an evening with the escher quartet · year. the third “prussian” quartet was mozart’s last...

This concert is made possible, in part, by The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts.

TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 7, 2019, AT 7:30 3,969TH CONCERT

Alice Tully Hall, Starr Theater, Adrienne Arsht StageHome of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

ESCHER STRING QUARTET ADAM BARNETT-HART, violin DANBI UM, violin PIERRE LAPOINTE, viola BROOK SPELTZ, cello

WOLFGANG AMADEUS

MOZART(1756–1791)

CHARLES IVES(1874–1954)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

(1770–1827)

Quartet in F major for Strings, K. 590, “Prussian” (1790) Allegro moderato Allegretto Minuetto: Allegretto Allegro

Quartet No. 2 for Strings (c. 1911–13) Discussions Arguments Call to the Mountains

INTERMISSION

Quartet in C-sharp minor for Strings, Op. 131 (1825–26) Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo— Allegro molto vivace— Allegro moderato—Adagio— Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile— Presto— Adagio quasi un poco andante— Allegro

PLEASE TURN OFF CELL PHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES.Photographing, sound recording, or videotaping this performance is prohibited.

AN EVENING WITH THE ESCHER QUARTET

ABOUT TONIGHT'S PROGRAMDear Listener,

We have had the great pleasure of listening to the Escher Quartet since 2006. At that time, the group was very young, yet they astounded us with their brilliant technical accomplishments, both as individuals and as an ensemble. Watching the Escher Quartet grow artistically ever since has been a great joy for us, and the group has truly spread its wings on the international scene, through both performances and recordings. As well, their adventurous repertoire projects, such as the complete quartets of both Zemlinsky and Britten for example, set them apart as fearless, intrepid interpreters of some of the repertoire’s most sophisticated and challenging works.

While today’s program does not include the premiere as planned (these things happen!) the Escher’s chosen substitution provides us an opportunity to hear one of the literature’s truly groundbreaking, mesmerizing works: the second string quartet of the American maverick Charles Ives. In it, we find Ives at both his confrontational and transcendental best. The four musicians of the quartet are protagonists of the story, as they discuss, argue, and eventually ascend the mountain to view the firmament. In the initial movement, Discussions, we find them deep in dialogue, often talking over one another in an apparently vain search for some kind of truth. In Arguments, which follows, the discussion becomes almost violent, and the second violin (whom Ives named “Rollo”) tries repeatedly to inject niceties but is shouted down. And finally, in The Call of the Mountains, the quartet climbs far above the village. Church bells can be heard in the distance. The quartet ends peacefully and mysteriously, and in total is one of Ives’s most sophisticated and important works.

For this program, the Eschers have not chosen anything less than pinnacles of the literature. Too much cannot be said about the beauty and perfection of the Mozart quartet which opens, nor about the timeless depth and relevance of Beethoven’s immortal Op. 131, which was, by all accounts, his own favorite work. Both the Beethoven and Mozart are among the last works of the composers, and breathe a rarified air of transcendence not unlike Ives. Today’s concert is a dream destination for string quartet fans, and may well entice many newcomers to their legions.

Enjoy the performance,

David Finckel Wu HanARTISTIC DIRECTORS

Quartet in F major for Strings, K. 590, “Prussian”

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg. Died December 5, 1791, in Vienna.

Composed in 1790.

SOMETHING TO KNOW: Mozart wrote this quartet for King Frederick William II of Prussia, who played the cello.

SOMETHING TO LISTEN FOR: This was Mozart’s last quartet and it is one of his most adventurous, particularly the Minuetto movement.

Given the steady deterioration in Mozart’s health, finances, and prospects in Vienna at the beginning of 1789, it is not surprising that he eagerly accepted the invitation of a fellow Mason and former student, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, to assess the career possibilities in Berlin. Lichnowsky, an officer in the Prussian army, regularly visited the court at Berlin, and suggested that he could arrange an audience with King Frederick William II, nephew and successor of the immensely cultured Frederick the Great and an avid music lover and a cellist of more than modest accomplishment. Mozart left Vienna with Lichnowsky on April 8. After stops in Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig, Prince and composer arrived in Berlin on April 25, but Mozart had to wait until May 26 before being granted an audience with the King, which went well enough for Frederick William to commission from the Viennese visitor a set of six string quartets for himself and a half-dozen piano sonatinas for his eldest daughter, Fredericka. Mozart set to work immediately on the commission after arriving home in Vienna on June 4, but he managed to finish only three of the quartets (K. 575, 589, 590) and one of the piano sonatas (K. 576) over the next

year. The Third “Prussian” Quartet was Mozart’s last work in the genre.

Frederick William probably never saw or heard these works which his patronage had inspired. Artaria’s announcement in the Wiener Zeitung still serves as an appropriate summary of Mozart’s last string quartets: “These quartets are among the most estimable works of the composer Mozart, who was torn untimely from this world; they flowed from the pen of this great musical genius not long before his death, and they display all that musical interest in respect of art, beauty and taste which must awaken pleasure and admiration not only in the amateur, but in the true connoisseur as well.” As would be expected in a composition made to order for a cello-playing king, that instrument is given prominence throughout these quartets. In the opening movement of the F major Quartet, the cello provides both the bass of the ensemble and a worthy partner for the upper voices. The main theme is built from a simple rising triad followed by a quick dash down the scale, and these two motives provide the material for much of what follows. The movement proceeds in

First CMS performance on March 7, 1975, by violinists Jaime Laredo and Ani Kavafian, violist Michael Tree, and cellist Leslie Parnas.

