The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet will play several concerts of Beethoven and Randall Thompson over this coming weekend, including one at Olbrich Gardens on Friday night
2 Comments
PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
The Ear has received the following information from the veteran Ancora String Quartet, which will play several performances of the same program over the coming weekend in several different cities.
Members of the Ancora String Quartet (below from left, in a photo by Barry Lewis), who also play with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, are: violinists Wes Luke and Robin Ryan; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.
RECITAL PROGRAM:
String Quartet No. 2 in G Major by Randall Thompson
String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, by Ludwig van Beethoven
CONCERT DATES:
Friday, Feb. 7, at noon
Interview with Wisconsin Public Radio host
Norman Gilliland on The Midday
WERN 88.7 FM
Friday, Feb.7, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Bolz Conservatory
3330 Atwood Ave., Madison
Tickets at the door: $5
Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m.
Park (“Freethinkers”) Hall
307 Polk Street, Sauk City
Tickets: $15 general, $12 children and seniors
Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m. (UPDATE: THIS CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN OUTBREAK OF ILLNESS AT CHAI POINT. IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED.)
Chai Point Retirement Community
1400 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee
Free and open to the public
PROGRAM NOTES:
The program opens with an unusual work, the String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, by American composer Randall Thompson (below). Better known for his choral music, Thompson wrote this quartet in 1967 to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Harvard Musical Association.
The quartet is joyous and optimistic in character, with thoughtful and creative part-writing. The first movement brims with youthful energy, contained in smoothly flowing triplets.
The simple, graceful folk melody that opens the second movement continually reinvents itself in a set of charming variations. The third movement’s heartfelt tune expresses a deep content, setting up the finale, whose explosive energy erupts in a good-natured, light-hearted romp.
Beethoven (below) wrote the second piece on our program, the String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, 141 years before the Thompson and many centuries beyond it in subtlety, sophistication, intellectual rigor and emotional depth.
With six movements and lasting 40 minutes, it is the composer’s longest piece of chamber music, and it stretches limits in other ways as well. The original work, completed in 1825, contained the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue) but Beethoven replaced that in 1826 with the Finale Allegro, the last full-scale movement he completed before his death in 1827.
Op. 130 bristles with contrasts, and juxtapositions of extremes, on the micro-level to the macro-level, all contained in movements ranging from a short, gnarly Presto, to a graceful Poco Scherzo, to a lyrical, innocent Alla Danza Tedesco (In the Style of a German Dance), to the fabled Cavatina, which, Beethoven wrote, moved him to tears when he even thought about it. (You can hear the Cavatina in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
In performing Op. 130, the Ancora String Quartet tackles its 14th of the 16 Beethoven string quartets. The ASQ plans to perform Op. 59, No. 3, and Op. 131, in the summer and fall, to complete the Beethoven cycle in this, the Beethoven Year when we celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth.
For more information, go to: facebook.com/ancoraquartet and www.ancoraquartet.com
Tags: #AmericanComposer, #AncoraStringQuartet, #BeethovenYear, #BenjaminWhitcomb, #BlogPost, #BlogPosting, #BolzConservatory, #ChaiPoint, #ChaiPointRetirementCommunity, #ChamberMusic, #ChoralMusic, #CityofMadison, #CompleteCycle, #FacebookPost, #FacebookPosting, #FinalExam, #FolkMelody, #GreatFugue, #GrosseFuge, #HarvardMusicalAssociation, #HarvardUniversity, #JacobStockinger, #MadisonSymphonyOrchestra, #MadisonWisconsin, #MarikaFischerHoyt, #MilwaukeeWisconsin, #NormanGilliland, #OlbrichBotanicalGardens, #OlbrichGardens, #ParkHall, #Part-Writing, #RandallThompson, #RetirementCommunity, #RobinRyan, #SaukCity, #SaukCityWisconsin, #SeniorCitizen, #StringMusic, #StringQuartet, #TheEar, #ThemeAndVariations, #TheMidday, #WERN88.7FM, #WesLuke, #WisconsinChamberOrchestra, #WisconsinPublicRadio, #YouTubevideo, American, Ancora String Quartet, anniversary, Arts, audience, Beethoven, Beethoven Year, Benjamin Whitcomb, birth, birthday, blog, Bolz Conservatory, cavatina, celebrate, cellist, Cello, centuries, century, Chai Point, Chai Point Retirement Community, Chamber music, character, charming, children, choral music, cities, city, Classical music, community, complete, composer, Concert, contrast, counterpoint, creative, cycle, dance, date, death, deep, depth, different, door, emotional, energy, explosive, extreme, fabled, Facebook, fall, flow, folk, folk melody, forward, free, Freethinkers, Friday, fugue, full-scale, general, German, Germany, gnarly, good-natured, graceful, Great Fugue, Grosse Fuge, Harvard Musical Association, Harvard University, hear, heartfelt, host, innocent, intellectual, interview, Jacob Stockinger, Joy, joyous, juxtaposition, light-hearted, like, limits, link, long, Ludwig van Beethoven, lyrical, macro, Madison, Madison Symphony Orchestra, Marika Fischer Hoyt, melody, member, micro, Milwaukee, movement, Music, noon, Norman Gilliland, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Olbrich Gardens, open, optimism, optimistic, opus, original, Park Hall, performance, performer, piece, play, post, program, public, reader, recital, replace, Retirement, Robin Ryan, romp, Sauk City, seniors, share, short, simple, smooth, sophistication, stretch, string music, String quartet, style, subtlety, summer, tag, tears, The Ear, The Midday, theme and variations, thought, thoughtful, ticket, triplets, tune, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, unusual, variations, Veteran, Viola, Violin, violinist, violist, way, weekend, WERN 88.7 FM, Wes Luke, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, wisconsin public radio, work, WPR, year, youthful, YouTube
Recent Comments
The Well-Tempered Ear 