Pre-concert lecture by Christopher H. Gibbs at 6:15 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse

Transcription

1 The Program Thursday, March 9, 2017 at 7:30 pm Pre-concert lecture by Christopher H. Gibbs at 6:15 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse Takács Quartet Edward Dusinberre, Violin Károly Schranz, Violin Geraldine Walther, Viola András Fejér, Cello Anthony McGill, Clarinet BRAHMS Clarinet Quintet in B minor (1891) Allegro Adagio Andantino Presto non assai Con moto Intermission HAYDN String Quartet in F major, Op. 77, No. 2 (1799) Allegro moderato Menuet: Presto Andante Finale: Vivace assai RAVEL String Quartet in F major ( ) Allegro moderato Très doux Assez vif Très rhythmé Très lent Vif et agité Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Alice Tully Hall Starr Theater, Adrienne Arsht Stage

2 Great Performers Support is provided by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, Audrey Love Charitable Foundation, Great Performers Circle, Chairman s Council, and Friends of Lincoln Center. Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Endowment support for Symphonic Masters is provided by the Leon Levy Fund. Endowment support is also provided by UBS. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Center Nespresso is the Official Coffee of Lincoln Center NewYork-Presbyterian is the Official Hospital of Lincoln Center UPCOMING GREAT PERFORMERS EVENTS: Wednesday, March 15 at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall Les Arts Florissants William Christie, conductor Xavier de Maistre, harp Music for Marie Antoinette MOZART: Eine kleine Nachtmusik KRUMPHOLTZ: Harp Concerto HAYDN: Symphony No. 85 ( La reine ) HERMANN: Harp Concerto No. 1 Sunday, April 9 at 5:00 pm in Alice Tully Hall Lars Vogt, piano BACH: Goldberg Variations Thursday, April 13 at 7:30 pm in Alice Tully Hall Takács Quartet ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18, No. 6 String Quartet in F major, Op. 135 String Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3 ( Razumovsky ) For tickets, call (212) or visit LCGreatPerformers.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) to learn about program cancellations or to request a Great Performers brochure. Visit LCGreatPerformers.org for more information relating to this season s programs. Join the conversation: #LCGreatPerfs We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building.

3 Great Performers Snapshot By Paul Schiavo Johannes Brahms s deep knowledge of music s Classical period exercised a strong influence on his own composing. So when, late in his career, he undertook writing chamber music that features the clarinet, he used as his models two compositions by Mozart: the Trio in E-flat major, K.498, and the Quintet in A major for clarinet and strings, K.581. Brahms scored his Clarinet Quintet for the same instrumentation Mozart used and followed his predecessor s example in other respects. This was hardly just imitation. Rather, it represented part of Brahms s ongoing dialogue with musical tradition, in which he affirmed and expanded upon the thoughts of great composers from the past. Timeframe ARTS 1799 Haydn s String Quartet, Op. 77, No. 2 Francisco Goya paints La Tirana Brahms s Clarinet Quintet Oscar Wilde s The Picture of Dorian Grey is published Ravel s String Quartet W.E.B. Du Bois s The Souls of Black Folk is published. SCIENCE Another of those composers was Joseph Haydn, whom Brahms deeply admired. He based one of his most satisfying compositions, Variations on a Theme of Haydn, on a melody attributed to Haydn. The work follows a theme-and-variations procedure, which Brahms also employed in the finale of his Clarinet Quintet. Haydn used the same format in the third movement of his String Quartet in F major, Op. 77, No. 2. Beyond this, the imagination and lucidity with which Haydn treats his melodic material, his fine sense of formal proportion, and the ingenuity of his rhythmic play in the composition s second movement all would have delighted Brahms. We find many of the same virtues in Maurice Ravel s Quartet in F major, despite this work s very different musical idiom. Here thematic variation takes the form of a motto subject, one that recurs transfigured in different movements. Rhythmic vitality and the essence of chamber music, instrumental dialogue, further distinguish this composition First scientific description of the platypus is published Global average temperature is recorded for the first time The Wright Brothers airplane completes first successful flight. IN NEW YORK 1799 St. Mark s Church is built at 10th Street and Second Avenue City hires first female officers as police matrons Williamsburg Bridge opens. Copyright 2017 by Paul Schiavo

