Fauré QuartettDirk Mommertz, pianoErika Geldsetzer, violin

Sascha Froembling, violaKonstantin Heidrich, cello

withLuis Primera, double bass

Phantasie Piano Quartet in F-Sharp Minor, H. 94 (1910) FRANK BRIDGE Andante con moto Allegro vivace Tempo dell’introduzione. Andante con moto

Piano Quintet in C Minor (1903, rev. 1905) RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Allegro con fuoco Andante Fantasia (quasi variazione). Moderato

Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 114 (posth.), FRANZ SCHUBERTD. 667, “Trout” Allegro vivace Andante Scherzo: Presto Tema: Andantino Finale: Allegro giusto

SAMUELI THEATERMarch 19, 2019

Tuesday at 8 p.m.

Out of courtesy to the artists and your fellow patrons, please take a moment to turn off and refrain from using cellular

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strictly prohibited. Thank you.

The Center applauds:

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ABOUT THE PROGRAM

FRANK BRIDGEBorn February 26, 1879, in BrightonDied January 10, 1941, in Eastbourne

Phantasie Piano Quartet in F-Sharp Minor, H. 94 (1910)

English composer, violist and conductor Frank Bridge is usually remembered today as Benjamin Britten’s main composition teacher, a relationship that the younger composer celebrated in his famous Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge. The knowledgeable listener may have heard a performance or recording of Bridge’s magisterial symphonic poem, The Sea, and perhaps some of his chamber works, which were the ones that first made an impact with the public and brought him prominence as a composer in the early part of the century. Bridge trained at the Royal College of Music, where he studied violin and worked for four years under the direction of Charles Stanford. He was a fine violinist and violist who frequently performed with the Grimson, Joachim and English string quartets and was also active as a conductor directing the New Symphony Orchestra, plus various opera ventures in London. His compositions are finely chiseled in their technical details and possess a romantic warmth and scope uncommon in contemporary music.

During the first decade of the century, Bridge composed a large quantity of chamber music and songs. He quickly developed a

masterly technique and a flair for tailoring his music both to the taste of his audience and the capabilities of his performers. Although his strong individuality still had to develop, the early works are expansive in form and warm in expression, the language being a personal extension of the Brahms-Stanford idiom, but lightened by a Gallic clarity gleaned possibly from Fauré.

Unfortunately, his music went into neglect after World War I, when his musical language became too intensely personal and chromatic as the composer absorbed influences from Stravinsky and Schoenberg, and later, Hindemith. This, as well as the uneasy mood of the post-war years resulted in Bridge’s falling out of favor with English audiences. Once he was neglected in his own country, it became very difficult for his music to cross the ocean to America or to the continent across the English Channel. It has only been in the last few decades that the British have recognized Bridge’s place among his contemporaries such as Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst, and Delius, by reincorporating his works into the repertoire.

The finest of his early chamber pieces is the Phantasie Piano Quartet in F-sharp minor (1910). Like the other phantasies, it was written for Walter Willson Cobbett, who wished to revive the single-movement conception of the 16th and 17th centuries. Each of the pieces in this form seeks to embrace the variety of mood and texture of a traditional four-movement structure. In 1905, Cobbett established a competition by which he sought to revive the tradition of the English Fancy, a one-movement musical structure popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. Bridge’s entry, the Phantasie String Quartet in F minor, received the second prize. Two years later, the second Cobbett competition specified that the submitted Phantasies would be written for Piano Trio. Out of 67 entries, Bridge’s composition won the first prize, and the other two prizes were awarded to John Ireland and James Friskin, respectively. Bridge’s Phantasie for piano quartet was commissioned by Cobbett himself. Writing in the 1948 Aldeburgh Festival program book, Benjamin Britten revealed the essence of this work perfectly:

Sonorous yet lucid, with clear lines, grateful to listen to and to play. It is the music of a practical musician, brought up in German orthodoxy, but who loved French romanticism and conception of sound—Brahms happily tempered with Fauré.

