Orion Quartet Farewell Tour with Ida Kavafian

Reach for the stars with the world-renowned Orion String Quartet as they celebrate their 36th, and final, season together. Hailed as “consistently beguiling and technically impeccable” (The Los Angeles Times), don’t miss your last chance to hear violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips—brothers who share the first violin chair equally—violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Timothy Eddy in their final CMNW performance as an ensemble. Sensational CMNW favorite, violinist/violist Ida Kavafian, returns with them for an evening of beloved classics by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

“The persuasive power of [their] performance came from the exquisiteness and eloquence the four players brought their lines…but it also came from how all of them phrased together—and, it seemed, breathed together. The Orion Quartet is a configuration of particular sensitivity and bravado.”

— The New York Times

This concert is generously sponsored by Martha Dibblee.

The Old Church
Friday, 10/6 • 7:30 pm PT

Program

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

HAYDN String Quartet in C Major, Op. 33, No. 3, Hob. III:39 (“The Bird”)

MOZART String Quintet in D Major, K. 593

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

I. Larghetto: Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Menuetto: Allegretto
IV. Allegro

Aside from Luigi Boccherini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is essentially the only composer to add a second viola to the standard string quartet. This expanded ensemble obviously appealed to him, since he composed a total of six double viola quintets. Composing one viola quintet can be explained by compositional curiosity, but six? Even the fact that Mozart himself preferred playing viola to violin in chamber ensembles doesn’t fully account for his enduring interest in a subgenre he practically invented.

Within the intimate setting of a chamber ensemble, the second viola in a string quintet serves its customary harmonic function—to flesh out harmonies—but it also does more. Each voice in the ensemble can be likened to a character in an opera. In his operas, Mozart especially loved writing ensembles for several voices, sometimes adding additional characters to an already charged scene midway through. The challenge of making the music comprehensible as more elements are added to an already bubbling pot was clearly irresistible to him.

In this context, the String Quintet No. 5 in D Major, K. 593 (1790) can be heard as a mini-opera, with each instrument expressing not only its musical part, but its particular character. Many moments in K. 593 sound like spirited dialogues, or even arguments without words. After the opening Larghetto, in which the cello poses a question the other instruments attempt to answer, the first violin erupts with an impassioned cascade of notes. Subsequent violin solos are juxtaposed with calmer responses from the ensemble; the cello’s question returns in a recapitulation of the Larghetto.

Mozart’s Adagios are justifiably considered some of his most inventive and expressive music, and K. 593’s is no exception. To extend the opera analogy, the first movement lays out the narrative premise of the story, while the Adagio explores the emotional subtext underneath. Mozart uses thematic fragments from the first movement in the Adagio, such as subtle pauses and hesitations to construct new musical ideas, but narratively speaking, the action stops. This is a moment for emotional expression, not plot advancement. A lighthearted, graceful Menuet and Trio give way to an animated closing Rondo, in which the first violin once again takes the lead, while the ensemble is quick to respond (retort?).

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

SCHUBERT String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D. 887, Op. 161

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

I. Allegro molto moderato
II. Andante un poco moto
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace - Trio: Allegretto
IV: Allegro assai

Schubert rapidly composed his final string quartet in 1826, the same year Beethoven composed his final quartet, but it was not published or publicly performed until well after Schubert’s death. The opening of the first movement dramatically juxtaposes a swelling G major triad with an emphatic G minor triad, a modal ambiguity which will resonate through the entire quartet. In late Schubert, as in much Romantic music to come, the major and minor modes fuse into a rich tonal chiaroscuro. In the G major quartet this new harmonic coloring finds a coloristic equivalent in the frequent use of tremolos that imbue the music with a dark, mysterious feeling, at once urgent and insubstantial. The tremolos also help create a third kind of ambiguity, heard especially in the opening of the first movement, between apparent fast and slow tempos; the music only gradually reveals its true pulse. Throughout, Schubert uses these extended relations poetically. One example: simply by reversing the order of major and minor, the recapitulation has a completely different expressive effect than the beginning of the exposition.

All four movements are on a monumental scale—running time for the entire quartet is about 45 minutes. In the first two movements, Schubert immediately places us in an emotional soundscape which becomes ever more intense as the music unfolds. The second movement in particular moves from poignant lyricism to dramatic outbursts of pathos. While the third movement follows the classical outline of Scherzo and Trio, the rapid repeated notes of the scherzo echo the edgy, nervous quality of the tremolos heard in the previous movements. The Trio sounds like a lullaby—like the Lullaby that the brook sings at the end of Die Schöne Müllerin, that gently rocks the Miller to his death.  The final movement immediately restates the contrast of G minor and G major as it launches an extended perpetual motion that seems constantly to seek out an unambiguous state of lost innocence—G major pure and simple. Does it succeed?

—© David Schiff

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