Program Notes
American String Quartet with David Thomas, Clarinet
April 5, 2000, The Southern Theatre

About the Artists

Founded in 1974 by four students at the Juilliard School, the American String Quartet won the Coleman Competition and the Naumburg Award in the same year.  For ten years, the quartet served on the Peabody Conservatory faculty, then became Quartet-In-Residence at the Manhattan School of Music in 1984.  In 1992, they became the resident ensemble for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.  The American has also enjoyed long associations with the Aspen Festival, the Taos School of Music, and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.  The Quartet is proud that it was among the first to receive a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to bring chamber music to college campuses in the United States.  The American String Quartet most recently appeared under the auspices of the Columbus Chamber Music Society on September 20, 1997, with guest pianist Thomas Muraco.

David Thomas is the principal clarinetist of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, occupying the Taft Broadcasting Chair.

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

    Quartet in F-sharp minor, op. 50, no. 4 (H. III: 47) (composed 1787)
        Allegro spiritoso
        Andante
        Menuetto:  Poco allegretto
        Finale:  Fuga, Allegro molto

Younger student Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and older mentor Joseph Haydn shared a mutual admiration matched by few others in musical history.  The two had met in Vienna in 1781, but their cross-fertilization had already brought forth fruit a decade earlier when Mozart's “Symphony in D Major, K. 133” evidenced clear signs of pollination from Haydn.  By the time the two actually met, Haydn had pretty much abandoned his operatic career in acknowledgment of Mozart's superior abilities in that realm

In 1785, Mozart published his renowned set of “Six Quartets Dedicated to Haydn,” modeled on the dedicatee's “’Russian’ Quartets, op. 33,” from 1781.  Haydn was again impressed, recognizing that Mozart’s works were no mere imitations but genuine achievements in their own right.  The next set that Haydn wrote, the “Quartets op. 50,” are known as the “Prussian” Quartets because of their explicit inscription to the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II, who was an amateur cellist.  Their indebtedness to the spirit of Mozart, though, is undeniable, in no case more than that of the “Quartet in F-sharp minor, op. 50, no. 4.”

As though in tribute to Mozart, Haydn banishes tragedy from this minor-mode quartet, ups the tempos, and explores some new harmonic realms.  In the first movement, marked “Allegro spiritoso,” the main subject is in minor and the second subject, clearly related to the first, is in major.  The “Andante” is a set of variations on two themes that are related only in their basis in the tonic A.  The first (major) theme sounds in the first violin, but the second (minor) “theme” never gets a complete hearing in a single instrument.  The third movement minuet, marked “Poco allegretto,” is followed by the fugal finale.  Its subject is just about the only cello solo of importance in the whole quartet, a belated nod to the king.

For more information about Haydn, we recommend the following links:

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Quartet in A minor, op. 51, no. 2 (composed 1859-1873)
    Allegro non troppo
    Andante moderato
    Quasi minuetto, moderato; Allegretto vivace
    Finale:  Allegro non assai

Beethoven’s shadow hovered over him so oppressively that as many as twenty string quartets were written and destroyed before Brahms allowed the pair we know as Opus 51 to be published in 1873.  These two “Minor Quartets” are dedicated to a Viennese surgeon and violinist, Theodore Billroth, although legend has it that the “Quartet in A minor, op. 51, no. 2” was to have been inscribed in honor of Brahms’s friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim.  The opening theme incorporates the mottoes both of Joachim (FAE:  “Frei aber einsam,” free but lonely) and of Brahms (FAF:  “Frei aber fern,” free but distant) in various guises.  The two had a temporary falling out, however, when the violinist prevented the “German Requiem” from being performed at the Schumann Festival in Bonn in 1873, contrary to the composer’s wishes.

In the Autumn of 1872, Brahms had reluctantly accepted the artistic directorship of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.  Accustomed to devoting springs and summers to his own composition, he had found this burden to be interfering with his creative energies, so by 1875, he had resigned the post.  During his summer 1873 retreat in Tutzing on the Starnberger See in Upper Bavaria, he finally completed the two Opus 51 quartets.  Drenched with passion and resignation, both quartets reflect the spirits of Bach and Mozart and seem worthy successors to the late quartets of Beethoven.  The work Brahms published as Number 2, the “Quartet in A minor,” actually premiered first, in Vienna on October 18, 1873, more than six weeks before Number 1.

The gravity of the opening theme of the “Allegro” is tempered somewhat by the contrast of the viola accompaniment and considerably by the radiance of the second theme’s violin duet.  Brahms defies traditional symmetries even while adhering to the strictures of sonata form.  The contemplative theme of the “Andante” is accented by the angular ruminations of the lower strings; the middle section features canonic passages and agitated accompaniment.  Rather than a scherzo, Brahms presents a restless minuet whose melancholy is offset by the lively counterpoint of the trio.  The dance-filled finale employs the Hungarian csárdás in the first theme and the Austro-German ländler in the second, affording a sharp contrast between the ferocity of the former and the waltz-like gentility of the latter.  The resulting rondo makes the modern listener lament the gems that Brahms discarded as he labored his way up to the works he deemed worthy of publication.

To explore Brahms' life and music further, try:
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~dbmk/abs/index.html 
http://www.mjq.net/brahms/index.html 
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/brahms.html

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Quintet in A major, K. 581 (composed 1789)
    Allegro
    Larghetto
    Menuetto
    Allegretto con variazioni

Even as a child, Mozart loved the sound of the clarinet.  Throughout his life he would highlight the instrument in operas, symphonies, and chamber works.  In 1789, he got a special opportunity to contribute a piece to the annual Christmas concert to benefit the widows and children of members of the Vienna Society of Musicians.  Because his friend and fellow Mason, the clarinet virtuoso Anton Stadler, also happened to be involved in the charity event, Mozart decided on a quintet for clarinet and strings.  The “Quintet in A major, K. 581” was completed on September 29^th and premiered (with Stadler on clarinet and Mozart on viola, no less) on December 22, 1789.

The two repeated their performances the next April at the home of the Councilor to the Hungarian Exchequer, Count Johann Karl Hadik.  It was then that Mozart referred to the work as “Stadler’s Quintet.”  The composer may have been generous to the clarinetist, but there’s evidence that the clarinetist may have taken some advantage of that.  At the time of Mozart’s death in 1791, Stadler owed him the equivalent of some $5000, money that could have come in handy to the impoverished composer and his family in his final years.  But let’s give Stadler the benefit of the doubt and attribute it more to Mozart’s kindness than to Stadler’s insensitivity.  After all, Mozart’s final complete instrumental work was his “Clarinet Concerto, K. 622,” written in October 1791 to be played by you-know-who.

The quintet opens with a quiet theme in the strings followed by a spirited clarinet response.  Later, a second theme sounds in the first violin, and a third shared by the clarinet and first violin.  The development deals mostly with that early clarinet phrase, now traded among the strings.  The strings are muted as the clarinet glides over them in the “Larghetto.”  At its center is a clarinet and first violin duet.  In the third movement, the passionate minuet section is played by all five instruments.  The strings have the first trio, in A minor, to themselves.  The second trio, in A major, features the clarinet in a folksy dance.  The finale is a naïve theme, in the strings with clarinet punctuations, followed by six variations.  The third variation highlights a sad viola , but the last one returns to joy and light.

For more information about Mozart, we suggest:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~sboerner/mozart/index.html
http://www.mhric.org/mozart/index2.html
http://www.austria-tourism.at/personen/mozart/index.html

Program notes by Jay Weitz, Consulting Database Specialist for music, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Dublin, Ohio, and a contributing performing arts critic to the InnerArt Web Site.

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