Duration: 25 minutes

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

www.ChamberMusicSociety.org

In his Memos, Ives traced the origin of the String Quartet No. 2, one of his thorniest and most challenging creations for both listeners and performers: “It used to come over me—especially after coming from some of those nice Kneisel Quartet concerts [Franz Kneisel’s celebrated quartet had given the premieres of Dvořák’s “American” Quartet and Op. 97 String Quintet in 1894, and remained one of this country’s most distinguished chamber

ensembles until it was dissolved in 1917; Ives had heard it frequently since his student days at Yale in the 1890s]—that music had been, and still was, too much of an emasculated art. Too much of what was easy to play and to hear was called beautiful, etc.—the same old even-vibration, Sybaritic apron-strings, keeping music too much tied to the old ladies. The string quartet music got more and more weak, trite, and effeminate. After one of those Kneisel

the expected sonata form—the second theme is a tastefully arching melody initiated by the first violin—but not without some quirks of rhythm, phrasing, and harmony indicative of the Romantic tendencies that increasingly marked the music of Mozart’s last years. The second movement, another sonata form, carefully balances the short hymnal phrases of its opening with smoothly flowing ribbons of scales and arpeggios. The Minuetto uses the familiar dance idiom but has some unsettling anomalies, the most evident of which are its eccentric phrase structures. Though the playful finale, yet another sonata

form, is less daring than the Minuetto, it stops and starts in unexpected places, changes dynamics willfully, and indulges in more intricate counterpoint than some Viennese music lovers of the day might have thought strictly necessary. For all of its elegance and polish, the F major Quartet is as forward-looking as Don Giovanni, the Requiem, and the G minor Symphony, mined with the time bombs of Romanticism that Beethoven would detonate after arriving in Vienna only ten months after Mozart died. Planted among these notes are the seeds of a new musical age that Mozart helped to nurture but would not live to see. u

Quartet No. 2 for Strings

CHARLES IVES Born October 20, 1874, in Danbury,

Connecticut. Died May 19, 1954, in New York City.

Composed in 1911–13. Duration: 25 minutes

SOMETHING TO KNOW: Ives wrote this quartet after attending a concert by the celebrated Kneisel Quartet that he characterized as “weak, trite, and effeminate.”

SOMETHING TO LISTEN FOR: In the second movement, Arguments, the second violinist plays the part of “Rollo,” who performs a parody of traditional quartet music while the other three strings heatedly interrupt and clash.

Premiered on May 11, 1946, on an all-Ives concert at Columbia University’s McMillan Theater in New York City by violinists Robert Koff and Walter Levine, violist Rena Robbins, and cellist Alla Goldberg.

First CMS performance on October 8, 1974, by violinists Jaime Laredo and Hiroko Yajima, violist Walter Trampler, and cellist Leslie Parnas.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Quartet concerts, I started a string quartet score, half mad, half in fun, and half to try out, practice, and have some fun with making those men fiddlers get up and do something like men. The set of three pieces for string quartet called: I. Four Men Have Discussions, Conversations; II. Arguments and Fight; III. Contemplation—was done then.” The first page of the score carries an additional description: “S[tring] Q[uartet] for 4 men—who converse, discuss, argue (in re ‘politick’), fight, shake hands, shut up—then walk up the mountain-side to view the firmament.” Ives considered it “one of the best things I have.”

The second movement—Arguments—was apparently composed first, in 1911; the other two movements were finished by 1913. Ives seems to have hired some theater musicians in New York to try out the piece when it was new, but the quartet was not heard publicly until a student ensemble from Juilliard (Robert Koff, Walter Levine, Rena Robbins, and Alla Goldberg) played it on May 11, 1946, at an all-Ives concert as part of a festival of modern music at Columbia University; the similarly belated premieres of The Unanswered Question and Central Park in the Dark, and performances of the Second Violin Sonata and Third Symphony rounded out the program. The quartet received its first professional performance by the Walden Quartet in Saratoga, New York the following September.

The essence of Ives’s heated challenge to musical conservatism quoted above is embodied most blatantly in Arguments, which is given an almost anthropomorphic context: the manuscript score instructs that the second violin is to play the part of “Rollo”—the composer’s denigrating label for those who are satisfied with safe, “lily-eared” musical

orthodoxy—whom the other instruments try to bully, taunt, and even pound into modernity. (The name comes from a series of 19th-century children’s books by the Rev. Jacob Abbott, in which Rollo, the hero, is unfailingly good, earnest, thrifty, obedient, honest, and, well, nice.) While Rollo saws away in plodding, conventional patterns, his antagonists create a ruckus of conflicting polyrhythms and explosive dissonances. They abruptly break off to see what effect they’ve had, and Rollo gives them a stretch of syrupy solo cadenza marked Andante emasculata and Alla rubato ELMAN (pretty tone, ladies), a reference to the celebrated violinist Mischa Elman, known for his mellifluous interpretations of the standard Romantic concertos. Rollo receives a box to the ears—Allegro con fisto—tries again (another boxing), and then gets a leering ensemble razzberry played Largo sweetota. Rollo takes another haymaker to the head, and the argument, now aggressively contrapuntal (anything you can do ...), resumes. Rollo, however, turns timid (Ives scribbled in the manuscript, “Too hard to play—so it just can’t be good music, Rollo”), and is reduced to little isolated peeps until tempers flare and solo shouting breaks out—con fuoco [fiery] (all mad). Now the modernists play devil’s advocate, and give Rollo some of his own: the cello butts in with the March from Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique”; the first violin whistles a phrase from Brahms’s Symphony No. 2; the viola tosses out the Ivesian favorite Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean; the first violin inserts a scrap

Arguments is one of Ives’s most daring and original conceptions.


of Marching Through Georgia. Rollo tries to top them all with the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s ”Choral” Symphony, but the whole affair soon collapses in a breathless heap of scales. The two violins growl at each other, considering whether to continue the fight—Andante con scratchy (as tuning up)—but instead end Arguments with a sharp blow: Allegro con fisti swatto (as a K.O.).

