Sunday, May 25, 2008 ~ 3:00pm

This concert sponsored by 
Dianna & John Shomaker

Willy Sucre and Friends 

play 

String Quartets

The program should include:

String Quartet in C Major Op.37
by Karol Szymanowski

I.   Lento assai

II. Andantino semplice. In modo d'una canzone

III. Vivace: scherzando alla burlesca

The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski was born in 1882 in the Ukraine, once part of the kingdom of Poland. He studied in Warsaw, much influenced by Chopin and then by Wagner, Richard Strauss, Brahms and Reger. From a well-to-do and cultured family, he read widely, particularly during the years of war, from 1914 to 1917, when he remained on the family estate in the Ukraine, a property destroyed in the civil war. The breadth of his cultural knowledge is reflected in his music and in particular in his settings of literary texts of one kind or another. Musically he is able at times to draw on specifically Polish material, coupled with his own perceptions of Arabic and Persian culture. It is believe that he intended to write a fourth movement, but eventually concluded that the scherzo rounded off the work most effectively. Szymanowski died in 1937.

Notes adapted from various websites and notes written by Edward Wright. 

Fantasie for String Quartet

"Fantaisie en quatuor"
by Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński

I.  Adagio, andantino con moto, fuga

II.  Adaio moderato

III. Adagio, presto

Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński was born on March 6, 1785 in Włoszakowice (Wielkopolska). He was a composer, conductor and teacher who He first studied music with his father, Marcin Kurpiński, an organist.  Kurpiński was one of the most talented Polish composers before Chopin and helped to lay the foundations of a national style and prepared the ground for Polish music of the Romantic period. Gifted with exceptional creative originality, he contributed to the development of Polish opera, introducing new musical devices and achieving an intensified dramatic expression. Operas and polonaises form the largest part of his output. His operas were successful at the time and some have not lost their appeal. Of his 24 stage works, nine survive complete and eight in part, while the rest have been lost. Although brought up on the Viennese Classics, Kurpiński followed the spirit of his times, combining the new achievements of European music with the folklore of his own country. He died on September 18, 1857 in Warsaw.

Notes adapted from the USC Polish Music Center website.

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I N T E R M IS S I O N 

String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 
"American"
by Antonín Dvořák

 I.  Allegro ma non troppo
II. Lento
III.  Molto vivace
IV. Finale: Vivace ma non troppo

Dvořák was born on September 8, 1841, in Nelabozeves, near Prague. His most famous string quartet was written in June 1893 at Spillville, a small Czech settlement in north-east Iowa. He accepted an invitation to spend the summer visiting this small farming community (300) made up of immigrants who preserved the language, culture, and customs of their native land. When Dvořák arrived in this city, with his wife, six children, sister, maid, and secretary, he was met by the father of Josef Kovarik, one of his pupils, and by Thomáš Bílý, the parish priest. Three days later he began work on this quartet. Although he usually composed quite slowly, he finished the sketches by June 11, writing at the end, “Thanks be to the Lord God. I am satisfied. It went quickly.” As soon as the final score was ready, on June 23, Dvořák, playing violin, along with three students, read it through. The “official” premiere was given in Boston by the Kneisel Quartet on January 1, 1894.   

This quartet became his best known chamber music composition. Many hear in the quartet strains of black spirituals and plantation songs, as well as elements of American Indian music. Some say he was influenced by the hymns sung by the colony of Blacks during their prayer-meetings, as well as those of his youth played on the harmonium of the little church of St. Wenceslas. Others doubt that the quartet grew from the sounds Dvořák heard in America and hold rather that it is based on certain melodic and rhythmic similarities shared by both American ethnic music and the Bohemian-Slavic folk tradition. This difference of opinion really matters little in light of the “American” Quartet’s enormous popularity and universal appeal.   

Dvořák died May 1, 1904 in Prague.

Notes adapted from Melvin Berger's Guide to Chamber Music and the 1998 Praák Quartet CD by Praga Productions.

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Time, date, and program subject to change.