Sunday, February 27, 2005 7:00 p.m.
Alexander Barantschik and
Members of the San Francisco Symphony
Mozart, Duo for Violin and Viola
Prokofiev, Sonata for Two Violins
Messiaen, Quartet for the End of the Time
Program Notes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Duo in G Major, K.423 for violin and viola (1783)
The two Duos for violin and viola, K. 423 and 424, seem to have come to us somewhat by accident. During a visit to Salzburg in 1783, Mozart wrote these duets as a favor to his composer friend Michael Haydn (the lesser known younger brother of Franz Joseph Haydn), who had received a commission for six duets for violin and viola, but could complete only four because of a protracted illness. With his friend's salary in jeopardy, Mozart agreed to finish the remaining two duets. Mozart cannot have found the fulfillment of this favour uncongenial. He preferred to play the viola during chamber music sessions and was perfectly acquainted with the virtues of the instrument; what is more, he loved it. In Mozart's chamber music the viola does not take second place to the violin; it is rather an introverted voice in dialogue with the exuberant violin.
Mozart was very talented at assimilating other composers' styles, and he used some devices to disguise the authorship of these works, such as the popular tunes in the finale of the K. 423 and the chirping grace notes and trills in the opening movement of the K. 424. The duets already composed by Haydn were in the keys C, D, E and F, so Mozart chose two new keys, G and B-flat, for the remaining two duets. The K. 423 G Major duet is certainly the more brilliant of the two works, and the key signature allows for a rich fullness with open G and D-strings in both the violin and the viola at the disposal to be utilized.
Mozart's Duos are free from instrumental tricks and musical gimmickry. We find in them a wealth of ideas and musical integrity, with a restrained sense of drama. The dialogue's strength prevails in both scores, with an undercurrent of solemnity that must have contrasted vividly with the rococo and theatrical atmosphere of the Salzburg palace where the two works were heard for the first time.
Ironically, Michael Haydn's commission was from Hieronymus Colloredo, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, an old nemesis of Mozart's. It must have given Mozart immense pleasure to know that he was duping his enemy Colloredo. Mozart's two works subsequently received much more praise and attention than the other four.
Adapted from R. G. Bratby 1999, ©2000 ClassicalNotes.co.uk
and Notes by Kenneth Martinson, www.wiu.edu.
Sonata in C Major for Two Violins, Op. 56 (1932)
Prokofiev left his homeland for the West six months after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and did not see it again until 1927, when he returned for a concert tour. A second tour followed in 1929, and a third, in 1932, marked the beginning of his gradual and entirely voluntary repatriation, which was completed by 1936. Just before that 1932 visit he composed his Sonata for Two Violins during a holiday at Ste. Maxime (near St. Tropez) for performance in the concerts of the Paris chamber music group called Triton. In Moscow he came to know the members of the Beethoven Quartet (a group that became strongly identified with the chamber music of his young contemporary Shostakovich), and the actual premiere of the Sonata was given there on November 27, 1932, by that ensemble's two violinists, Dmitri Tziganov, the quartet's longtime leader, and Vassily Shirinsky, who is remembered now as a composer as well as a violinist. Less than three weeks later (December 16), in Paris, Triton presented the first Western performance, given by Samuel Dushkin (who was at that time beginning his long and fruitful association with Igor Stravinsky) and Robert Söetans (for whom Prokofiev subsequently composed his Second Violin Concerto).
The four brief movements, which Svyatoslav Prokofiev, the composer's son, characterized as being "lyrical, playful, fantastic and violent in turn," are filled with striking themes. The highly effective sequence apparently reflects the format of the old sonata da chiesa , and the actual content gives a fairly clear indication of the warmer style Prokofiev would adopt after his wanderings in the West, increasingly more embracing rather than biting or confrontational as in the scores that had made him notorious in his youth.
©2004, Richard Freed for Kennedy Center Chamber Players
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps (1940)
Notes by Olivier Messiaen, translation by Anthony Pople for Deutsche Grammophon ©2000; edited by Joyce Jordan for Music at Kohl, 2004.