Arguments is one of Ives’s most daring and original conceptions. There is fun in this music, of course, and serious purpose, but there is a powerful expressive and formal function as well, both in assigning the instruments individual characters and then pitting them against each other (Elliott Carter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Quartet No. 2 of 1960 has its roots here), and in creating enormous tension through the most extreme means to drive the music decisively to its points of arrival. A hundred years before, Beethoven sought the same end with the most advanced musical tools of his day. Arguments also serves a precise, purely formal purpose within the overall architecture of the three-movement Quartet No. 2, standing at the center of what the distinguished scholar of American music H. Wiley Hitchcock called in his book on Ives an “arc of tension, higher tension, and final relaxed sublimity.”

The opening movement, Discussions (“tension”), is more restrained and communal than Arguments. These Discussions, though passionate, take place on the front porch rather than in the alley, and seem to concern politics, perhaps an issue involving North and South (Ives’s father was a veteran of the Civil War), since quotations from Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean and Marching Through Georgia are opposed

to Dixie. Hail! Columbia, whose tune was heard at Washington’s first inauguration, apparently calls for unity. “Enough discussion for us,” Ives scrawled at the end of the movement.

The quartet’s formal cycle is closed by the transcendent last movement (“final relaxed sublimity”), The Call of the Mountains, which, according to a note in the manuscript, Ives based on a Memorial Slow March for organ he had devised to commemorate the death of President McKinley on September 14, 1901. Ives said that this piece, conceived for the observance of a national day of mourning and prayer on September 18th at the Central Presbyterian Church in New York City, where he was then organist, tried for a “remembrance of the way the hymn Nearer, My God, To Thee sounded in some old camp meeting services.” (Remnants of the Memorial Slow March, now lost, also found their way into the Fourth Symphony.) “In tone, the finale is meditative and mystical,” wrote Jan Swafford in Charles Ives: A Life with Music (W.W. Norton, 1996). “Now the four characters are climbing a mountain to look at the stars, as Ives had done with friends and loved ones in Connecticut and the Adirondacks. As in the first movement, there is a picking up of motion, this time with a sense of expectation rather than tension. With a sudden cut, an electrifying conclusion breaks out. Over a down-striding whole-tone scale in the cello, the violins and viola chime like great bells in the heavens, in patterns like bell ringing [probably permutations of Westminster Chimes]. The struggle and the arguments have prepared the way for a revelation. Nearer, My God, To Thee is heard singing in the bells.” u

LEARN MORE: Visit the Watch and Listen section of the CMS website to see the Escher Quartet perform Ives's First String Quartet: From the Salvation Army.


On November 9, 1822, Prince Nikolas Galitzin, an amateur cellist and a devotee of Beethoven’s music, wrote from St. Petersburg asking the composer for “one, two or three quartets, for which labor I will be glad to pay you whatever amount you think proper.” After a hiatus of a dozen years, Beethoven was eager to return to the medium of the string quartet, and he immediately accepted the commission and set the fee of 50 ducats for each work, a high price but one readily accepted by Galitzin. Though badgered regularly by the Russian Prince (“I am really impatient to have a new quartet of yours. Nevertheless, I beg you not to mind, and to be guided in this only by your inspiration and the disposition of your mind”), Beethoven, exhausted by his labors on the Ninth Symphony in 1823-24, could not complete the Quartet in E-flat major (Op. 127) until February 1825; the second quartet (A minor, Op. 132) was finished five months later; and the third (B-flat major, Op. 130) was written between July and November, during one of the few periods of relatively good health that Beethoven enjoyed in his last decade.

Fulfilling the commission for Galitzin, however, did not nearly exhaust the fount of Beethoven’s creativity in the

realm of the string quartet. Karl Holz, the composer’s amanuensis and the second violinist in Schuppanzigh’s quartet, which gave the first public performances of Galitzin’s quartets, recorded, “During the composition of the three works for Prince Galitzin, Beethoven was assailed with such an overwhelming flow of ideas that he went against his will, as it were, to write the Quartets in C-sharp minor and F major.” Beethoven began sketching the C-sharp minor Quartet in December 1825, immediately after Op. 130 was completed, and worked on it during the following months at his flat in the Schwarzspanierhaus, near the site of the present Votiv-Kirche. By May 1826, the piece was sufficiently advanced for him to begin offering it to publishers, and he sent inquiries to the firms of Schott in Mainz, Schlessinger in Paris and Probst in Leipzig. The quartet was finished in July, and accepted by Schott the following month, but the final details of the score’s publication were not fully settled until March 24, 1827, just two days before Beethoven’s death.

The C-sharp minor Quartet may well be Beethoven’s boldest piece of musical architecture—seven movements played without pause, six distinct main key areas, 31 tempo changes, and a

Quartet in C-sharp minor for Strings, Op. 131

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Born December 16, 1770, in Bonn. Died March 26, 1827, in Vienna.

Composed in 1825–26.

SOMETHING TO KNOW: This was Beethoven’s second-to-last string quartet and its seven-movement structure fascinated and influenced many composers after him.

SOMETHING TO LISTEN FOR: The fourth movement is the emotional center of the quartet. The longest movement, it is an intricately wrought variations on a theme.

First CMS performance on March 5, 1987, by the Emerson String Quartet.

Duration: 39 minutes


THE STRUCTURE OF OP. 131TRANSCRIBED EXCERPT FROM BRUCE ADOLPHE’S INSIDE CHAMBER MUSIC LECTURE ON JANUARY 30, 2019.

The structure of the late quartets is where Beethoven starts to open up and pull away from classical norms. So, for example, if you think of any Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven quartet, then chances are you will be thinking of a piece that starts with sonata form, and then the second movement is a slow movement, and then the third movement is either a minuet or a scherzo, and the last movement is a rondo finale. But here, in the late quartets, it changes. Op. 131 has seven movements. And the movements do not reflect at all the norms and so you’re already in a different place.

