Program Notes
Artemis String Quartet
April 12, 2008, 8 p.m.
Southern Theatre

About the Artists

Founded in Lübeck, Germany in 1989, the Artemis won the Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in Reggio Emilia, Italy in June 1997.  One bonus of this victory was the tour that included nearly fifty concerts throughout Europe and the United States, which brought them to Central Ohio under the auspices of Chamber Music Columbus in March 1998.  In 1995, the ensemble took first prize at the German Music Competition in Bonn.  In 1996, it won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the Monaco Competition.  During 2001, the Artemis received three prestigious awards:  the Diapason d’Or in Paris, for its recording of quartets by György Ligeti; the Rheingau Music Award; and the German Music Critics Award.  The Artemis Quartet has made recordings for radio networks in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Germany.  It can also be heard in the 1994 film “Death and the Maiden” and the 2001 film “Strings Attached.”  Recognizing the Artemis Quartet’s valuable contributions to the interpretation of Beethoven’s music, the Verein des Beethoven-Hauses Bonn awarded them honorary membership in 2003.  Violinist Gregor Sigl and violist Friedemann Weigle became members of the Artemis in July 2007, after which the ensemble appeared at the Salzburg Festival, the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, the Rheingau Musik Festival, and the Septembre Musical Montreaux-Vevey.

The Artemis Quartet appears through arrangement with Melvin Kaplan Incorporated, 115 College Street, Burlington, Vermont 05401.

Ludwig van Beethoven (born Bonn, December 16, 1770; died Vienna, March 26, 1827)

Quartet in C minor, op. 18, no. 4 (composed 1798-1800)

Though most of his published output until the year 1798 was chamber music, Ludwig van Beethoven had conspicuously avoided the string quartet, intimidated as he was by the examples of Haydn and Mozart.  He had studied the works of both of the older masters carefully, going so far as to copy out certain movements in their entirety.  He had met and perhaps even taken a few lessons from Mozart in 1787 and he was a student of Haydn for about a year during 1792 and 1793.  Yet when the same Count Apponyi to whom Hadyn had dedicated his Quartets, opp. 71 and 74 commissioned a quartet from Beethoven in 1795, he declined, feeling still unequal to the challenge.

Praise for his early publications (the Piano Trios, op. 1; a number of piano sonatas, including the “Pathétique” op. 13; and his first two piano concertos) boosted Beethoven’s confidence.  He began to sketch out his works in bound volumes of music paper rather than on the random sheets he had previously used, reflecting a new sense of himself as a serious composer.  By 1800, he had completed his most ambitious project to date, his six String Quartets, op. 18, dedicated to Prince Josef Franz von Lobkowitz, who maintained a quartet in his Vienna home.

The Quartet in C minor, op. 18, no.4 was probably the last of the six to be written and was the only one in a minor key.  In its almost unrelenting solemnity, the Allegro ma non tanto is unprecedented in the quartet literature up to that time.  Its intensely driven first theme and lighter second theme share a syncopated rhythmic motive and represents one of Beethoven’s earliest expressions of intertwined torment and rapture.

The Scherzo is an abrupt change of pace, full of contrapuntal sparkle, with a rhythmically mercurial theme that begins as a fugue and spins out into a sort of fantasia.  Plunging back into darkness, the minuet displays a Mozartean chromaticism.  The calmer trio quivers with impatience; in fact, when the minuet returns, it is marked to be played “faster than before.”

The rondo-form finale features a propulsive theme that grows more powerful with every repeat, changed and somehow enriched with each intervening episode.  One moment of tranquility prevails before a final passionate outburst and a fairly upbeat conclusion of three swirling chords.

Thomas Larcher (born Innsbruck, Austria, September 16, 1963)

Quartet no. 3:  Mandares (composed 2007)

Pianist and composer Thomas Larcher, born in Innsbruck in 1963, was raised in the Tyrolean region of Austria.  In Vienna, he studied both piano and composition, but also went on to direct music festivals and teach.  As a pianist, he has been awarded the Choc de la Musique and the Preis den Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for his recordings and has performed as a soloist under such conductors as Dennis Russell Davies, Michael Gielen, Heinz Holliger, and Claudio Abbado.

