<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>Program Notes -- The Alexander String Quartet</title> <!-- Edit this! --> <meta name="author" content="Paul K. Stockmeyer"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#CFFFFF" link="#000080" alink="#000080" vlink="#000080"> <center> <img src="CMSWlogo.gif" width="298" height="140" alt="Chamber Music Society Logo"><br> <h2><i>The Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg</i></h2> </center> <br> <table width="740" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="180" valign="top"> <p><a href="index.html">Home</a></p> <p>Our <a href="2011.html">2011-2012</a><br> Season</p> <p>Past Seasons:</p> <p><a href="2010.html">2010--2011</a> <br> <a href="2009.html">2009--2010</a><br> <a href="2008.html">2008--2009</a><br> <a href="2007.html">2007--2008</a><br> <a href="2006.html">2006--2007</a><br> <a href="2005.html">2005--2006</a><br> <a href="2004.html">2004--2005</a></p> <p><a href="tickets.html">Subscriptions</a><br> <a href="tickets.html">and Tickets</a></p> <p><a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a></p></td> <td width="500" valign="top"> <!-- Here is where you put stuff specific to this page. --> <center><h3>PROGRAM NOTES</h3></center> <b>MOZART. <i>String Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 458  The Hunt </i></b> <p>"I declare to you before God ... your son is the greatest composer I know of, either personally or by reputation!" This was the 53 year old Haydn, famous all over Europe talking to Leopold Mozart about the latter's 29 year old son, Wolfgang, a former wunderkind and now a struggling composer. The occasion was an evening gathering where six new quartets of Mozart, dedicated to Haydn, were first played. "It was from you, dear Haydn, that I first learned how to write a quartet" the younger composer avowed with unusual humility. But in actuality "learned" would hardly be an apt term, because everything in Mozart seemed to emerge in the world seamless and finished from the first note.</p> <p>No one has ever tracked down the person who attached the name "Hunt Quartet" to this famous Mozart work, but even the purists admit the name fits. The jogging rhythms of the opening movement suggest galloping horses, and several of the themes sound suspiciously like hunting calls. The second movement is a suave and sophisticated minuet of aristocratic mien. Its middle section (Trio) is distant and veiled, and suggests simultaneously the simplicity of a popular tune and the jeweled elegance of a court ball. The third movement, marked Adagio, is one of the most exquisite in all the Mozart quartet literature. Studied and serious harmonically, it still manages to be an effortless outpouring of song. One haunting fragment traded back and forth by the violin and the cello, and tinged with a wistful melancholy, lingers in our ears long after the movement has concluded. The finale is a rollicking Allegro, suggesting again the excitement of the hunt, and the movement ends in a whirlwind of energy. The final bars almost suggest the baying of the hounds in the distance as the hunting party gallops away over the hills.</p> <table><tr><td width="400" align="right"><i>-- Kenneth Wright </i></td></tr></table> <br> <b>BEETHOVEN. <i>String Quartet in F Minor, Opus 95 "Serioso"</i></b> <p>Beethoven's music, in which his chamber works occupy a very central position, is often divided into three major creative periods. The first, lasting until the early 1800s, is characterized by continuation of late 18th-century compositional techniques. The second period, to which the Opus 95 belongs, began around 1804 when Beethoven battled the illness that was robbing him of his hearing and depriving him of a chance for a "normal" life. Its compositions are removed from classical models with respect to length, intensity, and originality of musical invention. The third period, one of the greatest originality, was yet to come.</p> <p>The extremely short Op. 95 quartet is the only quartet Beethoven supplied with a subtitle ("Serioso") to indicate the pervasively somber mood of the piece. It was composed between the late summer and early autumn of 1810. Its dedication to Nikolaus von Zmeskall is significant, because it is the first of Beethoven s quartets inscribed to a friend rather than to a noble patron. The legendary Schuppanzigh Quartet gave the work its premiere in Vienna in May 1814. Because of its compression, integration, and emotional range that greatly exceeds its limited size, Felix Mendelssohn thought it Beethoven s "most characteristic" work.</p> <table><tr><td width="400" align="right"><i>-- Carl Dolmetsch </i></td></tr></table> <br> <b>SCHUBERT. <i>String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810 "Death and the Maiden"</i></b> <p>Along with Schubert s <i>"Forelle"</i> (Trout) piano quintet (Op.114, DV. 667) and his <i>"Rosamunde"</i> string quartet (Op.29, No. 1, DV. 804) this work has been a universal favorite with chamber music audiences for more than 150 years. And like the popular Trout quintet its subtitle derives from the composer's use in it of the melody of one of his 800-odd songs. In this instance Schubert borrowed the theme for the second movement from his 1817 song, <i>"Der Tod und das Maedchen"</i> (DV. 531), a setting of a poem by Matthias Claudius (1740-1815) in which death gently comes to claim the life of a young girl who urges him, "Go on, oh go on past me!" As the late Joseph Wechsberg writes in <i>Schubert: His Life, His Work, His Time</i> (Rizzoli, 1977): "Unlike the mystic German Todessehnsucht (death wish) theme [in Wagner's works] Schubert has a friendlier, more intimate relationship with death: death is inevitable, one has to live with the thought. It is basically a Viennese attitude, more practical than profound, very widespread today ... and it has served the Viennese well in the course of their many disasters.''</p> <p>In any event, it seems likely that Schubert used this melody more for musical than for programmatic reasons as there is evidence that the idea for basing the quartet on the Lied came from some friends who liked the tune and often improvised variations on it in the wine-drinking jam sessions which came to be called "Schubertiades". Its first performance was an unrehearsed reading on January 29, 1826 at the home of two amateur musician friends, Karl and Franz Hacker, in Vienna. Schubert, who enjoyed playing the viola in such Hausmusik ensembles, was unable to participate because he was busy copying out the parts and making lastminute corrections. What should have been Op. 29, No. 2 (since it was written in the same month as his Op. 29, No. 1) was not published until July 1831, almost three years after Schubert died.</p> <table><tr><td width="400" align="right"><i>-- Carl Dolmetsch </i></td></tr></table> <!-- End of stuff specific to this page. --> </td> <td width="60"> </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>