Founded in 2010, the GRAMMY nominated PUBLIQuartet’s modern interpretation of chamber music makes them one of the most dynamic artists of their generation. PUBLIQuartet rose on the music scene as winner of the 2013 Concert Artists Guild’s New Music/New Places award, and in 2019 garnered Chamber Music America’s prestigious Visionary Award for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music.  PUBLIQuartet has served as artist-in-residence at top institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Sawdust and has appeared at a wide variety of venues and festivals, from Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Their latest album, Freedom and Faith, debuted atop the Billboard Classical Charts in May 2019. PUBLIQuartet’s commitment to supporting emerging composers inspired their innovative program, PUBLIQ Access, which promotes emerging composers and presents a wide variety of under-represented music for string quartet--from classical, jazz and electronic, to non-notated, world and improvised music. Other unique projects include MIND|THE|GAP, a series of group-composed works developed by PQ to generate interest in new music while also engaging traditional classical music audiences. 

Sunday, October 4, 2020, 2:00 p.m. (EDT)

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Angela Bae and Justin DeFilippis, violin
Benjamin Zannoni, viola; Russell Houston, cello

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Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1 (1801)

Jessie Montgomery "Strum" (2006: revised 2012)

Béla Bartók String Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91 (1929)

This program is presented in collaboration with the New England Conservatory

At last, Beethoven felt ready to enter the weighty string quartet medium and offer his first set of quartets for publication in 1801. Interestingly, the first quartet he wrote chronologically is known to us as Op. 18 No. 3, in D Major, and this F Major Quartet, written second, was placed at the beginning of the set. Whether or not this was an intentional choice, the piece presents rather well what the rest of this set and the later works would end up featuring: a radical evolution of the quartet medium he inherited from the reins of Haydn and Mozart. This was all a product of Beethoven’s painstaking and probing working process unsurpassed by any composer before or since.

The work begins with a fragment of a melody played in unison, followed by a mysterious silence. The fragment returns, more searchingly into another silence, only to be completed in a classical phrase structure. Immediately, there is another surprise as the phrase repeats as a forte outburst. The motive that comprises the opening phrase is a monorhythm which repeats in the movement literally hundreds of times, yet much like Beethoven’s future Fifth Symphony, its effect only enhances the energy and drama of the work. The first forte outburst serves as the precursor of many sudden dynamic contrasts, the motive acting as the thread stringing the music tightly together through all upheavals.

An early draft of this quartet which Beethoven sent to his trusted friend, violinist and theologian Karl Amenda, is a unique vantage point into Beethoven’s working process and coming of age. While the overall thematic structure remains the same as in the final version, the dizzying amount of detail-oriented changes the piece underwent is shocking to compare. The most important revelation from the earlier version is Beethoven’s clear handwritten indications that the pathos-laden and dramatic slow movement is meant to correspond to the events of the tomb scene from Romeo and Juliette. With this discovery, one can only wonder if other abstract instrumental compositions of Beethoven, an ardent Shakespeare reader, were also meant to have programmatic ties. However, this is the only such example from his whole output that is explicitly stated, and Beethoven felt as though his music should speak for itself in the listener’s imagination. Even without knowing any programmatic connections, this movement would have been most striking for a listener of the era, especially with the melodramatic climaxes and painfully pronounced pauses.

Following this Adagio, the last two movements serve largely as comic relief, with an especially virtuosic violin passage in the Scherzo’s trio catapulting the energy to a feverish height. The mood returns to playfulness throughout the satisfying finale movement, culminating in a jolly bon voyage tune combined with the main theme at the close.

“Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.

Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.”

— Jessie Montgomery

The Fourth String Quartet of Béla Bartók is a landmark example of his compositional ethos, synonymous with all of the stylistic traits of his mature writing. It combines his sharp formal and technical mastery of pre-and post-twentieth century musical language and his devotion to folk music traditions of his native Hungary and beyond as one of the first modern ethnomusicologists. Above all else, his work reflects his prioritizing the myriad possible uses of symmetry in music. This quartet is groundbreaking in introducing various symmetries as the fabric of the main thematic material, the pitch centers of the five movements, and the function of each movement in the overall form of the piece. Bartok had a keen interest in arch form, congruous halves melded together around a central point, and the Fourth Quartet is the quintessential example of this form at all levels. All of these elements enhance a unique expressivity also apparent in the work’s scintillating energy and wide range of colors.

The first and the fifth movement pair as high energy movements presenting music as rhetoric — pitch motives going back and forth in discourse between voices, sometimes argumentatively.
They feature the same symmetrical motif throughout both movements, as well as an
Arabian-inspired tune heard gently in the first movement and roaringly in the last. Even within the intellectual discourse of the movements, a dance element is omnipresent. The second and fourth movements are hushed interludes which demonstrate music as a form of serious play, delicate yet full of inextinguishable energy. The second movement is a highly chromatic, eerie, and devilishly fast scherzo. The fourth is entirely plucked, with some of Bartók’s trademark snap-pizzicato and other extended techniques creating a unique sound world. At the center of the arch lies a serene and otherworldly slow movement that fits Bartók’s textural genre of “night music.” This third movement begins with the unfolding of a 6-note drone, featuring a delayed vibrato effect one can imagine as pulsating heat waves on a hot summer evening. The lengthy cello solo is said to emulate a Hungarian reed instrument called the Tárogató, and the subsequent solos of the other instruments vividly portray bird calls and even insects. The movement returns to tranquility at the end, with each instrument poetically dropping out in the reverse order they first entered.

