Borromeo String QuartetNicholas Kitchen, violin | Kristopher Tong, violin

Mai Motobuchi, viola | Yeesun Kum, cello

PRESENTS

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W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)String Quartet in G Major, K. 387

Allegro vivace assaiMenuettoAndante cantabileMolto allegro

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 no. 3

Allegro vivaceScherzo. Assai leggiero vivaceAdagio non troppo Molto allegro con fuoco

BORROMEO STRING QUARTETFRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 – 7:30PM

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Borromeo String QuartetPROGRAM NOTES | FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020

MOZART

STRING QUARTET in G MAJOR, K.387 (1782)

Three people proved the most monumental in their effects on Mozart’s career after he moved to Vienna in 1781. During his first weeks there, he met his future wife — Constanze Weber — and they married (against his father’s wishes) in 1782. In 1781 Haydn completed his six Op. 33 quartets, a set influential throughout Europe. As friends, he and Mozart soon launched one of the greatest, mutually-respectful rivalries in music history. Mozart also became a frequent guest at the music concerts of Baron van Swieten, with access to the Baron’s extensive library of Baroque music. The scores of Bach and Handel in that library influenced Mozart profoundly, helping him develop the mature style and grandness that shines through his Viennese mas-terpieces.

While studying Bach in 1781-82, he wrote a suite, as well as preludes, fugues, and fantasias in Baroque style. Mozart left many of them incomplete, viewing them pri-marily as studies for himself. More important than these particular forms, Mozart’s immersion in Bach’s continually rich counterpoint paid immediate dividends. In his sixteen earlier quartets, Mozart’s employment of Baroque counterpoint “was a weakness, not a strength.” There was “no attempt to integrate this strict fugal style elsewhere into the prevailing light textures of his galante style” (musicologist John Irving). Now, however, in the repetition of today’s opening theme in K. 387, rich counterpoint appears constantly instead. Motives from that theme now surface in all voices. Likewise in the Minuet, smaller motives from the primary theme and their inversions appear in different voices simultaneously.

Under Haydn’s influence, Mozart began writing his string quartets in a different style. Mozart wrote the lighter texture of earlier quartets in two voices — melody and bass line — and then went back to fill in the texture and harmony with second violin and viola parts as an afterthought (in different ink). Now he writes all four parts simultaneously, reflecting the constant motivic counterpoint among them. He struggled with this; his manuscripts now feature constant revisions, cross-outs, and fresh ideas. Whole phrases and sections are re-written after negating earlier ver-sions, making his scores as messy as any Beethoven sketchbook. The earlier days of

clean copies and “writing the entire score down immediately after forming it in his head” vanish forever in Vienna.

Mozart bases every movement in today’s quartet, even the Minuet, on Sonata Form principles. This was the first of six quartets Mozart dedicated to Haydn. In the open-ing movement, after the primary theme repetition mentioned above, the secondary theme likewise features rich, imitative counterpoint. And the development section includes a brief fugal passage begun by a half-note followed by constant 16th notes. The G Major Menuet and Trio borrows Haydn’s humorous tendency to obscure the triple meter format. Mozart accomplishes this with a remarkable two-beat empha-sis alternating piano and forte dynamics every beat. And he extends the minuet to such length that it results in a miniature sonata form (the D Major secondary theme begins with a half note and descending passage in the first violin, and returns in the tonic later in the reprise).

“For the first time in Mozart’s quartets, the slow movements become the emotional center of each work” (Irving). One example of such heightened drama in the C Major Andante cantabile occurs in the preparation for the secondary theme. A violin solo passage in 32nd notes ends with a sudden detour to G Minor, rendering the new secondary theme in G Major all the more stunning. And listen as its solo 16th-note sextuplets spread to all voices. Mozart’s newfound contrapuntal richness appears

again in the Sonata-form finale, setting both the primary and secondary themes in fugal fashion. These fugal subjects then appear simultaneously in the development section.

Mozart’s unexpected early death at 35 left Constanze in debt, with no money to raise their family. Baron van Swieten paid for Mozart’s funeral and helped with some of the debts. Constanze had one of his students (Franz Sussmayr) complete the Requiem so it could be sold, and had a friend (Maximilian Stadler) complete Mozart’s fragmen-tary Baroque keyboard pieces for the same reason. Mozart left the final form of none of his late quartets in fragments, however. In dedicating these six quartets to Haydn, Mozart wrote longer works — richer in harmony and drama than Haydn’s Op.33 — decisively launching this friendly rivalry!

