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Ives Quartet: Death and the Maiden – Stark Insider March 8, 2012

Ives Quartet: Death and the Maiden

The Ives Quartet strikes again:
Death and the Maiden

By Cy Ashley Webb

The better part of the Ives Quartet salon was given over to the Quartet in D Minor, which Schubert (who died of tertiary syphilis at the young age of 31) wrote in anticipation of his demise.

The year has flown by, as this Sunday brought the last of the Ives Quartet’s astonishing salons. These events are unique, bringing together the IQ, their devoted audience, and various guests. Not only does the audience get to hear the IQ up close and personal, but they also share the group’s insights into individual works. Nowhere on the Peninsula, San Francisco, or the East Bay does this kind of intelligent discussion about classical music happen regularly.

Insofar as it included vocal music, Sunday’s Salon differed from the several that preceded it this year. In addition to violist and musicologist Derek Katz, who graced their “Czech, Please” and “Haydn and Mozart” events earlier this year, this salon included mezzo-soprano Wendy Hillhouse, who sang Death and the Maiden (Der Tod und das Mädchen). Steven Lightburn’s piano accompaniment and Hillhouse’s full-throated voice did more than justice to this short work, which Schubert wrote seven years before he composed the Quartet in D Minor, the second movement of which is known by the same name. Hillhouse took the time to explain the two halves of this song, which represent a dialog with death. One of the joys of these salons is their relative flexibility. Ms. Hillhouse responded to an audience request to sing this a second time, allowing the audience to appreciate the finer nuances of her delivery.

The better part of the salon was given over to the Quartet in D Minor, which Schubert (who died of tertiary syphilis at the young age of 31) wrote in anticipation of his demise. As always at these events, the Ives Quartet aims for a great understanding of the work, so Katz spoke at length about the structure of the second movement (Andante con moto), which was a variations upon a theme. This second movement begins with measured dirge-like tones, that recall the piano accompaniment of the liede, before beginning a series of stand-alone variations that remain loosely connected by the heartbeat tone that they revert to.

Following this second movement, the group returned to the first movement before closing with a small section of the presto. This first movement commences with a violent attack that held the audience in its grasp, making them ripe for the balance of this movement.

The intensity of this piece would be diluted in a larger forum. The private home that serves as a venue for these salons allows the music to be appreciated as it was written – for a small intimate audience. As much as I love the Herbst and Davies Symphony Hall, they don’t hold a candle to these salons.

Hopefully, the Ives Quartet will add more additional salons to their next season. These sell-out events show the need for this type of event.

Ives Quartet Iluminates – Stark Insider February 12, 2012

This reference begins a musical joke throughout the entire piece starting with 3 notes repeated fives times by five different notes in the first 13 measures alone, not including another six repetitions by the second violin, cello, and viola.

By Cy Ashley Webb

The Ives Quartet presents a program in which the group has deep roots. Haydn’s Quartet in F Sharp Minor is part of opus 50 – which the IQ has presenting sequentially in concert. Quincy Porter’s String Quartet #6 is a continuation of the Porter Quartets that they recorded on Naxos, one of which was performed in their recent concert with Gwendolyn Mok. This systematic approach to programming is an enormous benefit to their devoted fan base, all of whom have been learning more about these the works of these composers as the IQ plumbs this material.

Friday’s concert opened with the Haydn quartet. As always, the IQ had done their advance work, researching the multiple scores that Haydn published. Violist Jodi Levitz explained that the group had identified a score that was headed with the words “in nomine domini,” in the name of the Lord. This reference begins a musical joke throughout the entire piece starting with 3 notes repeated fives times by five different notes in the first 13 measures alone, not including another six repetitions by the second violin, cello, and viola. This gets picked up again by the violin in a slightly different form toward the end of the last movement, tying this together. The joke doesn’t end here, however as notions of trinity are embedded in the work, beginning with the three sharps, the three-note gestures in the third movement, as so on.

Despite this insistent return to a three-note motif, this quartet doesn’t give itself up too easily. The Ives Quartet maximizes the depth of this piece playing it relatively slowly, allowing the listener to get lost in the luscious warmth of Mussumeli’s violin.

