Recorded at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Belvedere, California and Produced by Grammy Award winning composer Judith Sherman.

This recording presents some very familiar and much-loved music in an unexpected format. Ten of Jerome Kern and George Gershwin’s greatest songs — songs almost everyone has heard (and probably sung) — are performed here in transcriptions for string quartet (and clarinet). The path to this disc of quintessentially American music was long and circuitous, it involves the contributions of many different people over a span of many decades, and it got its start in Spain.

• George Gershwin: From the Porgy & Bess Suite arranged by Carl Davis
• George Gershwin: Lullaby for String Quartet
• Jerome Kern:
• All the Things You Are
• The Way You Look Tonight
• Bill
• The Song Is You
• Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
• Once in a Blue Moon

• George Gershwin & Jerome Kern – featuring Joan Enric Lluna on clarinet
• Bartók & Kodály
• Schumann & Brahms piano quintets with Joyce Yang
• Brahms Quartets, Quintets, and Sextets
• Robert Greenberg Chamber Music written for the ASQ
• Cindy Cox Quartets written for the ASQ
• And a special recording for AVIE Records of Jake Heggie‘s Into the Fire with Joyce DiDonato

So stay tuned in here as we bring you more information on these exciting upcoming releases!

Our relationship began when Sandy’s son Jonathan began attending the sisters’ school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s as a pre-kindergartener in 1988. A block south of their school, the sisters lived in a wonderfully warm and pleasantly ramshackle convent, St Hilda’s House which comprised three conjoined brownstones (painted white with brilliantly welcoming red doors).

Over the years, but especially after we relocated the quartet to California, St Hilda’s House became our ground zero. Whether trying out a tricky new program among friends or recording at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, whether teaching at our longstanding Silberman residency at CUNY’s Baruch College or simply returning to perform and tour on the east coast, the sisters were and remain among our closest and most supportive family. During Sandy’s six years on the board of Chamber Music America, he became practically a fixture among the community, often attending and frequently performing within their beautiful liturgies in the exquisite 3rd floor chapel. The Quartet has joyfully performed many benefit concerts for the Community over the years including a particularly memorable and festive production with a distinguished slew of celebrity CHS supporters at St Michael’s on Amsterdam Avenue for Garrison Keillor and his perennially popular NPR fixture, The Prairie Home Companion.

There have been a few occasions when we have even performed for some rather more far-flung friends of the Community, not long ago when on tour in Germany for the Christusbruderschaft Community in Selbitz and most recently, in Panama City for the National Concert Association founded and coordinated by another old friend of the sisters, the Reverend “Terry” Ford.

The Manhattan based order recently surrendered their much loved St Hilda’s House to Columbia University and have relocated to a beautiful and efficient “state-of-the-art” convent at 149th and Convent Avenue. Their new home is comfortable, compact, efficient and purpose-built to their own design, reflecting their quiet, sustainable and engaged lifestyles, caring and nurturing the environment and each other as well as their neighborhood and those who share it with them.

Meanwhile the country cousins of the same CHS order care for their beautiful Bluestone Farm at Melrose, just outside of Brewster NY working their land in the same devoted and holistically informed (sustainable) manner. They care for their 19th century homestead and neighboring structures – the Living Arts Center, with dedicated and frequently back-breaking hard work! We had the opportunity to visit recently and played a short concert for a small, festive gathering of friends and supporters of the Community. We enjoyed a tour of the farm, admiring their expert animal husbandry while sampling many of the organically produced riches en route. After our relaxed “informance,” we almost hedonistically enjoyed some stellar examples of the sisters’ wines and even some superb cheese produced from their own cow’s milk along with outstanding preserves and produce. Life in the country is not for everyone but as spring is springing in Putnam County NY on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, the Sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit at Melrose can make a detour richly rewarding.

Check out the CHS sisters’ website for more information at: www.chssisters.org!

— Sandy Wilson

Click images for a larger view:

Thursday, May 17, 8:00pm

La Asociación de Conciertos
Ateneo del la Ciudad del Saber
Panama City, Panamá
ConciertosPanama.org

Program:
Mozart Quartet in B-flat Major, KV 458, “Hunt”
Bartók Quartet No. 4, Sz. 91
Schubert Quartet in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”

About Asociaciaon Nacional De Conciertos:
(English translation)

The National Concert Association was organized in 1962 and registered as Non-Profit Company on February 14, 1973, with a dual purpose:

Strengthen the Panamanian musical culture by International Concert Season at the highest level, and being a change agent by providing educational opportunities to both music students and children and youth in general.

Since 1962, the ANC has presented artists such as Jean-Pierre Rampal, Nicanor Zabaleta, Pinchas Zukerman, the Miami String Quartet, the London Festival Orchestra, Camerata Bariloche, among others during its Annual Season. Great young artists like Alpin Hong, the Pacifica Quartet, the Quartet Parker, and pianist Richard Ormrod have also participated. Recently, the ANC has included major youth orchestras in its season, namely the Youth Philharmonic Conservatory of New England, led by Benjamin Zander and the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (OAS) with the participation of young Panamanians are currently two former campers of the ANC.

