Sunday, May 25, 2008 ~ 3:00pm

This concert sponsored by 
Dianna & John Shomaker

Willy Sucre and Friends 

play 

String Quartets

The program included:

String Quartet in C Major Op.37
by Karol Szymanowski

I.   Lento assai

II. Andantino semplice. In modo d'una canzone

III. Vivace: scherzando alla burlesca

The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski was born in 1882 in the Ukraine, once part of the kingdom of Poland. He studied in Warsaw, much influenced by Chopin and then by Wagner, Richard Strauss, Brahms and Reger. From a well-to-do and cultured family, he read widely, particularly during the years of war, from 1914 to 1917, when he remained on the family estate in the Ukraine, a property destroyed in the civil war. The breadth of his cultural knowledge is reflected in his music and in particular in his settings of literary texts of one kind or another. Musically he is able at times to draw on specifically Polish material, coupled with his own perceptions of Arabic and Persian culture. It is believe that he intended to write a fourth movement, but eventually concluded that the scherzo rounded off the work most effectively. Szymanowski died in 1937.

Notes adapted from various websites and notes written by Edward Wright. 

Fantasie for String Quartet

"Fantaisie en quatuor"
by Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński

I.  Adagio, andantino con moto, fuga

II.  Adaio moderato

III. Adagio, presto

Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński was born on March 6, 1785 in Włoszakowice (Wielkopolska). He was a composer, conductor and teacher who He first studied music with his father, Marcin Kurpiński, an organist.  Kurpiński was one of the most talented Polish composers before Chopin and helped to lay the foundations of a national style and prepared the ground for Polish music of the Romantic period. Gifted with exceptional creative originality, he contributed to the development of Polish opera, introducing new musical devices and achieving an intensified dramatic expression. Operas and polonaises form the largest part of his output. His operas were successful at the time and some have not lost their appeal. Of his 24 stage works, nine survive complete and eight in part, while the rest have been lost. Although brought up on the Viennese Classics, Kurpiński followed the spirit of his times, combining the new achievements of European music with the folklore of his own country. He died on September 18, 1857 in Warsaw.

Notes adapted from the USC Polish Music Center website.

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I N T E R M IS S I O N 

String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 
"American"
by Antonín Dvořák

 I.  Allegro ma non troppo
II. Lento
III.  Molto vivace
IV. Finale: Vivace ma non troppo

Dvořák was born on September 8, 1841, in Nelabozeves, near Prague. His most famous string quartet was written in June 1893 at Spillville, a small Czech settlement in north-east Iowa. He accepted an invitation to spend the summer visiting this small farming community (300) made up of immigrants who preserved the language, culture, and customs of their native land. When Dvořák arrived in this city, with his wife, six children, sister, maid, and secretary, he was met by the father of Josef Kovarik, one of his pupils, and by Thomáš Bílý, the parish priest. Three days later he began work on this quartet. Although he usually composed quite slowly, he finished the sketches by June 11, writing at the end, “Thanks be to the Lord God. I am satisfied. It went quickly.” As soon as the final score was ready, on June 23, Dvořák, playing violin, along with three students, read it through. The “official” premiere was given in Boston by the Kneisel Quartet on January 1, 1894.   

This quartet became his best known chamber music composition. Many hear in the quartet strains of black spirituals and plantation songs, as well as elements of American Indian music. Some say he was influenced by the hymns sung by the colony of Blacks during their prayer-meetings, as well as those of his youth played on the harmonium of the little church of St. Wenceslas. Others doubt that the quartet grew from the sounds Dvořák heard in America and hold rather that it is based on certain melodic and rhythmic similarities shared by both American ethnic music and the Bohemian-Slavic folk tradition. This difference of opinion really matters little in light of the “American” Quartet’s enormous popularity and universal appeal.   

Dvořák died May 1, 1904 in Prague.

Notes adapted from Melvin Berger's Guide to Chamber Music and the 1998 Praák Quartet CD by Praga Productions.

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The Albuquerque Journal review written by D.S. Crafts, Tuesday, May 27, 2008:

"Willie Sucre and Friends has long been a staple of the excellent regional venue Placitas Artists Series. Sunday afternoon the season concluded with Willie and Friends playing Eastern European String Quartets. Willie Sucre is among other things violist with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, while “Friends” in this instance being some of the best string players in town—namely Krzysztof Zimowski and Anthony Templeton, respectively the concertmaster and principal second violinist of the NMSO, and Dana Winograd, principal cellist of the Santa Fe Symphony.

For the Poland-born Zimowski, this program was truly a labor of love and provided us with an excellent opportunity to hear works essentially unknown outside Poland. It might seem as though Polish music began with Chopin. That is inaccurate of course, but as Zimowski explained in his verbal introduction, its music was often inextricably tied to the country’s checkered political history. An enthusiastic exponent of his native music, Zimowski will perform Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto next season with the NMSO.

Sunday’s program featured that composer’s String Quartet in C, as well as the earlier Fantasie for String Quartet by Karol Kazimierz Kurpinsky. Roughly speaking a contemporary of Rossini, Kurpinsky became a central figure in Polish classicism, and his Fantasie, written in three continuously played movements, might easily be mistaken for something from early 19^th century Vienna, except that the melodies and rhythms are decidedly Polish. A rich blend of instruments characterized the performance of this work.

Szymanowski like Stravinsky seemed to understand that dissonance, while a necessary and even desirable element of great music, when taken beyond certain limits turn to textural mud. Though he is never afraid to roll out pungent harmonies, Szymanowski remains communicative and hence understandable. His String Quartet hails from the end of his experimentation with expressionism and exploration of the bounds of tonality. The opening Lento assai was full of twisting and turning creating a kaleidoscope of exotic harmonies. The enchanting middle section of the Andantino semplice seemed to float breathlessly in mid-air, the mood broken only by the final third movement full of sardonic rhythms almost surreal in character, ending ironically and whimsically in a traditional cadence formula. The sense of ensemble playing was admirable in a work not easily held together.

Dvorak’s String Quarter in F Major “American” is the chamber music equivalent of his “New World” Symphony. While inspired by American melodies, it has often been pointed out that both works are at least as much Bohemian as American in character. Nonetheless, both contain some of his most beautiful melodies. Indeed the slow Lento movement of the String Quartet featured a gorgeous duet between Zimowski and Templeton, with Winograd completing the melodic idea on the cello before the music came to a hushed and reverent close.

One of the themes of the bright Molto Vivace is said to have derived from a birdsong in Iowa where Dvorak was residing. The Finale came alive with a vibrant rhythmic pulse, pausing only for a tender interlude before galloping to an effective climax."

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Time, date, and program subject to change.