The Phantasie Quartet was composed as three movements, but are through-played, as required by the Cobbett competition. Bridge employs an arch-shaped form that was a useful tool throughout the composer’s career. The first and last andante movements frame a central allegro whose relaxed middle section refers back to the work’s opening. The single-movement form is cast in a perfect circle, as the harmonic structure of the closing andante delicately moves to the parallel F Major, concluding the piece with a long whisper.

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMSBorn October 12, 1872, in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire

Died August 26, 1958, in London

Piano Quintet in C Minor (1903,

rev. 1905)

Often called “the grand old man of English music,” Vaughan Williams was one of the most significant figures of English culture. The most important composer of his generation, and a pedagogue (both teacher and writer), as well as a noted conductor, he was a key figure in the 20th-century revival of English music, as he severed the close ties which until then had bound his country’s music to that of Germany. The catalogue of his works is enormous, and includes nine symphonies, concertos for diverse solo instruments, stage works—among them operas, ballets and incidental music—and suites, fantasies and rhapsodies for orchestra. He also wrote a great number of choral works and songs, as well as numerous arrangements of British folksongs.

A great turning point in Vaughan Williams’ career came about with his exposure to the folksongs of England’s Tudor period. His dedication to the folk heritage was immediate and long-lasting. In his later years, he helped revive and popularize a great number of these early folk melodies. Vaughan

Williams’ first significant work, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis—as well as many of the compositions that followed—bears the distinct stamp of his exposure to and assimilation of English folk music. His music is marked by the English heritage: modal writing, a fascination with contrapuntal techniques, and emotional restraint, all colored by an inherent mysticism. Vaughan Williams’ success was derived from his ability to imbue a freshness to ancient forms, through the use of modern techniques and harmonies, and the confident use of distinctive imageries—both national and personal—in the evolution of a unified style.

In 1904, Vaughan Williams undertook the task of editing the English Hymnal, a labor that occupied him for two years and which the composer described as “a better education than any amount of sonatas and fugues.” In the new hymnal, Vaughan Williams included several of the nine psalm tunes that Thomas Tallis contributed to Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Metrical Psalter in 1567. Tallis (c.1505-1585) was an English composer of contrapuntal music who served as organist of the Chapel Royal during the reigns of Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. His psalm tunes were written for four voices, as opposed to the rest of his music which was written for five to six voices, the one exception being the magnificent motet Spem in alium (“Sing and glorify”) written for eight separate five-part choruses for a total of 40 independent vocal

lines!The early chamber music of Vaughan

Williams adheres to the late Romantic style and much of it is little known today because he destroyed most of it. His distinctive voice is mostly absent, choosing instead to imitate the instrumental constructs of Brahms and Fauré and his teachers, Parry and Stanford. During the 21st century, performance of these early works as increased, since they possess enough substance and consistency to become established chamber repertoire. Vaughan Williams composed two quintets, the first was a string quintet in 1897–98, and the piano quintet heard in this performance. These works and a handful of other early compositions were unpublished in his lifetime and Vaughan Williams withdrew the work from circulation around 1918. The Piano Quintet in C minor was completed in 1903, at the suggestion of Gustav Holst, Vaughan Williams revised it in August 1904 and again in December 1905. The work was premiered at the Aeolian Hall (London) on December 14, 1905.

The performance history of the Quintet took some very interesting turns after its premiere. The scores to the quintets were among those given by his widow, Ursula, to the British Library upon his death in 1958 and she had placed an embargo on the performance of these early works. Unaware of the embargo, the writer of this article came upon an original, signed and undated manuscript in a Cambridge University UK library score cubby in 1998, when I was informed by the university publisher that the work had been “suppressed” and was not subject to study or performance. Shortly thereafter, Ursula (1911-2007) decided to lift her embargo in the late 1990’s. In the meantime, two generations had not heard any of these works, so the first publication of the Piano Quintet by Faber in 2002, 99 years after its creation, was a remarkable discovery to players, scholars and audiences.