As a composer, Larcher has been commissioned by Salzburg’s Mozartwoche and the Tönhalle Düsseldorf.  He has been a composer in residence at the Oxford Chamber Music Festival and Austria’s Mondsee Festival, as well as in Davos, Switzerland; Heimbach, Germany; and RisÝr, Norway.

At the time that Larcher was commissioned to write his third string quartet by Salzburg’s Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum and the Cincinnati Chamber Music Festival, he had been concentrating on larger-scale orchestral pieces, including a viola concerto, a cello concerto, and a piano concerto.  Taking inspiration from a visit to the island of Crete, Larcher named the quartet after Mandares, a small settlement on the coast that he learned about from old photos of the area.

In the first movement Mandares, marked Andante, the sound of a mandolin is evoked by the use of a coin tapping and stroking the strings of a violin.  Honey from Anopolis, the second movement marked Adagio, pays tribute to the area on Crete where the composer literally bought honey while he wandered and longed for an idealized past.  In the third movement, Sleepless 1, Larcher asks the players each to be an independent entity, performing without regard to the others, although it is all strictly notated.  Then at one particular point, all four strings coalesce and slow down together.  Sleepless 2 finds instruments pairing off.  The final movement, marked Allegretto, features an elusively simple folk melody that dissipates into the air.

Thomas Larcher’s Quartet no. 3:  Mandares was composed in 2007, and received its world premiere performance by the Artemis Quartet at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria on January 29, 2008, as part of Mozartwoche 2008.  Its United States premiere was on April 8, 2008, at the Cincinnati Chamber Music Festival at Northern Kentucky University.  Tonight’s performance is the work’s fifth.

Special thanks to Rainer Lepuschitz and to Kate Barnes of Melvin Kaplan, Incorproated, for assistance with the Thomas Larcher notes.

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (born Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia, May 7, 1840; died Saint Petersburg, November 6, 1893)

Quartet no. 2 in F major, op. 22 (composed 1873-1874)

The name Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky does not usually come to mind in the context of chamber music.  Only a relative handful of works constitute his contribution to the genre:  his three string quartets opera 11, 22, and 30; his piano trio, op. 50; and his string sextet, op. 70, to name the most prominent.  Yet his claim as one of the pioneers, along with Alexander Borodin, in the development of the Russian chamber music tradition cannot be disputed.  His quartets in particular, which incorporate nationalist qualities but are not mere embellishments of existing folk music, are often heard as harbingers of the style so magnificently realized by Dmitri Shostakovich in the twentieth century.

Begun in December 1873 and completed in January 1874, the Quartet no. 2 in F major, op. 22, remained one of the composer’s favorites.  In a letter to his brother Modest later in 1874, Tchaikovsky wrote, “I consider it one of my best compositions; none has flowed out of me so easily and simply.  I wrote it almost in one sitting and I was very surprised that the public did not take to it, for I find that compositions written so spontaneously normally find favor.”  Although the public would eventually come around, Tchaikovsky’s friend and former teacher, the pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein heard the first private performance and found the work confusing.  Their relationship never recovered.

The Adagio opening of the quartet reminds many of the chromatic opening of Mozart’s “Dissonant” Quartet, K. 465.  Despite the quicker pace of the Moderato assai portion of the first movement, the mood remains relatively dark.  The Scherzo features shifting rhythms and a trio section with an offbeat waltz.  An emotionally weighty movement of sometimes symphonic proportions, the Andante ma non tanto is unified by its recurring lament.  The fugal finale has a rondo-like theme that grows more lively with each repeat and also provides the material for the exultant coda.

Program notes by Jay Weitz, Consulting Database Specialist for music, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Dublin, Ohio, and a contributing performing arts critic for the weekly alternative newspaper Alive: Music. Art. and Culture in Columbus. (http://www.columbusalive.com)

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