A Note About the Music
For our new Sunday Afternoon series at Canadian Memorial, we’ve decided to go back to the beginning – or rather, the end of the beginning.
Joseph Haydn was a musical innovator par excellence. He just about single-handedly developed the modern forms of nearly all the genres associated with ‘Classical’ music, including, of course, the string quartet. So we’ve built our Canadian Memorial series around three of his greatest quartets. It just so happens the ones we’ve picked are from the end of his fruitful life, including his last completed quartets, the two Lobkowitz quartets of 1799, so named on account of a commission extended by Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz. Old age and ill health was catching up to Haydn, and the commission was never completed. Alongside the Lobkowitz quartets, we’ve chosen Op. 76 No. 3, the Emperor, written only two years earlier, and which incorporates Haydn’s own favorite melody in the slow movement. Despite the fact that these are the works of an aging man, you’d never know it to hear it – vitality and life fairly spring from the page at every moment.
Haydn paved the way for all the masterpieces that soon followed from composers such as Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn – all the way up to Shostakovich. So, each concert includes a work by one of these other great masters. We looked for works with passion, life, and complexity. It turns out we also chose works associated with death – Mendelssohn’s memorial quartet to his sister Fanny, Shostakovich’s memorial quartet to his wife Nina... even Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. But of course, works written in memoriam are really about the living. Besides, what could be more appropriate for a series at Canadian Memorial?
When you hear Shostakovich’s quirky, compact, and ultimately intense Quartet No. 7, dedicated to his late wife, you may find yourself wondering what sort of relationship they actually had. On the other hand, if the originality of the music is a reflection of Nina’s character, she must have been an interesting person to know. We’ve paired the Shostakovich with one of Mendelssohn’s most passionate works, his String Quartet Op. 80, written as a cathartic release from his grief over the sudden death of his beloved sister. Little did he know that he himself had but months to live.
The next concert pairs Beethoven with Haydn. Beethoven was in many ways made possible by Haydn, though he would perhaps be the last to admit it. The same patron who commissioned Haydn also supported Beethoven – the latter’s Op. 18 Quartets came from the same genesis as Haydn’s incomplete Op. 77 set. However, we’ve chosen a middle opus from Beethoven, the 3rd quartet of his Op. 59 set, mostly because it’s just such a great piece. Beethoven’s striking originality is shockingly apparent when you realize that his Op. 59/3 was composed less than ten years after Haydn’s Emperor.
The third concert includes a masterpiece from perhaps the most gifted, productive, and neglected master of them all, Franz Schubert. Schubert wrote more music, of a higher quality, than just about anyone else you can name. Unfortunately, most of it was written in the shadow of the much more illustrious Beethoven. The epic Quartet in D minor was composed in 1824, after a bout of ill health made Schubert aware of his own mortality. As did Haydn with the Emperor, Schubert quoted his own song (Der Tod und das Madchen) in the slow movement of the quartet.
With the conclusion of our Canadian Memorial series, we’ll be returning to our other home, Pacific Theatre, to round out our 2010-11 season. This final concert is dedicated entirely to the works of Shostakovich. And each of the works we’ll play has its own dedication. We’re reprising the Quartet No. 7, dedicated to his wife. That work will be followed by the powerful Quartet No. 8, purportedly dedicated to “the victims of fascism and war”, but really a searing indictment of man’s inhumanity to man. And finally, we conclude our concerts with Shostakovich’s unearthly final Quartet No. 15, which is a personal testament to the composer’s own approaching end.
For our new Sunday Afternoon series at Canadian Memorial, we’ve decided to go back to the beginning – or rather, the end of the beginning.
Joseph Haydn was a musical innovator par excellence. He just about single-handedly developed the modern forms of nearly all the genres associated with ‘Classical’ music, including, of course, the string quartet. So we’ve built our Canadian Memorial series around three of his greatest quartets. It just so happens the ones we’ve picked are from the end of his fruitful life, including his last completed quartets, the two Lobkowitz quartets of 1799, so named on account of a commission extended by Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz. Old age and ill health was catching up to Haydn, and the commission was never completed. Alongside the Lobkowitz quartets, we’ve chosen Op. 76 No. 3, the Emperor, written only two years earlier, and which incorporates Haydn’s own favorite melody in the slow movement. Despite the fact that these are the works of an aging man, you’d never know it to hear it – vitality and life fairly spring from the page at every moment.
Haydn paved the way for all the masterpieces that soon followed from composers such as Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn – all the way up to Shostakovich. So, each concert includes a work by one of these other great masters. We looked for works with passion, life, and complexity. It turns out we also chose works associated with death – Mendelssohn’s memorial quartet to his sister Fanny, Shostakovich’s memorial quartet to his wife Nina... even Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. But of course, works written in memoriam are really about the living. Besides, what could be more appropriate for a series at Canadian Memorial?
When you hear Shostakovich’s quirky, compact, and ultimately intense Quartet No. 7, dedicated to his late wife, you may find yourself wondering what sort of relationship they actually had. On the other hand, if the originality of the music is a reflection of Nina’s character, she must have been an interesting person to know. We’ve paired the Shostakovich with one of Mendelssohn’s most passionate works, his String Quartet Op. 80, written as a cathartic release from his grief over the sudden death of his beloved sister. Little did he know that he himself had but months to live.
The next concert pairs Beethoven with Haydn. Beethoven was in many ways made possible by Haydn, though he would perhaps be the last to admit it. The same patron who commissioned Haydn also supported Beethoven – the latter’s Op. 18 Quartets came from the same genesis as Haydn’s incomplete Op. 77 set. However, we’ve chosen a middle opus from Beethoven, the 3rd quartet of his Op. 59 set, mostly because it’s just such a great piece. Beethoven’s striking originality is shockingly apparent when you realize that his Op. 59/3 was composed less than ten years after Haydn’s Emperor.
The third concert includes a masterpiece from perhaps the most gifted, productive, and neglected master of them all, Franz Schubert. Schubert wrote more music, of a higher quality, than just about anyone else you can name. Unfortunately, most of it was written in the shadow of the much more illustrious Beethoven. The epic Quartet in D minor was composed in 1824, after a bout of ill health made Schubert aware of his own mortality. As did Haydn with the Emperor, Schubert quoted his own song (Der Tod und das Madchen) in the slow movement of the quartet.
With the conclusion of our Canadian Memorial series, we’ll be returning to our other home, Pacific Theatre, to round out our 2010-11 season. This final concert is dedicated entirely to the works of Shostakovich. And each of the works we’ll play has its own dedication. We’re reprising the Quartet No. 7, dedicated to his wife. That work will be followed by the powerful Quartet No. 8, purportedly dedicated to “the victims of fascism and war”, but really a searing indictment of man’s inhumanity to man. And finally, we conclude our concerts with Shostakovich’s unearthly final Quartet No. 15, which is a personal testament to the composer’s own approaching end.
©2010 by Brian Mix
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