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Simin Ganatra, violin --- Masumi Per Rostad, viola
Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin --- Brandon Vamos, cello

PROGRAM

Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 12
Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1, "Metamorphoses nocturnes"
Brahms: String Quartet in a minor, Op. 51, No. 2

BIOGRAPHY

Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often daring repertory choices, the Pacifica Quartet has carved out a compelling musical path. Formed in 1994, the ensemble swept top prizes in several leading international competitions including the Concert Artists Guild Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. Most recent honors include the 2009 Grammy Award for "Best Chamber Music Performance" for its recording of Elliott Carter's String Quartets Nos. 1&5 and being named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America. The Pacifica also won the 2003 Cleveland Quartet Award, and in 2006 it was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, only the second chamber music ensemble ever to be selected.

The Pacifica Quartet tours extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, performing in the world's major concert halls in cities such as Paris, London, Amsterdam, Vienna, and Tokyo. Each season the ensemble can be heard on many of the nation's prominent classical radio broadcasts, including Chicago's WFMT, Boston's WGBH, American Public Media's Performance Today, and Minnesota Public Radio's St. Paul Sunday.

Other recent recordings include Declarations: Music Between the Wars showcasing music composed during the turbulent decades between World Wars I and II and the complete string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn. The Quartet’s CDs have attracted effusive praise from critics in the U.S. and abroad, including a featured appearance on the cover of Gramophone magazine.

Over the course of the 2008 -2009 season, in celebration of Felix Mendelssohn’s 200th birthday, the Pacifica Quartet will present the cycle of his complete string quartets in New York City during a series of lunch time concerts at Columbia University that will include performances along with commentary by members of the Quartet. This series is an encore to 2007-2008’s successful and widely publicized Beethoven Cycle at Columbia. The Quartet will also perform the complete Mendelssohn cycle in Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Hall. Continuing its sell-out season performing Beethoven cycles around the world, the Pacifica will participate in cycles at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in Portland, OR, and Seattle.

Unique in the chamber music world, the Pacifica Quartet will also present cycles of Elliott Carter’s groundbreaking quartets in San Francisco, at London’s Wigmore Hall, and at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation. These arduous concerts, which the Pacifica pioneered and have performed worlwide, will complement release of the second Naxos disc of the Carter quartets. Previous Carter cycles elicited glowing reviews: The New York Times wrote of the “astounding performances” and the Chicago Tribune praised the Quartet’s “astonishing talent, energy and dedication.”

The Pacifica’s 2008-2009 season will also feature two extensive European tours, including stops in Vienna, Stuttgart, and Paris, as well as participation in the Perth, Australia international Arts Festival. North American audiences will be treated to performances of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s saxophone quintet, commissioned for the Quartet , with concerts in Detroit, Chicago, Urbana, and Calgary, and in summer 2009 Music @ Menlo will present the Quartet.

The members of the Pacifica Quartet live in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, where they were appointed to the faculty of the University of Illinois in 2004 and serve as Faculty Quartet in Residence. The Quartet members also serve as resident performing artists at the University of Chicago and the Longy School of Music in Boston. Reflecting its dedication to musicians and music lovers of the next generation, the Pacifica Quartet was instrumental in creating the Music Integration Project, an innovative program that provides musical performances and teacher training to inner-city elementary schools. In addition, the Quartet regularly teaches and performs at summer festivals, including Maverick Concerts, Caramoor International Music Festival, Fontana Chamber Arts, Music in the Vineyards, Interlochen Arts Camp, and the Madeline Island Music Festival, and it is also frequently invited for visiting residencies at universities and schools nationwide.

The members of the Pacifica Quartet share a unique history of personal and musical friendship. First violinist Simin Ganatra, born and raised in southern California, initially performed with cellist Brandon Vamos and violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson while they were all teenagers. Sibbi later introduced violist Masumi Per Rostad to the group. Originating on the West Coast, where it played its earliest concerts together, the Quartet takes its name from the awe-inspiring Pacific Ocean. Throughout their journey as a string quartet, its members continually strive to be Distinct as the billows/yet one as the sea. (James Montgomery)

For more information about the Pacifica Quartet, please visit:
www.pacificaquartet.com.

