On Wednesday evening, after having gone earlier in the day to hear the Wednesdays at One performance at Alice Tully, I attended another Chamberfest session at Paul Hall, this time featuring music by Schoenberg and Mendelssohn.
The program opened with Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10 (1910) performed by Katherine Lim, violin; Isabel Ong, violin; Robert Donowick, viola; Yu Yu Liu, cello; and Liv Redpath, soprano. The musicians were coached by Fred Sherry and the great soprano Barbara Hannigan, a specialist in contemporary vocal music.
The Op. 10 is one of the most unusual string quartets in the repertoire - the last two movements set to music poems by Stefan George and call for their texts to be sung by soprano to the accompaniment of the strings. The quartet proved to be a turning point in Schoenberg's career, what he himself termed "the transition to my second period." In researching the history of the quartet, I came across an informative article by Bryan R. Simms that traced the personal crises that led the composer to so complete change in direction. According to Simms, there were two situations in Schoenberg's life that together had a shattering impact on his psyche and caused him to seek a new path. The first of these was the almost universal rejection his most recent music had received when first introduced in Vienna. By his own admission, Schoenberg, who had always harbored an inflated estimate of his own worth, had expected his First Quartet, Op. 7, and his Chamber Symphony, Op. 9, to be the keys to his long awaited acceptance as a great composer. In a 1937 lecture he recollected:
The Op. 10 is one of the most unusual string quartets in the repertoire - the last two movements set to music poems by Stefan George and call for their texts to be sung by soprano to the accompaniment of the strings. The quartet proved to be a turning point in Schoenberg's career, what he himself termed "the transition to my second period." In researching the history of the quartet, I came across an informative article by Bryan R. Simms that traced the personal crises that led the composer to so complete change in direction. According to Simms, there were two situations in Schoenberg's life that together had a shattering impact on his psyche and caused him to seek a new path. The first of these was the almost universal rejection his most recent music had received when first introduced in Vienna. By his own admission, Schoenberg, who had always harbored an inflated estimate of his own worth, had expected his First Quartet, Op. 7, and his Chamber Symphony, Op. 9, to be the keys to his long awaited acceptance as a great composer. In a 1937 lecture he recollected:
"After having finished the composition of the Kammersymphonie it was not only the expectation of success which filled me with joy. It was another and a more important matter. I believed I had now found my own personal style of composing and that all problems which had previously troubled a young composer had been solved... It was as lovely a dream as it was a disappointing illusion."
The reality proved far different than the composer had imagined. In regard to the First Quartet, the critic Heinrich Schenker, invited to its premiere by the composer himself, wrote: "If there are criminals in the world of art, this composer - whether by birth or by his own making - would have to be counted among them." As if this weren't enough, the Chamber Symphony fared even worse on its first hearing. Describing the work's Musikverein premiere, only three days after that of the First Quartet, attendee Egon Wellesz wrote: "Never before or after has a concert in Vienna ended in such tumult."
It was in reaction to these criticisms that Schoenberg, still in search of acceptance if not outright fame, began work on the Second Quartet. Originally he had planned to take a step back with this work and to make his music more readily accessible, once again dividing the piece into conventional movements. After having sketched the first two movements, however, he was dealt a further blow, this one even more personal. He was abandoned by his wife Mathilde who had run off with the painter Richard Gerstl. To an egotist such as Schoenberg it had to have been devastating to have received two such rebuffs in so short a time. It was in near despair then that he turned to the two poems by Stefan George as a means to express his unhappiness. Ironically, it was the inclusion of the Litanei and Entrückung in the third and fourth movements that finally led the composer to the discovery of a new style from which he would shortly thereafter develop the twelve-tone technique.
The second and final work was Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 66 (1845) performed by David Chang, violin; Noah Koh, cello; and Christopher Staknys, piano. I had on Monday evening heard the composer's Piano Sextet, Op. 110, and it was interesting to compare that youthful effort to the mature composer's accomplishment in this trio. By the time he had written the Op. 66, Mendelssohn was an experienced composer and had attained full mastery of the effects he sought to create. This was the second trio Mendelssohn had written and if it was not as popular as the Op. 49 it was still a work of genius, particularly in the balance the composer achieved in blending the three parts, giving each instrument a distinct voice while integrating them seamlessly into a whole. The work proceeds from a fiery opening to a gentle second movement that is reminiscent of Mendelssohn's "songs without words" for piano. The sprightly third movement scherzo leads directly to a passionate, but not overly dark, finale. The inclusion of the old Lutheran hymn in the final movement endowed the work with a Romantic flavor.
The coach for the Mendelssohn trio was the distinguished cellist Timothy Eddy. Quite by chance, I happened to meet him in the Juilliard lobby as I was leaving Monday evening's Chamberfest performance. I took advantage of the occasion to introduce myself and to thank him for all I'd gained from attending his performances with the Orion Quartet. In particular, the ensemble's renditions of Haydn's string quartets are as authoritative as any I've heard and have given me a much deeper appreciation of that composer's achievements. Mr. Eddy was very gracious and kind enough to update me on coming Orion recitals at Mannes and at CMS..
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