Written 150 years after the Haydn, the Quincy Porter quartet is startlingly different. This difference lies not just in the 150 year style difference, but in the nature of the material itself. The cello part of the F# minor quartet was relatively simple, allowing generous room for Haydn’s amateur cellist patron. The Porter quartet ore than compensated for this, as it opened with Harrison’s ostinato-like gesture, powering through with a sweeping crescendo, providing an anchor for this inherently stable first movement. The dominance of the cello returns again in the third movement, joined by Levitz on viola and Freier on violin in a pulsating accompaniment. These two movements flank the dreamy second movement that creeps along in a nebulous fog. Just when the fog begins to get tedious, the music becomes insistently faster and loud, before retreating into the ethereal fog.

The evening ended with guest violist Leslie Tomkins, and cellist Tanya Tomkins, who joined the group for the Tchaikovsky sextet. With its more predictable structure, this was a huge contrast to the quartet that preceded it. One could not help be struck however, by the difference of six instruments and four. Goethe’s observation that a string quartet is a conversation among four equals, does not extend to this particular work, which sounded more, at moments like a chamber orchestra. This was a rousing work that ended the evening with a vibrant, high energy finale.

Ives Quartet Salon: Mozart, Haydn and the 1780s – Stark Insider November 23, 2011

By Cy Ashley Webb

Ives Quartet (IQ) salons offer a heady mix of intelligent conversation about music, interspersed with more music. There’s nothing quite like these events anywhere in the Bay Area. They’re targeted at the same crowd who so enthusiastically responded to Anthony Tomassini’s “Top Ten” in the New York Times some months back: the educated, enthusiastic listener who hungers to learn more. Thanks to the IQ, we all listen smarter.

As the title indicated, this salon was devoted to discussing Mozart, Haydn and the 1780s. The 1780’s were a fecund period for string quartets, giving rise to much of the standard repertoire for the same. The two years between 1785 and 1787 were particularly remarkable because they brought forth Haydn’s Opus 50 (also known as the Prussian Quartets,) and Mozart’s String Quartet in D Major, K. 499 (known as the Hoffmeister). Just as he did for the IQ salon back in September, musicologist Derek Katz from UC Santa Barbara joined the group to elaborate upon the nature of the string quartet, with particular attention to Haydn’s B flat major quartet and Mozart’s Hoffmeister.

Katz noted these works were composed in Vienna and remarked that just as Vienna was strange, the nature of string quartets was strange. Elaborating further, he explained that unlike London and Paris, where music was beginning to leave the manor and enter the performance hall, Vienna was hardly the hub of the musical world. It might be the center of the empire, but Vienna had limited access to music publishing world. In Vienna, composers such as Haydn were servants for landed families, composing for particular functions. It was only later that musicians made the transition from court servants to entrepreneurs. Quartets thrived in this environment. Those written in London and Paris, tended to give themselves up too easily. Typical of these are works by Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, who was writing in London. However, in the rarified Viennese air, there was little division between musician and audience. Here, the quartet developed as a conversation – played in rooms not unlike the IQ salon, albeit for even smaller audiences.

Turning to the first movement of the Haydn, the IQ performed with their usual consummate flair. With impeccable articulation, each of the three figures made their rounds from one instrument to another, each interwoven with the other. Perfectly balanced and paced, the IQ’s performance embodied Goethe’s definition of a string quartet being a “conversation between four rationale people.” For this point in time, there was no better place in the universe than ten feet away from Susan Freier, Stephen Harrison, Bettina Mussumeli, and Jodi Levitz. These salons offer the listener an ear up, as it were, on performances that might otherwise sound excellent, but take on a transcendental quality in such close range.

Deconstructing the Mozart String Quartet in D Major, Katz explained how the minuet and trio of this work “is just too wacko,” defeating traditional expectations. I wish Katz could have elaborated here, requiring the musicians to play particular irregular elements, as he did with the Haydn, because I only followed about a fifth of his explanation. However, this was a minor distraction.

The only real disappointment is that we have to wait until March for the next Salon, which will be about Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden.”