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Music Department

National Gallery of Art 

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

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cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, 1971, National Gallery of Art Archives

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,552nd Concert

Tire Pacifca Quartet

Simin Ganatra, violin

Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin

Masumi Per Rostad, viola

Brandon Vamos, cello

December n, 2005 

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admission free
Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

String Quartet in G Major, op. 18, no. 2 (1798-1801) 

Allegro

Andante con moto

Scherzo: Allegro

Presto

Leos Janacek (1854-1928)

String Quartet no. 2 (“Intimate Letters”) (1928)

Andante; con moto; allegro

Adagio

Moderato; adagio; allegro

Allegro; andante; adagio

INTERMISSION

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

String Quartet in E-Jlat Major, op. 44, no. 3 (1837-1838)

Allegro vivace

Scherzo: Assai leggiero vivace

Adagio non troppo

Molto allegro con fuoco

The Musicians

The Pacifica Quartet celebrates its eleventh year in the 2005-2006 concert

season. Rising to prominence soon after it was founded in 1994, the quartet

swept top prizes in three ofthe most important international chamber music

competitions: the 1996 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the 1997

Concert Artists Guild Competition, and the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music 

Competition. In 2002 the Pacifica Quartet was appointed a member ofthe

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s cms-Two program for gifted

young musicians. For the next two years the quartet participated in the full

range of activities at Lincoln Center, including performances in Alice Tully

Flail and leading roles in the educational activities ofthe Chamber Music

Society. The ensemble has appeared at numerous chamber music festivals,

including the Aspen, Bellingham, Britt, Cape and Islands, Caramoor, and

Santa Fe Festivals. Outstanding musicians with whom the Pacifica Quartet

has collaborated include Wu Flan, Paul Katz, Ursula Oppens, Michael Tree,

and the Emerson String Quartet.

Recent seasons have seen an increasing number ofinvitations for the

quartet to play in Europe, with engagements in Germany, Scotland, and

Spain. An ardent advocate of contemporary music, the ensemble commissions as many as eight new works each season and recently took on the

complete string quartets of Elliott Carter (b. 1908) as a single project. The

first performance ofthe cycle in New York City was hailed by the New York

Times as one ofthe ten best classical music events of 2002. The Pacifica

Quartet appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Melvin

Kaplan, Inc., of Burlington, Vermont.

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Program Notes

The works chosen by the Pacifica Quartet for this concert present the transformation ofthe string quartet from the romantic era to the twentieth century. 

The early Beethoven quartet with which the concert opens represents one of

the first cracks in the shell ofthe classical era, the Mendelssohn quartet is the

epitome ofromantic exuberance, and the work by Janacek presents the severe

technical demands and daring sonorities that are the hallmark oftwentiethcentury music.

The quartets of Beethoven’s opus 18 are his first venture in the medium.

A letter he wrote in 1801 attests that he had “only now learned how to write

quartets properly.” Ever since he had arrived in Vienna in 1792, his work had

been compared with that ofhis teacher, Joseph Haydn. Even though there is

some homage to Haydn in the opus 18 quartets (some scholars maintain that

the homage is tongue-in-cheek), it is clear that, with them, Beethoven was

serving notice to the audiences in Vienna that he was a composer who did

things in his own way.

The Quartet in G Major, op. 18, no. 2, is one of many Beethoven works

that belie the composer’s emotional state at the time they were written. In

another letter of 1801, written to the violinist Karl Amenda, the composer

says: “Your B[eethoven] is living a most unhappy life, in conflict with nature

and its creator. My most precious faculty, my hearing, has deteriorated.

I beg you to keep this affair a great secret.” In contrast to this message of

ominous foreboding, the mood ofthe quartet is optimistic and uplifting.

The opening Allegro has an air ofstately elegance. The second movement,

Andante con moto, gives an extended solo to the lead violin. The rhapsodic

mood established by this melody is interrupted by a light passage in faster

tempo, after which the movement concludes with a variation ofthe opening

material. The Scherzo, by its very nature, reinforces the good humor ofthe

entire work, and the mood is intensified by the closing movement, which

Beethoven jokingly referred to as “aufgeknopft” (unbuttoned).

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Leos Janacek was a leading figure in central European music. Like his

Czech predecessors Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) and Bedrich Smetana

(1824-1884), he turned to national subjects for program music, songs, and

operas. He had a lifelong involvement with Moravian folk music, which he

collected, edited, and performed. In 1890 he went so far as to renounce publicly the styles of composition that were associated with Western Europe.

Both of Janacek’s two string quartets have as their underlying theme

the eternal dilemma of love. As its subtitle (“Intimate Letters”) implies, his

second quartet refers to something even more specific. He had fallen in

love with Kamila Stosslova (1891-1935), a woman who was not only thirtyseven years his junior but also married to another man. Between 1915 and

1928 Janacek wrote more than six hundred letters to Kamila. In one of

them, dated February 1, 1928, he confided: “Our life will be in [my new

string quartet].... I wrote the first number in Hukvaldy, [where] I saw you 

for the first time.” He refers to the first movement (Andante; con moto;

allegro), which begins almost tentatively, then dances toward a burst ofjoy.

On February 6, after finishing the second movement, he confessed: “Today

I wrote in tones my most tender desire.” This lyrical Adagio is filled with

almost unbearable tenderness. In another letter, dated February 8, he boasted: 

“Today I succeeded with the number in which the earth trembles. This will

be the best one.” Here Janacek refers to the third movement (Moderato;

adagio; allegro), a bittersweet waltz. Finally, on February 9, he reported:

“The last one won’t finish with fear for my pretty weasel, but with longing.”

The standard role of a finale is abandoned in this movement (Allegro;

andante; adagio), which moves from faster to slower tempos as the composer struggles to express emotions beyond the limits ofthe musical form.

Janacek died on August 12, 1928, within a few months of writing the last

of his fervid letters. He did not hear the first public performance ofthis

quartet, which took place in September ofthat year.

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Felix Mendelssohn’s chamber music shows his gift for precision, elegance, and superb craftsmanship, and it is surprising that it is not heard in

concert more often. The years 1837 and 1838 were filled with great personal

happiness for the composer, who married Cecile Jeanrenaud (1818-1853)

in March 1837 and celebrated the birth of a son ten months later. His music

from this period, including the quartets of opus 44, reflects his contented

state. The Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 44, no. 3, opens with a movement

marked Allegro vivace, which sets the mood for the entire work. It features

thematic contrasts and close interaction among the four instruments. The 

coda displays Mendelssohn’s uncanny knack for producing satisfying string

timbres. Famous for delightful scherzos, Mendelssohn does not disappoint

with the second movement ofthe quartet (Scherzo: Assai leggiero vivace).

Its sylphlike textures lead to a fugato passage, introduced by the viola. The 

fleeting opening theme returns to create a double fugue, and the scherzo 

concludes with all four instruments playing in unison. The third movement

(Adagio non troppo) begins with a fragment that recalls the opening Allegro

vivace. After highly expressive treatment ofthis theme, the composer links 

this movement to the one that is to follow by concluding with a rising

arpeggio, which becomes the opening motif of the final movement (Molto

allegro con Juoco). Its fiery energy and bravura are briefly interrupted by

a quiet subsidiary theme, but before long, the joyful exuberance returns to

provide a quintessential Mendelssohnian ending.

Program notes by Sorab Modi

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