and at the same time lucid, finely worked out, and always in the quartet

idiom.” Schumann was so enamored with the final outcome of his

endeavor that he wrote to the publisher, Gottfried Christoph Hartel,

saying: “I...regard them as my best work of the earlier days, and

Mendelssohn often spoke to me in the same sense.” (Mendelssohn was

the dedicatee of the A Minor Quartet.) The work opens with an

introductory statement (Andante espressivo) in a polyphonic setting.

Atypically, the introduction includes no thematic reference to the

following Allegro, in which chromatic major sixth chords “provide a

foretaste of Loge’s motive in the Ring cycle” (James Lyon, editor, The

American Record Guide). The second movement (Scherzo: Presto) is a

spirited galop, unrelenting in its forward drive except for the trio section,

which gives a moment of reprieve before the return of the driving

rhythm. The third movement (Adagio) pays homage to Beethoven with

its melodic theme that mimics the third movement of his Ninth

Symphony. The finale (Presto), in sonata-allegro form, “fairly cries out

for a full orchestra, and, in fact, its sound and fury are just barely

contained in the quartet frame” (Lyon).

Programs notes by Elmer Booze

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2485th Concert

YSAYESTRING QUARTET

GUILLAUME SUTRE, violin LUC-MARIE AGUERA, violin

MIGUEL DA SILVA, viola FRANCOIS SALQUE, cello

Sunday Evening, 15 February 2004

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Franz Joseph Haydn

(1743-1805)

Quartet in D Major

Op. 54, No. 2 (1788)

Vivace

Adagio

Menuetto: Allegretto

Finale: Adagio; presto; adagio

Anton Webern

(1883-1945)

Five Movements for String Quartet

Op. 5 (1909)

Heftig bewegt

Sehr langsam

Sehr bewegt

Sehr langsam

In zarter Bewegung

Intermission

Anton Webern Six Bagatelles for String Quartet 

Op. 9(1911-1913)

Massig

Leicht bewegt

Ziemlich fliessend

Sehr langsam

Ausserst langsam

Fliessend

Robert Schumann

(1810-1856)

Quartet in A Major

Op. 41, No. 3 (1842)

Andante espressivo; allegro molto moderato

Assai agitato

Adagio molto

Finale: Allegro molto vivace

The Musicians

One of the world’s most widely traveled quartets, the Ysaye String

Quartet has been invited to perform throughout Europe, the United States,

Central America, and Asia, in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall,

Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the Theatre de la Ville and the Theatre des Champs

Elysee in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Musikverein in Vienna.

Formed in 1984, the Ysaye String Quartet is named after the violinist and

composer Eugene Ysaye (1858-1931), who was a powerful influence on

the music world of his day. In 1988 the quartet captured international

attention when it became the first French quartet ever to win the grand

prize at the Evian (now Bordeaux) International String Competition. An

extraordinary 1989 debut at the Salzburg Festival resulted in an immediate

reengagement for the following summer. By 1992 the group had

established itself as one of Europe’s preeminent ensembles, thanks to

highly acclaimed cycles of the six Mozart quartets dedicated to Haydn in

both Salzburg and Vienna. In 1994 the quartet appeared at the National

Gallery in connection with the Gallery’s salute to the Louvre Museum on

the occasion of its 200th anniversary.

The Ysaye String Quartet has recorded on the Harmonia Mundi,

Philips, and Decca labels. For the latter label the quartet recorded the

complete string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn and the piano quartets and

quintets of Gabriel Faure with pianist and fellow Frenchman Pascal Roge.

