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DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 Adagio ma non troppo; Allegro appassionato Molto vivace Lento e molto cantabile Allegro non tanto

WEBERN Langsamer Satz in E-flat Major

I N T E R M I S S I O N

BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 “Rasumovsky” Introduzione: Andante con moto; Allegro vivace Andante con moto quasi Allegretto Menuetto: Grazioso Allegro molto

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Takács QuartetThe Folly Theater8 pm Friday, April 8

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EdwardDusinberre violinKárolySchranz violinGeraldineWalther violaAndrásFejér cello

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String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105 (1895) Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)

Autumn harvest: the miracle of late Dvořák

In certain respects, Dvořák's late works were retrospective. He was trained in the Germanic school and struggled, successfully, to develop a highly personal nationalistic style. During his final creative years, however, he was drawn to the programmatic tone poem style of Franz Liszt, which had found new energy in the more recent works of Richard Strauss. After a distinguished career with strong commitment to the forms of absolute music (non-programmatic music), Dvořák wrote five symphonic poems, all based on Bohemian legend and history. The parallel with his older countryman Bedřich Smetana (whose masterwork, Má Vlast, is a collection of six such tone poems) cannot be lost on us. Before turning to these late orchestral pieces, however, he made his musical farewell to the realm of absolute music with two string quartets, published as Opp.105 and 106. The A-flat Quartet, though it bears the earlier opus number, was actually the last quartet that Dvořák completed. He began it in 1895 while in New York City, during the final month of his long stay in the United States. Enormously happy to be back in Czechoslovakia, but exhausted from his journey, he took an unprecedented seven months' leave from composing. Work on the A-flat Major quartet resumed in December 1895; Simrock published it in 1896.Coming home: Bohemian elements and a nod to Beethoven

Unlike Dvořák’s straightforward, folk-like American works, his A-flat Major Quartet shows no influence of the New World. To the contrary, it has decidedly Czech themes and dance rhythms. After a somber slow introduction in the remarkable key of A-flat minor, Dvořák settles into a joyous Allegro appassionato in sonata form. His main theme, a fanfare-like flourish, is the first of several appealing melodic ideas. It is his harmonies and subtle shifts of tempo, however, that give this opening movement its complex, late romantic texture. Dvořák's biographers have interpreted the Opp. 105 and 106 Quartets to be expressions of the composer's thanksgiving to be back in his native land. In Op. 105, the tripartite (A-B-A’])slow movement most clearly

reflects the hymn-like character one might expect from such sentiments. This elegiac, philosophical Lento e molto cantabile in F major speaks to us with nobility. We can hear, in its middle minore section, how far Dvořák's chromatic wanderings had taken him. With his return to the A-section, he embroiders his original ideas with filigree work in the middle voices. A brief coda momentarily recalls the darker B-section. Using the cello’s pedal-point as underpinning, Dvořák dispels any lingering shadows with a tranquil and reassuring conclusion. In terms of psychological depth and a remarkable balance in the string writing, the A-flat Major Quartet shows considerable affinity with the late quartets of Beethoven. If Dvořák was reverting to his romantic heritage at this stage of his life, he also continued his lifelong search for novel approaches to organizing a large, multi-movement sonata form. The second movement Molto vivace is a furiant, a fast dance of Bohemian origin, whose pulse alternates between 3/4 and 2/4 meters (think “America” from West Side Story). The finale also has a strong Czech imprint, again overflowing with the piquant harmonies and lively rhythms of Bohemian folk dance. Well-integrated string writing and Dvořák’s inexhaustible gift for melody add up to first-rate listening.

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Photo of Antonín Dvořák, 1870

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Photo of Anton von Webern

Langsamer Satz Anton von Webern (1883-1945)

Expansive early romanticism from the pen of a terse writer

Few of us know Webern’s music. Not to be confused with the German 19th century romantic Carl Maria von Weber, the Viennese native Anton Webern was a disciple and star pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, inventor of the twelve-tone system. Webern became a master of compression and expressivity, writing twelve-tone pieces of utmost brevity. His complete published works fit on three compact discs – and that includes his orchestrations of music by Bach and Schubert.

After his death, however, a cache of unpublished manuscripts was discovered among his effects. He composed them between 1899 and 1908; nearly all date from before he met Schoenberg in autumn 1904. These early compositions, including the Langsamer Satz that is on tonight’s program, show how firmly anchored Webern was in the Viennese tradition. Their post-romantic harmonic language reveals the influence of Wagner, Strauss and Brahms.Souvenir of a special springtime holiday

Langsamer Satz means ‘slow movement,’ in this case a single movement for string quartet. He wrote it on the heels of an idyllic holiday with his cousin Wilhelmine Mörtl. They had fallen in love in 1902 and would marry in 1911. In the spring 1905, during the Pentecost holiday, the pair took a trip to Waldwinkel, a lovely area of countryside about 60 miles west of Vienna. Webern and his cousin, both adored the outdoors. And at twenty-one, Webern was head over heels in love. His diaries are filled with extravagant descriptions, even on rainy days. "My heart was jubilant. I spent wonderful hours during the afternoon. When night fell, the skies shed bitter tears, but I wandered with her along a road. A coat protected the two of us. Our love rose to infinite heights and filled the universe! Two souls were enraptured. "Then, the next day: "We wandered through forests. It was a fairyland! High tree trunks all around us, a green luminescence in between, and here and there floods of gold on the green moss. The forest symphony resounded. "Love music

He composed the Langsamer Satz in June. It is, quite simply, love music: love of nature, love of Wilhelmine. It is also the work of a 21-year-old composer still finding his way. Writer James Beale calls it “disarmingly conventional . . . almost sugary.” Biographer Hans Moldenhauer is more generous: “The music is pervaded by a sweet poignancy; serene happiness rises to triumphant ecstasy in the coda.” Most striking are the textural ideas. Webern was a lifelong contrapuntalist and the independence of his voices adds to the interest of this movement.

Das Niederösterreichische Landhaus in Wien vom Minoritenplatz gesehen by Rudolf von Alt, 1845

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After his death, however, a cache of unpublished manuscripts was discovered among his effects. He composed them between 1899 and 1908; nearly all date from before he met Schoenberg in autumn 1904. These early compositions, including the Langsamer Satz that is on tonight’s program, show how firmly anchored Webern was in the Viennese tradition. Their post-romantic harmonic language reveals the influence of Wagner, Strauss and Brahms.Souvenir of a special springtime holiday

Langsamer Satz means ‘slow movement,’ in this case a single movement for string quartet. He wrote it on the heels of an idyllic holiday with his cousin Wilhelmine Mörtl. They had fallen in love in 1902 and would marry in 1911. In the spring 1905, during the Pentecost holiday, the pair took a trip to Waldwinkel, a lovely area of countryside about 60 miles west of Vienna. Webern and his cousin, both adored the outdoors. And at twenty-one, Webern was head over heels in love. His diaries are filled with extravagant descriptions, even on rainy days. "My heart was jubilant. I spent wonderful hours during the afternoon. When night fell, the skies shed bitter tears, but I wandered with her along a road. A coat protected the two of us. Our love rose to infinite heights and filled the universe! Two souls were enraptured. "Then, the next day: "We wandered through forests. It was a fairyland! High tree trunks all around us, a green luminescence in between, and here and there floods of gold on the green moss. The forest symphony resounded. "Love music

He composed the Langsamer Satz in June. It is, quite simply, love music: love of nature, love of Wilhelmine. It is also the work of a 21-year-old composer still finding his way. Writer James Beale calls it “disarmingly conventional . . . almost sugary.” Biographer Hans Moldenhauer is more generous: “The music is pervaded by a sweet poignancy; serene happiness rises to triumphant ecstasy in the coda.” Most striking are the textural ideas. Webern was a lifelong contrapuntalist and the independence of his voices adds to the interest of this movement.

String Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827

Beethoven returned to the medium of the string quartet in 1804 for the first time in four years. His impetus was a commission from Count Andrey Kyrillovich Rasumovsky, Russian ambassador to the Austrian court since 1792. Immensely wealthy and cultured, Rasumovsky built a splendid residence in Vienna which he filled with a superb library and art collection. Rasumovsky was married to a sister-in-law of Prince Karl Lichnowsky, another important patron of Beethoven. A capable violinist, he maintained a household filled with music. From 1808 to 1816, he employed an in-house string orchestra that included many of Vienna’s finest players, including the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh. When the three Quartets of Op. 59 were first performed by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in Vienna in 1806, both the performers and the audience were mystified, and the overall reaction to the new works was negative. The third Quartet fared somewhat better than the others, probably because of its reflective nature. More than the other two, this C Major work harks back to the revered traditions of quartet writing in the late 18th century. Though unmistakably imprinted with Beethoven's dramatic hand and heroic style, its reference – and its deference – to Haydn and Mozart are readily discernible. Clearly Beethoven's contemporaries perceived those qualities as well.

About the music

A mysterious introduction opens the work, marked Andante con moto perhaps as a joke by the composer, for there is little motion of any sort in its 29 measures. There is, however, a marked parallel with Mozart’s String Quartet K. 465, also in C Major, called the "Dissonance." Like Mozart in the earlier work, Beethoven passes briefly through many tonalities prior to settling in to the home key of C. His sunny, sprightly main theme initiates a largely untroubled Allegro vivace. Musicians and scholars alike have always been fascinated with the A Minor slow movement to this quartet. Initially its lilting 6/8 meter hints at a Venetian boat song, or perhaps a siciliana. But the mournfulness which permeates this movement, so effectively established by the cello's pizzicato, is Slavic in nature.

Count Rasumovsky apparently asked Beethoven to incorporate Russian melodies into the new pieces. Only in the first two Quartets of Op. 59 did Beethoven use actual Russian folk tunes. Perhaps this melancholy slow movement was his attempt to endow the music with a Russian "feel." Is it the most effective use of "Russian" music because it embodies Beethoven's perception of the Russian spirit? We do not know what Count Rasumovsky may have thought, but the movement is mesmerizing. It holds our attention with its graceful insistence on rhythmic continuity. Beethoven chooses not to deviate from the 6/8 pattern. His decision is unusual; rather than relying upon rhythmic variety, he makes his creative statement with harmonic explorations. Having switched gears altogether for this fascinating intermezzo, Beethoven remains reflective in the third movement, which is cast as an 18th century minuet. Stylistically, this movement is a throwback, in marked contrast to the lively scherzo that had become Beethoven’s norm in multi-movement works. There is method to his madness: one needs the breathing time during this elegant, restrained music, for Beethoven holds in abeyance a headlong race at top speed.

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Das Niederösterreichische Landhaus in Wien vom Minoritenplatz gesehen by Rudolf von Alt, 1845

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A TALE OF THREE PATRONSTwo Russian noblemen and a Slavic prince played crucial roles in Beethoven's monumental contribution to the string quartet literature. The first was the Bohemian Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz. In the late 1790s, he encouraged Beethoven to produce the six quartets which comprise Op. 18.

The Lobkowitz family had a long history of interest in music. Beethoven’s Prince Lobkowitz maintained a private orchestra in Vienna and at his other family residences. Involved with several musical societies, he tossed his hat more actively in the ring when two Viennese operatic theatres required a management bailout in 1807. He first sponsored Beethoven in 1795 with a concert featuring the young Bonn virtuoso. The two men were particularly close in the first decade of the 19th century, glorious years for Beethoven as a composer. He gave his patron a measure of immortality with further dedications to the Eroica Symphony, the Triple Concerto, and the String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major, Op. 74, entitled the Harp. The Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were jointly dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasumovsky.

The three Op. 59 quartets (1805-1806) are generally referred to by the name of their dedicatee, Count Andrey Kyrillovich Rasumovsky. Sometimes they are called the Russian Quartets, although they are not the only ones with a Russian connection. The Count was a career diplomat who served first in Naples, then in Copenhagen and Stockholm, before he was appointed Russian ambassador to the Imperial Austrian court. Aided by considerable family wealth, Rasumovsky established a lavish residence in Vienna, spending freely in the areas of art, music, and literature. He took a strong interest in Beethoven as early as 1795,

when he subscribed to Beethoven’s Piano Trios, Op.1. His household orchestra included the members of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, which premiered many of Beethoven’s string quartets. Rasumovsky was a creditable violinist who occasionally took the second violin part with his resident ensemble. He was joint dedicatee, with Prince Lobkowitz, of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.

