PROTÉGÉ SPOTLIGHT:  Opus13

CMNW’s Protégé Project has helped launch the careers of some of the world’s best emerging quartets—Dover, Kenari, Calidore, Viano—and now we turn to the Opus13 Quartet! Second prize winners of the prestigious 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition, this exciting Swedish-Norwegian quartet is one of Europe’s, and the world’s, most promising, up-and-coming young ensembles. Join these electrifying, early-career superstars for a thrilling noontime recital of two of their favorite masterworks by Mozart and Grieg.

This concert is sponsored by Joan Levers & David Manhart.

PSU, College of the Arts, Lincoln Recital Hall
Tuesday, 7/16 • 12:00 pm PT

Program

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

MOZART String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 (“Dissonance”)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791) String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 (“Dissonance”) (30’)

I. Adagio – Allegro
II. Andante cantabile
III. Menuetto and Trio: Allegro
IV. Allegro

Joseph Haydn is rightly acknowledged as the father of the string quartet. In Haydn’s hands, the string quartet evolved from an insignificant incidental ensemble into a substantive genre all its own. Each of the four instruments—two violins, viola, and cello—assumed the role of an equal partner, capable of executing either melodic or harmonic material.

In the summer of 1781, not long after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart moved to Vienna, Haydn completed his Op. 33 string quartets. Mozart had long admired the older composer and studied Haydn’s new quartets closely. Mozart emulated Haydn’s focus on instrumental autonomy, and incorporated this and other innovations into his own string quartets. On January 14, 1785, Mozart completed his String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 (“Dissonance”), the last of six new quartets, which he dedicated to his friend and colleague, noting they were “the fruits of long and laborious toil.”

K. 465’s nickname, “Dissonance,” refers to its groundbreaking introduction, which bears no harmonic relationship to the quartet’s key of C Major. For the duration of the Adagio, Mozart confounds both listeners and players: the cello sounds repeated C bass notes while the upper strings form slow chords in harmonically distant keys such as A-flat. Any sense of a home tonality is absent before the Allegro opens with an emphatic declaration of C Major. In rehearsals, some musicians complained their scores were full of errors, and even Haydn was taken aback at first, but supported his friend, saying, “If Mozart wrote it, he must have meant it.” Mozart repeats and elaborates the graceful F Major theme of the Andante cantabile, alternating with episodes in unexpected tonalities. The Menuetto and Trio range further afield, harmonically speaking, before the closing Allegro conclusively answers the harmonic question “What key are we in?” while the first violin sails high over the rest of the ensemble.

After hearing K. 465 for the first time in February 1785, Haydn confided to Mozart’s father Leopold, “Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.”

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

GRIEG String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 27

EDVARD GRIEG (1843-1907) String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 27 (34’)

I. Un poco andante – Allegro molto ed agitato

II. Romanze: Andantino – Allegro agitato

III. Intermezzo: Allegro molto marcato – Più vivo e scherzando

IV. Finale: Lento – Presto al saltarello

“I have recently finished a string quartet which I still haven’t heard,” Edvard Grieg wrote to a friend in the summer of 1878. “It is in G minor and not planned to be meat for small minds! It aims at breadth, vigor, flight of imagination, and, above all, fullness of tone for the instruments for which it is written.”

In his String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 27, the only string quartet Grieg composed, he established his bona fides as a Norwegian composer who could successfully incorporate Norwegian sound into the Germanic string quartet format. Although performers and audience alike responded with enthusiasm at Op. 27’s premiere in October 1878, chauvinist German critics savaged it in print. “We have felt only displeasure and repugnance toward all the boorish and absurd stuff that is gathered together under the guise of a Norwegian national stamp … and toward the lack of any talent for structure and development,” sniffed the influential critic Eduard Bernsdorf. Grieg was stung by this review, having toiled over every aspect of the music. “I feel that in this work are hidden traces of that life’s blood of which the future will hopefully see more than mere drops,” Grieg wrote.

Time has vindicated Grieg, and today his Op. 27 is regarded as a major work in every sense. Two years before he wrote Op. 27, Grieg set a poem by Henrik Ibsen, “Spillemænd” (Fiddlers). The plaintive melody of this song provides the melodic and harmonic foundation for all four movements, particularly the Allegro molto ed agitato, in which it appears repeatedly. Fragments and motifs from “Spillemænd” recur in both the dramatic Romanze and the lighthearted Intermezzo, and the complete theme returns in the spirited, energetic Finale.

Throughout the quartet, Grieg’s writing is orchestral; all the players execute double-stops (playing two notes simultaneously), which thickens the overall texture of the ensemble. The double-stop technique also conjures up the resonant sound of the Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian instrument Grieg loved, which has two sets of strings: one bowed, and another which vibrates sympathetically.

—© Elizabeth Schwartz

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