Brahms is the shadow looming over the three-movement Piano Quintet in C minor, using the same instrumentation for the instrumentation of Strauss’ “Trout” Quintet. The dark and dramatic opening, Allegro con fuoco, is broadly drawn and almost symphonic in design and texture. RVW’s mature style is

still evident in the first movement, where the elegiac second theme is introduced by the piano. The central andante contains subtle nods to the slow movement of Parry’s Fourth Symphony, while at the same time resembles Vaughan Williams’ song Silent Moon from The House of Life collection, also composed in 1903. The folksong-like simplicity of the finale’s melody progresses through a set of five variations. The composer returned to this theme in 1954, when he expanded it and applied it to the variations finale of his violin sonata. The quintet concludes with a powerful, quickening coda played over a simple bass line and quietly ends in the parallel major.

© 2019 Ileen M. ZovluckIleen M. Zovluck is a freelance annotator,

musicologist and classical guitar teacher living in the greater NYC area.

FRANZ SCHUBERTBorn: January 31, 1797, Vienna, AustriaDied: November 19, 1828, Vienna

Quintet for Piano and Strings in A Major, Op. 114, D. 667, “Trout”

The 22-year-old Schubert spent the summer of 1819 on a walking tour of Upper Austria, staying some while in the small town of Steyr, where he visited Sylvester Paumgartner, a wealthy music patron and amateur cellist. According to Schubert’s friend, Albert Stadler, Paumgartner asked the composer to write a piece suitable for his home chamber music gatherings, but with two stipulations: The instrumentation should be the same as Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s quintet (violin, viola, cello, double-bass, piano), which was a favorite among Paumgartner’s friends; and the piece should include a variation movement based on the theme of Schubert’s 1817 song, “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”). Having no objection to these conditions, Schubert set to work at once and finished the “Trout” Quintet, as it is universally known, in Vienna that fall. Suffused with the warmth and intimacy of haus musick, rather than the extroverted brilliance of a piece intended for concert hall presentation, it is, nevertheless, a great crowd pleaser.

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ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The first movement opens with a dramatic, upward-sweeping arpeggio in the piano, followed by a leisurely legato string melody in seeming contradiction to the tempo marking, Allegro vivace (“fast and lively). Soon, though, the viola and cello establish a forward-moving accompaniment figure that shows the true speed of the underlying metrical pulse. Schubert expands and develops the two distinctive musical gesture before leading into the subsidiary theme, a loving songful duet between the violin and cello, with an arpeggio from the opening thrown in for special effect. The second motif of this theme is a highly rhythmic tune introduced by the piano. The sole focus of the development section, with its many modulations from key to key, is the first theme. The recapitulation is an almost literal repeat of the exposition, except for the necessary adjustments of key. There is no coda.

Over a gently flowing string accompaniment, the piano, playing in bare octaves, presents the lyrical first theme of the Andante. Other, varied statements follow, until a passage of arpeggios leads to the second theme, a rather morose melody in the viola and cello, which is heard against the busy background in the other parts. This section in turn gives way to the third theme, a quirky intricate, rhythmic melody in the piano. After coming to a full stop, Schubert literally repeats all three themes, three notes (actually a minor third) higher, but without any development—just giving listeners the welcome opportunity to hear these wonderful melodies again.

The high-speed Scherzo starts with a

quick four-note motto, and all that follows flows from that original impetus. Gay and frolicsome, the Scherzo is filled with sharp contrasts of dynamics and unexpected accents. In an abrupt change of character, the trio sounds quiet and politely conversational with voices raised only once to assert vehement agreement on a particular point. And then, as though embarrassed by the unseemly outburst, they return to their carefully modulated tones. The Scherzo comes back with its bristling electricity to shatter the calm and restore the energetic drive of first part.

The fourth movement is a series of sixth variations on a quotation of the “Trout” theme from Schubert’s own song, borrowed intact, but with slight rhythmic modification. The theme derives from the song’s opening, which concerns the ease with which the fish escapes the fisherman: “In a bright stream the capricious trout darted along like a arrow.” The first three variations are mostly decoration and ornamentation on the melody, which is heard, respectively, in the piano, viola and cello, and double bass. The fourth and fifth variations are more substantial transformations of the original melody. The faster sixth variation is a summation of what has come before, with the same theme presented in its original form and the piano playing the same rippling figure accompaniment as in the song.