Another way to think of this is if you think of places. The first movement, the fugue, is like Church. And I mean that with a capital “C”—so no particular church. In other words, it’s theological, it’s spiritual, it’s philosophical. The second movement is like a town plaza where a big dance might take place. The third movement is on an opera stage, brief though it is. It’s like a glimpse of a recitative in an opera. The fourth movement—the theme and variations—is almost like you’re at a college seminar in a discussion of theme and variations. He does everything you can do in theme and variations. He even makes fun of some of the variations, some concepts. And it’s very much like a seminar. The next movement is a playground. It’s a scherzo, which is the funniest, the most charming, and the most playful of all his scherzos. Then we go back to the opera stage. It’s the same scene, perhaps, we don’t know, but finally we get an aria. It may not relate to that recitative but—you know—we came in late. Then, the last movement is the big sonata.

Now another way to think of this is that the first movement, the fugue, and the last movement, the sonata, are the two biggest, most significant forms from the Renaissance up to Beethoven’s time. The fugue isn’t exactly a form it’s a process. Sonata is closer to being a form but it’s also kind-of a procedural template. You already see just from knowing that little bit that—both in terms of structure and emotion—he has a huge range here. More than you would normally expect in even a string quartet of Beethoven. It’s just extraordinary.

Bruce Adolphe gives eight Inside Chamber Music lectures each season. They are live streamed and over 40 past lectures are available in the Watch and Listen section of the CMS website.

Bruce Adolphe


veritable encyclopedia of Classical formal principles. So adventurous and unprecedented was this structural plan that Maynard Solomon allowed, “Beethoven may be regarded as the originator of the avant-garde in music.” Though it passes beyond the Fifth Symphony, Fidelio, and Egmont in its harmonic sophistication and structural audacity, this quartet shares with those works the sense of struggle to victory, of subjecting the spirit to such states of emotional unrest as strengthen it for winning ultimate triumph.

The opening movement is a spacious, profoundly expressive fugue which, according to Richard Wagner, “reveals the most melancholy sentiment in music.” J.W.N. Sullivan waxed almost metaphysical in concluding that this is “the most superhuman piece of music Beethoven ever wrote. It is the completely unfaltering rendering into music of what we can only call the mystic vision.” The following Allegro offers emotional respite as well as structural contrast. A tiny movement (Allegro moderato—Adagio), just 11 measures in the style of a ruminative recitative, serves as the bridge to the expressive heart (and formal center)

of the quartet, an expansive set of variations that seems almost rapt out of quotidian time. The fifth movement alternates two strains of buoyantly aerial music: a featherstitched arpeggiated theme previewed by the cello and stated in full by the first violin, and a more lyrical motive first given in octaves by the violins above the playful accompaniment of the lower strings. The short, introspective Adagio in chordal texture is less an independent movement than an introduction and foil for the finale, whose vast and densely packed sonata form (woven with references to the fugue theme of the first movement) summarizes the overall progress of this stupendous quartet in its move from darkness and struggle toward light and spiritual renewal. u

“Beethoven may be regarded as the originator of the avant-garde in music.”

—Maynard Solomon

© 2019 Dr. Richard E. Rodda


ESCHER STRING QUARTET Brook Speltz, cello; Adam Barnett-Hart, violin; Danbi Um, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist, the quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its home town of New York, the ensemble serves as season artists of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where it has presented the complete Zemlinsky quartet cycle as well as being one of five quartets chosen to collaborate in a complete presentation of Beethoven’s string quartets. The 2018–19 season finds the Escher Quartet touring the United States extensively, performing in numerous cities and venues including New York’s Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, Chicago’s Harris Theater, West Palm Beach, Baltimore, and Pasadena. Internationally, the quartet returns for a season long residency at London’s Wigmore Hall, where it will present three self-curated programs highlighting American and American-influenced compositions. The Escher Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, with recent debuts including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Les Grands Interprètes Geneva, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Auditorium du Louvre. The group has appeared at festivals such as the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, the Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway,

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS


the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, and the Perth International Arts Festival in Australia. Alongside its growing European profile, the Escher Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at the Aspen Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music, Chamber Music San Francisco, Music@Menlo, and the Ravinia and Caramoor festivals. The Escher Quartet is also currently in residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, the Tuesday Musical Association in Akron, and the University of Akron. Recordings of the complete Mendelssohn quartets, released on the BIS label in 2015-17, were received with the highest critical acclaim, with comments such as “…eloquent, full-blooded playing... The four players offer a beautiful blend of individuality and accord” (BBC Music Magazine). The Escher’s most recent recording, beloved quartets of Dvořák, Borodin, and Tchaikovsky, was met with equal enthusiasm. The quartet has also recorded the complete Zemlinsky String Quartets in two volumes, released on the Naxos label in 2013 and 2014. Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson Quartet, the Escher Quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival: the Young Artists Program at Canada’s National Arts Centre; and the Perlman Chamber Music Program on Shelter Island, NY. The quartet has since become one of the very few chamber ensembles to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. The Escher Quartet takes its name from the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.

NEW MUSICTHURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019, 6:30 AND 9:00 PM DANIEL AND JOANNA S. ROSE STUDIO

Experience musical innovation in the intimate Rose Studio. Works by Wolfgang Rihm, Joan Tower, and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

BALLETS RUSSESSUNDAY, MAY 19, 2019, 5:00 PM ALICE TULLY HALL

Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, founded in Paris in 1909, generated ground-breaking artistic influence that lasts through today. For CMS's season finale, we pay tribute to the company with music of composers commissioned by the Ballets Russes.

UPCOMING CONCERTS AT CMS


The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) is known for setting the benchmark for chamber music worldwide. Whether at its home in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, on leading stages throughout North America, or at prestigious venues in Europe and Asia, CMS brings together the very best international artists from an ever-expanding roster of more than 130 artists per season. Many of its superior performances are live streamed on the CMS website, broadcast on radio and television, or made available as digital albums and CDs. CMS also fosters and supports the careers of young artists through The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), which provides ongoing performance opportunities to highly gifted young instrumentalists and ensembles. As CMS approaches its 50th anniversary season in 2019–20, its commitment to artistic excellence and to serving the art of chamber music is stronger than ever.

ABOUT THE CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY

Elinor L. Hoover, ChairRobert Hoglund, Vice ChairJoost F. Thesseling, Vice Chair Peter W. Keegan, TreasurerPaul B. Gridley, Secretary

Nasrin AbdolaliSally Dayton ClementJoseph M. CohenJoyce B. CowinLinda S. DainesPeter DuchinJennifer P.A. GarrettWilliam B. GinsbergPhyllis GrannWalter L. HarrisPhilip K. HowardPriscilla F. KauffVicki KelloggHelen Brown LevineJohn L. LindseyJames P. O'ShaughnessyTatiana Pouschine

Richard T. PrinsDr. Annette U. RickelBeth B. SacklerHerbert S. SchlosserCharles S. SchregerDavid SimonSuzanne E. VaucherSusan S. WallachAlan G. WeilerJarvis WilcoxKathe G. Williamson

DIRECTORS EMERITIAnne CoffinPeter Frelinghuysen (1941–2018) Marit GrusonCharles H. HamiltonHarry P. KamenPaul C. LambertDonaldson C. Pillsbury (1940–2008)William G. SeldenAndrea W. Walton

GLOBAL COUNCILBrett BachmanJulie BallardHoward DillonCarole G. Donlin John FouheyCharles H. HamiltonRita HauserLinda KeenJudy KosloffMike McKoolSassona NortonSeth NovattGuilford RobinsonMorris RossabiSusan SchuurTrine SorensenShannon Wu

FOUNDERSMiss Alice TullyWilliam SchumanCharles Wadsworth,

Founding Artistic Director

Directors and Founders

David Finckel and Wu Han, Artistic Directors Suzanne Davidson, Executive DirectorADMINISTRATIONKeith Kriha, Administrative DirectorGreg Rossi, ControllerMert Sucaz, Executive and

Development Assistant

ARTISTIC PLANNING & PRODUCTIONBeth Helgeson, Director of

Artistic Planning and AdministrationKari Fitterer, Director of

Artistic Planning and TouringLaura Keller, Editorial ManagerSarissa Michaud, Production ManagerGrace Parisi, Education and

Operations Manager Yumi Tamashiro, Operations Manager Schuyler Tracy, Touring CoordinatorArianna de la Cruz, Artistic and

Production Intern

DEVELOPMENTMarie-Louise Stegall, Director of

DevelopmentFred Murdock, Associate Director,

Special Events and Young PatronsJoe Hsu, Manager, Development

Operations and ResearchJulia Marshella, Manager of

Individual Giving, PatronsErik Rego, Manager of

Individual Giving, Friends

EDUCATIONBruce Adolphe, Resident Lecturer and

Director of Family Concerts

MARKETING/SUBSCRIPTIONS/ PUBLIC RELATIONS

Emily Graff, Director of Marketing and Communications

Trent Casey, Director of Digital ContentMelissa Muscato, Assistant Director,

Marketing and Digital ContentNatalie Dixon, Manager, Audience and

Customer ServicesSara Norton, Marketing AssociateJesse Limbacher, Audience and

Customer Services AssociateJoshua Mullin, Digital Content

AssistantJoel Schimek, Ticketing Assistant

Administration


The Bowers Program

Tony Arnold, sopranoMané Galoyan, sopranoJoélle Harvey, sopranoJennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-

sopranoSara Couden, altoArseny Yakovlev, tenorNikolay Borchev, baritoneRandall Scarlata, baritoneYunpeng Wang, baritoneRyan Speedo Green, bass-baritoneInon Barnatan, pianoAlessio Bax, pianoMichael Brown, pianoGloria Chien, pianoLucille Chung, pianoGilbert Kalish, pianoHenry Kramer, pianoAnne-Marie McDermott, pianoPedja Muzijevic, pianoJon Kimura Parker, pianoJuho Pohjonen, pianoStephen Prutsman, pianoGilles Vonsattel, pianoOrion Weiss, pianoShai Wosner, pianoWu Han, pianoWu Qian, pianoPaolo Bordignon, harpsichordKenneth Weiss, harpsichordBenjamin Beilman, violinNicolas Dautricourt, violinChad Hoopes, violinDaniel Hope, violinBella Hristova, violinPaul Huang, violinAni Kavafian, violinIda Kavafian, violinErin Keefe, violinKristin Lee, violin

Sean Lee, violinYura Lee, violin/violaCho-Liang Lin, violinDaniel Phillips, violinPhilip Setzer, violinAlexander Sitkovetsky, violinArnaud Sussmann, violinDanbi Um, violinMisha Amory, violaMark Holloway, violaHsin-Yun Huang, violaMatthew Lipman, violaPaul Neubauer, violaRichard O'Neill, violaDmitri Atapine, celloEfe Baltacıgil, celloNicholas Canellakis, celloTimothy Eddy, celloDavid Finckel, celloClive Greensmith, celloJakob Koranyi, celloMihai Marica, celloKeith Robinson, celloInbal Segev, celloNicholas Tzavaras, celloPaul Watkins, celloTimothy Cobb, double bassJoseph Conyers, double bassAnthony Manzo, double bassDavid Starobin, guitarBridget Kibbey, harpSooyun Kim, fluteTara Helen O'Connor, fluteRansom Wilson, fluteRandall Ellis, oboeJames Austin Smith, oboeStephen Taylor, oboeRomie de Guise-Langlois, clarinetTommaso Lonquich, clarinetAnthony McGill, clarinet

Ricardo Morales, clarinetDavid Shifrin, clarinetMarc Goldberg, bassoonPeter Kolkay, bassoonDaniel Matsukawa, bassoonDavid Byrd-Marrow, hornDavid Jolley, hornJennifer Montone, hornEric Reed, hornStewart Rose, hornBrandon Ridenour, trumpetDavid Washburn, trumpetVictor Caccese, percussionDaniel Druckman, percussionAyano Kataoka, percussionEduardo Leandro, percussionIan David Rosenbaum, percussion

BORODIN QUARTET Ruben Aharonian, violin Sergei Lomovsky, violin Igor Naidin, viola Vladimir Balshin, cello

EMERSON STRING QUARTET Eugene Drucker, violin Philip Setzer, violin Lawrence Dutton, viola Paul Watkins, cello

ESCHER STRING QUARTET Adam Barnett-Hart, violin Danbi Um, violin Pierre Lapointe, viola Brook Speltz, cello

ORION STRING QUARTET Daniel Phillips, violin Todd Phillips, violin Steven Tenenbom, viola Timothy Eddy, cello

The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) provides a unique three-year opportunity for some of the finest young artists from around the globe, selected through highly competitive auditions, to be immersed as equals in everything CMS does.Lise de la Salle, pianoFrancisco Fullana, violinAlexi Kenney, violinAngelo Xiang Yu, violinDavid Requiro, celloXavier Foley, double bassAdam Walker, fluteSebastian Manz, clarinet

CALIDORE STRING QUARTET Jeffrey Myers, violin Ryan Meehan, violin Jeremy Berry, viola Estelle Choi, cello

SCHUMANN QUARTET Erik Schumann, violin Ken Schumann, violin Liisa Randalu, viola Mark Schumann, cello

ARTISTS OF THE 2018–19 SEASON


GOLD PATRONS ($2,500 to $4,999)Nasrin AbdolaliElaine and Hirschel AbelsonDr. and Mrs. David H. AbramsonMs. Hope AldrichAmerican Friends of Wigmore HallJoan AmronJames H. ApplegateAxe-Houghton FoundationBrett Bachman and Elisbeth ChallenerConstantin R. BodenJill Haden CooperThe Aaron Copland Fund for MusicRobert J. Cubitto and Ellen R. NadlerVirginia Davies and Willard Taylor

Suzanne DavidsonMr. and Mrs. Joseph W. Donner Helen W. DuBoisRachel and Melvin EpsteinMr. Lawrence N. Field Dr. and Mrs. Fabius N. FoxMr. Andrew C. Freedman and

Ms. Arlie SulkaFreudenberg Arts FoundationDiana G. FriedmanEgon R. GerardEdda and James GillenMr. and Mrs. Philip HowardKenneth Johnson and Julia Tobey

Paul KatcherEd and Rosann KazChloë A. KramerHenry and Marsha LauferHarriet and William LembeckDr. Edward S. LohJennifer ManocherianNed and Francoise MarcusDr. and Mrs. Michael N. MargoliesSheila Avrin McLean and David McLeanMr. and Mrs. Leigh MillerMartin and Lucille Murray Brian and Erin Pastuszenski Susan B. Plum

Contributors to the Annual Fund provide vital support for the Chamber Music Society's wide-ranging artistic and educational programs. We gratefully acknowledge the following individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies for their generous gifts. We also thank those donors who support the Chamber Music Society through the Lincoln Center Corporate Fund.

ANNUAL FUND

LEADERSHIP GIFTS ($50,000 and above)The Achelis and Bodman FoundationAnn S. BowersCarmel Cultural Endowment for the ArtsThe Chisholm FoundationJoyce B. CowinHoward Gilman FoundationDr. and Mrs. Victor GrannEugene and Emily GrantThe Jerome L. Greene FoundationMr. and Mrs. Paul B. Gridley

Rita E. and Gustave M. HauserThe Hearst Foundation, Inc.Elinor and Andrew HooverJane and Peter KeeganLincoln Center Corporate FundNational Endowment for the ArtsThe New York Community TrustNew York State Council on the ArtsStavros Niarchos FoundationMr. and Mrs. James P. O'Shaughnessy

Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller FundThe Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels

Foundation, Inc.Ellen Schiff Elizabeth W. SmithThe Alice Tully FoundationElaine and Alan WeilerThe Helen F. Whitaker Fund

GUARANTORS ($25,000 to $49,999)Thomas Brener and Inbal Segev-BrenerEstate of Anitra Christoffel-PellSally D. and Stephen M. Clement, IIIJoseph M. CohenLinda S. DainesJenny and Johnsie GarrettWilliam and Inger G. GinsbergMarion Goldin Charitable Gift FundGail and Walter HarrisFrank and Helen Hermann FoundationRobert and Suzanne Hoglund

Vicki and Chris KelloggAndrea Klepetar-FallekBruce and Suzie KovnerMetLife FoundationNew York City Department of Cultural AffairsMarnie S. Pillsbury in honor of

Donaldson C. PillsburyRichard Prins and Connie SteensmaDr. Annette U. RickelDr. Beth Sackler and Mr. Jeffrey CohenCharles S. Schreger

David SimonMr. and Mrs. Erwin StallerWilliam R. Stensrud and

Suzanne E. VaucherJoost and Maureen ThesselingTiger Baron FoundationSusan S. and Kenneth L. WallachMr. and Mrs. Jarvis WilcoxKathe and Edwin WilliamsonShannon Wu and Joseph Kahn

BENEFACTORS ($10,000 to $24,999)Anonymous (4)Ronald AbramsonWilliam and Julie Ballard Jonathan Brezin and Linda KeenThe Byers Family TrustColburn FoundationCon EdisonNathalie and Marshall CoxThe Gladys Krieble Delmas FoundationRobert and Karen DesjardinsHoward Dillon and Nell Dillon-ErmersCarole DonlinThe Lehoczky Escobar Family

Judy and Tony EvninDavid Finckel and Wu HanJohn and Marianne FouheySidney E. Frank FoundationMr. and Mrs. Peter FrelinghuysenAnn and Gordon Getty FoundationFrancis Goelet Charitable Lead TrustsThe Hamilton Generation FundIrving Harris FoundationFrederick L. JacobsonMichael Jacobson and Trine SorensenPriscilla F. KauffJeehyun Kim

