Although his larger works continue to receive the lion’s share of

worldwide accolades, Tchaikovsky’s chamber music, equally

demonstrating the beauty of his genius, falls short of obtaining equal

status. His String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11, written when he

was thirty-one years old, is one such unsung masterpiece. Tchaikovsky 

wrote the score quickly, finishing it a month before its premiere in

March of 1871. The opening movement has two themes. The first, with

its seemingly Schubertian affinity, is a somnolent melody that is kept

active by the use of tied notes set in 9/8 meter, in addition to decorative 

scale passages that continue their course into the second subject as well.

This second theme is more stable and its motion becomes more linear as

it unfolds.

The second movement, with its lovely first theme, is the gem of this

four-movement work. The theme is said to be a Ukrainian folk song,

entitled Vania Sat on the Sofa and Smoked a Pipe, which Tchaikovsky 

supposedly heard while working on his opera Undine. The melody, now

known as “Tchaikovsky’s Andante cantabile,” has taken on a life of its

own in popular culture, particularly as it has been extracted and

performed as a solo by numerous famous instrumentalists.

The Scherzo scurries along at a brisk pace in 3/8 time, with out-ofkilter accents that bring levity to an otherwise energetic and powerful

rhythmic setting. The trio section, in B-flat major, centers on a drone

bass (organ point in the cello) that likewise employs irregular rhythmic

accents.

The last movement, like the first, uses sonata-allegro form, with two

themes that are typically Russian. The first is a sprightly dance tune, and

the second is soulfully Slavonic. After a comprehensive development 

section, the recapitulation repeats the first theme in the original key of D

major, but revisits the second theme in the tonic minor key (D minor), as

opposed to the expected dominant key. The movement concludes 

brilliantly with a scintillating coda that has the “string sonority madly

running and accenting in a bright fortissimo''’ (Arthur Cohn, The

Literature ofChamber Music).

Program notes by Elmer Booze

The Fifty-ninth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

L. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2372d Concert

RAZUMOVSKY STRING QUARTET

PETER SIROTIN, violin NATALIA BOGACHEK, violin

MICHAEL STEPNIAK, viola FIONA THOMPSON, cello

Sunday Evening, 11 February 2001

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
PROGRAM

Dmitri Shostakovich String Quartet No. 3 in F Major

(1906-1975) Op. 73 (1946)

Allegretto 

Moderato con moto

Allegro non troppo 

Adagio 

Moderato

INTERMISSION

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky String Quartet No. 1 in D Major

(1840-1893) Op. 11 (1871)

Moderato e semplice

Andante cantabile

Scherzo: Allegro non tanto e con fuoco

Finale: Allegro giusto

Founded in 1998 by four outstanding young musicians from the Peabody 

Conservatory of Music, the Razumovsky String Quartet has performed 

at a number of colleges and universities in the Eastern United States and

at various embassies in the Washington, DC, area. In addition, the

quartet has collaborated with a number of prominent chamber musicians,

including Earl Carlyss and Ann Schein.

Russian-born violinist Peter Sirotin played his debut at age fourteen 

with the Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Paganini’s

Concerto No. 1. A graduate of the Moscow Central Music School for the

Gifted and the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, he has

performed with such musical luminaries as cellist Alexandre Rudin,

pianist Alexei Lubimov, and violist Yuri Bashmet.

Natalia Bogachek is also a native of Russia and received her 

undergraduate training at the Moscow State Conservatory. Since

graduating with the artist diploma from the Peabody Conservatory, she

has received frequent critical acclaim as a violin soloist and chamber 

musician. She has performed concertos with the Knoxville Symphony,

the Colorado Centennial Philharmonic, and the Sibelius Academy

Orchestra in Finland, among others. She is currently a member of the

National Symphony.

Violist Michael Stepniak came to the United States from Australia. He

holds graduate degrees in music from the New England Conservatory, 

Northwestern University, and the Peabody Conservatory. He is currently

pursuing doctoral studies at Harvard University while on a study leave

from his post as assistant professor of music at Columbia Union College

in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Cellist Fiona Thompson, a native of England, is the principal cellist of

the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra and performs with the Baltimore

Opera and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestras, the Concert Artists of

Baltimore, and the Harrisburg Symphony. She lives in Baltimore,

where she performs together with Peter Sirotin and pianist Ya-Ting

Chang in the Mendelssohn Piano Trio.

Shostakovich’s String Quartet in F Major, Op. 73, No. 3, was written

for and dedicated to a Russian chamber ensemble, the Beethoven

Quartet. Conceived in 1946 and putatively inspired by the conclusion of

World War II, this quartet shows Shostakovich exploring dissonance in a

more discriminating way than he had done during the war years. In

earlier works, including his Quartet, Op. 73, No. 2, his use of dissonance 

had been criticized as antiproletarian and unpatriotic. After the war, the

writer S. W. Bennett states, “The dissonances, liberally strewn

[throughout this work], were used more for wit rather than for inner

agitation.” The third movement, for example, is a scherzo that vacillates 

between 2/4 and 3/4 time and, according to Bennett, “[is] a battle of two

moods: one a reminiscence of the tramp of hob-nailed boots, and the

other exorcising this memory with musical laughter.” As the work

unfolds, it becomes clear that there is a thinner texture here than can be

found in its predecessor (Op. 73, No. 2), owing to Shostakovich's

employment of sparse notes and wide melodic spacing.