The nobleman responsible for Beethoven’s late string quartets was Prince Nikolai Borisovich Golitzin who, like Rasumovsky, was attached to the Austrian court in a diplomatic and administrative capacity. Golitzin was a competent cellist who admired Beethoven’s music. He arranged a handful of Beethoven’s piano sonatas for strings, subscribed to major works such as the Missa Solemnis, and was instrumental in enlisting the Russian Czar Alexander I to subscribe as well. Golitzin helped to spread Beethoven’s reputation in Russia.

Golitzin initially asked for “one, two, or three quartets.” Beethoven was notoriously delinquent in delivering the music. The two men sparred about compensation, and their financial haggling was unresolved when Beethoven died in March 1827. Though a number of letters exchanged between patron and composer survive – primarily in French, the language of educated Russians – the two men never met.

Although Beethoven took several years to fulfill Golitzin’s initial request, the resulting works were well worth the delay. Ultimately he composed not three, but five quartets, plus the Grosse Fuge. These works are universally regarded as the summit of his chamber music.

– L.S. ©2015

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Widely recognized as one of the world's great ensembles, the Takács Quartet plays with a unique blend of drama, warmth

and humor, combining four distinct musical personalities to bring fresh insights to the string quartet repertoire. For thirty-two years the ensemble has been in residence at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In 2015-2016, the Takács returns to Carnegie Hall for two programs, one featuring a new work by composer Timo Andres, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, and one with pianist Garrick Ohlsson. They also perform with Mr. Ohlsson at Stanford, the University of Richmond, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, and at the University of Florida. In addition to their annual Wigmore Hall series in London, where the Quartet are Associate Artists, other European engagements in 2015-2016 include performances in Oslo, Amsterdam, Budapest, Hamburg, Hannover, Brussels, Bilbao and a concert at the Schubertiade in Hohenems, Austria. The Quartet's award-winning recordings include the complete Beethoven Cycle on the Decca label. In 2005 the Late Beethoven Quartets won Disc of the Year and Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine, a Gramophone Award, Album of the Year at the Brit Awards and a Japanese Record Academy Award. Their recordings of the early and middle Beethoven quartets collected a Grammy, another Gramophone Award, a Chamber Music of America Award and two further awards from the Japanese Recording Academy. The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér, while all four were students. It first received international attention in 1977, winning First Prize and the Critics' Prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France. The Quartet also won the Gold Medal at the 1978 Portsmouth and Bordeaux Competitions, and First Prizes at the Budapest International String Quartet Competition in 1978 and the Bratislava Competition in 1981. The Quartet made its North American debut tour in 1982. In 2001 the Takács Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit of the Knight's Cross of the Republic of Hungary, and in March of 2011 each member of the Quartet was awarded the Order of Merit Commander's Cross by the President of the Republic of Hungary.

For more information visit: www.takacsquartet.com Takács Quartet appears courtesy of Seldy Cramer Artists

Takács Quartet

Whether the last movement is a fugue has been cause for great debate. Technically it is developed not as a fugue, but rather as a sonata form. Certainly it has strong fugal elements and a number of true contrapuntal entrances. Its magic lies partly in its moto perpetuo cascade of eighth notes, and partly in its exuberant, unbridled vitality. Always the consummate dramatist with the unfailing instinct for maximum effect, Beethoven saves the best for last, writing into his recapitulation a buildup that gathers momentum and dynamism much like a Rossini overture, to an exhilarating climax. As the English composer and violist Rebecca Clarke observed nearly 90 years ago: "This fugue, one of the greatest movements in the whole of quartet literature, is a most intoxicating thing to play from beginning to end. In the passage where each instrument in turn runs up the whole length of a string there is a glorious feeling of license at being allowed to make a crescendo in which the other players may not join." Beethoven knows, of course, that music this exultant cannot be fully grasped on only one hearing – so he has his players repeat it. And the effect is even more exuberant the second time around, both for the musicians and for the audience.

Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2015

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