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CHILINGIRIAN STRING QUARTET STRING QUARTET IN C OP 74/1 STRING QUARTET NO 1 (KREUTZER SONATA) STRING QUARTET IN E MINOR Februa Saturday 5 January 1994 Elmwood Hall, 7.30 pm ܀ ܀ ܀ Sponsored by Pearl Assurance PLC PEARL HAYDN JANACEK VERDI

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String Quartet in C, op 74/1 allegro moderato andantino grazioso minuet (allegretto) and trio vivace Joseph Haydn 1732-1809 In the summer of 1792, Haydn returned to Vienna from his first stay in London. Between then and his return to the English capital in 1794, he composed the two sets of quartets, op 71 and 74, three in each, dedicated to one of his Viennese patrons, Count Anton Apponyi. All six works are outward looking, deliberately popular works, reflecting the fact that Haydn wrote them with at least half an eye to their being performed at Salomon's London concerts; chamber music was beginning to play an important role in this popular part of English musical life. Haydn and Mozart had been the very closest of friends, and Mozart's premature death in 1791 had affected the older composer deeply. It is perhaps then as some sort of tribute that Haydn's first movement of Op 74 no. 1 is built on a close relative of Mozart's 'Jupiter' theme (in the finale of his last symphony). It shares the same key, and similarly explores much contrapuntal treatment of the theme. There is no intense slow movement as Haydn might have written in a more private work. Instead, he prefers in this quartet to place two moderately paced movements, both in triple time, at the centre of the work. After a Mozartian G major Andantino, there is a C major minuet, with A major trio marked mezza voce, the sections being based on variants of the same theme. As he does occasionally in his later quartets, Haydn provides a linking passage from the trio to the return of the minuet. The lively finale is one of the composer's popular rustic movements, complete with occasional bagpipe drone bass. - 1-

String Quartet no. 1 (Kreutzer Sonata) Leos Janáček 1854-1928 Like those of his immediate Czech predecessor, Smetana, Janáček's two quartets have a programmatic element underlying the music, though, as with the earlier works, it isn't necessary to know this to appreciate them. As well as this, there are stylistic ties between the two composers' works, the strange, unsettled, motivic nature of Janáček's themes and the kaleidoscope of moods in the quartets as a whole, being foreshadowed in Smetana. Both Janáček's quartets come from the extraordinarily productive last five years of his long life and both explore the relationships between a man and a woman (prompted by Janáček's own- unrecipro- cated? - passion for a married lady). The first quartet, composed in 1923, is based on Tolstoy's short story Kreutzer Sonata which tells of the tragic relationship between a married woman and a violinist (hence the title, after Beethoven's work of that name). Although four movements are listed - all marked con moto - the quartet can be seen as a single entity, both structurally and thematically, and programmatically, reflecting the development of the relationship. The intensely passionate opening movement presents the thematic material of the quartet and sets the scene. The second perhaps portrays the beginning of the relationship in which the seeds of tragedy are already clearly sown, as the gaiety of the polka is interrupted by mysterious flutterings and ominous calls. In the third we can hear romantic reveries torn apart by angry words, the collision as the tension grows leading to a final catastrophe - in the novel, the murder of the woman by her jealous hus- band - but also, in Janáček, to a final peace, all passion spent. -2-

String Quartet in E minor Domo t'm duodenosu allegro bas minuet (andantino) scherzo (prestissimo) and trio fugue (allegro assai) renouil 2011 It may seem strange to find that many of the leading composers of opera were attracted to the medium of the string quartet, but examples can be found in the works of Donizetti (his output is in double figures!), Wagner, Gounod, Puccini, Gomes (the Brazilian who was one of Verdi's chief rivals at Milan in the 1870s) and Verdi himself. Many of these works were little more than exercises, or were composed because quartets, like symphonies, were the thing to write, but some deserve performance and of these Verdi's is the most accomplished. It was written in 1873, soon after Aida, and is genuine quartet music, idiomatically written yet not without enough hints, especially in the flowing instrumental ariosi, to remind us that its composer was one of the leading operatic masters of the century. Alec Macdonald 1994 THE CHILINGIRIAN STRING QUARTET Levon Chilingirian, violin Charles Sewart, violin Simon Rowland-Jones, viola Philip De Groote, violoncello Guiseppe Verdi 1813-1901 With tours to thirty countries on six continents, performing in major concert halls throughout the world, and with recordings for EMI, RCA, CRD, Nimbus and CHANDOS Records, the Chilingirian Quartet has become one of the world's most celebrated and widely travelled ensembles. -3-

The Chilingirian is Quartet-in-Residence at the Royal College of Music, London, and gives annual series of concerts at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall. The Chilingirian Quartet was formed in London in 1971, where BBC and BBC World Service broadcasts were rapidly followed by invitations to the Edinburgh, Bath and Aldeburgh Festivals and to major centres throughout Western Europe, such as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Munich Herkulessaal, Zurich Tonhalle, Vienna Konzerthaus and Stockholm Konserthuset. Since the Quartet's New York debut in 1976, the Chilingirian has made annual coast-to-coast tours of the USA and Canada, and was invited by the New York International Festival to be Britain's contribution to the Festival's quartet series. In addition to tours to the Far East and Japan, extensive touring in Australia, New Zealand, Africa and South America make the Quartet equally well-known outside Europe and the US. TV and radio throughout Europe, National Public Radio in the USA and many other leading broadcasting organisations complement the Quartet's work for the BBC. Recordings currently available on EMI, RCA, CHANDOS, CRD and Nimbus include a full selection of classical, romantic and modern repertoire. The Chilingirian recording of the six Mozart quartets dedicated to Haydn was voted Best String Quartet Recording by critics of the prestigious magazine Gramophone. Most recently the Chilingirian has recorded Schumann and Haydn discs and the complete quartets of Dvořák, Bartók and Prokofiev for CHANDOS; both of John Tavener's string quartets coupled with works by Arvo Paert for VIRGIN; and a Panufnik disc for CONIFER, with whom they are currently embarking upon a 20th century quartet series. -4- od to ono smogod

NEXT RECITAL Saturday 16 April 1994 Robert Cohen (cello) Elizabeth Burley (piano) Elmwood Hall 7.30 pm Supported by the ARTS COUNCIL