boRRoMEo sTRING QuARTET

9
Thursday
june
borromeo string quartet
Nicholas Kitchen, violin
Kristopher Tong, violin
Mai Motobuchi, viola
Yeesun Kim, cello
WITH
8 PM
Donald Berman, piano
FROM THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, BOOK I, BWV 846-53
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)/Arr. by Nicholas Kitchen
Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major
Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C Minor
Prelude and Fugue No. 3 in C-Sharp Major
Prelude and Fugue No. 4 in C-Sharp Minor
Prelude and Fugue No. 5 in D Major
Prelude and Fugue No. 6 in D Minor
Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in E-Flat Major
Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-Flat Minor
THE WORLDS REVOLVE FOR PIANO AND STRING QUARTET (2016)
Elena Ruehr (b. 1963)
The Worlds Revolve
Like Ancient Women
gathering Fuel
In Vacant Lots
WORLD PREMIERE
:: intermission ::
STRING QUARTET NO. 12 IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 127
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Maestoso—Allegro
Adagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabile
Scherzando vivace
Allegro
This concert is made possible in part through the generosity
of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation.
35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 13
WEEK 2
the program
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
FROM THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, BOOK I, BWV 846-853
Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, March 21, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750)/
Arr. Nicholas Kitchen
Composed 1722; 30 minutes
The “Preludes and Fugues in all the major and minor keys,” by Johann Sebastian Bach, first
appeared in 1722, when Bach was employed as Kapellmeister at the court in Cöthen. The
“Clavier” (or Klavier) of Bach’s german-language title indicated that the pieces could be
played on any of several keyboard instruments, with clavichord and harpsichord the most
commonly used for study and performance in his time. Probably intending them for
pedagogical use, Bach composed 24 sets of Preludes and Fugues, and copies of them
began to circulate in hand-written manuscript form.
Twenty years later, during his years in Leipzig, Bach composed a second volume,
also comprising 24 preludes and fugues for keyboard, in all the major and minor
keys. Now commonly referred to as “The 48,” the Preludes and Fugues, Book I and
Book II, have become de rigueur for the education and training of pianists and
harpsichordists—indeed, of all musicians.
The title page for the 1722
autograph of J. S. Bach’s
The Well-Tempered
Clavier, Book I
During the past decade, the violinist Nicholas Kitchen has transcribed for the
Borromeo String Quartet the 24 Preludes and Fugues, Book I, of J. S. Bach’s
seminal work for keyboard. In the history of music, arrangers have frequently adapted a full
symphonic score, a string quartet, or an opera score to a keyboard reduction, an arrangement
of all the instruments’ voices that can be played on the piano. Such a piano reduction might
be for the convenience of musicians at rehearsals, or it might be (as in the case of the
voluminous repertoire of four-hand piano arrangements) for the edification and entertainment
of the pianists.
Kitchen’s transcriptions of “The 24” have reversed that direction, teasing out of the original
keyboard score the independent polyphonic lines that Bach so ingeniously wove together.
Applying them judiciously and artfully to the appropriate voices in the Borromeo Quartet,
Kitchen has created a score for modern strings that retains the clarity of Bach’s intentions
and the elegant beauty of his Baroque manner.
THE WORLDS REVOLVE FOR PIANO AND STRING QUARTET
Elena Ruehr (b. Ann Arbor, 1963)
Composed 2016; 17 minutes
The composer Elena Ruehr
Elena Ruehr, an award-winning faculty member at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
was a student of William Bolcom (at the University of Michigan) and Vincent Persichetti
and Bernard Rands (The Juilliard School). Her compositions include works for chamber
ensemble, orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, instrumental solo, opera, dance, and silent
film. She is a guggenheim Fellow and has been a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute and
composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Dr. Ruehr has received
commissions from many soloists and ensembles, most recently this work for Piano and
String Quartet, composed for Donald Berman and the Borromeo String Quartet, and
dedicated to David Deveau.
14 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM
Elena Ruehr writes about The Worlds Revolve:
The Worlds Revolve for piano and string quartet
These four movements for piano and string quartet take their titles
from T.S. Eliot’s fourth Prelude. This poem has been a favorite of
mine since I was a teenager, evoking in the last few lines something
that seems both ancient and prescient. The first movement (The
Worlds Revolve) has a melody that actually mimics the rhythm of the
first stanza and evokes an ancient tune. Like Ancient Women uses
block chords to create a quiet grandeur. gathering Fuel is a virtuosic
flurry, and In Vacant Lots seems to me to evoke an ancient city, now
empty. Composed for Donald Berman and the Borromeo String
Quartet, the work is warmly dedicated to David Deveau.
STRING QUARTET NO. 12 IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 127
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770;
d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)
FROM PRELUDES BY T.S. ELIOT
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth,
and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
Composed 1825; 39 minutes
After the publication of his String Quartet No. 11, Op. 95, Beethoven left the genre alone for
a full twelve years. In the summer of 1822 he once again began thinking in string quartet
terms and proposed to one of his publishers, C. F. Peters, that he might develop some new
quartet sketches. For whatever reasons—perhaps because of his greater interest in the
Missa solemnis then in progress—the publisher declined, and Beethoven put his string
quartet sketches aside.
A few months later, in November, Beethoven was contacted by an amateur cellist from St.
Petersburg. During a residency in Vienna, Prince Nicholas galitzin (born in 1795) had formed
his own quartet of string players, who explored works of the great local composers—Mozart,
Haydn, and Beethoven among them. galitzin offered Beethoven a commission for “one, two,
or three” new string quartets.
1823 Portrait of Beethoven
by the Austrian artist
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Although he already had substantial sketches for a new quartet, Beethoven’s attention was
focused not only on the Missa solemnis but also on the new Symphony No. 9. Finally, in 1824,
after the successful public performances of those two works (galatzin became an important
subscriber of the Missa solemnis), Beethoven turned his full attention to the string quartet
commission. He eventually completed three quartets for galitzin: No. 12 in E-flat major
(Op. 127, completed in February 1825), No. 15 in A minor (Op. 132, July 1825), and No. 13
in B-flat major (Op. 130, November 1825).
The first performance of Op. 127 did not go well. Beethoven blamed his old friend and
colleague, Ignaz Schuppanzigh:
The Quartet was a failure the first time that Schuppanzigh played it, for he, being so
very stout, now needs more time than he formerly did before he can grasp anything,
and many other circumstances were the cause of its not succeeding. This was also
predicted by me, for although Schuppanzigh and two others draw their pension from
35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 15
Princes, his Quartet is no longer what it was when all were
constantly playing together. On the other hand, it has been
performed six times by other artists in the best possible manner,
and received with greatest applause….
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
In this letter to his nephew, Carl, Beethoven failed to mention that
he, Beethoven, had not finished copying out the parts until the last
minute, a handicap equally as responsible for a rocky performance
as Schuppanzigh’s corpulence.
1820s lithograph of the
violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh
(1776-1830)
The limited success of the first performance of the String Quartet
Op. 127 (which Beethoven did not attend) continued to irritate the
composer. He blamed his old friend and colleague Schuppanzigh, even though the violinist
and his colleagues had received the score only days before the performance. Beethoven
then called upon the violinist Joseph Böhm, curtly entreating him to prepare a second
performance as soon as possible. Böhm wrote:
…so I undertook the difficult task…rehearsed frequently under Beethoven’s own
eyes. I said ‘eyes’ intentionally, for the unhappy man was so deaf that he could no
longer hear the heavenly sound of his compositions. …Beethoven, crouched in a corner,
heard nothing, but watched with strained attention. …The quartet was performed
finally and received with a real storm of applause. Now Beethoven was satisfied.
The three outer movements are in E-flat major; they enclose a second movement, Adagio, in
A-flat. In form, the first, second, and fourth movements follow a classical style: I—Maestoso
and Allegro, a majestic introduction followed by sonata-allegro construction; III—Vivace, with
a complex scherzo and a trio; IV—Finale, in brisk sonata-allegro format. The extraordinary
second movement, Adagio non troppo e molto cantabile, comprises a theme and six variations.
The pastorale character of the entire quartet is consecrated by the main theme of this slow
movement, bringing echoes of the Missa solemnis, which Beethoven had just completed.
NATIONAL THEATRE OF LONDON IN HD
TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 7 PM
Hamlet
Due to the overwhelming demand of the National
Theatre of London’s presentation of Hamlet with
Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch,
Rockport Music provides this encore broadcast
presentation.
16 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM