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The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,921st Concert

Orava String Quartet

Daniel Kowalik and David Dalseno, violin

Thomas Chawner, viola

Karol Kowalik, cello

January 13, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

String Quartet in D Minor (“Quinten”), op. 76, no. 2

Allegro

Andante o piu tosto allegretto

Menuetto. Allegro ma non troppo 

Vivace assai

INTERMISSION

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, op. 13

Adagio—Allegro vivace

Adagio non lento

Intermezzo: Allegretto con moto—Allegro di molto

Presto—Adagio non lento

The Musicians

Founded in 2007 by three siblings—violinists Daniel Kowalilc and Sylwia

Waples and cellist Karol Kowalik—the Orava String Quartet was completed 

by violist Thomas Chawner. In 2012 violinist David Dalseno joined the

quartet on second violin. Based in Sydney, Australia, the musicians have

performed locally and nationally in venues including Sydney Opera House’s

Utzon Room; Melbourne Recital Center; and City Recital Hall, Angel Place.

Internationally, Orava has performed in Canada, China, Hong Kong, and 

United Arab Emirates, and in 2010 completed a highly successful tour of

Asia for Musica Viva with world-renowned didgeridoo performer and composer William Barton. Frequent guests at the Musica Viva, Sydney Vivid,

Crossroads, and Chinese Garden Chamber Music festivals, the quartet has 

performed for Queen Sofia of Spain and Pope Benedict xvi.

Currently the graduate quartet-in-residence at the University ofColorado,

Boulder, under the world-renowned Takacs String Quartet, Orava received

the coveted Chamber Music Residency at the BanffArts Center in Canada,

and in 2009 was selected as one ofsix finalists for the Asia-Pacific Chamber

Music Competition. Members ofthe quartet have studied with musicians

from the Australian, Brentano, Emerson, Goldner, Jerusalem, Juilliard, Saint

Lawrence, and Schoenberg string quartets.

The Orava String Quartet appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Arts Global, Inc. Founded in 1999 by its president, Heather de

Haes, Arts Global is incorporated in the United States, the United Kingdom,

and Switzerland, and has Friends’ organizations in Russia, the Middle East,

and Asia. Its mission is to support, foster, and develop emerging musicians

of exceptional talent.

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Program Notes

Over a period offorty years, Haydn wrote nearly seventy string quartets, transforming the lightweight divertimento, designed more for entertainment

than serious music-making, into the challenging core form ofthe chamber

music repertory. The “Quinten” quartet is the second in the remarkable series 

of eight quartets— six published as Opus 76 and two as Opus 77—that

constitute Haydn’s final word on the form.

The eight quartets were composed in the 1790s after Haydn had returned

to Vienna from two extended visits to London. His experiences in England had

been the most rewarding of his life, artistically and financially. He had been

honored at court, lionized in concert halls and ballrooms, awarded an honorary degree at Oxford, and compensated generously for his music. In response,

he had composed and conducted his twelve greatest symphonies—numbers

93 through 104 —and soon they were in demand throughout the continent.

Haydn was now the most famous composer in Europe, and though his

international earnings assured him an unprecedented degree of economic

security and he had reached age sixty, he was not content to retire to a life of

leisure. For one thing, he had been overwhelmed in London by the oratorios

of Handel, and soon he was at work on his own oratorio masterpieces, The

Creation and The Seasons. For another, Haydn’s reputation inevitably led to a

brisk business in teaching and freelance composing.

In 1796 he received a commission for six quartets from Count Joseph

Erdody, a Hungarian aristocrat and the brother-in-law of Haydn’s patron,

Prince Anton Esterhazy. The quartets were written the following year and

initially performed in the count’s drawing room, and in 1799 they were

published as Opus 76. These works set new standards ofsubtlety and originality, and rank among the greatest works in the chamber music literature.

