Contemporary Classics June 13, 2017

Opening theme of the show is from Nocturne by Kirsten Volness

This week's broadcast of Contemporary Classics is featuring music for string quartet.

Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 was written in the 19 teens is in three movements:  Moderato, Allegro molto capriccioso and Lento.    In a letter to André Gertier, Bartók described the first movement as being in sonata form, the second as "a kind of rondo" and the third as "difficult to define" but possibly a sort of ABA form. The composer Zoltán Kodály thought of the three movements of this quartet as "life episodes." Kodaly heard "peaceful life" in the first movement, and for all its roiling emotions, the movement does indeed leave an impression of tranquility at the end. He saw the animated second movement as the joy of life and the third movement as  "suffering" probably because of its more static rhythmical passages, and the parts that do move are often interrupted by silence.Here we hear Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 performed  by Brooklyn Rider from their “A Walking Fire” album.  

Next is Philip Glass’s String Quartet #5.   Now everyone recognizes Glass’s signature sonorities (minor-mode arpeggios with shifting rhythmic and chordal emphases).  But I defy you to say that this is a Phillip Glass work when listening to the first movement with its unexpected subtleties.   You get the pulsing chordal textures but each movement treats these is a very different way with periodic interruption with the original slow material along with playful and pizzicato passages.  Here in 5 movements is a performance of String Quartet No. 5: Dublin Guitar Quartet            The Dublin Guitar Quartet performs Philip Glass           

Karel Husa’s String Quartet #3.  This string quartet written in the Winter of 1967-68 and premiered in Chicago by the Fine Arts Quartet.  This work was awarded the 1969 Pulitzer Prize.  The work is in 4 movements Allegro Moderato, Lento Assai,             Allegro Possibile and Adagio.   Here the work is performed by the Fine Arts Quartet and is from their album Husa: String Quartets Nos. 2 & 3, Evocations de Slovaquie

Krzysztof Penderecki String Quartet No. 3, "Leaves of an Unwritten Diary" was completed in 2008 and was premiered in Warsaw that same year, on the composer’s seventy-fifth birthday, by the Shanghai Quartet.  Here the work performed by the Royal String Quartet form their album Penderecki & Lutosławski: String Quartets.

Credo for String Quartet by Kevin Puts was commissioned in 2007 by the Commissioned by Chamber Music Monterey Bay and Premiere: Miró Quartet.   Kevin started working on the piece right after the Virginia Tech shootings with no discussion of gun control, at a time we were at war in two different countries and evidence of a looming financial collapse – he found solace in three places at an instrument makers workshop in Katonah, New York,  while jogging path along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh looking at the downtown skyscrapers, and while watch a mother teach her daughter to dance from his apartment window in New York City.  These gave him faith in the world again and inspired three of the movements of Credo.  Credo is in 5 movements entitled the Violin Guru of Katonah,  Infrastructure, Intermezzo: Learning to Dance, Infrastructure (cont'd), and Credo.  Here is a performance of Kevin Puts’ Credo by the Miro Quartet from their album The Miró Quartet Live!