind of thoughtful meditation among the four players that rises three times to passionate statements. The harmonic language is basically tonal. It may remind some listeners of the many extended slow movements in the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, though it lacks the Russian master’s sometimes edgy satirical style. Liebermann’s style has a strong melodic and motivic profile, often overlaid upon a steady rhythmic pulse.
The succeeding section is a quizzical bluesy interlude in which pizzicato effects are prominent. This soon leads to a return of the quartet’s quiet opening mood, but the work’s final section also includes a brief interlude in bluesy pop-tune style before the music that began the piece returns again and eventually dies away peacefully to silence.
Lowell Liebermann was born in New York City in 1961. He holds undergraduate degrees and a Ph. D. from the Juilliard School. He has produced a large catalogue of music, including two operas, three piano concerts, many songs and a large body of chamber music for different instrumental combinations. Many of his works have been recorded by major artists on a variety of labels.
String Quartet in A Minor. Op. 132
Beethoven
Toward the end of his life Beethoven poured much of his innovative musical thinking and deeply personal - almost confessional – expression into the string quartet medium. This work, in five movements, reflects Beethoven’s state of mind after he had passed through a very serious illness in 1824. Its centerpiece is the remarkable Heiliger Dankgesang, a hymnlike prayer of thanksgiving for his recovery. The quartet was completed and premiered in 1825.
It begins with a slow and solemn introduction which sounds remarkably like the opening theme of the famous Grosse Fuge which Beethoven was to write later for another string quartet. This rather foreboding motif intrudes twice during the succeeding allegro. The basic mood of the movement is one of quiet pleasure with an undertone of nervous energy.
The second movement presents a graceful lilting tune featuring a six-note melodic phrase that becomes the main developmental material for the whole movement. In the middle section the texture thins out and we hear a graceful violin melody over a steady rhythmic pulse. A return of the opening section rounds off the structure.
Then comes the extraordinary “hymn of thanksgiving,” a long and reverent meditation featuring slow-moving harmonic progressions. There are contrasting episodes, including one marked “feeling new strength” that occurs twice, but a quasi-religious feeling pervades the whole movement, which is the longest of any in a Beethoven quartet except for the Grosse Fuge itself. The music reaches a confident affirmation before closing in utter serenity.
What follows begins as a jaunty little march movement – but this is interrupted quickly by a dramatic recitative in which the first violin declaims operatically over a tremolo from the other players. This leads directly to the finale, a restless agitated song that gives off a feeling of subsurface nervousness. A sudden accelerando leads to the forceful conclusion.
Program Notes by Robert Finn