MENDELSSOHN

STRING QUARTET in E-FLAT MAJOR,OP. 44 no. 3 (1838)

Mendelssohn’s reach transcended centuries. This polymath became fluent in German, French, English, and studied earlier languages, with an ability to read and translate Greek and Latin. He played a major role in the 19th-century Bach revival, and reached even further back in the past with a study of Palestri-na’s 16th-century works. Such 19th composers as “the Schumanns, Berlioz, Brahms,

Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Richard Strauss were all drawn to his music” (biographer R. Larry Todd). Strauss was invited to compose new music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but declined, “citing his inability to improve upon Mendelssohn” (Todd). Ravel edited his music during World War I, and Schoenberg included a Lied ohne Worte (“Song Without Words”) movement in his atonal Serenade, Op. 24.

As a conductor he developed Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra into one of Europe’s leading ensembles beginning in 1835. His repertory was the earliest to consistently anticipate modern practice, programming both the celebrated music from the past (Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert) as well as contemporary 19th-century composers (the Schumanns, Berlioz, Rossini, Cherubini). Not surprisingly, his com-positions, including today’s quartet, similarly blend such 18th century and 19th-cen-tury traits as well. He often combines such Romantic era features as a rich and supple melodic style, sophisticated harmony, and dynamic tone color with structures rem-iniscent of Mozart and Beethoven. The result is magical.

Mendelssohn’s opening movement, a fairly standard Sonata-form structure, pro-vides a case in point. It features an extensive development section and coda (based on the 16th-note motive of the opening theme), hallmarks of Haydn and Beetho-ven’s style. But both the lyricism of great breadth in both main themes, as well as their remote harmonic detours, could only have been written in the 19th century.

The opening theme in the first violin establishes the home key of E-flat with cadences in bars 2 and 4. But Mendelssohn delays the theme’s final cadence in that key until bar 33, with broad, lyrical excursions to D-flat Major and C Minor along the way. Similarly, the luxurious 23-bar secondary theme in the lower strings opens with a half-note motive, and a 4-bar phrase unexpected oriented towards G Minor. He fol-lows with a re-harmonized 4-bar phrase momentarily confirming the ‘correct key’ (B-flat major) en route towards D-flat major, C Major and (confusingly) E-flat Major before finally re-confirming B-flat for the rest of the exposition.

The extraordinarily original tone color of Mendelssohn’s Scherzos — “elfin textures as light as bees wings” (Harold Schonberg) — dominates much of the Assai leggiero vivace second movement. This complex Rondo movement in C Minor opens with a quick, soft primary theme (refrain) that alternates bowing and staccato passages. Lis-ten for the reappearances of this theme amidst constant development of its motives. The two main episodes feature a light-textured, staccato fugato passage. Its return late in the movement features a particular penchant of Mendelssohn’s sophisticated forms: he refreshes its appearance now with a new, legato countersubject.

One simple word truly captures the lyrical, 8-bar primary theme of the Adagio move-ment: beautiful. He immediately develops its warmth and richness in a complex 9-bar restatement in a Sonata-form movement whose “emotional depth containing some of the most impressive writing of all three Op. 44 quartets” (Todd). The follow-ing transition section introduces new 16th-note motives which dominate much of the remaining movement. Mendelssohn again transcends eras, as he concludes this movement of mid-century Romantic warmth with another spacious Beethovenian coda focused on a single 16th-note motive from that transition.

Mendelssohn closes with a typically virtuoso finale in Sonata-Rondo form, featuring a challenging, moto perpetuo violin solo entirely in 16th notes for the refrain. With a quartet of such excitement, warmth, beauty, and strikingly different tone colors in every movement, it’s no wonder “Mendelssohn’s music enjoyed extraordinary pop-ularity during his lifetime” (musicologist Leon Botstein). Furthermore, Misha Amory of the Brentano String Quartet characterizes the extended joyous bustle of this finale as “brilliant, percolating, and irrepressible” — and that joy might not be entirely by accident. Mendelssohn’s wife Cecile gave birth to their first child the day after Felix completed this quartet.

Program notes by Ed Wight

Borromeo String QuartetEach visionary performance of the award-winning Borromeo String Quartet strengthens and deepens its reputation as one of the most important ensembles of our time. Admired and sought after for both its fresh interpretations of the classi-cal music canon and its championing of works by 20th and 21st century composers, the ensemble has been hailed for its “edge-of-the-seat performances,” by the Boston Globe, which called it “simply the best.”