"And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. [ . . . ] And he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth. [. . .] And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever [. . .] that there should be time no longer; but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished."
Revelation of St. John the Divine 10:1-7
My Quatuor pour la fin du temps was conceived and written during my captivity and received its first performance at Stalag VIIIA on 15 January 1941. The performers were Jean Le Boulaire (violin), Henri Akoka (clarinet), Etienne Pasquier (cello) and myself at the piano. It was directly inspired by this quotation from the Book of Revelation. Its musical language is essentially immaterial, spiritual and Catholic. Modes which achieve a kind of tonal ubiquity, melodically and harmonically, here draw the listener towards eternity in space or the infinite. Special rhythms, beyond metre, contribute powerfully in dismissing the temporal (all this remains no more than a tentative, stammered attempt, when one thinks of the overwhelming grandeur of the subject).
This quartet is in eight movements. Why? Seven is the perfect number, the six days of Creation, sanctified by the Divine Sabbath; the seven of this rest is prolonged into eternity and becomes the eight of everlasting light, of eternal peace.
1. Liturgie de cristal (Liturgy of crystal) Between three and four in the morning, the awakening of birds: a solo blackbird or nightingale improvises, surrounded by a shimmer of sound, by a halo of trills lost very high in the trees. Transpose this on to a religious plane and you have the harmonious silence of heaven.
2. Vocalise, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du temps (Vocalise for the Angel who announces the end of Time) The first and third sections (very short) evoke the power of the mighty Angel, crowned with a rainbow and clothed by a cloud, who sets one foot upon the sea and one foot upon the earth. In the middle section - these are the impalpable harmonies of heaven. On the piano, gentle cascades of blue-orange chords, garlanding with their distant carillon the quasi-plainsong chanting of the violin and cello.
3. Abîme des oiseaux (Abyss of the birds) Clarinet solo. The abyss is Time, with its sorrows and its weariness. The birds are the opposite of Time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows and joyful songs!
4. Intermède (Interlude) A scherzo of more superficial character than the other movements, but linked to them nonetheless by melodic reminiscences.
5. Louange à l'Éternité de Jésus (Eulogy to the Eternity of Jesus) Jesus is here considered as the Word. A long phrase on the cello, infinitely slow, magnifies with love and reverence the eternity of this powerful and gentle Word, "which the years can never efface." Majestically, the melody unfolds in a kind of tender and supreme distance. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in God, and the Word was God."
6. Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes (Dance of frenzy, for the seven trumpets) Rhythmically the most characteristic piece of the set. The four instruments in unison are made to sound like gongs and trumpets (the first six trumpets of the apocalypse followed by various catastrophes, the trumpet of the seventh angel announcing the consummation of the mystery of God). The use of added values [and] augmented or diminished rhythms, and non-retrogradable rhythms. Music of stone, fearful granite sonorities; the irresistible movement of steel, enormous blocks of purple fury, of icy intoxication. Listen above all to the terrible fortissimo of the theme in augmentation and the changes in register of its different notes, towards the end of the piece.
7. Fouillis d'arcs-en-ciel, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du temps (Tumult of rainbows for the Angel who announces the end of Time) Certain passages from the second movement return. The mighty Angel appears, and above all the rainbow which crowns him (the rainbow: a symbol of peace, wisdom and of all sounding and luminous vibrations). In my dreams, I hear recognized chords and melodies, I see known colours and forms; then, after this transitory stage, I pass beyond reality and submit in ecstasy to a dizziness, a gyratory interlocking of superhuman sounds and colours. These swords of fire, these flows of blue-orange lava, these sudden stars; this is the tumult of rainbows!
8. Louange à l'Immortalité de Jésus (Eulogy to the Immortality of Jesus) A long violin solo, acting as a pendant to the cello solo of the fifth movement. Why this second eulogy? It is addressed more specifically to the second aspect of Jesus -- the man Jesus -- to the Word made flesh, resurrected immortality to grant us life. It is all love. Its slow ascent towards the extreme high register is the ascent of man towards his God, of the Child of God towards his Father, of the deified Being towards Paradise.
