Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Jasper Quartet, Stuart Malina and Shostakovich's Piano Quintet


Saturday – the official Last Day of Summer – marks the beginning of Market Square Concerts' new season with the Jasper String Quartet and pianist Stuart Malina, at Market Square Church on Saturday, September 21st at 8pm.

You can read Ellen Hughes' “Art & Soul” column from the Patriot-News here.

The Jasper Quartet – based in New Haven but founded at Oberlin's school of music, starting their professional career in 2006 – are the 2012 winners of the Chamber Music of America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award.

In addition to one of Haydn's last quartets - the D Major, Op. 76 No. 5 - they'll also play one of the later string quartets by Antonin Dvorák that's not the famous “American” Quartet but which deserves to be heard more often. The “American” is No. 12, Op. 96, but the Jasper Quartet will be playing No. 13, Op. 106 in G Major, written shortly after he returned from his stay in the United States in 1895.

This post is a close-up of the Shostakovich Piano Quintet which concludes the program. Stuart Malina, music director and conductor of the Harrisburg Symphony, joins them for this performance.

There are basically four great piano quintets in the modern repertoire. The first of these chronologically would be the one by Robert Schumann, followed by the one by his protege, Johannes Brahms which itself is then followed by the only published one by his protege, Antonin Dvořák. And then, there's the one by Dmitri Shostakovich. Others might add the one by Cesar Franck but, frankly, I have only ever heard this one live once, and the others come around sometimes with too much frequency, as if no one else has ever written a quintet for piano and string quartet.

Dmitri Shostakovich
For this concert, it is Shostakovich's turn.

It's a work in five movements – at many of the initial performances, the third and fifth movements were encored, giving rise to the quip “the quintet is a work in five movements of which there are seven.” It opens with a grand flourish in the piano which is eventually answered by the strings' entrance. If the opening proceeds like a Bach prelude, keep in mind the first two movements are, in fact, labeled “Prelude & Fugue.” In that sense, I often think of this as a single opening movement which happens to be in two parts: one does not make sense without the other.

Here is a performance of the opening with Glenn Gould at the piano with four unfortunately uncredited string players (so far as I could find). Gould, of course, is perhaps best known for his rather idiosyncratic performances of Bach (especially the Goldberg Variations), and he finds a much more lyrical approach to this opening than most other pianists.

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(A little later, I'll include a video of the complete quintet with Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet so you can also get a more unified sweep of the piece in one of the finest performances available. Then, in an accompanying post on my blog, Thoughts on a Train, I'll include clips of the individual movements from the 1949 recording the composer himself made with the Beethoven Quartet for whom he'd originally composed it.)

The next movement is called a Scherzo (pronounced skair'-tzoh) which is Italian for “joke.” Beethoven had begun using the term to replace the more stately minuet of his teacher's generation with something a little more down-to-earth. In either case, these third movements were intended to be light-hearted. But frequently they became more dramatic, even demonic (Brahms' C Minor Piano Quartet's scherzo is hardly light) and with Shostakovich, very often his scherzos can be cynical and violent.

In this performance, pianist Martha Argerich, violinists Joshua Bell and Henning Kraggerud, violist Yuri Bashmet and cellist Misha Maisky play the Scherzo as an encore:

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It will be interesting to compare this tempo and overall energy of this interpretation not only with what you'll hear with Stuart Malina and the Jasper Quartet, but also with the Richter recording and the composer's own interpretation from 1949 (see the conclusion of this additional post). Sometimes, listeners might be bowled over by the speed and intensity of a performance and find anything slower “staid and dull” by comparison. Of course, ask any artist about playing something “faster and louder” to obtain a desired effect...

By contrast, the Intermezzo is understated, a return to the seriousness (if not the somberness) of the fugue.

Ask most Americans about Russian music and they will find its common denominator being untold sadness. I once asked a well-known Soviet ethno-sociologist who was visiting the University of Connecticut where I was then teaching a course in Russian Music, “why does Russian music sound so sad?” She replied as if she'd never thought about it before: “I don't know – perhaps it's the long winters?”

Here's a clip of Shostakovich at the piano with the Borodin Quartet, recorded in 1949:

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After all this – and keeping in mind the expectations of a finale following the triumphal march we usually associate with the 5th Symphony and the “flippant hilarity” of the 6th's finale – this finale is at times light-hearted but not vulgar, often more wistful than sad and the ending is almost like a movie's final scene where the characters walk slowly into the sunset as the light fades.

For this, I'd like to return to Glenn Gould's performance:

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After the intense symphonies Shostakovich would later compose and the complexities of his personality, not to mention the complexity of his personal situation as an artistic spokesman to the world for official Soviet art, and especially after the still controversial posthumous memoir published as Testimony by Semyon Volkov (largely discredited but frequently discussed and difficult to dismiss), it is always tempting to go back to his music to look for “hidden programs.”

What a composer “thinks” while he is composing can only be proven if, somewhere, he writes or has said “this is what I was thinking when I wrote this music.”

Beethoven might tell us, in order to understand the mysterious opening of the D Minor Piano Sonata, “read Shakespeare's Tempest” (which is why it's called the Tempest Sonata), but he also was watching a rider go galloping past on a horse and then turned to improvise the last movement of the same sonata (we know this because one of his students was there to witness this: the sonata could also be called “The Rider Sonata”).

But because Beethoven never said anything about moonlit nights pertaining to his C-sharp Minor Sonata, we cannot say “Beethoven was thinking of moonlight when he wrote the opening of the Moonlight Sonata” – the kind of “sounds-like” thinking we often use to explain the inexplicable that could lead to the last movement giving it the nickname “The Thunderstorm Sonata.”

So we don't know what Shostakovich “meant” by this finale. One writer hears a “kindly babushka” (the quintessential Russian grandmother) consoling us that everything will be alright in the opening theme. The second theme, we are told, with its little fanfares and sprightly melody, is actually an inversion of a traditional fanfare used to introduce the clown acts into the Russian circus (and please let's not call it the Send in the Clowns Quintet...).

One thing that came to mind while listening to Stuart Malina playing it with the Enso Quartet in a past performance with Market Square Concerts, was a film image.

This would not be too far-fetched, as conjectures go, since Shostakovich earned money as a pianist for the silent films in Leningrad movie theaters when he was a child. One of his favorite actors, he'd said, was Charlie Chaplin. So instead of Babushkas (but maybe clowns), this music brings to mind the inspiration of Chaplin's “Little Tramp.”

It would not be a big leap from here to a discussion on Shostakovich and the traditional Russian view of the “Village Idiot,” the urodivi or simpleton which is better translated as the “Holy Fool.” The most famous example of this to a Western audience is the character in Mussorgsky's historic opera, Boris Godunov where (if you end with the Revolution Scene and not Boris' death) it is the Holy Fool who is left lamenting the fate of the Russian People.

Boris Godunov & the Holy Fool
Earlier in the opera, in a scene frequently cut from Western productions for some reason, there is a confrontation between the Simpleton and the all-powerful Tsar (who reportedly had had the rightful heir to the throne murdered so he could ascend the throne). After the children had stolen his last penny, the Simpleton asks Boris to punish the children, to kill them – like he did the Tsaryevich (the rightful heir). But Boris stops his soldiers from arresting the fool – instead, he asks the fool to pray for him. Russians believed that such people were closer to God and could intercede for them and therefore were given more leeway than ordinary people might be granted.

Oh, I should mention that, in 1939, between completing the 6th Symphony and beginning work on his Piano Quintet, Shostakovich did his own re-orchestration of Mussorgsky's opera, Boris Godunov.

But that's a possible influence and a coincidence of timing that is purely conjecture to tie it into the Quintet's finale.

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Here is a complete performance of the Piano Quintet by Dmitri Shostakovich with pianist Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet recorded live in 1983 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory:

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Again, you can read a continuation of this post, more detail about the historical background to the Piano Quintet, including several quotes from first-hand sources about Shostakovich's performances of the piece, at my blog Thoughts on a Train, here.

– Dick Strawser

Friday, September 6, 2013

A Season Preview with Market Square Concerts 2013-2014 Season

The New Season of Market Square Concerts is ready to start, even if the last month of Summer felt like the start of Autumn.

Yes, the 2013-2014 Season is already upon us! (Time flies whether you're having fun or not...)