Inspiring audiences for more than 25 years, the Borromeo continues to be a pioneer in its use of technology and has the trailblazing distinction of being the first string quartet to utilize laptop computers on the concert stage. Reading music this way helps push artistic boundaries, allowing the artists to perform solely from 4-part scores and composers’ manuscripts, a revealing and metamorphic experience which these dedicated musicians now teach to students around the world. As the New York Times noted, “The digital tide washing over society is lapping at the shores of classi-cal music. The Borromeo players have embraced it in their daily musical lives like no other major chamber music group.” Moreover, the Quartet often leads discussions enhanced by projections of handwritten manuscripts, investigating with the audi-ence the creative process of the composer. And in 2003 the Borromeo became the first classical ensemble to make its own live concert recordings and videos, distrib-uting them for many years to audiences through its Living Archive, a music learning web portal for which a new version will soon be released.

Passionate educators, the Borromeos encourage audiences of all ages to explore and listen to both traditional and contemporary repertoire in new ways. The ensemble uses multi-media tools such as video projection to share the often surprising creative process behind some works, or to show graphically the elaborate architecture behind others. This produces delightfully refreshing viewpoints and has been a springboard

Nicholas Kitchen VIOLIN

Kristopher Tong VIOLIN

Mai Motobuchi VIOLA

Yeesun Kum CELLO

for its acclaimed young people’s programs. One such program is MATHEMUSICA which delves into the numerical relationships that under-pin the sounds of music and show how musical syntax mirrors natural forms. CLASSIC VIDEO uses one movement of a quartet as the platform from which to teach computer drawing, video editing, animation, musical form and production processes to create a mean-ingful joining of music and visual art.

The BSQ has been ensemble-in-residence at the New England Conservatory and Taos School of Music, both for 25 years, and has, for over two decades, enjoyed a long-term relationship with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where it contin-ues to regularly appear. It is quartet-in-residence at the Heifetz International Music Institute, where first violinist Nicholas Kitchen is Artistic Director. The quartet was also in residence at, and has worked extensively as performers and educators with the Library of Congress (highlighting both its manuscripts and instrument collec-tions) and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The ensemble joined the Emerson Quartet as the Hittman Ensembles in Residence at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, and was recently in residence at Kansas University, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Colorado State University, where it regularly appears.

The BSQ’s presentation of the cycle of Bartók String Quartets as well as its lecture “BARTÓK: PATHS NOT TAKEN,” both of which give audiences a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear a set of rediscovered alternate movements Béla Bartók drafted for his six Quartets, has received accolades. Describing a Bartók concert at the Curtis Institute, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that the quartet “performed at a high stan-dard that brought you so deeply into the music’s inner workings that you wondered if your brain could take it all in … The music’s mystery, violence, and sorrow become absolutely inescapable.”

Also noteworthy in the BSQ repertory are its dramatic discoveries within the manu-scripts of the Beethoven Quartets, and its performances of the COMPLETE CYCLE; the BEETHOVEN DECATHLON (four concerts of Beethoven’s last ten quartets, all with pre-concert lectures exploring his manuscripts); and single BEETHOVEN TRYPTICH concerts (one concert including three quartets). Its expansive repertoire also includes the Shostakovich Cycle and those of Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Brahms, Schumann, Schoenberg, Janáček, Lera Auerbach, Tchaikovsky, and Gunther Schuller.

The Quartet has collaborated with some of this generation’s most important com-posers, including Gunther Schuller, John Cage, György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Aaron Jay Kernis, Osvaldo Golijov, Jennifer Higdon, Steve Mackey, John Harbison, Sebas-tian Currier, and Leon Kirchner, among many others; and has performed on major concert stages across the globe, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), the Concertgebouw, Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the Incontri in Terra di Siena Chamber Music

Festival in Tuscany, Kammermusik Basel (Switzerland), the Prague Spring Festival, and the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt.

The group premiered new works written for it by Sebastian Currier and Aaron Jay Kernis at recitals at Carnegie Hall, Shriver Concerts, and the Tippet Rise Art Center. The ensemble continues to perform violinist Nicholas Kitchen’s transcriptions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the Well-Tempered Clavier Bk. I, the latter of which the BSQ recently released an acclaimed premiere recording which hit the billboard charts.

“Nothing less than masterful” (Cleveland.com), the Borromeo Quartet has received numerous awards throughout its illustrious career, including Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant and Martin E. Segal Award, and Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award. It was also a recipient of the Young Concert Artists Inter-national Auditions and a prize-winner at the International String Quartet Competi-tion in Evian, France.

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