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Linden String Quartet
2011-12 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet in Residence
Saturday March 24 at 8:00pm
Tickets: $25.00 Buy Now
Gold Medalist and Grand Prize-winner of the 2009 Fischoff competition, winner of the 2010 Concert Artists Guild Competition, laureates of the 9th Borciani competition, and currently the Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music, the Linden String Quartet has been taking the chamber music world by storm and joins an illustrious tradition by becoming Caramoor’s 2011-2012 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence. They return to the Music Room with a passionate, folk-inflected program.
ABOUT THE MUSIC
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
String Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4
It was standard practice in the time of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven to publish compositions—whether sonatas, string quartets, or symphonies—in groups of six, of which one would be in a minor key. Beethoven clearly chose to follow this tradition in his first set of string quartets, and—as he was often to do—he chose the key of C minor. Beethoven scholars have long suspected that this quartet is a recomposition of older material, possibly ideas he had brought to Vienna from Bonn in 1792, as well as newer ideas worked out while he was composing the other quartets of Opus 18.
The principal theme of the first movement is decorated and filled with the appoggiatura figure that became a melodic cliché in the Classical period and is known as the “Mannheim sigh” from its frequent appearance in the works of the Mannheim composers. (So hackneyed did this gesture become, that one modern scholar has referred to it as “the sigh heard ’round the world”!) The derivation of the secondary theme (in the relative major) from the first theme reinforces the scholars’ suspicion that this is, to some extent at least, an early composition, since Beethoven’s concern for this kind of thematic unification was especially strong during his Bonn period.
The second movement is, unexpectedly, marked “Scherzo,” though it is not a substitute for the dance movement traditionally in third place, since we have a Minuet still to come. This Scherzo shows off Beethoven’s fugal prowess in a manner akin to the corresponding movement of the First Symphony, which may have been composed before Beethoven got to the final working-out of the Opus 18 quartets. The thematic ideas themselves are standard contrapuntal figures, even clichés, but this allows for a certain degree of wit in the unexpected phrasing of their elaboration.
The Minuet, with its purposeful harmonic travels and accented offbeats sounds most authentically like Beethoven despite reminiscences of Mozart’s G-minor symphony. The rondo of the last movement is almost totally devoid of sonata-form elements with which Beethoven liked to strengthen the architecture of his finales, to give them a greater sense of line and cohesion. All in all, the C-minor quartet is perhaps the least typical of all the Beethoven string quartets, but for that reason it also holds points of special interest: it shows a composer striking out in several directions, experimenting, trying new ideas, trying to balance form and expression, on the verge of the great creative explosion that was soon to produce the Eroica symphony and its equivalent in the string quartet repertory, the three Opus 59 quartets dedicated to Count Razumovsky.
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 (“American”)
When Mrs. Jeanette Thurber persuaded Antonín Dvořák to come to America as the director of her National Conservatory in New York, she expected great things of him. The Bohemian composer, at the height of his popularity, brought a cheerful, friendly personality and a musical openness that made him popular wherever he went. His works were featured on concert programs in New York and Boston, often with Dvořák himself conducting. His responsibilities at the Conservatory were designed so as to allow him time to compose, in the evident hope that he would show American composers how they ought to proceed.
Quite early in his stay Dvořák was asked by reporters what advice he would offer to American composers. His response—that they should draw upon their own native musical heritage in seeking materials for their art—reflected Dvořák’s own procedure with the melodic styles and the dance forms of his native Bohemia. What Dvořák meant by that was especially the music of black Americans, which, if he knew it at all, came from concert performances of spirituals and from the popular entertainment of the minstrel show (where the music was often written by white musicians in supposed imitation of vanished “plantation life”).
The view of so distinguished a composer was widely—and heatedly—discussed. When Dvořák made these remarks, he knew scarcely any American music, either art or folk music. And he was not yet familiar with the substantial number of talented American composers who had been getting along quite well—and even anticipating his approaches years before his music was known here. To Dvořák’s credit, he was open-minded enough to recognize the talent of American musicians. Victor Herbert’s Second Cello Concerto, for example, inspired Dvořák’s own contribution to the genre, and George Chadwick’s Third Symphony was picked by Dvořák to receive a national award.
Dvořák’s first substantial work of his American years was the Symphony “From the New World,” completed in May 1893. That summer, Dvořák spent his holiday with his family at Spillville, a Czech community in Iowa. He felt at home immediately upon his arrival there, and quickly composed two substantial chamber works—the string quartet in F (composed between June 8 and 23) and the string quintet in E-flat (between June 26 and August 1); both works were to be nicknamed “American.” The quartet was premiered in Boston on January 1, 1894, by the Kneisel Quartet, the most distinguished string quartet in America at the time (the ensemble consisted of first-chair players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by concertmaster Franz Kneisel).