Meet the Musicians
Luis Baez (clarinet) joined the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in 1990 as Associate Principal Clarinetist. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory, he began his professional career as principal of the Annapolis Opera Company Orchestra and has been a member of the Florida Orchestra, Santa Fe Opera, and New Mexico Symphony, where he served as principal clarinet for four years. A frequent participant in the SFS Chamber Music Series, Mr. Baez made his first solo appearance with the Orchestra in Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto in 1999. He is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and coaches clarinet players in the SFS Youth Orchestra.
Alexander Barantschik (violin) joined the San Francisco Symphony(SFS) as Concertmaster in 2001, having previously served in that role for the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Barantschik attended the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and went on to perform with the major Russian orchestras, including the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, before emigrating in 1979. His awards include first prizes in the International Violin Competition in Sion, Switzerland, and the Russian National Violin Competition. Mr. Barantschik performs regularly in chamber concerts with his SFS colleagues, and has collaborated in small ensembles with renowned artists including Mstislav Rostropovich, Maxim Vengerov, and Yuri Bashmet.
Amy Hiraga (violin) was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 1991 until 1999. She is currently an acting member of the San Francisco Symphony, and has performed and recorded with the orchestra of St. Luke's, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the New York Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared as soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Aspen Philharmonia, Solisti New York, Northwest Chamber Orchestra and the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble. She has performed chamber music at the Caramoor, Bard, Olympic, Chamber Music West, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals, and with the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Chelsea Ensemble, and the Partita Chamber Ensemble.
Robin Sutherland (piano) was appointed principal pianist of the SFS by Seiji Ozawa while still an undergraduate at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The recipient of numerous awards, Mr. Sutherland was selected at seventeen to be sole participant from the United States at the International Bach Festival, held at Lincoln Center. He was a finalist in the International Bach Competition in Washington DC and has performed all of J.S. Bach's keyboard works. An avid chamber musician, he is co-director of the Telluride Players and a regular performer at the Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, Maine. In 1996, his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations was released on the d'Note label.
Alena Tsoi (violin) studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Zinaida Gilels and Valery Klimov. She has studied and performed at such Music Festivals as Aldeborough and Tanglewood, where her mentors were Benjamin Britten, Alfred Schnittke and Seiji Osawa. Ms. Tsoi has been a First Violinist in the Orquesta de Asturias in Oviedo, Spain, the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra in Amsterdam and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of The Netherlands. Currently she is in demand as a free-lance musician, and takes part in major recording projects and tours with the SFS. She frequently performs chamber music with her husband, violinist Alexander Barantschik.
Geraldine Walther (viola) has been Principal Violist of the SFS since 1976, having previously served as assistant principal of the Pittsburgh and Baltimore Symphonies and the Miami Philharmonic. She studied at the Curtis Institute and at the Manhattan School of Music. In 1979 she won first prize at the William Primrose International Competition. Ms. Walther has given the US premieres of several important works including Tôru Takemitsu's A String Around Autumn in 1990, and in 1999 Peter Lieberson's Viola Concerto, and George Benjamin's Viola, Viola (with SFS Associate Principal Violist Yun Jie Liu). In August 2005, she will be leaving the SFS to join the renowned Takács Quartet.
Peter Wyrick (cello), who served as SFS Assistant Principal Cellist from 1986 to 1990, returned to the Orchestra in 2000 and is now Associate Principal Cellist. He has been principal cellist of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and associate principal cellist of the New York City Opera. As a member of the Ridge String Quartet, he toured throughout the world and recorded the Dvo_ák piano quintets with Rudolf Firkusny, a disc that won France's Diapason d'Or and a Grammy nomination. He also recorded the Fauré cello sonatas with pianist Earl Wild (dell'Arte), and he has performed at major festivals such as Santa Fe, Spoleto, and Helsinki.
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