Six concerts span the season, starting on September 21st (which may seem early for some people: don't be fooled – there's nothing that says the first concert has to be in October) and ending on April 29th, 2014 – and before you know it, it will be Summermusic again!

Our first concert – on September 21st at 8pm at Market Square Church – brings the Jasper Quartet to Harrisburg to perform one of the string quartets in the last complete set Haydn ever composed, the Quartet in D Major, Op. 76, No. 5. Here's the Jasper Quartet playing the first movement:

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The Jasper Quartet – based in New Haven but founded at Oberlin's school of music, starting their professional career in 2006 – are the 2012 winners of the Chamber Music of America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award.

They'll also play one of the later string quartets by Antonin Dvorák that's not the famous “American” Quartet but which deserves to be heard more often. The “American” is No. 12, Op. 96, but the Jasper Quartet will be playing No. 13, Op. 106 in G Major, written shortly after he returned from his stay in the United States in 1895.


Here's the first movement, recorded by the Alban Berg Quartet:

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While the “American” Quartet, composed in Spillville, Iowa, during a summer holiday in 1893, is a very exuberant piece of music, it has to be said Dvorák was so happy to be back home in his native Bohemia that a few months after he returned, this quartet practically spilled out of him.

The last work on the program was intended by its composer to be his ticket to getting away from his native country, at least to perform it with the quartet he wrote it for on some international tours. Unfortunately, that dream was never realized, thanks to World War II, and Dmitri Shostakovich remained at home in the Soviet Union. It was written in 1940 and was so successful after its premiere, it won the Stalin Prize (the nations highest artistic honor) the following year.

It's become one of the few great piano quintets in the repertoire, along with those by Schumann, Brahms and Dvorák.

Here's a live performance recorded in 2006 at the Lugano Festival with pianist Martha Argerich and Renaud Capuçon, violin; Alissa Margulis, violin; Lyda Chen, viola; and Mischa Maisky, cello – with the Quintet's dramatic opening Prelude:
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Each concert, I'll be posting more information about the music on each program and that's when I'll include a life performance of the complete Quintet with Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet recorded live in 1983.

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The second concert of the season will be on November 16th at 8pm and will be held at Temple Ohev Sholom in uptown Harrisburg. This concert brings the Grammy-winning Parker Quartet back to town with a new work by Harrisburg-born composer, Jeremy Gill, who'll be presenting a special pre-concert talk about his piece, “Capriccio,” completed just last year.

The New York Times, no less, called them “something extraordinary.” They began touring professionally in 2002 and in 2009 won the Chamber Music of America's Cleveland Quartet Prize. In 2011, their Naxos recording of quartets by György Ligeti won them the Grammy Award in the Best Chamber Music Performance category.

Their program here will open with the famous “quartetsatz” by Franz Schubert, the first movement of a projected string quartet that he never completed (yes, there's an “Unfinished” String Quartet, too).

Here, it's performed by the Amadeus Quartet.
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They'll also play the D Major Quartet, Op. 44 No. 1, the third of the six quartets by Felix Mendelssohn, written when he was in his late-20s. Here's a performance of the 1st movement with another Grammy-winning string quartet, the Pacifica, who've also played in Market Square Concerts' past seasons.

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By the way, here's a clip from the Parker Quartet rehearsing Jeremy Gill's “Capriccio,” just one example of the problems of rehearsing at home. I assume Bodie will not be joining them for this performance...
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A few weeks into the new year (by the calendar) – Thursday, January 23rd, 2014, 8pm, at Temple Ohev Sholom – we'll hear a group I'd never heard of before so I figured they must be fairly new. Much to my surprise, they've been around for the past 25 years! They're a staple in the European concert scene, especially their native Amsterdam.

They call themselves ”Calefax and they're a reed quintet but not your grandfather's woodwind quintet. Calefax consists of an oboist, a clarinetist, a saxophonist, a bass clarinetist and a bassoonist. There's not much written for such an ensemble, not surprisingly, and they've created several arrangements of works for themselves, two of which they'll play here: Bach's Goldberg Variations and Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin.

Here's a great way to introduce them to you, with their TED Talk, presented by the bassoonist in the group. The rest of the ensemble arrives at 3:30.

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Our next artist gathers slightly less mileage for his concert at Whitaker Center on Wednesday, February 26th at 8pm. Violinist Ray Chen and pianist Julio Elizalde will be coming all the way from Philadelphia to play works by Mozart, Sarasate and Beethoven's epic “Kreutzer” Sonata.

Originally from Australia, Ray Chen was awarded first prize at the 2008 Yehudi Menuhin International Competition, the 2008/2009 Young Concert Artist's International Auditions and the 2009 Queen Elisbaeth International Violin Competition. Here he is playing the 5th Caprice by Nicolo Paganini, recorded in 2011 when he was 22:

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Here are Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich playing the opening of Beethoven's great “Kreutzer” Sonata.
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(alas, not the complete movement... you can hear the rest of it, here and here)
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Beethoven wrote it for an African-English violinist named Bridgetower (only the first two movements were ready for the premiere, so he decided to use a finale he'd discarded from an earlier sonata) but when it came time to publish the work (and he and Bridgetower had a falling out), he chose to dedicate the sonata to the great French violinist, Rodolphe Kreutzer. Unfortunately, Kreutzer didn't care for the piece and never played it, though it is how his name is generally still remembered in the general music world today.

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A special program will take place on Saturday March 29th at 8pm at Whitaker Center when Ann Schien will perform a program of Beethoven and Chopin sonatas, plus works by Ravel, Debussy and Liszt. In addition to this program, she'll be performing the Chopin F Minor Piano Concerto with the Harrisburg Symphony and Stuart Malina the previous weekend at the Forum.

While she's a former teacher of Ya-Ting Chang's and a mentor to her and Peter Sirotin's Mendelssohn Piano Trio, she is internationally famous as a teacher as well as a performer.

Here, she's playing Ravel's Sonatine which you can hear on her program in March, recorded last summer at Aspen:

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Here's an interview with Ann Schein with the Aspen radio station WJAX talking primarily about her life as a musician and teacher:

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The final concert of the season (except for the Summermusic programs) will bring the Daedalus Quartet back to Harrisburg on Tuesday, April 29th, at 8pm in Market Square Church. They'll be joined by tenor Rufus Müller in their own arrangement of Benjamin Britten's song cycle (originally with piano), “Winter Words” which is just receiving its first performances this month.

As part of the Britten Centennial, they'll also be playing the first of Britten's three published String Quartets. Here, they are performing the finale live at the chamber music festival in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico:
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In addition to works by Britten and Purcell, they'll play Beethoven's Quartet in B-flat Op. 130 with the original “Grosse Fuge” finale.

Here's a 2003 recording with the Guarneri Quartet playing the Cavatina from Op. 130:
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Those are just some highlights from each concert this season: check back in for a profile on each individual concert with more excerpts or complete videos (where available).

- Dick Strawser

Kicking Off the New Season (pardon the sports metaphor...)

Labor Day is now past, summer may not yet officially be over (but might as well be), kids are back to school, and Rosh Hoshana (early this year) was earlier this week.

Autumn officially begins on Sunday, September 22nd at 4:44pm EDT – so that makes the first concert of the New Season the official Last Day of Summer (whatever the weather may feel like).

But this Sunday – the 8th at 3pm – there's a special program at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore at Third & Verbeke (a.k.a. Broad) Streets – just across from the old Broad Street Market.

Peter Sirotin, Artistic Director of Market Square Concerts, and I will be talking about the New Season – what performers you can hear, what music they'll be playing – and also how he and Ya-Ting Chang, MSC's Executive Director, put a season together, where they find these performers, and what it's like “putting on a concert.”

So we hope you'll drop in and join us (and bring your friends) – listen to our conversation, hear samples of some of the music and the performers, maybe have some coffee or tea from the café and hang around to check out the place if you haven't been there before (the Music Books are on the second level over the front entrance, facing the view across the store).

You can read about the entire season in a preview post, here!

And then get ready to join us for the first concert of the season with the Jasper Quartet playing Haydn and Dvorák – then Stuart Malina, the Harrisburg Symphony's music director, will join them for Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Quintet.


If you're thinking most concerts begin their seasons in October, then this one's "early" - it's on Saturday, September 21st 8pm at Market Square Church.

– Dick Strawser