The second quartet of Opus 76 is, in many ways, the most remarkable

in Haydn’s total output. The work is, first of all, a continuing demonstration

ofthe power of contrast between the major and minor modes. In the opening

movement, the first theme is in D minor, the second in F major. The second

movement consists of a section in minor surrounded by two major sections,

with a coda combining both elements. The main section ofthe minuet is in

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the minor, with the trio in a major mode. The fourth movement is predominantly minor, but there is an abrupt shift to the major after the restatement

ofthe main theme.

Even more noteworthy is the structure ofthe first movement—an

astounding demonstration ofwhat a resourceful composer can do with the

simplest ofmaterials. In this instance, the building block is the descending

fifth. Both the first and second themes are based on that interval, and the

working out ofthe themes leans heavily on its repetition, upward as well as

downward, in a variety of guises but always with clarity and power. This, of

course, is the source ofthe quartet’s nickname, German for “The Fifths.”

Felix Mendelssohn completed his first string quartet, which remains without an opus number, in 1823, at age fourteen. Two years later, he produced

his Octetfor Strings, and it was clear that, at age sixteen, he had already come

into his own and had mastered the technical aspects of composition. When

he was eighteen, he wrote a song based on a text by Johann Gustav Droysen

titled “Frage” (Question). The text reads, in part: “Is it true? Is it true that

you are always waiting for me in the arbored walk... she who feels with me

and stays ever true to me?” The music from “Frage” frames Mendelssohn’s

Opus 13 quartet ofthe same year, and elements from “Frage” are found in

every movement in the piece. In particular, the dotted rhythm and the melodic

halfstep found in the song pervade the quartet.

Despite its connection to the song, the quartet is not simply the pining

of a lovesick teenager. Beethoven died the same year Opus 13 was composed,

and the work can also be seen as an homage to the elder composer. Beethoven’s

influence is most obvious in the last movement, which closely resembles the

last movement of Beethoven’s Opus 132, written two years prior. The recitative for the first violin, the opening melody, and the bass line in the cello part

are too similar to Opus 132 to be coincidental. In addition, a fugato section in

the second movement (which is based on the halfstep from “Frage”) closely

resembles the fugato section in the second movement of Beethoven’s Opus

95 quartet. Scholars also point out links to the Cavatina from Beethoven’s

Opus 130 quartet in the Adagio non lento and remark on the similarity ofthe

quoted phrase “Is it true?” to Beethoven’s “Must it be?” in his Opus 135 quartet.

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Opus 13 is a dark piece at times, but it is not tragic in the Beethovenian

sense. After the Adagio introduction in A major and “Frage” quote, we are

spurred by a rumbling in the viola into a tumultuous Allegro vivace in

A minor, the theme ofwhich is an expansion ofthe song’s rhythmic motive.

But despite the passionate outbursts, the nervous murmuring, and the wailing

melodies, we can’t help somehow relishing all this grief, in the same way

that a teenager relishes the pangs oflove. Similarly, the second movement

drips with angst, but is deliciously sweet. The Intermezzo is in ternary form—

a classic Mendelssohn scherzo is framed by strains of an ancient-sounding

song. The final movement, the stormy, youthful answer to Beethoven’s

Opus 132, yields to the opening “Frage” material in a way that might seem 

saccharine ifit were not so sincere. As it is, we are left marveling at the deft

emotional manipulation by the young genius, who somehow makes us all

believe that we are eighteen again, when the world still held unlimited

potential and its colors seemed more vivid.

Program notes on Haydn by Will Hertz, notes on Mendelssohn by the

Daedalus Quartet

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Upcoming concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Cyrus Forough, violinist

Katya Janpoladyan, cellist

Sung-Im Kim, pianist

Music by Schubert and Vali

Preceded by a talk on the composers and their music by

Stephen Ackert and M. Frank Ruppert

January 20, 2013

Preconcert talk, 6:00

West Building Ground Floor, Lecture Hall

Concert, 6:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Please note that the area around the National Gallery

will be open to metro and foot traffic only on January 20,

due to advance preparations for the Inaugural Parade.

Rachel Barton Pine, violinist

Music by Paganini

In collaboration with the Phillips Collection and in honor of

Color, Line, Light: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels

from Delacroix to Signac

January 27, 2013

6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court