News

Works to be performed:

Quartet for Strings, Op. 89

In One Movement
Grave - Piu Animato - Allegro molto - Grave

by Amy Beach

Boston-based composer Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (aka Mrs. H.H.A. Beach) is hailed as the first American woman to to succeed as a composer of large-scale art music, ironically garnering much attention after her husband discouraged her from her other passion, performing, because it put her too much in the public eye.

Beach completed her string quartet in 1929, during a trip to Rome. The work is based on three Inuit melodies (embracing Dvorak's New World example of American art music based on folk themes). These themes are sparse and angular, qualities that are emphasized by the transparent textures overall and in particular the contrapuntal entrances of the Allegro. Here Beach can be seen breaking away from the harmonic language and textures of late romanticism mastered in her earlier works.

The quartet was first publicly performed at the celebration of Beach's 75th birthday, thirteen years after its completion, and was not published until after her death. After disappearing into relative obscurity, it has only recently regained public attention, aided by the Crescent String Quartet's 1981 recording of the piece as well as Adrienne Fried Block's critical edition, published in 1994.

Cuarteto

by Jack Delano

The Slow Revolution

by Ruby Fulton

From the composer:

While I was visiting my family in Iowa, I heard a man on the radio talking about something he called "the slow revolution," a movement to resist the frantic need for constantly doing as many things as quickly as possible, a general feeling in today's product-driven society. (It was the writer Carl Honore speaking about his book "In Praise of Slowness" on NPR's All Things Considered.) My string quartet, The Slow Revolution, is loosely based on my thoughts about the need to slow down and enjoy what is happening right now without worrying about getting to the next thing too quickly.

I. Slow Panic takes place in a frantic state of mind, and features two contrasting ideas - a very slow, stuck, paralyzed theme (internal) and a frenetic, spastic sound world (external). II. Inyourfacenessigheit is full of fast, rhythmic patterns of notes. Occasionally, the patterns suddenly slow down, leaving room for a new line to join the texture. This new line, which can only be heard when the pace slows down, spins out to finish the movement. III. The Inner Tortoise is about living the moment.

Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581

by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Known as the "Stadler Quintet," Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A Major was written in 1789 for the clarinetist Anton Stadler. It is the only piece Mozart wrote for clarinet quintet and set the stage for other composers such as Anton Reicha and Johannes Brahms to write for the same instrumentation.

Although the piece highlights the clarinet, a more equal musical role is given to all the members. Albert Einstein (Mozart: His Character and Work, page 194) noted that while the clarinet "predominates as primus inter pares" (first amongst equals) this is nonetheless "chamber-music work of the finest kind" and the roles are distributed more equally than they would be in a more concertante quintet for wind and strings.

In four movements, the first movement (Allegro) highlights a beautiful moving theme that is alternated through all the instruments. Listen for the virtuosic run that is passed through the strings in the second half. It sets the mood for the entire piece.

The second movement (Larghetto) is the work's most famous movement, with a long breathed clarinet melody over muted strings. This is paired with upward runs of scales in the first violin, which become more chromatic and eventually turn into triplet arpeggios to close the movement.

The third movement (Menuetto -Trio 1 - Trio 2) adds levity to the piece. The Trio I is for strings only and has a theme with a signature ornament (acciaccatura) every few notes, which returns in the fourth movement. The Trio 2 is a clarinet solo over the strings. All the instruments have a more even role in the minuet.

The fourth movement (Allegretto con variazioni) consists of 5 variations which take us through a new melody in the clarinet, a period of alternating quartet and quintet in the spirit of question and answer, an A minor viola solo with the signature acciacciatura from the previous movement, a return to major and virtuosic clarinet playing, a dramatic set of chords and pauses, a lyrical Adagio, and a final coda which, back in the allegro tempo, recaps much of the original theme itself.