Belfast Alusic Society Recitals Programme

PROGRAMME THE COULL STRING QUARTET Roger Coull violin Philip Gallaway ~ violin David Curtis ~ viola John Todd 'cello Capriccio in E minor, Op. 81 No. 3 Quartet Op. 18 No. 6 Quartettsatz, D703 Quartet in E minor, Op. 83 Saturday, 24th January 1998 BT Studio, Waterfront Hall at 7.30pm Mendelssohn Beethoven Schubert Elgar This concert is sponsored by The Friends of the BMS

Capriccio in E minor, op 81/3 Felix Mendelssohn 1809-1847 Mendelssohn turned to the string quartet medium at various stages throughout his career; there are six numbered quartets, plus an early work written when he was 14, and a set of four separate pieces that were collected together and published after his death, as opus 81. The first two movements were all that Mendelssohn completed of a quartet begun at the end of his life, but the other two movements are quite unrelated; one is a product of Mendelssohn's teenage years, while this Capriccio dates from 1843. An andante con moto in his favourite 12/8 metre serves as an introduction to a lively allegro fugato. String Quartet in B flat, op 18/6 allegro con brio: adagio ma non troppo; scherzo and trio : La Malinconia (adagio - allegretto quasi allegro) Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1827 Beethoven composed 17 string quartets - 18 if we count the Grosse Fuge as a separate work (properly it belongs to opus 130), 19 if we include the arrangement he made of the opus 14 piano sonata. Not numerically a great number, perhaps (compared to Haydn, Mozart, or, indeed, many of his own contemporaries), but they cover his whole career and are as important to the history of chamber music as his symphonies are to that of orches- tral music. In fact he tackled the form comparatively late in his musical apprenticeship, preferring to try first the piano quartet (three date from 1785, perhaps even before Mozart's, and therefore some of the earliest examples of the genre), the string trio (a par- ticularly tricky medium) and, rather more obviously, the piano trio. 'Obviously', because in the 1790s Beethoven was studying with Haydn, and Haydn was busy writing piano trios at this time and presumably inspired and helped (though by no means always encouraged!) his pupil. Haydn was of course 'God' for the musical Viennese at this time and his quar- tets and symphonies were considered the yardstick by which all other music was judged. This is probably why Beethoven hesitated to tackle either genre until Haydn had 'retired' from the field. By the last couple of years of the 18th century, Beethoven felt ready to pro- ceed and produced his first symphony and the six quartets of opus 18. All four movements provide a clear demonstration of how far Beethoven had progressed in his use of harmony and texture (and his skill in contrapuntal writing that he had learnt from his second teacher, Albrechtsberger). There are already many hints of the future, and the idiom of his late quartets. The scherzo is particularly modern, having come a long way from the classical minuet. The humour (scherzo literally means joke) is in the syncopations resulting from tying notes across the barlines (try beating time!). The finale is entitled Malinconia, and the melancholic mood that runs through the slow introduction returns from time to time, being finally dispelled by the prestissimo coda. It is interesting to note that the allegretto theme somewhat reminiscent of the alla tedesca of opus 130 was not in Beethoven's original plan - his first draft involved a theme closely related to the malin- conia introduction.

} ) Quartettsatz in C minor, D 703 Franz Schubert 1797-1828 Schubert composed as many works for string quartet as Beethoven - apart from short dance movements, 17 quartets survive, though a few only in fragmentary form, but of these more than half are teenage apprentice works, written for domestic performance. After completing his E major quartet, D353, in 1816, it was eight years before Schubert started work on the first of his three last and greatest quartets, written, like Beethoven's late quar- tets, for the Schuppanzigh Quartet (Ignaz Schuppanzigh, about whom Beethoven once composed a rather unkind 'round', led one of the foremost ensembles of the time). The period around 1820 seems to have been a time of crisis for Schubert and saw him begin a number of projects that he failed to complete. We can only guess at the reasons for this, but they are probably not only musical (problems with his operas, uncertainty about the direction his music was taking,etc), but medical and financial as well. Among the works abandoned were his cantata, Lazarus, symphonies in D and E, several piano works, and, most famously, the B minor symphony and the C minor string quartet, of which only this remarkable opening allegro (and 41 bars of a slow movement) were finished. In fact, it is hard to imagine how Schubert could have satisfactorily followed this marvellously dra- matic music. String quartet in E minor, op 83 allegro moderato: piacevole (poco andante): allegro molto Sir Edward Elgar 1857-1934 When we think of Elgar, we tend to think of his large-scale orchestral works - the sym- phonies and concertos, Falstaff or the Enigma variations or the popular Pomp and Circumstance marches, rather than chamber music. In fact, most of his ventures into this field came early in his career, when he could accurately be described as a 'talented ama- teur' whose metiér was the short 'salon' piece (though he did also compose, and subse- quently destroy, a violin sonata and a string quartet). There is also a sizeable body of music for wind quintet, composed for Elgar (on bassoon) and his friends to play. But the tri- umphant first performance, on 19th June 1899, of the Enigma variations, could be said to mark the end of Elgar's apprenticeship and the emergence of the internationally recognised composer. It wasn't until the very end of his career that he returned to chamber music, writ- ing, in quick succession, the violin sonata, the string quartet and the piano quintet. They were written at his Sussex retreat, Brinkwells, during 1918, and their predominantly autumnal colouring reflects Elgar's increasing weariness after four years of war. All three works received their first performances at the Wigmore Hall in 1919, the latter two at a concert on 21st May. The quartet was a particular favourite of Lady Elgar and the beau- tiful, elegiac slow movement was played at her funeral, less than a year later. Elgar never fully recovered from her death and completed no further major works. An unfamiliar genre, perhaps, but the author of the music of the quartet is unmistakable.

Every bar is pure Elgar, yet it is an unusually highly refined Elgar - everything is stated concisely; there are no 'surplus' notes, and also noteworthy for a predominantly 'sym- phonic' composer, the work is genuine chamber music throughout, with no sense of 'sup- pressed' orchestral textures. Alec Macdonald 1998 TONIGHT'S ARTISTS Since its first meeting at the Royal Academy of Music in 1974, the Coull Quartet has built up a large following all over the world, through its frequent overseas tours and numerous UK appearances, which have taken them from Shetland to the Channel Islands and most points in between. The Quartet's 21st anniversary season in 1994/5 saw tours of Scandinavia, Germany and Austria; and in the 1996/7 season they toured both North and South America. Additionally they continued their long association with P & 0 where they are regular members of the team on Richard Baker's increasingly popular Classical Music Cruises. The Quartet has made a number of highly acclaimed recordings. Their set of the complete Mendelssohn Quartets on the Hyperion label was selected by BBC Record Review as its recommended choice, while their CD of Quartets by Walton, Elgar and Bridge was voted one of the records of the year for 1994 by BBC Music Magazine. Their recent recording of Haydn's Opus 33 Quartets for CRD has also been highly praised and their two record- ings of string quartet music by Schubert for Upbeat Recordings has just been released. For all but three years of its existence the Coull has been Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Warwick, where their annual concert series is one of the most important chamber music events in the Midlands. daaaaaaa NEXT CONCERT Saturday, 7th February 1998 OLGA DUDNIK - piano BT Studio, Waterfront Hall - 7.30 pm

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