From the outset, Dvořák’s “American” Quartet has enjoyed lasting popularity for its tunefulness, its rhythmic verve, and its happy interplay of the four instruments. Given all the publicity afforded Dvořák’s ideas on American music, one might reasonably ask just how “American” Opus 96 really is. A theme in the third movement qualifies as coming from an American: “a damned bird (red, only with black wings)” that kept singing where he was working. Dvořák worked the native bird’s song into the scherzo, beginning in measure 21. Beyond that we are on less firm ground. Many of the themes are entirely or nearly pentatonic, and some have wanted to see in this the influence of the black spiritual. But in fact Bohemian folk music is every bit as likely to be pentatonic, and similar themes can be found in Dvořák’s music long before he came to America. The opening of the work was based on Smetana’s First Quartet, though Dvořák’s mood is entirely different, lighter and livelier throughout, with the poignant exception of the lyrical second movement, the plaintive melody of which—echoed between violin and cello—is a wonderful foil to the high spirits of the remaining three movements.
BÉLA BARTÓK (1881-1945)
String Quartet NO. 5
The Fifth Quartet of Bartók’s canon was commissioned by the Elisabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. Bartók composed the score in the month between August 6 and September 6, 1934; it was first performed in Washington, D.C., by the Kolisch Quartet on April 8, 1935. Bartók had not worked on a major composition since completing the Second Piano Concerto in January 1931, but he filled the interval with transcriptions of folk music and educational compositions. The renewal of his contact with the sources of folk music (not only Hungarian, but also Slovak, Ruthenian, Serbian, Ukrainian, and Arabic) was fruitful in paving the way for the new quartet.
As in the String Quartet No. 4, Bartók employs a favorite ground plan: symmetrical arrangement of the movements. Here two slow movements are grouped around a central scherzo, while two fast movements frame the whole. Each separate movement, too, shows elements of this arch construction, from the simple ABA of the central scherzo to the more complicated organization of the outer movements, in which the themes are restated in the reverse order of their original appearance.
Unlike the Fourth Quartet, which is built very largely on a single musical figure, the Fifth is rich in materials of great variety; the arch-forms that Bartók loves so are carried out even in the treatment of the thematic materials, which often recur at the end of the movement in inversion, a mirror image to the form they had taken at the beginning. And the recapitulation of the opening movement’s sonata form takes place with the elements in reverse order, yet another expression of the “arch.” The second and fourth movements (occupying similar place in the work’s overall arch) balance one another in music character while they, too, are shaped internally as arches. The first movement begins on a strongly reiterated
B-flat, with the tritone E appearing as an evident secondary tonal center. The last movement begins (after a few introductory bars) with a strongly reiterated E that suddenly sinks to B-flat. Bartók closes the arch of the whole with a fugue whose theme is derived from the opening of the first movement, leading to the recapitulation and a powerfully assertive close on B-flat.
© Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com)
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Described as “…truly riveting…” by MusicWeb International, the Linden String Quartet is a winner of the 2010 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Founded in the spring 2008, the Quartet has enjoyed remarkable success in the last two years, also winning the gold medal and grand prize of the 2009 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the Coleman-Barstow prize at the 2009 Coleman National Chamber Ensemble Competition, and first prize at the 2010 Hugo Kauder Competition. Praised for its “remarkable depth of technique and brilliantly nuanced, sumptuous tonality ... delivered with a palpable, infectious joy” (MusicWeb International), the Linden Quartet is currently the Graduate String-Quartet-in-Residence at Yale University, where they are mentored by the Tokyo String Quartet.
Dedicated to community outreach and education, the Quartet is also the Canton Symphony Orchestra’s Quartet-in-Residence, a program established to promote the arts of classical music and quartet playing through a series of educational concerts and presentations in various elementary schools in the Northeastern Ohio area. In the spring of 2010, the Quartet performed a one-week concert tour of Kentucky, focused on educational concerts in
rural schools.
Mentors include the Cavani String Quartet, Peter Salaff, and Paul Kantor, and the Quartet has also worked with Donald Weilerstein and William Preucil of the Cleveland Quartet, Joel Smirnoff and Robert Mann of the Juilliard String Quartet, and members of the Guarneri, Tokyo, and St. Lawrence Quartets. The Quartet has collaborated with pianist Peter Frankl, guitarist Jason Vieaux, mezzo-soprano Jana Baty, violinist Geoff Nuttall, as well as acclaimed accordion and bandonéon player Julian Labro. During the summer of 2010, the Linden Quartet were resident artists at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, as well as chamber music festivals in Banff, Alberta, and Stanford, California. As winners of the Fischoff grand prize, the quartet toured the Midwest in fall 2009 and the 2009-10 season included appearances at the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy, a one-week concert tour throughout the state of Kentucky, and a one-week residency at the Music at Port Milford summer chamber music festival in Milford, Ontario.
Violinist Sarah McElravy received both her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She is a laureate of the 2008 International Stepping Stone Competition and has won the Silver Medal Award from the Royal Conservatory of Music, first prize at the Ontario Provincial Finals, and second prize at the Canadian Music Competition National Finals. Ms. McElravy has performed as a soloist with the Pulawy Festival Orchestra, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Orchestra, the Lexington Bach Festival Orchestra, and the CIM Orchestra. She also served as Concertmaster of the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra, the Suburban Symphony, the CIM Orchestra, and the Banff Music and Sound Festival. An avid chamber musician, Ms. McElravy has performed twice at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival and has attended the Pacific Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Ms. McElravy studied violin with Witold Swoboda, Erika Raum, Sylvia Rosenberg, Scott St. John, Paul Kantor, and Lorand Fenyves. She has collaborated with Gary Graffman and Roberto Diaz, and has been coached by Cho-Liang Lin, Lynn Harrell, as well as the Guarneri, Emerson, and Tokyo String Quartets. Ms. McElravy performs on a Pietro Guarneri (of Mantua) violin of 1682, on loan from an anonymous patron.
Violinist Catherine Cosbey received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Glenn Gould School in Toronto and her Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Ms. Cosbey has attended the Aspen Music Festival and School, the Banff Chamber and Summer Music Sessions, the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, the Domaine Forget Chamber Music Program, and the Centre D’arts Orford. As an orchestral musician, Ms. Cosbey has been a member of the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and is currently a member of CityMusic Cleveland and the Canton Symphony. Ms. Cosbey has performed chamber music across Canada and Iceland, most notably with Quartetto Constanze and the Flaming Leafs. She has collaborated with artists such as Edward Arron, Kai Gleusteen, Kyung-Sun Lee, Geoff Nuttall, Erika Raum, and Barry Shiffman.
Ms. Cosbey’s teachers and mentors include Paul Kantor, Eduard Minevich, and Erika Raum. She plays on a 1721 Guidantus violin and a Voirin bow generously on loan by the Banff Centre.
Violist Eric Wong received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Mr. Wong is the first prize winner of the 48th Annual Lima Symphony Young Artists’ Competition, the 2007 Ohio Viola Society competition, and the 2006 Louisiana String Teachers’ Association solo competition, as well as the third-prize winner of CIM’s 2008 Milhaud Competition. As a soloist, Mr. Wong has performed with the CIM Orchestra and the Acadiana and Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestras. His performances have taken him to Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the Tanglewood Music Center. Mr. Wong currently holds the position of Assistant Concertmaster of the Akron Symphony. As a chamber musician, Mr. Wong has performed in recitals sponsored by the Aspen Institute, the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, and the Cleveland Chamber Music Guild. Mr. Wong has collaborated with members of the Cleveland Quartet, with Kirsten Docter and Merry Peckham of the Cavani Quartet, and with Secretary of State and pianist Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Wong has studied with Heidi Castleman, Kirsten Docter, Paul Kantor, Kevork Mardirossian, Lynne Ramsey, David Updegraff, and Zvi Zeitlin. Coaches and mentors include Peter Salaff and the Cavani and Miró Quartets.
Cellist Felix Umansky received both his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music. An avid performer, Mr. Umansky is currently a member of CityMusic Cleveland and has performed concerts in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Germany. As a chamber musician, Mr. Umansky has received coachings from members of the Artemis, Borromeo, Cavani, Cleveland, Guarneri, Miró, St. Lawrence, Takacs, and Tokyo String Quartets, as well as the Beaux Arts Trio. Mr. Umansky was selected as an inaugural fellow with the Cleveland Chamber Music Society helping to bring music to hundreds of elementary school students. Mr. Umansky studied cello with Polina Umansky, Yehuda Hanani, Janos Starker, Michael Mermagen, Eleanor Schoenfeld, Richard Aaron, and Desmond Hoebig
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