A single bell tone signals the start of the Finale and leads directly to the principal theme, a lively tune in the Hungarian style played by the violin and viola. Schubert immediately subjects the melody to a rather full development before introducing the second theme, a legato line in the strings against a prominent, attractive accompaniment figure in the piano. He then brings the first them back and develops both melodies. To follow this with still more development would be redundant. Schubert, therefore, merely sounds another bell tone and proceeds to an exact repeat of the first part (with only some key changes). As in the second movement, some may feel deprived of a more traditional working out of the themes, but most merely enjoy the fresh, invigorating melodies, which never seem to pall no matter how many times they are heard.

—Guide to Chamber Music, Melvin Berger, ©1985

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FAURÉ QUARTETT

The requirements have changed. Whoever is playing chamber music today can’t be limited to the rules from decades ago. The expectations regarding the diversity of repertoire have changed, which creates room for ensembles like the Fauré Quartett, which has established itself as one of the world’s leading piano quartets within just a few years. Dirk Mommertz (piano), Erika Geldsetzer (violin), Sascha Frömbling (viola) and Konstantin Heidrich (cello) use the opportunities arising from these developments. They discover new sound fields in chamber music and perform compositions outside the mainstream repertoire.

They are visionary in their approach and highly regarded for their experiments and discoveries; be it performances with the NDR Big Band, collaborations with artists like Rufus Wainwright or Sven Helbig, appearances in clubs like the Berghain, Cocoon Club or “Le Poisson Rouge” in New York, or TV shows in KIKA, or “Rhapsody in School,” getting children excited in chamber music. When they released their album Popsongs in 2009, there was a great deal of buzz in the press and audience. In the following year, the ensemble was awarded the ECHO Classic for their album “classic beyond borders,” their second award after their recording of Brahms’ piano

quartets (Chamber Music recording of the year, 2008). Other prizes include the German Music Competition, the ensemble prize from Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, international competition and recording awards, Music Prize Duisburg and Brahms prize Schleswig Holstein.

The musicians of the Fauré Quartett are pioneers in many ways. After they met during their studies in 1995 in Karlsruhe for the 150th anniversary of the birth of composesr Gabriel Fauré, they quickly realized, that this combination offered new insights into undiscovered repertoire. In 2006, they signed a contract with Deutsche Grammophon, promoting them to the Champions League of the classic music business. They made highly regarded benchmark-recordings with works by Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn and pop songs from Peter Gabriel and Steely Dan.

Worldwide tours raise their profile abroad and international masterclasses are part of their work with students. The members teach at the universities of Berlin and Essen. Moreover, they are artistic directors of “Festspielfrühling Rügen” as well as quartet in residence at the University of Music Karlsruhe. During their tours, the musicians appear in the world’s most important chamber music venues; including Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Berlin Philharmony, Teatro Colon

Buenos Aires and Wigmore Hall London. All these mosaics form a unique profile for this defining chamber music ensemble.

The Fauré Quartett is represented in the USA and Canada by Marianne Schmocker Artists International, New York.

LUIS PRIMERADouble bass

Luis Primera is a native of Venezuela, where he began playing the double bass at age 14. In 2008 he became in a member of Latin American Academy of Double Bass where he studied with Felix Petit. He served as the principal bass with the Carabobo Orchestra of Venezuela since 2008. He toured with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustavo Dudamel to the United States, South America, Middle East, and Europe as Tutti bassist for 6 years. As a soloist, he has performed Nino Rota’s “Divertimento Concertante” with orchestras in Venezuela. He was a semi-finalist in the International Society of Bassists Competition in 2015 and Europe BASS Competition in 2016 in the solo category. He has participated in master classes with Timothy Cobb, Dominic Seldis, Kevin Brown, Edicson Ruiz, and Klaus Stoll.

Mr. Primera is a performance diploma candidate at the Colburn School, where he studies with Peter Lloyd. He is currently member of American Youth Symphony.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS