It was raining yesterday evening in Manhattan, but the weather alone cannot be entirely to blame for the poor attendance at the Juilliard Quartet's faculty recital. This was one of the premier performances of chamber music this season, featuring both late Beethoven and late Mozart played by a legendary ensemble, and yet there were any number of empty seats at Alice Tully. One wonders how chamber music can retain its audience if such a concert as this cannot fill a small hall even when tickets are free.
The first piece on the program was Beethoven's String Quartet in F, Op. 135, the last complete quartet finished by the composer before his death. It is much shorter than the other late quartets and lacks the drama of the Op. 131 and 132, but it still contains some of the composer's most beautiful music, particularly in the third movement, the lento assai. The piece is also famous, as the program points out, for Beethoven's inscription "Muss es sein?" on the score itself.
The Beethoven was followed by Samuel Rhodes' String Quintet. Rhodes has been the quartet's violist since 1969 and will be retiring at the end of the current season. Apparently, the string quintet is his only major composition. It was not, however, written as a valediction for the occasion. Instead, it was composed in 1968 as a thesis for Rhodes' M.F.A. from Princeton. The piece is so well constructed that one wonders why Rhodes did not continue as a composer.
After intermission and a brief bit of drama when someone in the audience became ill, the program concluded with Mozart's String Quintet in D, K. 593. The program quotes the Novellos' 1829 diary which recounts Mozart's friendship with Hadyn and the fact that the two composers had actually played together on this piece. That must have been quite an evening to have witnessed.
The additional violist for both quintets was Roger Tapping who will join the Quartet, replacing Samuel Rhodes, next season.
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