4 Great Performers I Notes on the Program Notes on the Program By Paul Schiavo Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 (1891) JOHANNES BRAHMS Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany Died April 3, 1897, in Vienna Approximate length: 36 minutes In March 1891, Brahms visited the German town of Meiningen, whose orchestra was then one of the best in the world. There he heard, in addition to his own First and Fourth Symphonies, performances of Mozart s Clarinet Quintet and one of Weber s clarinet concertos by the orchestra s principal clarinetist, Richard Mühlfeld. Brahms did not equivocate in his assessment. It is not possible, he wrote to his friend Clara Schumann, to play the clarinet better than Mühlfeld does. Brahms did not merely admire the performer s skill. During the following summer he completed two substantial chamber compositions featuring clarinet, one of them using the same instrumentation clarinet plus string quartet as the Mozart quintet Mühlfeld had played. We can note further parallels between these two works: expansive opening movements whose principal themes are marked by a feeling of tempered passions; serene second movements that seem, for the most part, lost in reverie; and finales cast in theme-and-variation form. Yet despite the precedent of Mozart s work, Brahms s quintet is hardly a derivative composition. On the contrary, its melodic ideas, rich harmonic language and rhythmic subtleties, allusions to Hungarian gypsy music, and the unusual form of its third movement are typical of Brahms. The first movement conveys a feeling of bittersweet, autumnal melancholy, thanks to harmonic shadings that slip frequently between major and minor modes. The initial motif merits particular attention, for it will recur not only throughout this first movement but periodically over the course of the composition. The second movement begins in a vein of tender reflection, its principal melody growing out of a three-note figure stated at the outset. Soon, however, the clarinet interrupts with a reminiscence of the opening motif of the first movement, and the music takes on the character of a Hungarian rhapsody. At length, Brahms finds his way back to the gentle melody of the movement s opening passage. Contrasting blocks of material also make up the third movement. This begins with a flowing theme whose character suggests a folk melody. After a conspicuous pause, however, the music sets off at a faster tempo and in the lightly running manner of a scherzo. The finale presents a theme with variations. Its subject melody hints, in different ways, at the principal themes of each of the previous three movements. Brahms confirms this suggestion of a retrospective finale: The last

5 Great Performers I Notes on the Program of five variations of the generative theme flows into a coda recalling the opening idea of the first movement. String Quartet in F major, Op. 77, No. 2 (1799) JOSEPH HAYDN Born March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria Died May 31, 1809, in Vienna Approximate length: 25 minutes Haydn s several dozen string quartets represent nearly the whole of his long career, the last coming during his ultimate maturity. These are eight quartets and part of a ninth Haydn completed between 1797 and 1799 works that crown his endeavors in this field of composition. The final quartet Haydn completed, the Quartet in F major, Op. 77, No. 2, opens with a sunny theme that the composer pursues through a lively transition passage to a full pause. The second subject, which now appears, combines a variant of the opening melody, played by the second violin, with a counter-theme in the first violin. Yet it is neither of these related themes but, rather, motifs from the transition passage connecting them that the composer plays with during the central development episode. The second movement s minuet features surprising rhythmic sleight-of-hand. Its central section, or trio, by contrast, seems as smooth as silk. The third movement takes the form of variations on the theme presented in spare twopart texture at the outset. Haydn closes with a lively contrapuntal finale. String Quartet in F major ( ) MAURICE RAVEL Born March 7, 1875, in Ciboure, France Died December 28, 1937, in Paris Approximate length: 23 minutes Ravel wrote his only string quartet in the winter of In it he uses a motto theme or idée fixe, a melodic idea that recurs in different forms periodically over the course of a composition. That theme, a melody as sweet and fresh as any folk song, appears at the start of the first movement. Ravel considers this idea at some length before arriving at his second subject, whose statement he punctuates with pizzicato figures from the cello. The development section finds fragments of this second theme and the motto juxtaposed and combined. The second movement uses pizzicato textures extensively and is cast in a broad A-B-A design. Its outer sections have essentially the character of a scherzo, to which the muted central episode provides effective contrast.

6 Great Performers I Notes on the Program With the ensuing slow movement, Ravel returns to the motto theme, alluding to it in the expressive viola line of the opening measures and presenting it unmistakably at several later junctures. The quartet s signature melody returns in the finale also, as does the second subject of the opening movement. Both of these themes are pressed into 3/4 time (the motto idea sounds almost like a waltz melody). Later, an alternation between quintuple and triple rhythms produces music of considerable energy. Paul Schiavo serves as program annotator for the St. Louis and Seattle Symphonies, and writes frequently for concerts at Lincoln Center. Copyright 2017 by Paul Schiavo

