Other Arts 2009

Concert: Brodsky Quartet

The Brodsky Quartet are at the forefront of the international chamber-music scene. Their love and mastery of the traditional string quartet repertoire is evident from their highly acclaimed performances of composers ranging from Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Tchaikovsky to Shostakovich, Bartok, Britten and Respighi, as well as music from their extensive, award-winning discography.
Since its formation in 1972 the Brodsky Quartet has performed over 2000 concerts on the major stages of the world and released more than 50 recordings. A natural curiosity and insatiable desire to explore has propelled the group in many artistic directions and continues to ensure them not only a place at the very forefront of the international chamber music scene but also a rich and varied musical existence. Their energy and craftsmanship have attracted numerous awards and accolades worldwide, while ongoing educational work provides a vehicle for passing on experience and staying in touch with the next generation.
http://www.brodskyquartet.co.uk

«The Brodsky Quartet is the no.1 interpreter of Shostakovich in the world today». «Corriere della Sera», December 2008

«The Brodsky Quartet's musical explorations know no limits ... The Brodsky Quartet are the team for the new century». «Gramophone»

«The Brodskys' achingly beautiful performance reached deep into the heart». «The Guardian»

«The Brodsky Quartet is not just a great group. It is a genuine phenomenon». «Scottish Herald»

«the ever fresh Brodsky Quartet: an agelessly hip foursome». «Time Out»


Teatro Sociale, Saturday, September 19th, 21.30

PROKOFIEV: String Quartet No. 2 (22 mins), SHOSTAKOVICH: String Quartet No. 8 (21 mins), INTERVAL, STRAVINSKY: Three Pieces (8 mins), BORODIN: String Quartet No. 2 (28 mins)



Sergey Prokofiev, String Quartet No.2 in F ('Kabardinian'), Op.92
The parenthetical subtitle here, "Kabardinian," refers to the origin of the themes in this quartet. Prokofiev rarely used folk or other unoriginal thematic material in his works. This F major Quartet was an exception. In 1941 the composer, along with Myaskovsky and other artists, was sent away from Moscow—towards which Hitler's troops advanced—to the safer haven of Nalchik, capital city of the Kabarda-Balkar Republic, situated in the Northern Caucasus. There he was exposed to, and ultimately fascinated by, the folk music of that region.
While experienced listeners will hear the folk-flavor in the themes of this quartet (especially in the second movement), they will at once recognize the music as pure Prokofiev. The tenor of the work is light, from the rhythmic gusto of the first movement to the chipper prance of the finale. The opening panel, marked Allegro sostenuto, features two colorful themes, both lively and rhythmic, the second of the pair more genial and catchy. While the development section works up considerable tension and conflict, the music in general remains light and playful.
The second movement Adagio begins with an exotic melody which has a Middle-Eastern air about its quivering accompaniment. A playful theme that skips about to an array of rhythmic effects forms the delightful middle section. The opening theme is reprised and the music ends quietly. The finale, marked Allegro, presents a catchy rhythmic theme and an alternate exotic melody, whose accompaniment features colorful prickly jabs. The middle section is largely comprised of a sustained emotional outburst whose cries are the only sounds in the work that even vaguely hint at war or suffering. The main material returns in reverse order and the works ends happily.
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Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 2, Op. 68
Shostakovich wrote his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 68, during September 1944. It was premiered, along with the second of his piano trios, on November 9, 1944. The work opens abruptly, with a gripping, powerfully assured motif for first violin, stated in the home key of A major, with stark intervals of fifths and fourths underpinning the harmony. This idea is repeated by the cello, now in E major. Many commentators describe a neo-classical quality in this opening statement, and it's worth noting that Shostakovich gave each of the movements titles, this first being called "Overture." Its development section is much more complex, however, with the first theme now heard as kind of waltz-tune in C minor, with gentle pizzicato accompaniment, echoed by the cello. The viola, also in C minor, further explores the second subject.
The second movement, "Recitative and Romance," is enclosed by two long solo passages for first violin, supported by sustained chords, the effect being not unlike plainchants of the ancient Orthodox liturgy. Structurally, it presages the recitatives found in the Ninth Symphony, and offers a glimpse into the secret contemplative life of the composer. The "Romance" itself is set in slow 3/4 time, and is derived almost exclusively from ideas presented in the first movement, now argued on very different terms, however, and reaching an impressive climax.
The waltz that follows is often described as one of the most remarkable movements in Shostakovich's output, before or since, and it stands as a superb achievement. Set logically enough in the basic 3/4 rhythm that characterized the first two movements, its tonality and sound-world are unique, set in E flat minor. The voices are muted throughout, even when playing fortissimo, and the music has a sinister, ghostly atmosphere, ending mysteriously on an E flat minor chord. As Robert Matthew-Walker writes, "Shostakovich has here presented himself with an extraordinary compositional problem—which he solves with genius...The result is a concluding 'Theme and Variations,' prefaced by an introduction taking E flat minor as its starting point in powerful octaves on second violin, viola, and cello, akin to the opening statement of the Quartet and answered by first violin unaccompanied, thematically musing over the Waltz theme at infinitely slower tempo, but texturally recalling the Recitative and Romance." The movement continues to develop the sense of enigmatic irony that has defined the entire work, concluding (adds Matthew-Walker) "in A minor, into which deep tonal region the Quartet now moves, secure in its final symphonic integration of all of this undoubted masterpiece's large-scale contrasts."
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Igor Stravinsky, Three Pieces
Stravinsky's Three Pieces appear after his Le Sacre du Printemps, but the musical means are decidedly Neo-Classic, the harmonies and textures spare and redolent of Schoenberg's influence. They are less character studies than experiments in density and atomized sound textures. Written in 1914, the composer wrote the following: "In 1914 I knew none of Webern's music, and only Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire. But, while my pieces are maybe of a lesser substance, that they are more iterative than Schoenberg's music of the same date, they are as different and mark ... an important change in my art."
They had no titles, just tempo markings, and appeared to be finely crystallized exercises in abstraction, although shortly after the Flonzaley Quartet played them in Chicago, on November 8, 1915, Amy Lowell, who heard the Three Pieces in 1915-16 (and evidently read a useful program note), wrote an intriguing poem attempting to "reproduce the sound and movement of the music as far as is possible in another medium"; it is liberally excerpted by Eric Walter White in Stravinsky: the Composer and his Works. wrote a poem that attempted to "reproduce the sound and movement of the music as far as is possible in another medium."
The bare and enigmatic Three Pieces are in fact contrasting studies in popular, fantastic, and liturgical moods, later titled (when orchestrated as three of the Quatre Etudes) "Dance," "Eccentric," and "Canticle." "Dance" is akin to Stravinsky's adaptations of Russian tunes from the same period. It has ostinati reminiscent of The Rite of Spring, it uses them in a very mechanical, nearly serialist way.
The second piece, "Eccentric", creates a completely new style, very atonal, with strange gestures inspired by the clown Little Tich.
And the last piece, “Canticle”, is an introduction to the austere, nearly static, religious style Stravinsky would use later in his life. His language was already very shocking at the time, and yet he decided to push the limits further! It is twice the length of the others and adumbrates the composer's late style. Stravinsky considered the last 20 measures of "Canticle" "some of the best music of that time."

Aleksandr Borodin, String Quartet No. 2 in D major
Borodin's String Quartet No. 2 in D major differs from many of the composer's other works in two ways: it was completed quickly, during August 1881, and it lacks a published program. These two factors may be related; Borodin dedicated the quartet to his wife Ekaterina, and it was written as an evocation of when they met and fell in love in Heidelberg 20 years earlier. The composer seems to have represented himself in this quartet with the cello (he was an amateur player), while Ekaterina is portrayed by the first violin. Each of the movements is warm and blissful, the whole suggesting the depiction of a growing, deepening love. The first movement opens with a sweet, sighing melody, traded between first violin and cello in an almost conversational manner. Borodin and Ekaterina dominate the rest of the movement with a beguiling discourse; even the development brings effortless, serene reshapings of the exposition's melodies, and the luminous coda rounds out the movement nicely. A Scherzo, written in a free sonata form, follows. The light first subject skips along gracefully, while the second subject is reminiscent of a waltz; both are gentle dances, gently handled. The development is in more decisive duple rhythm, but the recapitulation soon brings back the triple rhythm and its attendant character. Borodin and Ekaterina reappear in the famous Nocturne which follows. Over a luminous gauze of accompaniment from the second violin and viola, the cello introduces a long, tender, ardent melody marked cantabile ed espressivo. This melody soon passes to the first violin, which plays it over commentary from the cello. A more decisive second theme enters on both instruments, which develop it before playing the first theme in an intimate canon. The first theme lingers until the end of the movement, when in a long coda it ascends until the violin and cello play it together in a silvery thread of tone. The finale begins with an Andante introduction, as if unwilling to come down from the emotional heights of the previous movement, soon leading into a quicksilver, energetic Vivace, whose long coda provides a fittingly joyous conclusion to the entire work. As love letters go, Borodin's String Quartet No. 2 is unsurpassed; as string quartets go, it is deservedly loved.
Alexander Borodin's most famous piece of music, the Notturno, or Nocturne for string orchestra, is really an arrangement of the identically-titled slow movement of Borodin's String Quartet No. 2 in D major of 1881; it is a fresh and wonderfully self-indulgent piece of chamber music which deserves wider familiarity in its original guise. There is arguably much lost in Sargent's adaptation for string orchestra: the Notturno is thought to be a musical reminiscence of Borodin's first meeting with his wife, and there is an appropriate intimacy to the original quartet version that is obscured by even the best of larger ensembles. Similarly, the work's passionate climax is all the more potent and rich when four individuals must struggle to produce a dramatic, full sound; what is electrifying when played by four can become ordinary when played by four dozen. That said, Sargent's arrangement is perhaps the most successful of the many that have appeared over the years, and the nature of the piece is essentially unaltered. Borodin knew the capacities of string instruments well; the Nocturne is clearly and brilliantly designed to work as chamber music. In contrast, the famous Barber Adagio is a far better piece in its string orchestra version than in its original string quartet form, largely because Barber's feel for the string quartet was not as healthy as Borodin's. Compared, for instance, to Rimsky-Korsakov's version for violin and orchestra, Sargent's string orchestra arrangement seems downright authentic.
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