June 17, 2025
Tesla Quartet
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 33, no. 2, “Joke” (1781)
- Allegro moderato
- Scherzo: Allegro
- Largo
- Presto
Over the summer and autumn of 1781, Haydn composed a set of six string quartets dedicated to Russian Grande Duke Paul, at whose home they were first premiered on Christmas Day of that year. The second of these, the Quartet in E-flat Major, is a sunny, buoyant opus of which the composer was proud, describing it as “a new and entirely special kind” in a letter to his publisher.
From the jolly plodding of its opening and the romp of its short second movement, to the pleasant lyricism of the largo, this quartet bears the great hallmarks of its maker – reliably solid Enlightenment-era structural logic and irrepressibly good-natured humour. In its final movement, Haydn claims his laurels as music’s great practical joker in a bouncy rondo. Here he presents a recurring cheery gigue (jig) theme separated each time by contrasting episodes and punctuated with unexpected pauses meant to playfully trip up the listener. The abrupt start-stop of the music toward the end of the finale is Haydn’s way of poking marvelous fun, both at us and, delightfully, into our ears.
Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969)
String Quartet No. 3 (1948)
- Allegro ma non troppo
- Andante
- Vivo
Grażyna Bacewicz’s third string quartet is a tense work that reflects her outlook on the role and capabilities of music as an expressive vehicle. Considered from this perspective, her third string quartet is an unsentimental, often dark, exploration of contrasting musical textures and atmospheres.
The first two movements of the piece pass through moments of murky uncertainty offset by spastic interjections of drama and tension. Bacewicz’s life coincided with the political and social upheaval that dominated the first half of twentieth-century Polish history, and tension and pessimism often lurk in the background of her music. After all its lyrical melancholy, the piece launches into a sprightly final movement reminiscent of the folksy furiant style Dvořák favoured in the finales of his own string quartets. The breeziness of the final movement suggests that, for all its searching and ambiguity, the work has finally found its footing and come to a satisfying conclusion.
Intermission
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
String Quartet in F Major (1903)
- Allegro moderato – très doux
- Assez vif – très rythmé
- Très lent
- Vif et agité
Two chamber works epitomizing the French impressionist musical language of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are the lone string quartets of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. The latter composed his string quartet about a decade after that of his compatriot and, while owing much of its structural inspiration to Debussy’s earlier model, it presents unique musical ideas that reflect the independent creativity of its composer.
The muted opening movement of Ravel’s quartet is cast in sonata form, based on the tension of two contrasting themes. Following the rhythmically vigorous scherzo movement with its plucked-string passages, a lyrical slow movement reflects the dark, subdued atmosphere of the quartet’s opening Allegro moderato with lush, fragrant harmonies that anticipate the emergence of jazz in the decades to follow. The frenetic energy of the finale, with its oscillating storminess and brief moments of calm underpinned by terse, unstable meters, catapults the piece to a smouldering conclusion.
Program notes by Morgan Luethe
June 20, 2025
Giovanni Sollima (b. 1962)
Lamentatio (1998)
Alexander Hersh, cello
Giovanni Sollima’s Lamentatio for solo cello is a haunting, athletic piece that puts the instrument’s full range of expressive capabilities in the window. Atop technical fireworks such as glissandi and fast-paced pizzicato (plucked) passages, the piecealso features an obbligato vocal part for the cellist, coupling chanting and wailing with furious playing. Taken altogether, these elements give Lamentatio a thrilling air of mysticism and ritual.
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Bagatelles, op. 47 (1879)
- Allegretto scherzando
- Tempo di minuetto. Grazioso
- Allegretto scherzando
- Canon. Andante con moto
- Poco allegro
Jacques Forestier, violin
Michael Bridge, accordion
Alexander Hersh, cello
Patricia Tao, piano
Dvořák’s charming op. 47 set of short character pieces, or bagatelles, combines two violins and cello with the warm, murky sound of the harmonium, a type of pump organ popular in drawing rooms of the latter nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth. As a set, the five bagatelles make for pleasant listening, each permeated with the genial Czech tunefulness so characteristic of Dvořák. Each of these short pieces inhabits the same contented, songlike atmosphere from a subtly different perspective, at times buoyant and folksy, at other times wistful. While the op. 47 Bagatelles live in the shadow of the composer’s larger-scale, serious chamber music, they’re minor gems nonetheless, and display the consistent quality and wit that runs through all Dvořák’s compositions, large or small.
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)
Polonaise-Fantasie, op. 61 (1846)
Angela Cheng, piano
The last decade of Chopin’s life marks the creative peak of his artistic output. Among works such as the fourth Ballade and Barcarolle, the Polonaise-Fantaisie stands at the fore, as one of the composer’s most formally and harmonically forward-looking works.
From its prophetic opening gestures and through its lyrical middle section and enthusiastic conclusion, the music maintains a solemn, serious essence, driven by the characteristic pulsing rhythm of the polonaise – the influential Polish folk dance which reached its culmination in the world of European art music with this masterpiece. Chopin’s subtle yet rigorous development of thematic material transforms his melodic ideas alongside textural shifts as the piece moves through different emotional worlds. Here the master-craftsmanship is on brilliant display.
Over the remaining three years of his life, as his health continued to decline, Chopin’s activities as a composer and pianist slowed considerably; after the Polonaise-Fantaisie only a pair of nocturnes, some mazurkas and waltzes, and the great cello sonata followed. In this context of waning physical strength and artistic inspiration, the work takes on a special importance as one of, if not the, most significant of his compositions.
Intermission
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Piano Quartet in E-flat major, op. 47 (1842)
- Sostenuto assai – Allegro ma non troppo
- Scherzo: Molto vivace – Trio I – Trio II
- Andante cantabile
- Finale: Vivace
Gabrielle Després, violin
Ryan Davis, viola
Alexander Hersh, cello
Patricia Tao, piano
Until his marriage to Clara Wieck in 1840, Schumann had primarily written for the piano, having composed little significant chamber music to speak of up that point. Hereafter, his creative scope expanded, turning his attention to songs, chamber music, and orchestral works. During a remarkable period in which Schumann produced works in intermittent, frenzied bursts of inspiration, op. 47, along with the op. 44 piano quintet he’d completed only weeks earlier, sits atop the results of his year-long obsession with chamber music in 1842.
The work opens serenely with a short anticipatory introduction before launching into a perky allegro that wavers briefly into darker moments, but never far from the overall sunny character of the movement. In the sly scherzo that follows, the piano and strings exchange thematic ideas varying between hurried pursuit and nervously lilting conversation. The activity subsides in the swooning slow movement with its yearning cello melody, taken up and commented on by the other instruments as proceedings unfold in an atmosphere of soft, lyrical reflection. Here, Schumann the great song composer is clearly at work. A vigorous, exuberant finale closes the work. Like a racehorse out of the gate, the music once again takes on the spirit of the chase first explored in the scherzo. Contrasting lush passages with busy fugato episodes built on the main theme of the movement, the finale of the piece is an exploration of the different ways in which four players can collaborate. The textural tension keeps the music buoyant and energetic throughout, building up to an exciting climax characterized by furious counterpoint that hurls the music to a manic, radiant conclusion.
Program notes by Morgan Luethe
June 22, 2025
Jean-Marie Leclair (1697–1764)
Sonata for Two Violins in D Major, op. 3, no. 6 (1730)
- Andante
- Allegro
- Largo
- Allegro ma non troppo
Gabrielle Després, violin
Jacques Forestier, violin
The second of Leclair’s op. 3 set of six duo sonatas was composed and published in Paris sometime during the 1730s. This work and its siblings are attractive examples of the high French Baroque style, full of imitative charm and descriptive ornamentation. Following a stately opening prelude in which both players move in close harmony, a celebratory Allegro arrives with an atmosphere of breezy levity in which the violins engage each other in an athletic musical dialogue. The pulse of the third movement Largo looks back to the opening, sharing some of its graver emotional character and musical texture before the work concludes with a glowing Allegro with a gentle droning accompaniment that brings the French countryside and peasant life to mind.
Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
Sonata for Cello and Piano, L. 135 (1915)
- Prologue: Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto
- Sérénade: Modérément animé
- Finale: Animé, léger et nerveux
Alexander Hersh, cello
Patricia Tao, piano
Originally conceived of as the first part of a six-work cycle of sonatas for various instruments, Debussy’s cello sonata was composed quickly in the summer of 1915. Structured in three movements, the work reflects a rich array of influences, variously drawing inspiration from the French baroque tradition and Spanish folk music, while also nodding at the emerging jazz trends of the early 20th century.
The declamatory opening of the first movement hearkens back to the stateliness of the French overture form of the eighteenth century. The Prologue gradually adopts a more dancelike character, gaining momentum in an unsettled middle section and climaxing before subsiding into the calmer, listless atmosphere of its opening. A sarcastic sense of humour pervades the second movement Sérénade, in which the cello and piano gesture, almost improvisationally, back and forth at one another before launching into a short, energetic finale which Debussy (the master colourist) shades exquisitely across rapid changes in texture that subtly tour the expressive capabilities of both instruments.
Petri Makkonen (b. 1967)
Tango-Toccata (2011)
Michael Bridge, accordion
Petri Makkonen’s Tango-Toccata is an engaging blend of musical styles and forms. The toccata, an episodic, highly improvisatory dancelike form that emerged in the late Renaissance, has flourished in different guises in instrumental music across the centuries. Makkonen’s work speaks the sultry language of the tango while it remains true to the virtuosity and invention that characterize the toccata form.
Tango-Toccata is a piece that evokes the movement and emotion of South American dance through an attractively balanced 21st century musical language.
Intermission
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Piano Quintet in F Minor, op. 34 (1864)
- Allegro non troppo
- Andante, un poco adagio
- Scherzo: Allegro
- Finale: Poco sostenuto – Allegro non troppo – Presto, non troppo
Jacques Forestier, violin
Gabrielle Després, violin
Ryan Davis, viola
Alexander Hersh, cello
Angela Cheng, piano
Brahms’ piano quintet was not an easy work to compose, existing first as a string quintet (which he destroyed), then a sonata for two pianos (which he published), and finally as the quintet for piano and strings audiences know today. One of Brahms’ most uniformly dark pieces, the work rightfully claims a place alongside chamber music’s other enduring masterpieces.
The work opens with a robust allegro movement troubled by emotional tension achieved through a characteristically rigorous Brahmsian working-over of its haunting musical ideas. A tense, unsettled sound world is established from the outset, with the quintet playing the ghostly first statement of the main theme in unison. From there, the movement erupts into a roiling exploration and transformation of its thematic material. This anguish gives way to tenderness in a radiant slow movement that dwells in the glowing middle registers of the instruments, giving an impression that one is sitting close to a warm fireplace. The following scherzo is dominated by a relentless rhythmic drive underneath an eerie syncopated melody played in unison. Brahms opens the finale of his quintet with a slow, ponderous introduction that eventually finds its footing in a briskly paced movement proper. The tension continues to rachet up in a frenzied coda, as the movement’s main theme is passed feverishly between the piano and strings over an accompaniment of triplets that hurtle the work the work to its desperate, thundering conclusion.
Program notes by Morgan Luethe