Ravinia 2024 Issue 2

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK (1841–1904) String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, op. 51 The astonishing financial success of his first published scores made it very difficult for Dvořák to avoid being typecast as a folk-in- spired composer. Johannes Brahms had recom- mended the young Czech musician to his own publisher, Fritz Simrock, who amassed a near-fortune from sales of the Moravian Duets (composed 1875; published 1879), the first set of Slavonic Dances (1878), and the Slavonic Rhapso- dies (1878). Quite naturally, the business-mind- ed publisher longed for other profitable ethnic works. Dvořák, on the other hand, sought a wid- er representation of his art before the public and promoted music in more traditional genres to Simrock. In the short run, Dvořák persuaded his publish- er to issue only a small number of these standard works. The select list included his String Sextet in A major, op. 48 (1878), a work that received its premiere in Berlin on November 9, 1879, making it the first piece to debut outside his homeland. Before that public event, the Joachim Quartet gave a private reading on July 29, 1879. This in- timate recital in Joseph Joachim’s residence also included another recent chamber piece issued by Simrock—the String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, op. 51. Dvořák described the evening to his friend Alois Göbl: “I had not been here more than a few hours before I had spent among the foremost artists so many happy and agreeable moments that the memory of them will remain with me for the rest of my life. Joachim had been looking forward eagerly to my arrival and held a soirée for me at 7 p.m. at which my new quartet [op. 51] and sextet were performed. How they played everything and with what understanding and enthusiasm.” A more complete musician emerged from every page of the quartet, one possessing a sophisti- cated technique, mastery of form, and multi-di- mensioned expression. The Allegro ma non Antonín Dvořák troppo remains largely in a mode of restrained passion, especially in its hymn-like episode during development. This lyrical, emotionally concentrated vein returns in the Romanze . Fur- thermore, Dvořák attained a comfortable coex- istence of “Classical” and ethnic ingredients. The quartet includes an elegiac second movement in dumka style, a soulful Czech folk piece in slow tempo. Here, cello pizzicatos provide an evoc- ative accompaniment to a minor-key “duet.” In time-honored fashion, Dvořák contrasts this mournful material with a lively furiant dance that shifts rapidly between two- and three-beat rhythmic patterns. The finale’s main theme likewise pays homage to folk dance traditions, perhaps (as Dvořák scholar Alec Robertson has suggested) the reel-like skočna . NOKUTHULA NGWENYAMA (b.1976) Flow Widely heralded American violist and composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama was born and raised in Los Angeles, the daughter of a Zimbabwean (Ndebele and Lemba) father and Japanese moth- er. Her passion for music developed early. Violin lessons began at age 6, followed by piano studies. A recording of Mendelssohn’s String Octet stirred Ngwenyama’s fascination with the viola—“the notes sounded like pearls”—and, at age 12, she shifted her musical focus to that instrument. Ngwenyama attended Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica and the Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles. Eleven days after her 17th birthday, she won the 1993 Primrose International Viola Competition, held at Northwestern University, and a few months after triumphed in the 1994 Young Con- cert Artists International Auditions. She later re- ceived an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1997. Ngwenyama completed an undergraduate de- gree in music at the Curtis Institute of Music, was a Fulbright scholar at the Paris Conser- vatory, and earned a Master of Theological Studies degree at Harvard Divinity School. As a member of the chamber ensemble umama Nokuthula Ngwenyama womama—a trio of performer-composers who celebrate motherhood—Ngwenyama performs and creates in collaboration with flutist Val- erie Coleman and harpist Han Nash. As the first composer-in-residence with the Phoenix Chamber Music Society, she curates the Com- posers’ Choice concerts. Ngwenyama was Pres- ident of the American Viola Society from 2011 until 2014. Earlier this summer, she served as the inaugural Honorary Competition Chair of the 2024 Primrose International Viola Competition and composed a work for the semifinal round of the competition. Ngwenyama’s compositions have been per- formed extensively by such ensembles as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Sym- phony Orchestra, KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Nation- al Arts Centre Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, Orquesta Nacional de España, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Recent commissions include Miasma for solo violin (2021, during the COVID crisis; based on the genomic pattern of the virus) by the Young Concert Artists for violinist Bella Hristova; Elegy for piano quartet (2022) for The Kalichstein-Lar- edo-Robinson Trio and the composer as guest violist; and Flow (2024) by a consortium of nine presenting organizations—led by Cal Perfor- mances—for the Takács Quartet’s 13-city tour of the United States in summer 2024. Ngwenyama prefaced her extensive program notes with a poem: Come in and out of silence, Tone swirling in the balance. Nothing, then everything Waving into space. Then Light. And after a longer while Air. And now sixteen strings manually animated, Vibrating through time. The Takács Quartet placed only one condition on the commission: that it should “be about anything in the natural world,” as Ngenyama explained. “Fortunately, patterns in music and science pair well.” Next followed an extensive period of discovery: “I researched a wide array of subjects for over a year. Topics included the life cycle, carbon recla- mation, environmental protection, animal com- munication, starling murmurations, our last universal common ancestor (LUCA), black hole collisions, and the subatomic realm. I listened and re-listened to the silky recordings of the Takács Quartet with gusto, especially savoring their performances of Johannes Brahms, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Florence Price. Systems layered upon other systems revealed a common flow to existence tying us to the initial outburst of energy and matter at the birth of our universe. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 1 – JULY 21, 2024 82