Germany’s Dynamic Goldmund Quartet

Hailed as one of the most exciting young string quartets in the world, the Goldmund Quartet brought the virtual house down during the pandemic with their CMNW AT-HOME concert debut from Germany’s Polling Abbey. Now, finally, they will be performing live in Portland! The Goldmund Quartet’s exquisitely refined playing has made them the rising stars of the European chamber music scene. You can experience their power, grace, and precision in this concert, one of a dozen scheduled for their second North American tour. The ensemble will perform masterworks by Haydn, Borodin, and Beethoven on the remarkable matched set of Stradivari instruments once owned by the legendary composer and violinist Niccolò Paganini.

“The Goldmund Quartet has phenomenal control of dynamics and complex rhythmic demands, and offers a clear, thoughtful, and very convincing vision…”

— Mount Dela Review

The Old Church
Sunday, 1/28 • 4:00 pm PT

Program

Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.

HAYDN String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2 (“Quinten”)

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2 (“Quinten”)

I. Allegro
II. Andante, o più tosto allegretto
III. Menuetto: Allegro ma non troppo
IV. Finale: Vivace assai

In 1790, when Joseph Haydn had been on his way to England for the first time, he stopped in Bonn and was shown a cantata by a young Ludwig van Beethoven. The master agreed to take him as a pupil whenever both of them would be in Vienna.

Before the end of 1792, young Beethoven was established in the Austrian cultural capital, and Haydn had returned. Haydn was not an especially good teacher, and Beethoven was far from an exemplary follower of rules. However, they had mutual respect for one another, and Haydn even wrote humorously to a friend that if the student Beethoven continued developing as he had done so far, Haydn the master would “soon be obliged to quit composing.”

In Haydn’s late works, we can hear a glimmer of the coming age of emotional Romanticism. The intensity of certain passages shows Haydn’s debt to Beethoven at this time–point counterpoint, we might call it. Beethoven had formally received the torch–but for a while, both composers ran with it.

The iconic opening of Haydn’s String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2, “Quinten,” starts with a cadence of two descending fifths, A down to D, then E down to A, introducing a pivotal motive. The stormy first movement features the first violin melodically, but the development trades the “Fifths” motive all around the ensemble, making the most out of an incredibly simple melody through complex harmonies and expertly employed emphatic dynamics.

The second movement, Andante o più tosto allegretto, begins with a much calmer melody in D major. The second part of the melody takes the idea of the descending fifth and fills it in, making a triad. The quartet’s minuet is back to D minor, stern and severe. The trio section emerges from a single D, flourishing to a D major suddenly full of harmonic depth. The urgent Vivace assai uses surprising pauses to interrupt its panicked motion. A return to D major with a sweet and hushed violin melody sets up the even more energetic finale.

—© Ethan Allred

BORODIN String Quartet No. 2 in D Major

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) String Quartet No. 2 in D Major

I. Allegro moderato
II. Scherzo: Allegro
III. Notturno: Andante
IV. Finale: Andante - Vivace

Alexander Borodin, like the other members of the Kucha, or Mighty Five (a nickname for a group of influential 19th-century composers based in St. Petersburg that included Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) wrote music in his spare time. A chemist by occupation, Borodin made significant contributions to both his profession and his avocation.

The Kucha aspired to create authentically Russian music, free from Germanic stylistic domination. To this end, they included indigenous folk songs and dances from different regions of the Russian empire, Russian Orthodox church melodies, and non-traditional scales in their compositions. Of the Five, Borodin alone wrote “absolute” music, (music without a narrative or program). As a cellist, Borodin was also naturally drawn to chamber music, a genre his colleagues considered moribund.

In this country, Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 in D Major is, indirectly, one of his best-known works, thanks to the 1953 musical Kismet. The D major quartet furnished melodies for the songs “This is My Beloved” (Notturno), and “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” (Scherzo). In 1954, Kismet earned Borodin a posthumous Tony Award.

Borodin dedicated the D major quartet to his wife Ekaterina, an accomplished pianist. Borodin’s biographer Serge Dianin believed Borodin composed it in honor of their 20th wedding anniversary, and the music can be heard as an apt metaphor for their relationship: the warmth and joy of the Allegro moderato corresponds to the couple’s early days in Heidelberg, where they met and fell in love, while the Scherzo bubbles with mirth. The Notturno features the cello, as Borodin’s surrogate, and the first violin as Ekaterina’s. The two instruments’ intertwining melodies express mutual love and devotion, while the Finale’s quicksilver interplay suggests a lively conversation between two vibrant people.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

BEETHOVEN String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1 (“Razumovsky”)

BEETHOVEN String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1

The three quartets that Ludwig van Beethoven dedicated to the Russian Count Razumovsky, at the nobleman’s request, mark one of the great turning points in the evolution of chamber music. To those who may have objected to his experiments and bold new compositional style—and many did at the time—Beethoven tellingly noted, “They are not for you, but for a later age.” They were called too difficult, non-musical, and disorienting, and in them Beethoven broke away from the traditional Classical style and vastly expanded the compositional lengths and emotional depths of traditional genres. What the “Razumovsky” quartets exemplify for the string quartet, the “Eroica” does for the symphony, and the “Waldstein” for the piano sonata: they do not politely implore, but rather command the attention of the listener. For both performers and audience if at any moment one becomes distracted from the music, some of the built-in tension and challenge that Beethoven provides is lost. Performers have equated performing these quartets to walking a tightrope: if you want to see where you are headed, you certainly could look ahead, but each and every step along the way is, in the moment, the most important thing in the world.

The String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1, begins with a deceptively simple theme in the cello, the kind of tune that someone might hum while on a stroll. From this modest material, Beethoven fashions a massive movement and along the way diverts from the expected path at numerous turns. Just when we expect a pure repetition of the opening theme, the composer veers off into new musical territory.

The scherzo, a term referring to “joking” sensibility, is likewise filled with surprises. The opening “theme” is hardly a melody at all, but a rhythmic motto that boils the folk dance down to its most basic parameter. The instruments seem occasionally resistant to working together, and their spastic interactions play out humorously, at times fluctuating between violence and conviviality.

In the third movement, the composer directs his musicians to play “very slowly, and with extreme sadness.” Beethoven can almost halt time here, a feat made all the more powerful because, at its rhythmic heart, this is in fact a march. The composer challenges both musician and listener in that the rhythm urges us forward, yet the tempo holds us back. The finale is an homage to his patron and a response to Razumovsky’s request: based upon a Russian theme from a published collection of folk songs. In it, the composer captures not only the melodic content, but the lively spirit of the Russian dance.

—© Patrick Jankowski

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