Ives Quartet 2010 Winter Series

Friday, February 5, at 8 p.m.
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto

PROGRAM
BEETHOVEN: Quartet in E-flat major, Opus 127
BRAHMS: Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Opus 18
with guest artists Tanya Tompkins and Leslie Tompkins

Beginning with the Quartet in Eb, Op. 127, Beethoven devoted the last five years of his compositional life almost exclusively to the string quartet as a genre, producing five works that were "'the last revelations of his spirit', inspiring the listener to an admiration mingled with infinite pity and awe..." They were written during the most desolate period of his life, and yet they form the pinnacle of his artistic achievement. After a half-century of neglect and misunderstanding these works gradually attained their "special place in our essential music experience".

The string quartet may have been the essence of German chamber music in the late 1850s, but by 1860 when he completed his first sextet, the 27-year-old Brahms was enormously frustrated with the genre; he had already discarded some 20 string quartets! The nature of his ideas and the sonorities he imagined needed greater forces, and he turned to this unusual combination of instruments to portray them. No sextet that predates Brahms' Op.18 is heard regularly in concert halls today, and even in Brahms' day there were only a few known examples. Despite this lack of models, Brahms gloried in combining the instruments in every way imaginable to express his irresistible melodic and harmonic inspiration.

Musicians love to make music with others and there is nothing more thrilling than an evening of glorious chamber music played by friends who clearly revel in the joy of playing. Join us in welcoming guest artists Anna Kruger, viola, and Tanya Tomkins, cello, for a close-knit and ebullient evening of music.

Spring 2010 Home Concert Series

Playing for the Future

Friday, May 21, at 8 p.m.
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto

Sunday, May 23, at 7 p.m.
Le Petit Trianon, San Jose

PROGRAM
BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in F major, Op.18, No. 1
NATHANIEL STOOKEY: String Quartet No. 2 Musée Mécanique
SCHUBERT: String Quartet in D minor, D/ 810, Death and the Maiden

How did audiences of Beethoven’s and Schubert’s times experience their music and how do we perceive the work of living composers? Part of playing music—and listening to it—is engaging in a process and a legacy that is generations old and stretches into the unimaginable future.

Winter 2010 Home Concert Series

Playing Well Together

Spring 2010 Home Concert Series

Playing for the Future