Date:  Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Time:  8:00 p.m.

Location: Corbett Auditorium
University of Cincinnati
College-Conservatory of Music

Official Website
http://www.miroquartet.com/

About the Program   (Printable Version)

By the time he turned 40, in 1772, Joseph Haydn had written some two dozen string quartets, which he called "Divertimenti."  Although pleasant and well-crafted, these pieces, with one or two exceptions, did not stand out from the many similar works by Haydn's contemporaries.  In 1772, however, Haydn composed a set of six quartets which, at a stroke, redefined the form and initiated the modern conception of the string quartet as musical expression at the highest level.  Published as Opus 20, their advanced nature was quickly recognized by musicians of the time, who referred to them as "the Great Quartets."  The Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5 is a splendid example of Haydn's pre-romantic "storm and stress" style.  The first movement opens with an edgy, unsettled sort of lyricism, not relieved even as the principal theme is restated in the relative major key (A-flat).  When the second theme is reprised Haydn sticks to his tonic F-minor rather than shifting to a classically-expected F major.  The extended coda passes through an amazing series of keys, including B-double-flat.  The lengthy minuet is placed as second movement and if anything, increases the nervous tension, temporarily relieved by the major-key trio.  The Adagio gives us a calmer mood, with its gentle Siciliano melody.  The quartet concludes with a climactic fugue, greatly enlivened by the use of two subjects.  Drama is enhanced by Haydn's direction "sempre sotto voce", until nearly the end, when a tightly-knit canon breaks out, fortissimo.

Brent Michael Davids, a Native American and member of the Mohican nation, has some thirty years of experience as a composer.  He has written music for films, as well as orchestral, choral, ballet and chamber pieces.  His approach often combines Native American tribal music with Western compositional techniques.  He's composed a chamber suite entitled "The Last of the Mohicans" and one of his string quartets has the title "The Last of James Fenimore Cooper". The quartet we hear this evening also has a title: "Tinnitus".  Mr. Davids suffers from this tormenting aural affliction (as does Sandy Yamamoto, second violin in the Miró Quartet, and it is to her and the Quartet that the "Tinnitus" Quartet is dedicated); with this piece he "hopes to provide a way for friends and families of tinnitus sufferers to hear and experience tinnitus."  Thus about one minute into this introspective sixteen-minute piece there appears the unremitting high A (albeit an octave lower than Mr. Davids experiences it) which the players take turns in sustaining.  Eventually suggestions of chirping crickets appear, a sound which Mr. Davids says tunes out his affliction.  The conclusion of the quartet illustrates this relief.  The Miró Quartet gave the premiere of the Tinnitus Quartet in September, 2005.  Another tinnitus-afflicted composer, Bedrich Smetana, demonstrated the symptom more briefly in his autobiographical E-minor Quartet - for him the tone was a high E.

Schubert's Quartet in D minor is his best-known work in this form.  Its composition early in 1824 preceded by a few months the first of Beethoven's last-period quartets, the Op. 127.  The D-minor is Schubert's fourteenth and penultimate quartet.  It was the composer's intention to publish as a group what were in fact his last three quartets. Only the preceding A-minor piece, however, reached print during Schubert's tragically abbreviated lifetime.  Nevertheless, what we have are three mighty works showing obvious kinship yet strongly individual characters.  The D-minor is the most strikingly dramatic.  Indeed, the scope of the piece is broader than might be suggested by its familiar title, "Death and the Maiden".  The second movement is a set of variations on portions of an early Schubert song by that name.  Again and again in his chamber music Schubert reworked earlier material.  The initial statement of this theme reduces it to lowest terms in a setting of utter bleakness.  There follows a most remarkable musical journey before the final reflection of the theme, now in a state of gentle repose.  The surpassing greatness of Schubert's achievement, however, is seen in the fact that he was able to frame this marvelous Andante con moto piece with three other movements of equally high drama which complement one another perfectly while in each case advancing a fresh point of view.

Edwin Daley

The Takács Quartet
Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Antares Quartet
Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Artemis Quartet
Sunday, January 28, 2007

The Miró Quartet
Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Imani Winds
Tuesday, April 24, 2007