Thank you to our audience, Jessie Montgomery, The New School, the Schneider Concert Series, and the New England Conservatory for allowing us to perform for you today. It is a pleasure to play these works and a very special occasion to perform “Strum” by the Mannes School of Music’s newest violin and composition faculty member, Jessie Montgomery.

— Notes by the Balourdet String Quartet, except where otherwise noted.

Recognized for intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance, violinist Jennifer Koh is a forward-thinking artist dedicated to exploring a broad and eclectic repertoire, while promoting equity and inclusivity in classical music. She has expanded the contemporary violin repertoire through a wide range of commissioning projects, and has premiered more than 100 works written especially for her. Her quest for the new and unusual, sense of endless curiosity, and ability to lead and inspire a host of multidisciplinary collaborators, truly set her apart.

In recital, Ms. Koh continues to perform music from her Bach and Beyond series, which traces the history of the solo violin repertoire from Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas to 20th- and 21st-century composers; and her Shared Madness commissioning project, comprising short works for solo violin that explore virtuosity in the 21st century, written for the project by more than 30 of today’s most celebrated composers. In addition to experiencing Shared Madness in the concert hall, listeners are also able to hear recordings of the premiere performances and interviews between Ms. Koh and the composers via the Shared Madness radio show, which originally aired on WQXR’s New Sounds (formerly Q2) during the summer of 2017 and remains available on demand. Another important project created by Ms. Koh is Bridge to Beethoven which she performs with her frequent recital partner Shai Wosner. Bridge to Beethoven pairs the Beethoven’s violin sonatas with new and recent works inspired by them to explore the composer’s impact and significance on a diverse group of musicians.

Ms. Koh performs a broad range of concertos that reflects the breadth of her musical interests from traditional to contemporary. Highlights of her orchestral appearances have included performances of such traditional repertoire as Bach’s Violin Concerti with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Dvořák’s Violin Concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony led by Manfred Honeck and RAI National Symphony with James Conlon; Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Bramwell Tovey and St. Louis Symphony led by Nicolas McGegan; Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Munich Philharmonic led by Lorin Maazel; and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with the Detroit Symphony led by Nicolas McGegan.  

She has performed 20th-century works including Bartok and Berg concerti with the Milwaukee Symphony led by Edo de Waart; Bernstein’s Serenade with the Minnesota Orchestra led by Juanjo Mena and the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Lutosławski’s Chain 2 with the New York Philharmonic led by Lorin Maazel and the Philharmonia Orchestra with Esa-Pekka Salonen; Scelsi’s Anahit with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Gustavo Dudamel; and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the New Jersey Symphony led by Xian Zhang, the São Paulo Symphonies with Marin Alsop, and the Columbus Symphony led by Rossen Milanov. An advocate for music from our current millennium, she has performed Anna Clyne’s The Seamstress with the BBC Symphony led by Sakari Oramo, the Chicago Symphony led by Ludovic Morlot, and Cincinnati Symphony conducted by Louis Langrée; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto with the Houston Symphony led by Christoph Eschenbach, Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero, and Cincinnati and Gothenburg Symphonies conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali; and Steven Mackey’s Beautiful Passing with the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop.

Ms. Koh is the Founder and Artistic Director of ARCO collaborative, an artist-driven nonprofit that fosters a better understanding of our world through a musical dialogue inspired by ideas and the communities around us. The organization supports artistic collaborations and commissions, transforming the creative process by engaging with specific ideas and perspectives, investing in the future by cultivating artist-citizens in partnership with educational organizations. Ms. Koh is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Foundation for the Advancement for the Arts, a scholarship program for high school students in the arts.

Born in Chicago of Korean parents, Ms. Koh began playing the violin by chance, choosing the instrument in a Suzuki-method program only because spaces for cello and piano had been filled. She made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11. She has been honored as “A Force of Nature” by the American Composers Orchestra and Musical America’s 2016 Instrumentalist of the Year. Ms. Koh was a top prize winner at Moscow’s International Tchaikovsky Competition, winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Oberlin College and studied at the Curtis Institute, where she worked extensively with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir.  For further information, visit jenniferkoh.com.

Jessie Montgomery was born and raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s during a time when the neighborhood was at a major turning point in its history. Artists gravitated to the hotbed of artistic experimentation and community development. Her parents – her father a musician, her mother a theater artist and storyteller – were engaged in the activities of the neighborhood and regularly brought Jessie to rallies, performances, and parties where neighbors, activists, and artists gathered to celebrate and support the movements of the time. It is from this unique experience that Jessie has created a life that merges composing, performance, education, and advocacy.

Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, ballet, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn… (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Passage (2019) a ballet commissioned by Dance Theatre of Harlem, Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival.

The New York Philharmonic has selected Montgomery as one of the featured composers for their Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting equal voting rights in the United States to women. Other forthcoming works include a cadenza for the Brahms Violin Concerto, to be premiered by Hilary Hahn; a cello concerto for Thomas Mesa jointly commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, and The Sphinx Organization; and a new orchestral work for the National Symphony.

A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and recent member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist appearing regularly with her improvising duo Big dog little dog with bassist Eleonore Oppenheim.

Montgomery’s teachers and mentors include Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, Alice Kanack, Joan Tower, Derek Bermel, Mark Suozzo, Ira Newborn, and Laura Kaminsky. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University. Montgomery is on both the composition and violin faculty at Mannes.