Lyric
George Walker (1922-2018)

Composer, pianist and educator George Walker achieved an important series of African-American “firsts” in his long career: A graduate of Oberlin College Conservatory, the Curtis Institute, Doctor of Musical Arts from Eastman – and the first black composer to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He was the first black instrumentalist to appear with the Philadelphia Orchestra, playing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and the first African-American composer to receive a Pulitzer Prize (1996). His autobiography, Reminiscences of an American Composer and Pianist, was published in 2009.

Walker spent most of his professional life teaching at music departments around the country, including Smith College, Colorado University, Rutgers University and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University; he also toured extensively as pianist in Europe.

Walker was an unashamed neo-romantic, having lived for nearly a century that saw countless developments in musical style from Schoenberg to Cage – and back. He was a prolific composer whose works are reminiscent of those of Samuel Barber. Lyric originated from the second movement of Walker’s String Quartet No. 1, composed in 1945. In a certain sense, it is a doppelgänger of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, which was also extracted from a string quartet. Both compositions are tonal and spin out a single melody in free variation.

String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 12
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

If ever there was a composer born with a silver spoon in his mouth, it was Felix Mendelssohn. Raised in affluence and comfort, his precocious musical talent was recognized and nurtured by his whole family. His home was a Mecca for the artistic and intellectual elite of Germany, and the many family visitors encouraged the prodigy and his talented sister Fanny. A composer from early childhood, he wrote dozens of works in all genres for performances to invited luminaries in the family’s palatial home and burst on the world at large at 17 with two masterpieces: the Octet, Op. 20 and the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Mendelssohn composed his first published string quartet, Op. 13, a year later, in 1827, and his next, Op. 12, in 1829. Because of publication delays – with his family’s resources he did not need the income – his opus numbers rarely reflect the chronology of composition. After this quartet he did not return to the genre for over nine years.

The Quartet in E-Flat was secretly dedicated to Betty Pistor, a childhood companion and first long-time flame of his early youth. The autograph was initialed BP; but, when Mendelssohn found out in 1830 that Betty had become engaged, he asked his friend the violinist Ferdinand David – who had the manuscript for performance – to change it with a stroke of the pen to BR – Betty Rudorff, her married name. Betty learned of the dedication only 30 years later, long after the composer’s death.

The slow opening of the Quartet pays homage in key, rhythm and mood to the opening of Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet, Op. 74. In the Allegro, All the themes are warm and gentle, with little contrast. The charming second movement Canzonetta (a light-hearted vocal piece popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) used to be performed as an independent piece, often as an encore; its fleet-footed middle section provides a change in texture, reminiscent of the Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The third movement Andante espressivo has the gentle character of one of Mendelssohn’s songs without words. It serves as an extended introduction to the finale, which follows without a pause. The Finale is a passionate perpetual motion in rapid 3/8 in C minor, providing a startling contrast to the rest of the Quartet. The goal of this movement is to transition back to the real key of the piece, moving from emotional darkness to light. In the end, Mendelssohn recycles the main theme from the first movement Allegro, with both movements sharing a coda.

Drink the Wild Ayre
Sarah Kirkland Snider (b. 1973)

American composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, born and raised in Princeton, NJ, was attracted to music from an early age, first studying piano, cello and voice. It was her piano teacher at junior high who encouraged her to study composition in college, later describing her early works as "somewhere between early Debussy and Joni Mitchell". Initially planning to study law and working in a New York law firm, she eventually decided that her future was in composition, and received her degrees in composition from NYU and Yale. She is best known for her song cycles and chamber works, but has also written for chamber orchestras and choirs.

Drink the Wild Ayre is Snyder's second string quartet. She was always in awe of the Emerson Quartet, considering their performances the benchmark for the masterpieces they recorded; "their sounds became synonymous, in my mind, with the composer’s intent. For me, theirs was the definitive interpretation of all the great string quartets in history.

"So, when the invitation to write this piece came in – the Emerson’s final commission, to be performed during this, their final season – I nearly fell off my chair. I am still awestruck and humbled to have written this piece for some of my earliest heroes.

"The title is a playful nod to one of the most famous quotes by their transcendentalist namesake essayist/philosopher/poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson: 'Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, Drink the wild air's salubrity.' An ayre is a song-like, lyrical piece. The title seemed an apt reference not only to the lilting, asymmetrical rhythms of the music’s melodic narrative, but also to the questing spirit, sense of adventure, and full-hearted passion with which the Emerson has thrown itself into everything it has done for the past 47 years. Here’s to the singular magic of these artistic giants, and the new adventures that await them."

String Quartet in F major
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Maurice Ravel and the Paris Conservatoire never got along. His free spirit and unconventional musical ideas ran counter to the school’s conservatism. By the time he graduated in 1903, he was a well-established composer, but five attempts to win the coveted Prix de Rome came to naught, creating a scandal when it was revealed during his last attempt that all the finalists were composition students of one professor.

While in his final year at the Conservatoire, Ravel finished his first major chamber work, the String Quartet in F major, one of his most successful creations. He dedicated it to his composition teacher and mentor, Gabriel Fauré. Like his older colleague Claude Debussy, Ravel was greatly influenced by the variety of music he heard at the 1889 Paris Exhibition, especially by the Javanese gamelan orchestra and performances of Russian music conducted by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. The influences are reflected in the Quartet.

In outward appearance, the Quartet shows Ravel as a traditionalist. A rapid first movement with two themes in sonata form, a scherzo with a slow trio, a slow cantilena-like third movement, and a fast, stormy finale, mostly in quintuple (5/4) meter, that may have originated in Russian rhythms.

The premiere, in March 1904, brought mixed reviews. Most in the audience responded enthusiastically, but some reviewers reacted negatively, suggesting that Ravel make extensive revisions. Even Fauré had some reservations, especially about the last movement. But Debussy urged his younger colleague: “…do not touch a single note of what you have written in your quartet.”

This is a particularly interesting quartet to watch. While most composers give prominence at various times to each instrument, Ravel has a way of starting a phrase in one instrument and switching to another in midstream. The opening of the first movement provides the key to the entire Quartet. This theme will recur in numerous transformations – some obvious, some obscure – in three of the movements. And despite the fact that there is a second theme, the first one dominates the movement.

The second movement alternates between plucked and bowed playing in 3/4 and 6/8 meters (or triple against duple time) simultaneously. The pizzicato attempts to recreate the sound of the gamelan orchestra (An ensemble of mostly percussion instruments). The slow middle section with muted strings culminates in a harp-like climax before returning to a shortened reprise of the opening section.

The strings are muted in the slow third movement, with shifting tempi and fleeting theme fragments, including the opening theme from the first movement, and changing tonalities. The stormy finale begins angrily with nervous chromatic tremolos in all four instruments that become a signature of the entire movement. There are brief respites, however, between these stormy outbursts and a calmer lyrical theme related, again, to the two themes from the first movement.

Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
Wordpros@mindspring.com
www.wordprosmusic.com

Season Opener Mainstage Concert • Thursday, June 29, 2023 • 7:30pm Arkell pavilion, SVAC