The Program Sunday Morning, November 22, 2015, at 11:00 Sunday Morning Coffee Concerts Cuarteto Quiroga Aitor Hevia, Violin Cibrán Sierra, Violin Josep Puchades, Viola Helena Poggio, Cello HAYDN String Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3 (1772) Allegro con spirito Menuetto: Allegretto Poco Adagio Allegro di molto BRAHMS String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 (?1865 73) Allegro non troppo Andante moderato Quasi Minuetto, moderato Finale: Allegro non assai This program is approximately one hour long and will be performed without intermission. Please join the artists for a cup of coffee following the performance. Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off. Coffee and refreshments provided by Zabar s and zabars.com. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Walter Reade Theater
Great Performers BNY Mellon is Lead Supporter of Great Performers Support is provided by Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, The Florence Gould Foundation, 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. Endowment support for Symphonic Masters is provided by the Leon Levy Fund. Endowment support is also provided by UBS. MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center UPCOMING SUNDAY MORNING COFFEE CONCERTS IN THE WALTER READE THEATER: Sunday Morning, December 6, 2015, at 11:00 Jakob Koranyi, Cello ALL-BACH PROGRAM Cello Suite No. 1 in G major Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor Cello Suite No. 3 in C major Sunday Morning, January 10, 2016, at 11:00 Alexander Gavrylyuk, Piano SCHUBERT: Sonata in A major, D.664 RACHMANINOFF: Five Études-tableaux PROKOFIEV: Sonata No. 3 Sunday Morning, February 7, 2016, at 11:00 Jack Liebeck, Violin Katya Apekisheva, Piano BRIDGE: Violin Sonata BRAHMS: Violin Sonata No. 1 Sunday Morning, April 3, 2016, at 11:00 Roman Rabinovich, Piano HAYDN: Sonata in E minor MICHAEL BROWN: Surfaces (World premiere) HAYDN: Sonata in C major SCHUMANN: Faschingsschwank aus Wien For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit LCGreatPerformers.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) 875-5766 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.
Great Performers I Notes on the Program Notes on the Program By Kathryn L. Libin String Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3 (1772) FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN Born March 31, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria Died May 31, 1809, in Vienna Approximate length: 20 minutes In the mid-1760s Haydn s employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, established his court at an imposing new palace in Hungary. At Eszterháza, Haydn found himself far removed from the artistic and social milieu of Vienna; working without interruptions and tailoring his music to the court s requirements, he embarked on a period of unprecedented musical growth and development. In the summer of 1772, Nikolaus welcomed Prince Louis de Rohan, envoy from the court of Louis XV, along with an extensive entourage, to Eszterháza. Along with banquets, balls, fireworks, outdoor sports, and other entertainments, the noble guests were offered a considerable amount of music, much of it composed by Haydn and played by resident musicians. Among the works that would have been performed were at least two recently composed symphonies and a newly completed cycle of string quartets that would later be published as Haydn s Op. 20. With the composition of the Op. 20 quartets, Haydn achieved a fully realized string quartet style that would serve as the primary model for all future work in the genre. Critic Donald Tovey neatly summed up the significance of this achievement when he commented, With Op. 20 the historical development of Haydn s quartets reaches its goal; further progress is not progress in any historical sense, but simply the difference between one masterpiece and the next. One of the striking new features of these quartets is the unprecedented equality among the four voices. Haydn seems to have been intrigued by the challenge of developing a more varied palette of textures, while also exploiting more fully the individual timbres and registers of the instruments. Though this was still before the period when noblemen began forming house quartets, Haydn did have an ensemble of talented players with whom he worked regularly in the Esterházy orchestra; they provided him with the skill and commitment he needed to execute his new ideas. The Allegro con spirito of the G-minor Quartet opens with an arresting unison presentation of the theme by first violin and viola. This movement is serious without being tragic, often projecting a narrative quality with its rhetorical pauses, sudden flights into solo fantasy by the first violin, and the unexpected emergence of the cello
Great Performers I Notes on the Program in its tenor range as it takes over the theme in the recapitulation. The Menuetto is mournful and surprisingly un-dancelike, unfolding in uneven five- and sevenbar phrasing. But its trio, in the brighter key of E-flat major, restores a sense of balance and animates the texture with flowing eighth notes in the first violin. As so often in Haydn, the Adagio is the captivating soul of the work. Its cantabile melody, first pronounced by the violin, becomes especially moving when repeated in its lower range and embroidered by an extraordinary solo cello line. The modulating harmonies of the movement take on particular warmth with the iteration of the theme in C major, launching the final section of the movement and its gradual subsidence to a pianissimo ending. Haydn provides a sparkling contrast and climax with the finale, which is swift and sharply articulated. Unlike the somber and even melancholy G-minor expression of the opening movements, this Allegro di molto breathes a fresh and urgent energy. String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 (?1865 73) JOHANNES BRAHMS Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany Died April 3, 1897, in Vienna Approximate length: 30 minutes One of Brahms s closest friends was the prominent surgeon Theodor Billroth, a pioneer in abdominal surgery and professor at the University of Vienna, as well as a gifted amateur violinist. Billroth frequently served as a sounding board for Brahms s creative ideas, and was always willing to help test his new chamber works in private rehearsal. Brahms dedicated his Op. 51 string quartets to Billroth, writing to him, I am on the point of publishing string quartets for the first time, though [they are] not the first. In 1872 Brahms was appointed artistic director of Vienna s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, a prestigious position in this cultured city that thoroughly occupied him with the organization, production, and conducting of concerts. The following summer he retired to the countryside outside of Munich in order to rest and to compose, and there he completed the two Op. 51 string quartets. Though Brahms had earlier published quartets for piano and strings, his difficulties with pure string-quartet writing are notorious; he is reputed to have written, and destroyed, as many as 20 quartets up to 1873. It seems that in the Op. 51 quartets, Brahms finally felt he had achieved the standard of Classical composition that he desired in this most exacting of genres. The dedication of the quartets to Billroth, a connoisseur whose musical opinions Brahms valued over virtually all others, signifies not only Brahms s respect for his friend, but a hard-won satisfaction with his own work. The quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert provided models and inspiration for Brahms, who studied them carefully; like Haydn when he wrote his Op. 20 quartets, Brahms was 40 years old and at a mature stage of his career when he completed Op. 51. The first movement of the A-minor Quartet is a spacious sonata form that very much adheres to the Classical structure of
Great Performers I Notes on the Program his predecessors. It begins with an expressive arching melody outlining the tones A-F-A-E, likely a homage to violinist Joseph Joachim, whose motto frei aber einsam (free but lonely) Brahms had employed 20 years earlier in a sonata movement for his friend; in December 1873 the Joachim Quartet would give the first performance of this quartet. Brahms s rhythmic layering, setting triplets in the viola part in gentle tension with duple beats in the first violin, becomes especially pronounced in the lyrical second theme, where the pizzicato cello line enhances the motion. A tiny, almost imperceptible sixteenth-note motive in the main theme gains sudden prominence at the launch of the development section and remains a unifying presence. The earnest A-major melody of the Andante moderato is supported by a steady accompanying figure in the viola and cello, but opens up into a lighter texture as it repeats an octave higher. Despite some agitation, including tremolos as the music moves into F-sharp minor, a contained serenity and tenderness lends charm to this movement. Contrasting sections in A minor and major, the first with pronounced drones in the bass, comprise the Quasi Minuetto movement; the middle section becomes more like a scherzo, with fleet staccato figures reminiscent of Mendelssohn. Brahms saves his most exuberant ideas for the Finale, which features the rhythms of the Hungarian czárdás, a wild traditional gypsy dance. Rhythmic conflicts and syncopations, extremes of texture, and an increasingly relentless momentum invest the Finale with superb drama. Musicologist Kathryn L. Libin teaches music history and theory at Vassar College. Copyright 2015 by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
Great Performers I Meet the Artists Meet the Artists Cuarteto Quiroga Cuarteto Quiroga, named after the great Galician violinist Manuel Quiroga, is the ensemble-in-residence performing on the decorated Stradivarius quartet set at the Royal Collection of the Madrid Royal Palace. One of the most dynamic and unique quartets of its generation, it has won international acclaim for its distinctive personality and bold and original approach. The top prize winner at major competitions in Bordeaux, Borciani, Geneva, Paris, and Barcelona, the quartet has appeared throughout Europe and South America at venues including Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Les Invalides, Concertgebouw, Heidelberger Frühling, and Stadt-Casino Basel. JOSEP MOLINA 2015 Cuarteto Quiroga made its North American debut in 2012 performing at the Frick Collection and the National Gallery. In 2014 the quartet performed six concerts in the prestigious Counterpoint series of the National Auditorium of Music in Madrid, offering a Haydn and Mozart cycle, and the first complete live performance of all the string quartet works by György Kurtág. The ensemble has collaborated with such artists as Valentin Erben, Javier Perianes, Richard Lester, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Jonathan Brown, and more. Cuarteto Quiroga is in residence at the Fundación Museo Cerralbo in Madrid, teaches annually at the International Summer Academy of Llanes, and holds the string-quartet chair at the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón in Zaragoza, Spain. The ensemble also gives master classes at top universities and conservatories in Amsterdam, The Hague, Groningen, Stockholm, Bogotá, Panama, and the United Arab Emirates, among others. Cuarteto Quiroga studied with Rainer Schmidt, Walter Levin, and Hatto Beyerle. Other important influences include András Keller, György Kurtág, Johannes Meissl, and Ferenc Rados. The quartet has been widely recorded and broadcast on European radio, winning the Spanish National Radio Prize. It released Statements for Cobra Records featuring works of Haydn, Webern, and Sollima, followed by a
Great Performers I Meet the Artists recording of works by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. In 2015 Cuarteto Quiroga released a recording of Brahms s Op. 51 for Cobra, and the piano quintets of Turina and Granados with pianist Javier Perianes for Harmonia Mundi. Lincoln Center s Great Performers Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Lincoln Center s Great Performers offers classical and contemporary music performances from the world s outstanding symphony orchestras, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and recitalists. Since its initiation in 1965, the series has expanded to include significant emerging artists and premieres of groundbreaking productions, with offerings from October through June in Lincoln Center s David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and other performance spaces around New York City. Along with lieder recitals, Sunday morning coffee concerts, and films, 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.
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 Kate Monaghan, Associate Director, Programming Mauricio Lomelin, Producer, Contemporary Programming Julia Lin, Associate Producer Regina Grande, Assistant to the Artistic Director Luna Shyr, Programming Publications Editor Madeleine Oldfield, House Seat Coordinator Kathy Wang, House Program Intern For the Walter Reade Theater Gregory Wolfe, Stage Manager Cuarteto Quiroga s representation: Shupp Artists Management www.shuppartists.com Cibrán Sierra and his quartet thank the heirs of Paola Modiano for the opportunity to play the 1682 Nicolo Amati violin Rose in her memory.