The members of the quartet are on the faculty of the Conservatoire 

Superieur de Musique de Paris, where they have established a special class

for string quartets. The quartet members perform on vintage string

instruments by Guadagnini (Parma 1770), Storioni (Cremona 1790), and

an anonymous eighteenth-century Italian luthier. The Ysaye String Quartet 

appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Melvin Kaplan, Inc.,

of Burlington, Vermont.
Program Notes

Written in 1788 and published the following year, Haydn’s Quartet in C

Major, Op. 54, no. 2, is the product of his second compositional period

(1781-1803). This work, which possesses an impassioned second

movement and is considered a masterpiece of quartet writing, is

nevertheless infrequently performed. The first movement (Vivace) is

bound in an asymmetric sonata-allegro form in which only two themes

are presented. The short rhythmic first theme stems from the descending

notes of the opening chord and lasts for only five measures. The second

theme appears at the end of the exposition. Materials from the two

themes in the exposition inform a laconic but adept development section.

The second movement {Adagio) presents a limpid, lachrymose theme,

first in a chordal presentation and then in an embroidered version in the

first violin. The mood continues to intensify, manifesting the passion for

which the movement is famous among Haydn’s works. The third

movement is a minuet with a trio that is punctuated with unusual sounds.

Crackling, harmonically colorful intervals of the fourth lend an air of

modernity to an otherwise classical trio. The finale {Adagio; presto;

adagio) hints at an ABA format. However, the short presto segment, with

its slightly developed melody, is thought to be merely an episode in an

extended adagio. After the return of the opening adagio, a coda finalizes

the movement and the quartet as a whole.

In his Guide to Chamber Music, Melvin Berger writes: “[Anton

Webern’s] Five Movements, also called Five Pieces, seems like the most

abstract of compositions, with its brief wisps of melody, its many

strange, though gripping tonal effects, and the absence of many of the

conventional musical devices used to express emotion in music. Yet

Webern confessed to composer Alban Berg that the work was related to

the death of his mother on 7 September 1906, an event that affected him

profoundly, and which remained paramount in his thoughts for many

years. Despite its revolutionary sounds, Five Movements is firmly rooted

in the traditional string quartet. The opening movement, for example, is a

highly compressed sonata form....The slow second movement is only

thirteen measures long. An expressive, lyrical melody over a simple

accompaniment is divided between the viola, second violin, first violin,

and finally back to the second violin, to complete a neat arch form. A

scanty thirty-five seconds in length, the third movement has the character 

of a scherzo....The fourth movement, equal in length to the second,

opens with two cryptic measures, followed by a descending four-note

theme in the first violin that is quickly echoed in the second violin and

cello....After a few notes of a wide-ranging melody that opens the final

movement, the other instruments play whispered chords and melodic

fragments based on an undulating motion in the cello. Bits and pieces of

this material, as well as remembrances of previous movements, continue

until the music quietly fades away. Begun in the spring of 1909 and

completed on 16 June 1909, Five Movements was first performed in

Vienna on 8 February 1929. In 1929 Webern arranged the work for string

orchestra.”

Webern’s Six Bagatelles, Op. 9, were composed between 1911

and 1913 and are even more epigrammatic than his Five Movements,

Op. 5. Weberns’ mentor, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), in an

introduction to the 1924 Universal Edition publication of this work,

wrote: “Though the brevity of these pieces is a persuasive advocate for

them, on the other hand that very brevity itself requires an advocate.

Consider what moderation is required to express one’s self briefly. You

can stretch every glance out into a poem, every sigh into a novel. But to

express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a breath—such concentration

can only be present in proportion to the absence ofself-pity. These pieces

will only be understood by those who share the faith that music can say

things which can only be expressed by music. These pieces can face

criticism as little as this—or any—belief. ”

Schumann wrote his three string quartets in one year (1842) and

never returned to the string quartet again, except to combine it with the

piano. In 1838 he wrote to his fiancee, Clara Wieck, that the pleasure he

derived from hearing quartet music inspired him to write some of his

own. Clara was presented with the first hearing of the A Minor Quartet

on her birthday, 13 September 1842. She was highly impressed with his

writing, noting: “My respect for his genius, for his intellect, altogether 

for the whole composer grows with each work. Here everything is new