Ravinia 2019, Issue 2, Week 4

of minor, but never completely buckles under its weight. In fact, the concluding phrases ascend in a whisper until no sound remains. JOHN HARBISON (b. 1938) Piano Quintet Countless performing arts and educational in- stitutions across the county have celebrated the 80th birthday of distinguished American com- poser John Harbison during the 2018–19 concert season. Despite being awarded the MacArthur Fellowship (1989) and Pulitzer Prize in Music (1987) for The Flight into Egypt, Sacred Ricer- car , Harbison has remained self-effacing in his high-profile and prolific compositional activi- ties, his teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tanglewood Music Center, and his occasional gigs as a jazz pianist. He and wife, Rose Mary, maintain residences in both Boston and the village of Deforest, WI, where they are co-founders and co–artistic directors of the To- ken Creek Chamber Music Festival, held in the renovated barn on Rose Mary’s family farm. Harbison’s pace has not slowed in his 80th year, which has seen three major world premieres and the publication of his first book. The Minnesota Orchestra with organist Paul Jacobs and conduc- tor Osmo Vänskä premiered What Do We Make of Bach? on October 12, 2018. “The piece began with the assumption that along with the music I would write a short book with the same title,” Harbison wrote. “I started them simultaneously, and they remain closely linked in my mind, each half of the project explaining the other.” Harbison’s monodrama IF was first performed at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium by Boston Musica Viva and soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbons, conducted by Richard Pittman, on October 20, 2018, and rounding out the birthday premieres, the Pro Arte Quartet’s violist Sally Chisholm and pianist Timothy Lovelace introduced the Sonata for Vi- ola and Piano on February 17, 2019, in Madison, WI. The viola was Harbison’s chosen instrument in his youth, and he has composed generously for the instrument throughout his career: So- nata for Viola (1961), Concerto for Viola (1988), Cucuraccia and Fugue for four violas (2003), and Nine Rasas for clarinet, viola, and piano (2016), among others. The Piano Quintet dates from an earlier period in Harbison’s career, when his musical idiom had evolved from post-Expressionist atonality to- ward a more personal, expressive style. The 1981 score was dedicated to Georgia O’Keeffe, “with affection and gratitude, from the artists, direc- tors, and friends of the Santa Fe Chamber Fes- tival.” The piece was begun at Token Creek, four miles from Sun Prairie, where its dedicatee grew up. Harbison elaborated upon its genesis: “Cer- tain aims have governed my recent work, never more than in this piece: to give the mediumwhat it requires, to strike a balance between the her- metic and the easily reachable, and make clear form of inherently complex emotion. In looking at the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, it struck me that the point of contact was this characteristi- cally American search for clarity out of complex forces. In opening my piece, I thought of the un- filled parts of her canvases, the open space, and the pleasure of leaving something out. “This opening strain dominates the first move- ment of the quintet in spite of the energy of the contrasting material. The amplitude of the discourse is contradicted by the three concise character pieces which follow. The final elegy is, I trust, the only direct reference to difficult circumstances under which the piece was com- posed, reflecting in its open-ended form the un- resolved questions it poses at every turn.” The “difficult circumstances” refer to the death of his sister, Helen Harbison Abrahamian, a noted cellist (and an original member of the Da Capo Chamber Players) who died on January 27, 1981. Harbison composed the Elegia as a memorial. JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–97) String Quintet No. 2 in G major, op. 111 Brahms “retired” in 1890, apparently reaching an autumnal conclusion to his productive com- positional career with the String Quintet No. 2 for two violins, two violas, and cello. Few cate- gories of composition—perhaps only theatrical genres—remained unconquered by the 57-year- old musician. Everything was placed in order as he entered the final phase of his life. Brahms could not have realized that a resplendent, post-retirement revival would result in glorious clarinet works (trio, quintet, and sonatas), sev- eral sets of piano pieces, and his haunting Four Serious Songs . Planned from the outset as his valedictory ad- dress, the String Quintet No. 2 is a unique mu- sical document—a conscious summation of Brahms’s style and aesthetic. Melody, harmony, and rhythm reflect the vocabulary and grammar of his musical dialect: lyrical passages rich in motivic material, variation, luxurious harmo- nies, a carefully planned key scheme, and the occasional dislodging of rhythmic pulse through hemiola (two beats against three) patterns. A distinct Viennese quality permeates the Alle- gro non troppo, ma con brio . Several 19th-cen- tury musicians detected faint traces of Johann Strauss Jr.’s Wine, Women, and Song Waltzes and Josef Strauss’s Frauenherz Polka. Two more themes round out the exposition: a lyrical viola duet and a second-violin melody with a short– long rhythm. Brahms reorchestrates his three themes after a dramatic development section. For the Adagio , Brahms composed a modestly sized, but highly expressive set of variations. The wistful, melancholy D-minor theme in the first viola rises above its translucent accom- paniment—cello pizzicatos and second-viola countermelody. A more delicate scoring typifies the first variation. Brahms changed keys to G minor for the second variation. This movement crests in the third variation, with its animated rhythm. A cadenza-like passage in the first viola leads to the final variations. The third movement is an intermezzo conceived along the lines of Brahms’s late piano pieces. Ini- tially, the violin offers a minor/modal theme in short, clipped phrases. A shift to major finds the violins and violas moving in pairs; the cello adds long, arching arpeggios. The initial minor theme returns, and its major-key companion makes a brief final appearance. Brahms adopted a Hungarian style in the finale, perhaps in homage to the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, who convinced him to write the String Quintet No. 2. Triplet motion in the sec- ond theme introduces a more leisured pacing. The concise development reveals a vivid har- monic imagination. Following the restatement of Brahms’s two main themes, an animated coda propels the work to a boisterous conclusion. –Program notes © 2019 Todd E. Sullivan John Harbison (photo: Katrin Talbot) Johannes Brahms JUNE 24 – JUNE 30, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 91