PROGRAM NOTES

György Ligeti − String Quartet No. 1, “Métamorphoses Nocturnes”

“I have always been fascinated by machines that do not work properly; in general by the external world of technology and automation, which engenders and puts people at the mercy of bureaucracies. Transformed into music the ticking of malfunctioning machinery occurs in many of my works…”

None of our three featured composers could recount better what it means to be at the mercy of bureaucrats than György Ligeti, the composer of the Métamorphoses Nocturnes which will be heard before the intermission. It was written in 1953/54 in Hungary, at a time when music was under control of repressive government agencies which strove to dictate the style of new music in a manner similar to the Soviet Union. As Ligeti did not consent to their demands, he had to earn his living by arranging and publishing Hungarian and Rumanian folk music. Although his output showed stylistic development over the years, his musical sensibility and artistic attitude however were as consistent as his motto, which kept his creativity going: “Music should not be normal, well-bred, with its tie all neat”.
His first string quartet is a kaleidoscope of clusters, superimposing musical elements in an amazing variety of fashions. While the mysterious main theme is accompanied by upward chromatic scales moving at the interval of a whole tone, the mood soon changes and turns into a scary nightmare with biting dissonant intervals, abrupt mood changes and frantic episodes. This clustering of motives and even harmonies in various, often dissonant intervals is maintained throughout the piece. These transformations in character led to the “Métamorphoses” in the title, while the “Nocturnes” obviously refers to the fantastic content of the piece. The nightmare ends with reminiscences of the beginning, accompanied by a sparkling cluster of flageolet arpeggios. A panicking accelerando and dissonant chords may suggest the painful awakening, and the last measures might ask: “Did I dream…?”
Robert Schumann’s main purpose in his publications about his fellow musicians was to find the composer who would continue the classical tradition, the lineage of Beethoven and Mozart. The first and last piece in today’s concert feature the composers who, in his opinion, were destined to take up the heritage and fill it with new life. In Johannes Brahms he saw the heir of Beethoven’s legacy. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was destined to perpetuate Mozart’s style. Their contrasting personalities are mirrored by their attitude towards the string quartet. While Mendelssohn wrote his first published string quartet in 1827 at the age of eighteen (the quartet Op. 13 which was written two years earlier than the simultaneously published Op. 12), Brahms was so scrupulous that he took over twenty attempts before he could bring himself to publish his first string quartets as Op. 51 at the age of forty. The hurdle was the same for both composers: the discrepancy between classical forms and the new, songlike idiom which seemed to be incompatible with the contrast oriented genres of the earlier period. That this is still an “inspiring” obstacle for the understanding of romantic music in general and Mendelssohn in particular can be observed not least by the number of publications on this topic. The issue is so pressing that the eminent German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus even felt bound to publish a book called “The Problem Mendelssohn,” a surprising formulation as Mendelssohn seems for most of us to be a rather “unproblematic” composer.

Felix Mendelssohn – Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 12

Mendelssohn’s quartet op. 12 was written around 1829. He unifies the work by using thematic material of the first movement in later movements, most noticeably in the fourth, whose coda is essentially a literal repetition of the first movement’s coda, but with essential changes in period structure. The second movement with its staccato runs in thirds between the violins and the viola and cello is definitely inspired by the string octet which, despite being his Op. 20, was written before op. 12 and constitutes the breakthrough in Mendelssohn’s chamber music writing. The slow movement, a relatively short andante espressivo is full of contrasts, comprising moments of song inspired texture as well as orchestral writing in the dynamic climax and operatic recitatives in the first violin. The finale, a tarantella interrupted by reminiscences to earlier movements, seems to finish the piece in an overwhelming manner, but the reemergence of the first movement’s coda slows down the pace and lets the quartet end agreeably and quietly.

Johannes Brahms – Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2

Beethoven’s shadow always lurks around the stage when a string quartet attempts to perform, whether the music was written by him or by later composers. Almost every one of them had to deal heavily with his path-breaking output, but because of Schumann’s “prophecy” the shadow cast on Brahms was even longer. From his letters we can see how fastidiously he worked for more than seven years on the quartet Op. 51 No. 2, observing self-critically the impression it made on his friends, and revising over and over again. It is dedicated to Theodor Billroth, Brahms’ friend and an eminent surgeon in Vienna and was premiered by the quartet of his friend Joseph Joachim. The main theme of the first movement, starting with the notes A-F-A-E seems like a combination of Brahms’ motto F-A-F (Frei aber froh, free but happy) and Joachim’s motto F-A-E (Frei aber einsam, free but lonely). The third movement is special, a ponderous quasi menuetto with contrasting interludes. The final movement surprises by an unsettling hemiola in the main theme, and the rhythmic unsteadiness is relieved only by the last chord. The piece features all the traits of the mature Brahms, including syncopations, motivic relations between different movements and a rich imitative texture, which links the work not only to Beethoven, but also to Bach, for whom Brahms had a never-ending respect and love.

Albert Mühlböck