Ravinia 2021 - Issue 4

DA9ID :HI7E (387S) -E)) :ILS2N (MIR•) I I ( ) - I ( I ) a libretto by Mark Campbell, Puts’s opera, Si- lent Night , was commissioned by the Minne- sota Opera, which gave the premiere on No- vember 12, 2011. Months later, Silent Night won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Puts and Campbell teamed again for a second Minne- sota Opera commission, an adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, which premiered on March 7, 2015. Next in line is an operatic setting of Michael Cunning- ham’s The Hours , co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera, which is scheduled to premiere in 2022 with an all-star cast including soprano Renée Fleming, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and Broadway singer-actress Kelli O’Hara. Before this run of operas, Puts had built a rep- utation primarily as an instrumental compos- er. Highlights of this portion of his catalog in- clude the Percussion Concerto (2006) for the Pacific Symphony and Utah Symphony with percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, the pia- no concerto Night (2008) for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and pianist Jeffrey Kah- ane, Arcana for the string sextet Concertante (2009), and Symphony No. 4: From Mission San Juan (2013) and The City (2016) for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop. His numerous awards include two ci- tations from the American Academy of Arts and Letters: the 2003 Benjamin H. Danks Award for Excellence in Orchestral Compo- sition and the 2015 Arts and Letters Awards. Puts earned a bachelor’s degree from the East- man School of Music, a master’s from Yale University, and a doctorate from Eastman. His teaching positions include the University of Texas–Austin and the Peabody Institute, where he currently serves on the faculty. Puts recently shared background information on his fourth work for string quartet, Home (2019): “I had the idea for the opening of Home before I knew fully what it was about. Strangely, I thought of this rather warm and calming music while walking to an appoint- ment on a busy street in Manhattan. It re- minded me of an idealized depiction of home, Kevin Puts and then the recent heartbreaking images and stories of uprooted refugees from Syria and elsewhere flooded through me. I thought of bathing the listener in the comfort of this first idea, which is essentially in C major, and then gradually letting the music become un- moored, utterly devoid of tonal stability. And then I would find a way back to the opening idea only to find it wasn’t the same anymore. It was from a place of great privilege that I wrote this music, and working on it was a re- minder of this privilege and the desperation of those who fight daily to attain it.” The four string players are required to retune their instruments (“scordatura”) to pitches in a C-major chord—the most basic of keys and sonorities that functions as an aural met- aphor for “home.” A simple first-violin mel- ody rises about a drone in the lower strings. Sustained chords separate repetitions of this phrase and a second, somewhat similar, me- lodic idea. Over time, the texture thickens, with as many as a dozen pitches sounding together as well as increasingly active string figuration. Pizzicatos and “bright and ringing harmonics” combine with complexly layered rhythms as the “quartet gradually loses its way,” according to the composer. A second major section, to be performed “Dangerously fast; at the edge of playability,” introduces an element of unpredictability and instability in its nervous 12/8 fugato. The original material returns, greatly transformed, louder and in a faster tempo. Sustained sonorities that func- tioned as placid moments between melodic phrases at the beginning now ebb and flow dynamically, building to a dramatic ffff . Puts composed Home for his longtime collab- orators, the Miró Quartet, on a consortium commission from the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chamber Music Society of Detroit, Chamber Music Monterey Bay, Chamber Music Tulsa, and Rockport Music. The Miró Quartet gave the world premiere of Home on August 15, 2019, at the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. This is the third work that Puts has composed for the Miró Quartet, the others being Credo for string quartet (2007) and a concerto for string quartet and chamber or- chestra, How Wild the Sea (2013). ANTONN D9OσK (1841–1904) String Quartet No. 12 in F major, B. 179 (“American”) The 1892–93 academic year at the National Conservatory of Music in New York, which Dvořák served as director, came to a close in late May. Lacking any professional com- mitment until August and wanting to escape New York, he and his family traveled to Spill- ville, IA, a Czech community in the north- eastern corner of the state. The companion- ship of fellow Czechs, their simple lifestyle, the charming accents of their native tongue, and their nostalgic recollections of the Czech countryside only intensified Dvořák’s longing for his fatherland. Despite his immersion in this transplanted Czech culture, Dvořák wrote two of his most “American” works during the summer of 1893—the String Quartet in F major, B. 179 (op. 96), and the String Quintet in E-flat ma- jor, B. 180 (op. 97)—both of which are nick- named “American.” After rapidly composing the quartet between June 8 and 23, he scrib- bled a note of relief on the manuscript: “I am satisfied. It went quickly.” A group of expatri- ate Czechs, led by the composer on first vio- lin, gave a private performance in Spillville. The Kneisel Quartet presented the official premiere in Boston on January 1, 1894. Although the quartet’s formal structure clear- ly relies on European conventions, its melod- ic and harmonic content draws from the mu- sical wealth of the United States. In an article printed in the New York Herald on Decem- ber 15, 1893, Dvořák reviewed the products of his America period: “I have indeed been busy since I came to this country. I have finished a couple of compositions in chamber music [B. 179 and 180]. … They are both written upon the same lines as this symphony [“From the New World”] and both breathe the same [Native American] spirit.” Dvořák introduced the spirited rhythm and modal melodic construction he discovered in the music of African Americans and Na- tive Americans, particularly in the opening theme. The Lento ’s profound melancholy like- ly reflects the displaced composer’s yearning for his native Bohemia. Sounds of the Iowa landscape echo through the scherzo-like third movement, whose main theme Dvořák allegedly patterned after the call of a scarlet tanager. The Finale contrasts a rambunc- tious opening gesture with a more long-lined melody. –Program notes © 2021 Todd E. Sullivan $nton¯n 'voď£k MIR• 4UARTET Formed in 1995, the Miró Quartet became the first ensemble ever to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2005, having previously won top prizes from several com- petitions, including Naumburg and Banff. The quartet celebrated its 20th anniversary during the 2019–20 season with programs to both pay homage to the legacy of the string quartet genre and advance chamber music in the United States. A particular focus was performances of the complete string quartets by Beethoven, in honor of the 250th anniver- sary of the composer’s birth, at Chamber Mu- sic Northwest. The foursome has previously presented complete cycles of the works at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Chamber Music Tulsa, and the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival in Washington State. The Miró also conclud- ed its recordings of the works and released a box set on the Pentatone label in November 2019. A distinguishing feature of the quar- tet’s repertoire is their Archive Project, in which the Miró seeks to highlight the deep American string quartet tradition by re-cre- ating historic recitals by early-20th-century ensembles, such as the Flonzaley, Kneisel, and Kolisch Quartets. The Miró resurrected a program conceived by the Kneisel for its own 25th anniversary in 1910—featuring works by Mozart, Schubert, Glière, Franck, and Ser- vais—for performances at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and the Library of Congress, as well as in Toronto; Troy, NY; and Clemson, SC. The quartet also presented a program designed by the Kolisch—including featur- ing Bartók’s Quartet No. 5 and Berg’s Lyric Suite —in Austin, TX, and Indianapolis. The Miró Quartet has championed the music of Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts for more than a decade, with three premieres of the composer’s work to its credit. Home , a fea- ture of tonight’s program, was written for the Miro’s anniversary season, and the quartet regularly performs their first pairing, Credo , on concerts across the US. Committed to music education, members of the Miró have given master classes at universities and con- servatories around the world, and the quartet has been in residence at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas–Austin since 2003. The Miró Quartet made its Ravinia de- but in 2000 and tonight makes its first return to the festival. RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 55