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The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,991st Concert

Auryn String Quartet

Matthias Lingenfelder and Jens Oppermann, violins

Stewart Eaton, viola

Andreas Arndt, cello

April 13, 2014

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)

String Quartet no. 6 in F Minor, op. 80 (1847)

Allegro vivace assai

Allegro assai 

Adagio

Finale: Allegro molto

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

String Quartet in F Major, op. 77, no. 2 (1799)

Allegro moderato

Menuetto: Presto ma non troppo

Andante

Finale: Vivace assai

INTERMISSION

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

String Quartet no. 14 in C-sharp Minor, op. 131 (1826)

Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo 

Allegro molto vivace

Allegro moderato

Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile 

Presto

Adagio quasi un poco andante

Allegro

The Musicians

Taking its name from an amulet that grants intuition in novelist Michael

Ende’s Neverending Story (1979), the Auryn String Quartet has for more

than thirty years been one ofthe foremost string quartets ofits generation,

repeatedly praised for its interpretive mastery, individuality, and intensity

of expression. Having studied with the Amadeus Quartet in Cologne as well

as with the Guameri Quartet at the University of Maryland, the quartet won

first prizes at the prestigious ard Competition Munich, the International

String Quartet Competition Portsmouth, and the Competition of European

Radio Stations. The ensemble has been heard in most ofthe major music

centers ofthe world and has appeared at festivals that include Les Arcs,

Beethovenfest and Rheinisches Musikfest in Bonn, Berliner Festwochen,

and Klangbogen Wien, as well as those of Bregenz, Edinburgh, Flanders, 

Gstaad, Kuhmo, Lockenhaus, Lucerne, Mondsee, Montepulciano, Salzburg,

and Schleswig-Holstein. The quartet has its own festival in Este in northern

Italy, and is artistic advisor to the Mondseefestival.

The ensemble regularly tours in North America and has appeared in the 

United States at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Da Camera Society

Los Angeles, the Frick Collection, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Notre

Dame University, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the University

ofCalifornia at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In 

Canada the quartet has performed in Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, and

Vancouver. For many years, it was the quartet-in-residence at the Schubert &

Schubert Festival at Georgetown University.

Often heard in concerts that are devoted to the music of one composer,

the ensemble has performed an eight-concert cycle ofthe music ofRobert

Schumann at the Tonhalle in Diisseldorf, various works by Mendelssohn at

the Robert Schumann Saal in Diisseldorf and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, 

and Schoenberg’s complete quartets at the Schoenberg Festival in Essen.

Since 2000 the Auryn Quartet has recorded exclusively for the German label

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Tacet. Its complete cycle of Franz Schubert’s quartets, released on the cpo

label, received the Diapason d’Or award, and its recordings ofHugo Wolf and

Schumann won the German Record Reviewers prize. Other releases include

the string quartets ofDebussy, Faure, and Ravel. The Auryn’s 2004 recording

ofthe complete Beethoven quartets was hailed by Gramophone magazine as

the best performance ofthese works currently available.

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Program Notes

This evening’s program features the final string quartets of Felix Mendelssohn, Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Mendelssohn began his

String Quartet no. 6 in F Minor as an homage to his sister, Fanny, who died

on May 14,1847. Distraught at the news, the composer returned home to 

Berlin and refused to resume his conducting duties in Leipzig. His friends

described Mendelssohn as listless and depressed that entire summer. He

completed the quartet in July 1847, and Joseph Joachim’s quartet premiered

the piece in Leipzig on November 4, not yet having been informed that

Mendelssohn had died earlier that day.

In this late work, the composer’s characteristic emotional reserve gives

way to a heartfelt expression of desperation and rage. The first movement

shifts themes frequently and changes character abruptly, from fiery to

elegant and tragic to noble. The primary theme ofthe second movement

derives from the second theme ofthe first, adapting that rather subdued

theme to create aJuriant—a fiery Bohemian dance in 2/4 and 3/4 time that

features rapidly shifting accents. Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) and Bedrich

Smetana (1824-1884) would later implement thefuriant into their own

symphonic works. The third movement, a peaceful elegy, provides the only 

sustained respite from Mendelssohn’s inner turbulence. The Finale begins

as any joyous allegro finale might, but it quickly devolves into a relentless,

minor-key movement, reflecting the composer’s bleak attitude in the wake 

ofhis heartbreaking loss.

Having composed more than one hundred symphonies in his lifetime,

Joseph Haydn earned the sobriquet “Father ofthe Symphony.” His works

for string quartet, though not as plentiful as his symphonic output, include

sixty-seven quartets written between 1762 and 1799. Though Haydn intended his op. 77 to consist ofsix quartets, he could not muster more than two

as a result of his labor on his oratorio, The Creation. Commissioned by the

Bohemian Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowicz (1772-1816), the

String Quartet in F Major, op. 77, no. 2, proved to be Haydn’s final quartet.

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The first movement, in a standard sonata-allegro form, begins with a

simple, graceful melody in the first violin. This melody functions not only as

the first theme, but also as the second, following a course of embellishment

and variation. The middle two movements reverse their standard order, as

Haydn places the Minuet and Trio second and the Andante third. The 

Andante, uncharacteristic of Haydn’s typical long and thematically varied

slow movements, relies on the development of a single theme throughout.

Likewise the Finale traces a single theme across a sonata construct, presenting a basic rhythm characteristic ofthe Polonaise. The quartet concludes 

unceremoniously, unlike the emotional tour-de-force of Mendelssohn’s

String Quartet no. 6, showing the contrast between Haydn the classicist and

Mendelssohn the romantic.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet no. 14 in C-sharp Minor, op. 131, is

often grouped with opp. 130 and 132, as the three works share various

motives, and they were Beethoven’s final three quartets. Commissioned by

Prince Nikolai Galitzin (1794-1866) and dedicated to Baron Joseph von

Stutterheim (1764-1831), op. 131 contains seven distinct movements, making

it the most extensive ofhis late quartets. Ifthis work had conformed to the 

four-movement standard for early nineteenth-century string quartets, it

would have consisted ofthe second movement in sonata-allegro form, the 

fourth movement (Andante), the fifth (a scherzo, marked Presto), and the 

closing Allegro. Beethoven’s additions are a fugal prelude, and the third and

sixth movements, which function as interludes. This quartet represents the 

composer at his formal best, as its transitional material is tight and its seven

movements impeccably paced. A tragic and powerful coda concludes this 

masterwork, which has inspired glowing responses from every generation

of Beethoven enthusiasts. Franz Schubert remarked, “After this, what is left

for us to write?” and Robert Schumann asserted that opp. 127 (composed in

1825) and 131 had a “grandeur... which no words can express. They seem to

me to stand... on the extreme boundary of all that has hitherto been attained

by human art and imagination.”

Program notes by Michael Jacko, music program assistant,

National Gallery ofArt

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Johann Christoph Erhard, Im Hollenthal (In the Hollen Valley), 1818, etching on laid paper

sheet, National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund