LCCMF Young Artists Quartet

Program Note

Punctum is essentially an exercise in nostalgia, inspired by Roland Barthes’ description of the “unexpected” in photographs and in particular by his extended description of the elusive “Winter Garden” photo in his 1980 book Camera Lucida. Through modular sequences strung together out of context, the piece explores a way of saturating the palette with classicism while denying it form, and of disturbing the legibility of a harmonic progression in order to reinforce it later.

© Caroline Shaw

Soovin Kim, violin
Jessica Lee, violin
Nicholas Cords, viola
Deborah Pae, cello

Program Note

The first word of the subtitle, Metamorphoses nocturnes, refers to the form. It is a kind of variation form, only there is no specific “theme” that is then varied. It is, rather, that one and the same musical concept appears in constantly new forms - that is why “metamorphoses” is more appropriate than “variations”. The quartet can be considered as having just one movement or also as a sequence of many short movements that melt into one another without pause or which abruptly cut one another off. The basic concept, which is always present in the intervals but which is in a state of constant transformation, consists of two major seconds that succeed each other transposed by a semitone. In this First String Quartet, there are certainly some characteristics of my later music, but the writing is totally different, “old-fashioned”; there are still distinct melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic patterns and bar structure. It is not tonal music, but it is not radically atonal, either. The piece still belongs firmly to the Bartók tradition (remember my situation as a composer in Hungary at the beginning of the fifties), yet despite the Bartók-like tone (especially in the rhythm) and despite some touches of Stravinsky and Alban Berg, I trust that the First String Quartet is still personal work.

© György Ligeti

Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet
Soovin Kim, violin
Jessica Lee, violin
Nicholas Cords, viola
Deborah Pae, cello

Program Note

A virtuoso performer steps boldly forward, readily identifiable, quick to astonish. But the virtuoso composer is quite a different creature. The obvious virtuosity is a breath-taking battery of percussion and a frenzy of rhythm hitting the listener over the head -- in the Rite of Spring or the Symphonie fantastique, for instance. But sometimes the virtuoso composer will choose to ensnare his listener with a handful of instruments, subtly arming the players with writing of wit and invention and disarming the listeners with melody and complex emotional appeal. Enter Mozart with the “effortless” virtuoso magic of his Clarinet Quintet.

The soft timbre and mellow expressive human quality of the clarinet sound fascinated Mozart from childhood. He pioneered its use in symphonic writing and even elevated it to opera stardom in Clemenza di Tito. (Check out “Parto, parto” on YouTube.) This charming quintet resulted from Mozart's friendship with one of Vienna's less charming characters, the scurrilous Anton Stadler, who caroused with Mozart, mooching both lodging and money unconscionably from the easy-going composer. On Mozart's death he owed him thousands. But the guy was a marvelous clarinetist and the friendship was -- for posterity, at least -- a fortuitous one. The geniality of their relationship surely affected the composition, but the brilliance of the quintet consists of the way Mozart weaves together his understanding of all the genres he was master of -- the string quartet, solo concerto, opera aria, the grand symphony, and even country dance music, everything blended seamlessly and given to only five instruments.

Employing the conventional structure of the Classical quintet, Mozart slyly parades his mastery-- a sonata-form opening with symphonic dignity and an abundance of themes; an operatic lyrical slow movement; a set of dances with a double trio, muscular first for strings alone, then a twirling country solo dance; finally a set of variations with concerto ambitions. At the heart of the piece, the larghetto unfolds as a leisurely nocturne, the warm strings sometimes just supporting the dreamy flights of the clarinet, other times drawing the clarinet into a dialogue. The whole quintet displays a rich emotional depth -- a whisper of “world enough and time” – with all roles distributed evenly but the clarinet first among equals. The listener feels privy to a narrative of intimate confidences.

Aside from the scurrilous clarinetist who inspired all this, the work has other ironic distinctions. A Major is usually a key of heroic outgoing cheerfulness, but Mozart diabolically employs it here for quite the opposite effect – mature inner reflection. Brahms in his 60s wrote his clarinet quintet entirely aware of its autumnal nature. Mozart unfurls a work of the same pensive stature when still a young man in his 30s, a farewell composition only because nature played a mean trick on him -- and us. He had no idea that death was around the corner. On the one hand the majestic inner security of this quintet confirms what many listeners have resorted to saying about his work: the music of Beethoven and others may strive for Heaven; the music of Mozart comes from Heaven. As Einstein observed, “his music is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it – that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed.” But of course Mozart did not “merely find” this music. He crafted it with his unparalleled cleverness, beyond ordinary imagination, and you can bet he had a rollicking good time playing viola with Stadler when the quintet premiered, knowing there would be drinks afterwards, but also knowing that as a composer he was better than anybody. Anybody. And in this quintet he is throwing it all at you. Critics and scholars may find lots to work with here, but perhaps it is best not to wonder why this virtuoso music is so good. Just take Shaw's sound advice about listening to Mozart: “Admire. Admire. Admire.”

© 2013 Frederick Noonan