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GODDESS
Festival Concert 2
August 11, 2023
Friday
7:30 pm – Festival Concert
6:30 pm – Pre-Concert Lecture
Lincoln Theater
Tickets available in advance or at the door.
PROGRAM
Henry Purcell (arr. Steinberg) “Dido’s Lament” from Dido and Aeneas
Fanny Mendelssohn String Quartet in E-flat major, H. 277
Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat major, Op. 130
Brentano String Quartet (Mark Steinberg, violin; Serena Canin, violin; Misha Amory, viola; Nina Lee, cello)
Artists
Brentano String Quartet:
Mark Steinberg, violin
Serena Canin, violin
Misha Amory, viola
Nina Lee, cello
Program Notes:
Dido, Queen of Carthage, has been abandoned by Aeneas. Betrayed and anguished, she prepares to kill herself as he departs for Italy. “When I am laid in earth,” commonly known as “Dido’s Lament,” is amongst the most touching few minutes in all of music. The aria, from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, is introduced by a descent in the bass that will then repeat ten more times in the course of the piece, a trope oft used to evoke death and grief. The repetitions lend a sense of inevitability to the work, inescapable, a ritual of mourning. Over this, Dido sings, weeps, sighs, and pleads to be remembered in the face of death, both dark and sweet. There are pungent dissonances, wailing melismatic lines (where a single syllable is sung through a succession of notes), more assertive syllabic settings when Dido sings “Remember me!” In a paucity of minutes a world of beauty and pain is summoned, a miniature that reveals a world. It is a farewell to life, and also a farewell to suffering, a poignant longing for peace and oblivion. In this arrangement the vocal line is played by a violin, the fossilized remains of the text still apparent and potent.
By Mark Steinberg
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) occupies a unique place in music history. Forever overshadowed by her younger brother, the brilliant composer Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny, a gifted composer in her own right, was undoubtedly constrained by his extraordinary success, her own lack of confidence, and by the societal forces that groomed women for marriage and motherhood. As children, both Fanny and Felix were passionate about music; both displayed prodigious talent, intelligence, and dedication. Through their teen years, however, Felix proceeded to develop his skills by writing symphonies and chamber music which were regularly presented in the Mendelssohn home, producing his first true masterpiece, the irresistible Octet, at the age of 16. By the time Fanny was 16, she was being courted by the painter Wilhelm Hensel, whom she later married. She became a mother and ran a busy, artistic, happy household while pursuing her musical activities from home; she continued to play the piano and compose daily, and she hosted and performed weekly concerts until her sudden death from a stroke at age 42. She lived her life in ways both deeply traditional and uniquely her own.
From the first notes of Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in E-flat major (1834) we hear a piece steeped in musical tradition, yet with a distinctive voice. Drawing its inspiration from Beethoven’s Quartet No. 10, Op. 74 (the “Harp”) as well as her brother’s Quartet No. 1, Op. 12 in the same key, the first movement, marked Adagio ma non troppo, opens with an expressive recitative. We expect this to give way to a typical first movement allegro, but Fanny instead chooses to maintain the yearning character for the duration of the movement. The harmonies are often far-reaching and passionately expressive; this movement displays the composer at her best, innovative and full of feeling. The charming second movement scherzo is formally more typical, with outer sections that sneak and slither surrounding a boisterous trio. The slow movement, a brooding Romanze, forms the emotional heart of the work, beating with aching vulnerability, and the last brings the work to a flamboyant and virtuosic close.
Fanny and Felix relied on each other throughout their lives for musical feedback. When Fanny showed the Quartet to her brother, he told her he did not approve of it. She was wounded by his criticism, and her confidence so shaken, that she did not attempt another large scale chamber work for 13 years. She wrote to him:
It’s not so much a certain way of composing that is lacking as it’s a certain approach to life, and as a result of this shortcoming, my lengthy things die in their youth of decrepitude; I lack the ability to sustain ideas properly and give them the needed consistency. Therefore lieder suit me best, in which, if need be, a pretty idea without much potential for development can suffice.
One has to wonder, if the circumstances of Fanny’s life had been different, would she have succeeded in overcoming her musical challenges? Would she have had the confidence to persevere, experiment, and develop the way her brother did? We will never know, but we can be glad that she left us, in addition to over 250 songs, one distinctive and beautiful string quartet.
By Serena Canin
Beethoven’s set of “late quartets,” opuses 127, 130-133, and 135, are sprawling, outrageously complex compositions, swirling with dark undercurrents and barely restrained chaos. They were greeted with skepticism and bewilderment by most of Beethoven’s contemporaries, who expected an orderly march from the legacy of Haydn and Mozart—innovation of a genteel and rational sort within a genre whose respectability had been established. But if Haydn had conceived the string quartet as a vehicle of poise and elegance, Beethoven demanded profundity of that elegance and molded poise into a strong framework from which to plumb the depths of the soul. Beethoven’s was arguably the most dynamic, creative, and innovative composing career in history, and during his tortured twilight years—deaf, frequently ill and in pain, preoccupied with his troubled relationship with his nephew—he focused his last blaze of creative energies solely on string quartets. The irresistible narrative of timeless sublimity emerging from the crucible of suffering has lent these works a unique combination of mythical status and intimate familiarity.
The finale of Opus 130 was in fact the last piece of music Beethoven completed before his death. He originally wrote the towering Grosse Fugue (eventually published as Opus 133) as finale; when his publisher balked at the composite length and complexity, Beethoven agreed to replace the Fugue with a tidier rondo finale. Still, the first movement sets a high bar from the outset: an expansive combination of (at least) two competing characters, an Adagio and an Allegro, it hints at the traditional sonata form while progressing according to intuitive and spontaneous rules of its own. Nothing seems logical—not the mysterious, shifting harmonies of the opening, nor the short convulsions of motion that subside as quickly as they spring up, nor the haunting scraps of melody that appear from nowhere in the development—yet that is precisely what gives the music such a strong sense of immediacy and intent. A larger vision exists just beyond the scope of our momentary comprehension, and the four voices are unified in realizing it. It is as if the normal ingredients of composition have been shredded, elaborated, and embellished, then reassembled into a microcosmic and entirely self-sufficient world.
In contrast to the complexity of the first movement, there are four short middle movements, each with a strong and distinct personality. The Presto is a sort of scherzo or intermezzo that begins elegant and nimble, jumps to a rollicking B section, then careens through some terrifyingly abrupt chords before slipping back into its polished guise. The Andante third movement belies its ominous opening to embark on a sunny stroll with only the most fleeting shadows. The next, Alla danza tedesca (“in the style of a German dance”), is a rustic waltz that swoops and twirls with irrepressible high spirits. The famously eloquent Cavatina is an aria of sorts led by the first violin, with a delicate melodic line that sometimes soars and sometimes loses itself within the warm, chorale-like accompaniment. (So beloved is this movement that it was given the final place of honor on the “golden record,” the compilation of music from Earth included as part of humanity’s interstellar calling-card aboard the 1977 Voyager spacecraft.)
The Finale offers a basically orderly progression of thematic material in rondo form. The main melody, though acrobatic, generally behaves itself—summoning joyful, stampeding outbursts to counterbalance, along with the obligatory devilish tangle of imitation and counterpoint. Like the entire work, it’s a labyrinth constructed and navigated successfully, with ingenuity and grace.
By Zoe Kemmerling
For a more in-depth exploration of Beethoven’s Op. 130, you can read an essay by Mark Steinberg of the Brentano String Quartet at: www.brentanoquartet.com/notes/beethoven-quartet-opus-130/