Judy and Alan KosloffHelen Brown LevineSassona Norton and Ron FillerMr. Seth Novatt and Ms. Priscilla NatkinsTatiana PouschineGilbert Scharf Family FoundationJudith and Herbert SchlosserMrs. Robert SchuurJoe and Becky StockwellVirginia B. Toulmin FoundationMrs. Andrea W. Walton

PLATINUM PATRONS ($5,000 to $9,999)Anonymous (2)Murat BeyazitThe Jack Benny Family FoundationJanine Brown and Alex Simmons Jr.Mr. and Mrs. John D. CoffinMrs. Barbara M. ErskineMr. and Mrs. Irvine D. FlinnThe Frelinghuysen FoundationNaava and Sanford GrossmanMarlene Hess and James D. Zirin, in loving

memory of Donaldson C. Pillsbury

The Hite FoundationAlfred and Sally JonesMr. and Mrs. Hans KilianJonathan E. LehmanLeon Levy FoundationJane and Mary MartinezMr. and Mrs. H. Roemer McPhee,

in memory of Catherine G. CurranAchim and Colette Moeller Anju Narula Linda and Stuart Nelson

Mr. and Mrs. Howard Phipps, Jr.Eva PopperThomas A. and Georgina T. Russo

Family FundLynn StrausMartin and Ruby VogelfangerPaul and Judy WeislogelNeil Westreich

Artistic Directors Circle

Patrons


PRESTO ($1,000 to $1,499)

ALLEGRO ($600 to $999)

Anonymous (6)American Chai TrustArgos Fund of the Community Foundation

of New JerseyWilliam Benedict and Dorothy Sprague Maurice S. and Linda G. Binkow

Philanthropic FundAnn S. ColeColleen F. ConwayAllyson and Michael ElyJudi FlomMr. Stephen M. FosterDorothy and Herbert FoxMr. David B. Freedlander

Lisa A. Genova, in honor of Suzanne and Robert Hoglund

Robert M. Ginsberg Family Foundation Sharon GurwitzKris and Kathy HeinzelmanMr. and Mrs. James R. HoughtonThomas Frederick JamboisPatricia Lynn Lambrecht Leeds Family FoundationJane and John LooseThomas Mahoney and Emily Chien,

in honor of Paul and Linda GridleyThe David Minkin FoundationDot and Rick Nelson

Lorna PowerMs. Kathee RebernakAmanda Reed and Frances WoodMr. David RitterDr. Robert SilverEsther Simon Charitable TrustBarbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and

Hon. Carl SpielvogelMs. Claudia SpiesAndrea and Lubert StryerMr. David P. StuhrMs. Jane V. TalcottTricia and Philip WintererFrank Wolf

Sophia Ackerly and Janis BuchananBrian Carey and Valerie TomaselliMrs. Margherita S. FrankelDorothy F. GlassAbner S. GreeneMs. Kaori Kitao Pete KlostermanPeter KrollFrederick and Ivy KushnerBarbara and Raymond LeFebvre

Kathy Mele Merrill Family FundDeborah MintzGil and Anne Rose Family Fund Lisa and Jonathan SackMonique and Robert SchweichAnthony R. SokolowskiMr. and Mrs. Myron Stein,

in honor of Joe Cohen

Charles R. Steinberg and Judith Lambert Steinberg

Sherman TaishoffSusan Porter TallMr. and Mrs. George WadeBarry Waldorf and Stanley GotlinAlden Warner and Pete Reed

(as of April 26, 2019)

Friends

YOUNG PATRONS* ($500 to $2,500)Anonymous (1)Jordan C. AgeeSamuel Coffin and Tobie CornejoJamie ForsethSusanna GoldfingerLawrence GreenfieldRobert J. HaleyYoshiaki David KoMatt LaponteBrian P. Lei

Liana and Joseph Lim Shoshana LittLucy Lu and Mark FranksZach and Katy MaggioMr. Edwin MeulensteenKatie NojimaJason NongAndrew M. PoffelEren Erdemgil Sahin and Erdem SahinShu-Ping Shen

James Austin SmithJonathan U.R. Smith Erin SolanoAndrea VogelJonathan WangMr. Nick Williams and Ms. Maria DoerflerRebecca Wui and Raymond KoMatthew Zullo

SILVER PATRONS ($1,500 to $2,499)Anonymous (4)Alan AgleHarry E. AllanLawrence H. AppelDr. Anna BalasBetsy Shack BarbanellLillian BarbashMr. and Mrs. William G. BardelCaryl Hudson BaronMr. and Mrs. T. G. BerkDon and Karen Berry Adele BilderseeJudith Boies and Robert ChristmanAnn and Paul BrandowEric Braverman and Neil BrownCahill Cossu Noh and RobinsonFern Budow and Bob ReissCharles and Barbara BurgerJeff and Susan CampbellAllan and Carol CarltonDale C. Christensen, Jr.Judith G. ChurchillBetty CohenMarilyn and Robert CohenBetsy Cohn, in honor of Suzanne DavidsonJon Dickinson and Marlene BurnsJoan DyerThomas E. Engel, Esq.Mr. Arthur FergusonHoward and Margaret FluhrBurton M. Freeman

Cynthia FriedmanJoan and Jeremy FrostRosalind and Eugene J. GlaserAlberta Grossman, in honor of

Lawrence K. Grossman Judith HeimerDr. and Mrs. Wylie C. HembreeCharles and Nancy HoppinDr. Beverly Hyman and

Dr. Lawrence BirnbachBill and Jo Kurth Jagoda, in honor of

David Finckel and Wu HanDr. Felisa B. KaplanStephen and Belinda Kaye Thomas C. KingDr. and Mrs. Eugene S. KraussEdith KubicekRichard and Evalyn LambertDr. Donald M. LevineFran LevineWalter F. and Phyllis Loeb Family Fund

of the Jewish Communal FundKenneth LoganCarlene and Anders MaxwellIlse MelamidMerrick Family FundBernice H. MitchellAlan and Alice ModelLinda and Bill MusserBarbara A. PelsonCharles B. RaglandMr. Roy Raved and Dr. Roberta Leff

Mark and Pat RochkindDr. Hilary Ronner and Mr. Ronald FeimanJoseph and Paulette RoseDede and Michael RothenbergMarie von SaherDrs. Eslee Samberg and Eric MarcusDavid and Sheila RothmanSari and Bob SchneiderDelia and Mark SchulteMr. David Seabrook and

Dr. Sherry Barron-SeabrookJill S. SlaterJudith and Morton SloanDr. Margaret Ewing SternWarren and Susan SternDeborah F. StilesAlan and Jaqueline StuartErik and Cornelia ThomsenMichael and Judith Thoyer Leo J. TickHerb and Liz TulchinMr. and Mrs. Salvatore VaccaMr. and Mrs. Joseph ValenzaDr. Judith J. Warren and

Dr. Harold K. GoldsteinAlex and Audrey WeintrobRobert Wertheimer and Lynn SchackmanJill and Roger WittenGro V. and Jeffrey S. Wood Cecil and Gilda Wray

*For more information, call (212) 875-5216 or visit chambermusicsociety.org/yp

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph RosenThe Alfred and Jane Ross FoundationMary Ellen and James RudolphDavid and Lucinda SchultzPeter and Sharon SchuurMichael W. SchwartzFred and Robin SeegalCarol and Richard Seltzer

The Susan Stein Shiva FoundationDr. Michael C. SingerDiane Smook and Robert PeduzziGary So, in honor of Sooyun KimAnnaliese SorosSally WardwellPatricia and Lawrence WeinbachLarry Wexler and Walter Brown

Deborah and David Winston, in memory of May Winston

Janet Yaseen and the Honorable Bruce M. Kaplan

Sandra and Franklin ZieveNoreen and Ned Zimmerman


The Chamber Music Society wishes to express its deepest gratitude for The Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio, which was made possible by

a generous gift from the donors for whom the studio is named.

CMS is grateful to JoAnn and Steve Month for their generous contribution of a Steinway & Sons model "D" concert grand piano.

The Chamber Music Society's performances on American Public Media's Performance Today program are sponsored by MetLife Foundation.

CMS extends special thanks to Arnold & Porter for its great generosity and expertise in acting as pro bono Counsel.

CMS gratefully recognizes Shirley Young for her generous service as International Advisor.

CMS wishes to thank Covington & Burling for acting as pro bono Media Counsel.

This season is supported by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; and the New York State Council on

the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

From the Chamber Music Society's first season in 1969–70, support for this special institution has come from those who share a love of chamber music and a vision for the CMS's future.

While celebrating our 49th Anniversary Season this year we pay tribute to the distinguished artists who have graced our stages in thousands of performances. Some of you were here in our beloved Alice Tully Hall when the Chamber Music Society's first notes were played. Many more of you are loyal subscribers and donors who, like our very first audience, are deeply passionate about this intimate art form and are dedicated to our continued success.

Those first steps 49 years ago were bold and ambitious. Please join your fellow chamber music enthusiasts in supporting CMS by calling the Membership Office at (212) 875-5782, or by donating online at www.ChamberMusicSociety.org/support. Thank you for helping us to continue to pursue our important mission, and for enabling the Chamber Music Society to continue to present the finest performances that this art form has to offer.

The Chamber Music Society gratefully recognizes those individuals, foundations, and corporations whose estate gifts and exceptional support of the Endowment Fund ensure a firm financial base for the Chamber Music Society's continued artistic excellence. For information about gifts to the Endowment Fund, please contact Executive Director Suzanne Davidson at (212) 875-5779.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

THE CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY ENDOWMENT

Lila Acheson Wallace Flute ChairAnn S. Bowers,

The Bowers ProgramMrs. John D. Rockefeller III

Oboe ChairCharles E. Culpeper Clarinet ChairFan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels

Violin ChairMrs. William Rodman Fay

Viola ChairAlice Tully and Edward R.

Wardwell Piano ChairEstate of Robert C. AckartEstate of Marilyn ApelsonMrs. Salvador J. AssaelEstate of Katharine BidwellThe Bydale FoundationEstate of Norma ChazenEstate of Anitra Christoffel-Pell John & Margaret Cook FundEstate of Content Peckham CowanCharles E. Culpeper Foundation

Estate of Catherine G. CurranMrs. William Rodman FayMarion Goldin Charitable Gift FundThe Hamilton FoundationEstate of Mrs. Adriel HarrisEstate of Evelyn HarrisThe Hearst FundHeineman FoundationMr. and Mrs. Peter S. HellerHelen Huntington Hull FundEstate of Katherine M. HurdAlice Ilchman Fund

Anonymous Warren Ilchman

Estate of Peter L. Kennard Estate of Jane W. KitselmanEstate of Charles Hamilton

NewmanMr. and Mrs. Howard Phipps, Jr.Donaldson C. Pillsbury FundEva Popper, in memory of

Gideon Strauss

Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rdDaniel and Joanna S. RoseEstate of Anita SalisburyFan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels

FoundationThe Herbert J. Seligmann

Charitable TrustArlene Stern TrustEstate of Arlette B. SternEstate of Ruth C. SternElise L. Stoeger Prize for

Contemporary Music, bequest of Milan Stoeger

Estate of Frank E. Taplin, Jr.Mrs. Frederick L. TownleyMiss Alice TullyLila Acheson WallaceLelia and Edward WardwellThe Helen F. Whitaker FundEstate of Richard S. ZeislerHenry S. Ziegler

an evening with the escher quartet · year. the third “prussian” quartet was mozart’s last...

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