7 Great Performers I Meet the Artists Meet the Artists Takács Quartet Now in its 42nd season, the Takács Quartet is renowned for the vitality of its interpretations. This season the Takács performs the complete Beethoven quartet cycles at Wigmore Hall, Princeton University, the University of Michigan, and University of California, Berkeley. In preparation for these cycles, first violinist Edward Dusinberre s book, Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet, was published in the U.K. and North America. Other European engagements in include appearances in Florence, Milan, Geneva, Amsterdam, and Paris. The Takács also performs in Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong, and tours New Zealand and Australia. KEITH SAUNDERS Also known for its innovative programming, the Takács has performed Philip Roth s Everyman with Meryl Streep at Princeton University (2014) and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (2015). The ensemble has toured with the poet Robert Pinsky and collaborates regularly with the Hungarian folk group Muzsikás. The Quartet s award-winning recordings include the complete Beethoven cycle on the Decca label. In 2005 the Late String Quartets won Recording of the Year and the Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine, a Gramophone Award, and other honors. The Takács has also made recordings for Decca of works by Bartók, Borodin, Brahms, Chausson, Dvořák, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Smetana. Its recording of the six Bartók String Quartets received the 1998 Gramophone Award for chamber music and a Grammy nomination. In 2012 Gramophone inducted the Takács into its first Hall of Fame. The ensemble was the first string quartet to win the Wigmore Medal (2014) and was Wigmore Hall s first-ever associate artist (2012). The Quartet members are Christoffersen Faculty Fellows at the University of Colorado in Boulder and play on instruments generously loaned to them by the Shwayder Foundation. The Quartet also has summer residencies at the

8 Great Performers I Meet the Artists Aspen Music Festival and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and is a visiting quartet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. In 2001 the ensemble was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight s Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and in 2011 each member of the Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit Commander s Cross by the president of the Republic of Hungary. MATTHEW SEPTIMUS Anthony McGill A solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, Anthony McGill has been principal clarinet of the New York Philharmonic since September He previously served as principal clarinet of the MET Orchestra and associate principal clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Mr. McGill has appeared as soloist with many orchestras, including the MET Orchestra, American Sym - phony Orchestra, and New York String Orchestra, all at Carnegie Hall. In 2015 he performed and recorded the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto with the New York Philharmonic. As a chamber musician he has performed throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia with the Brentano, Daedalus, Dover, Guarneri, JACK, Miró, Pacifica, Shanghai, Takács, and Tokyo quartets. He tours with Musicians from Marlboro and appears under the auspices of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as well as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Festival appearances include Tanglewood, Marlboro, and Music@Menlo, to name a few. Mr. McGill has also collaborated with Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Gil Shaham, Midori, Mitsuko Uchida, and Lang Lang. He performed with Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, and Gabriela Montero at the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama. Mr. McGill recently founded the McGill/McHale Trio with his brother Demarre, principal flute of the MET Orchestra, and pianist Michael McHale; the ensemble has performed in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. A recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Mr. McGill was the WQXR artist-in-residence and has appeared on radio and television on Performance Today, Mr. Roger s Neighbor hood, and the Steve Harvey Show, among others. In 2016 he was presented with the John Jay Justice Award. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he serves on the faculties of Curtis, The Juilliard School, the

9 Great Performers I Meet the Artists Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, Bard College Conservatory of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. Lincoln Center s Great Performers Initiated in 1965, Lincoln Center s Great Performers series offers classical and contemporary music performances from the world s outstanding symphony orchestras, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and recitalists. One of the most significant music presentation series in the world, Great Performers runs from October through June with offerings in Lincoln Center s David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Walter Reade Theater, and other performance spaces around New York City. From symphonic masterworks, lieder recitals, and Sunday morning coffee concerts to films and groundbreaking productions specially commissioned by Lincoln Center, Great Performers offers a rich spectrum of programming throughout the season. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA offers 15 programs, series, and festivals including American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award winning Live From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2 billion campus renovation, completed in October 2012.

10 Great Performers Lincoln Center Programming Department Jane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Hanako Yamaguchi, Director, Music Programming Jon Nakagawa, Director, Contemporary Programming Jill Sternheimer, Director, Public Programming Lisa Takemoto, Production Manager Charles Cermele, Producer, Contemporary Programming Mauricio Lomelin, Producer, Contemporary Programming Andrew C. Elsesser, Associate Director, Programming Regina Grande Rivera, Associate Producer Nana Asase, Assistant to the Artistic Director Luna Shyr, Senior Editor Olivia Fortunato, Programming Assistant Mary E. Reilly, Program Content Coordinator The Takács Quartet s representation: Seldy Cramer Artists, Inc. Mr. McGill s representation: ACM 360 Artists