Telegraph Quartet
September 7, 2024
7-9 PM
North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation
Community Center, Tahoe Vista
This international award-winning ensemble, the resident-string-quartet of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, brings to Tahoe their passion for chamber music through a combination of brilliance, subtlety, serious depth ,and versatility.
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The program includes:
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The "Harp" Quartet, Op. 74, Ludwig van Beethoven
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String Quartet No. 3, Kenji Bunch
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Adagio in G minor, Tomaso Albinoni
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String Quartet No. 14, Op. 105, Antonín DvoÅ™ák
Program Notes
String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74, "Harp"
Bountiful, beneficent, lavish and even sensuous, the "Harp" features a dash of impressionistic pointillism with the first movement's elegant pizzicato sections giving rise to the quartet's nickname. With its vitality, heart, invention and accessibility, one might call this Beethoven's most "perfect" quartet. It is devilish to play.
The opening sonata movement displays Beethoven's artistic elaborations. The main theme has long lines of counterpoint and dialog sharply contrasted with harp-like pizzicato and thunderous interruptions. The development section flows organically, launches the music into a heroic triumph, and is followed by a long rapturous coda.
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The slow movement showcases Beethoven's unearthly sober sweetness as a humble tune somehow becomes a spiritual peak. A beautiful song verse repeats with contrasting episodes of poignant despair.
The Scherzo is brusque, sharp, muscular, stabbing. The tremendous momentum suggests a tarentella, a leaping gypsy dance. The bounding inertia requires the players to apply the brakes quite skillfully to manage a segue into the finale.
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Beethoven opts for high Viennese hijinks to conclude the work, giving us something even better: a fine set of variations, yet another form in which Beethoven bulldozed into the classical style. This series of variations can aptly be compared with Jazz solos, in that each new "chorus" is a miracle of invention and a transformation of mood and character.
Adapted from © Kai Christiansen, Used by permission. All rights reserved.
String Quartet No. 3, Apochryphal Dances
Kenji Bunch is an American composer and violist, serving as the artistic director of Fear No Music and teaching at Portland State University, Reed College, for the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and director of MYSfits, the most advanced string ensemble of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. Known for "amalgamating traditional American musical forms... and European-based classical music," Bunch's work for chamber ensemble, orchestra and ballet often incorporates elements of hip hop, jazz, bluegrass and funk to critical acclaim. His dance collaborations include work with choreographers around the world. In Apochryphal Dances, Bunch draws upon dance forms from 17th Century French and Spanish dances.
Commissioned by the ensemble 45th Parallel. Premiered in Portland, Oregon, May 2017, this work was inspired by Baroque dance suites. Imagine yourself at an elegant party in the Baroque era. With standard dance routines of that era, they danced to chamber music. This suite begins with a solemn introduction (entrée grave) that is followed by a rigaudon, a lively duple-meter dance derived from a 17th French folk and courtly dance. The passacaille that follows is a variation on a dance form with a Spanish origin, first appearing in the early 17th century. It is based on a recurring bass line or chord progression with a grave character, in a minor key. The musette follows next, with the sound of drones imitating bagpipes, typically evoking a pastoral setting. And the suite concludes with a tambourin, a Provençal dance known for its brisk tempo and vibrant style, providing a sense of enthusiasm and dynamism. Leading to - refreshments!
Adagio from Sonate in G minor, Op. 1, No. 4
The Venetian late Baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni had a long career in the theater, and his prolific output included fifty-three operas/melodramas. Unfortunately, those stage works were lost and are now largely forgotten, and he is remembered chiefly for his concertos.
The Sonate da Chiesa or ‘church’ sonatas, were essentially concertos in four movements, fairly solemn in nature as they were written to be performed in church. However, Albinoni’s Sonate da Chiesa are less traditional, incorporating a range of traditional dance forms of that time, and displaying his elegant style and considerable melodic talents. The Sonate in G minor, Op.4 No. 4 is a prime example of this.
This four movement sonata was composed for two violins, one cello and a continuo. The continuo "part" usually implied multiple (but typically unspecified) instruments, e.g. one for a strong bass line (e.g. cello) and another for chords (e.g. lute, keyboard, organ). Here, the third movement of the Sonate in G minor, the beloved Adagio, is adapted for 2 violins, a viola, and a cello.
String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat major, Op. 105, B. 193
DvoÅ™ák had an instinctive sense of chamber music and a natural gift for melody. He composed his last two string quartets together, one "inside" the other. He began the String Quartet in A-flat major, Op. 105 in New York just before returning to Prague from his three-year stint as director of the National Conservatory of Music from 1892 to 1895. After completing only a portion of the first movement, DvoÅ™ák traveled home and began afresh with a new string quartet, Op. 106. Only after finishing this "next" quartet, did he resume Op. 105, completing both in 1895. So, Op. 105 became DvoÅ™ák's fourteenth and final string quartet.
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The quartet opens with a brooding adagio introduction, portending a probing journey. Its mood and musical substance return several times in different guises, like a shadow on a sunny day. DvoÅ™ák's main theme (of only four bars) contains three key motifs from which he derives most of the sonata's material.
DvoÅ™ák had a special flair for the scherzo, and he had a rich stock of lively folk dances to draw from. The vivacious dance in the spicy F minor molto vivace has been related to the Czech stomping dance called the furiant, a folk element DvoÅ™ák used often.
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DvoÅ™ák's slow movement is a beautiful song based on a theme that is closely related to the main theme from the quartet's moody introduction. Most noteworthy is the rich interplay between violins that creates a fresh variation of the theme with each restatement.
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DvoÅ™ák finishes with an exuberant, rhapsodic allegro. Throughout the finale there is play, humor, a variety of textural colors, and a characteristic wealth of lyrical melody. This warmth of familiarity is perhaps DvoÅ™ák's great calling card.
Adapted from © Kai Christiansen, Used by permission. All rights reserved.