Parker Quartet: Inventive & Inspired
Inspiring performances, luminous sound, and exceptional musicianship are the hallmarks of the Grammy Award-winning Parker Quartet. Renowned for its dynamic interpretations and polished, expansive colors, the group has rapidly distinguished itself as one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation, dedicated purely to the sound and depth of their music. In this concert, the Parker Quartet will apply their “exceptional virtuosity [and] imaginative interpretation” (The Washington Post) to Thomas Adès’ magically evocative Arcadiana, and Beethoven’s spiritual Opus 132 string quartet.
“…flawlessly balanced, perfectly tuned and sheathed in lustrous textures.” – The New York Times
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Program
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- THOMAS ADÈS ‘Arcadiana’ Op. 12 (1994)
THOMAS ADÈS (b. 1971) Arcadiana, Op. 12 ( 1994) • (20’)
1. Venezia notturna
2. Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schön
3. Auf dem Wasser zu singen
4. Et… (tango mortale)
5. L’Embarquement
6. O Albion
7. LetheSix of the seven titles which comprise Arcadiana evoke various vanished or vanishing ‘idylls’. The odd-numbered movements are all aquatic, and would splice if played consecutively. It might be the ballad of some lugubrious gondolier; No. 3 takes a title and a figuration from a Schubert Lied; in No. 5, a ship is seen swirling away to L’Isle Joyeuse; No. 7 is the River of Oblivion.
The second and sixth movements inhabit pastoral Arcadias, respectively: Mozart’s Kingdom of Night, and more local fields. The joker in this pack is the fourth movement, the literal dead centre: Poussin’s tomb bearing the inscription, “Even in Arcady am I.”
Arcadiana was commissioned by the Endellion Quartet with funds from the Holst Foundation.
—© Faber Music
- BEETHOVEN String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132
BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132 (1825)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)Assai sostenuto - Allegro
Allegro ma non tanto
Molto adagio
Alla marcia, assai vivace
Allegro appassionatoThe fierce scowling portraits, the majestic heaven-storming music, and the personal tragedy of deafness have earned Beethoven an intimidating reputation. Who doesn’t quiver at the sound of fate knocking on the door of the Fifth Symphony? But on the other hand, there is elation: who would not be drawn in by the Ninth Symphony, singing Freiheit! and Freude! along with the whole world at the fall of the Berlin Wall — a joy ignited by Beethoven and conducted by Leonard Bernstein, no less.
After that last symphony, Beethoven’s final years were sadly troubled by ill-health, a touch of too much alcohol, and the domestic hassle of wresting guardianship of his nephew from his scary sister-in-law. Discouraged, unkempt, and distracted, he wandered about Vienna in misery, even being arrested once on suspicion of vagrancy. For a long stretch he fell into silence, composing nothing for years, although he did use this time to study the fugues of Bach and to marvel, in his silent inner ear, at the Renaissance clarity of Palestrina. Finally, the Russian Count Nikolai Galitzin came to his rescue, resuscitating his composing attention by commissioning six quartets. These proved to be his final works.
His early quartets were in the light and cheerful classical mode; next came the orchestral weight of the Opus 59 ‘Razumovsky’ quartets as things turned serious. The final quartets got really serious, inventive and complex. These days Beethoven stands as the paragon of composers, but we should remember that in his own time he was a ‘new music’ guy, bewildering his audience. His late quartets went far beyond the comprehension of his listeners. They can intimidate us still with their hermetic completeness. The charitable in those days may have said “we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is.” Now we say everything is there — and we still don’t know really what it is.
Assai sostenuto – Allegro: The opening — four solemn notes intoned first by the cello with the others following with a fugal hint of agreement — is no mere ‘intro’ but the encapsulated essence of Opus 132. A deliberately brooding pair of half steps with an intervening leap, these first groaning notes set up a pattern which becomes omnipresent in the work. Listen for it; you will hear it everywhere. Beethoven enlarges here the usual sonata form by cycling through three statements instead of two, intimating that the saturated emotional world of this quartet will be larger than usual. Though the music is preoccupied with darkness throughout, in the midst of its mourning tonality a major key melody insists several times on breaking free. We are immersed in a complex conflicted struggling world.
With the Allegro ma non tanto minuet, Beethoven tricks the original four-note motif into becoming only three. This gives the dance a lilting off-kilter instability, especially since the notes are heard working in opposing directions. The trio is a celestial music box, the sound of bagpipes droning over an insistent upright choppy pattern until a threatening set of chords return the dance to its original tipsy uncertainty.
Molto Adagio. Beethoven was not one to bemoan his own troubles in music, but with this movement, Opus 132 becomes the most personal of all his works. Severe stomach pains interrupted his composing routine and a desperate visit to his doctor confirmed that he was on the edge of life-threatening illness. Though he rarely obeyed medical advice, grumpily preferring a couple of extra glasses of wine instead, this time he was seriously frightened and retreated for a while to a spa outside Vienna. When he recovered and was back at work, Beethoven inserted an extra movement in the quartet’s traditional four, with the notation: A Song of thanksgiving to the Deity from a convalescent, in Lydian mode.
The Lydian mode, a Palestrina favorite, is based on a scale with the fourth note raised a half-step, resulting in a sense of opening up a new world, now felt as a world of antique simplicity. In Greek and medieval times the Lydian mode was believed to have healing powers. The opening bars of the Adagio, moving at a glacially slow pace, are characterized by serene spacious intervals — quietly assured leaps of faith, really, as Beethoven returns renewed to his composing world. The movement is structured around five chorale sections of gradually increasing density, each invoking the archaic power of prayer. These stately hymns are interrupted by upright outbursts which Beethoven marks as ‘feeling new strength’. They vibrate with self-confidence as they leap up with energy. The final prayers of gratitude — which Beethoven specifies should be played ‘with the most intimate emotions’—are lifted up with increasing strength, growing in layered but spacious intensity until they simply evaporate into ethereal space.
Alla Marcia: Ferdinand Ries, a student and early biographer of Beethoven, recalls that as a celebrated improviser on the piano Beethoven used to relish luring his listeners into a dreamy state, and then suddenly without warning jolt them back to reality with a noisy bang. After the elevated hymn of thanks, Beethoven shakes free of dreams in the same lively way. A mean joke never gets old, evidently, though perhaps this brief lively march is more of a device than a mean joke.
Allegro appassionato brings us back again to where we started with the cello groaning in lugubrious half-steps but with a new assertiveness. Surging with effort, the music moves forward toward an undefined ‘somewhere’ — like a creature wanting to leave the A minor swamp and, by heaving itself forward with chromatic effort, it finally emerges to stand upright in Darwinian A major triumph.
The music of the late Beethoven quartets have a self-assured complexity; they command, intimidate, and comfort at the same time. Two hundred years after they were written, Stravinsky characterized these final works as “absolutely contemporary music that will be contemporary forever.” Schubert, who had been a sad worshipful pallbearer at Beethoven’s funeral, expressed his admiration differently. On his own deathbed he asked friends to come play some music for him — no handy CD players in those days, only friends — and he requested a late Beethoven quartet. In the silence that followed their performance, Schubert mused: “After this, what is left for us to write?” That was not just a composer thinking about technical matters, but a dying man marveling at how music can sum up the human condition — a mystery about which Beethoven seemed to have some answers.
— Frederick Noonan
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