In education, the ANC promotes the training of young musicians through its programs of the Fund and Bank instruments, continuing scholarships for studies in local centers of musical education, free advice for musical studies abroad, and master classes. The main educational activity, however, is the Youth Music Camp, the ANC has been doing since 1986.

Our Educational Concerts and music appreciation talks to schools, universities and companies are far-reaching. These activities are intended to introduce thousands of children and young people to music. The ANC believes that music and art are crucial in fostering a culture of peace and tolerance.

Robert A. Corrigan

ASQ will perform the following works on the concert:

ASQ joins Roger Woodward (piano), Shinji Eshima (bass), and the Holloway Ensemble to perform:

• Bach: D minor concerto, BMW 1052

ASQ joins Andrew Speight (saxophone), Mark Davis (piano), Julian Borrego (bass0, Lillian Wu (percussion), Rob Mills (percussion), and the Holloway Ensemble to perform:

• John Klenner: Just Friends
• George Gershwin: Summertime
• Neil Hefte: Repetition

This evening the College of Liberal & Creative Arts offers a program featuring faculty, guests and students performing their art and exhibiting their expressive and imaginative powers to honor President Robert A. Corrigan and his equally strong-willed, indefatigable soulmate Joyce Corrigan. Throughout his time at SF State, President Corrigan has consistently stressed the crucial role of the arts in education and of creativity more generally. I have heard him quip to the effect that even though we may not have a high-power athletic squad, we do boast a world-class team, which as befits our institutional values happens to be string quartet.

About David Requiro:

First Prize winner of the 2008 Naumburg International Violoncello Competition, David Requiro (pronounced Re-keer-oh) has emerged as one of today’s most promising young cellists. After winning first prize in both the Washington International and the Irving M. Klein String Competitions, he also captured a top prize at the Gaspar Cassadó International Violoncello Competition in Hachioji, Japan, coupled with the prize for the best performances of works by Cassadó.

Mr. Requiro has soloed with the Tokyo Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and and other orchestras across the U.S. His Carnegie Hall debut recital at Weill Hall was followed by a critically acclaimed San Francisco Performances recital at the Herbst Theatre. Soon after making his Kennedy Center debut, Mr. Requiro also completed the cycle of Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano and Cello at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. Actively involved in contemporary music, he has collaborated with composers Krzysztof Penderecki and Bright Sheng and most recently gave the Dutch premier of Pierre Jalbert’s Sonata for cello and piano at the 2010 Amsterdam Cello Biennale.

Mr. Requiro is currently Artist in Residence at the University of Puget Sound where he is professor of cello and director of the chamber music program. He has served as artist faculty at the Giverny Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Innsbrook Music Festival and Institute, Maui Classical Music Festival, Olympic Music Festival, and Center Stage Strings. He is also a member of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York City.

Find out more about Mr. Requiro at www.davidrequiro.com.

Saturday May 5, 2012 – 10:00 am
Franz Schubert Series
San Francisco Performances Inc.
Herbst Theatre
San Francisco, California

www.performances.org

Program:
ASQ with lecturer, Robert Greenberg
Schubert Quintet in C Major, D. 956, Op. posth. 163 (1828) with cellist, David Requiro

In his all-too-brief life, Schubert created a body of music the size and quality of which leaves us shaking our heads in wonder. In the last sixteen years of his life, from the age of 15 to 31, Schubert produced, among other works: 9 finished and “unfinished” symphonies; 10 orchestral overtures; 22 piano sonatas; 6 masses; 17 operas; 637 songs; over 1000 works for solo piano and piano four-hands; around 145 choral works; 45 chamber works, including fifteen string quartets and one string quintet.

The tiny (about 5′ 1″), pudgy, be-spectacled Schubert was a compulsive composer. He rather innocently described his routine this way:

“I work every morning. When I have finished one piece I begin another.”

To which we would add, “and another, and another, and another.” Schubert was a workaholic, one who combined the amateur’s pure joy of music-making with a professional’s discipline and technical abilities. To paraphrase Sir Charles Barkley, Schubert was “a small round mound of profound sound.”

What makes Schubert’s amazing compositional output doubly miraculous was the physical condition in which Schubert labored under during the final 6 years of his life.

Sometime during the late summer or early fall of 1822, the 25 year-old Schubert contracted syphilis during a pleasure jaunt with his pal, a lowlife dandy named Franz von Schobar.

The first symptoms of the disease appeared in January of 1823 and they were bad: periods of painful lymphatic swelling, pustules, rashes, hair loss, lesions in the mouth and throat, and debilitating muscle aches. Depression and despair followed and Schubert began to abuse both alcohol and tobacco. Spiritual, emotional, and physical mess though he was, Schubert, miraculously, did not stop composing, and the music he did compose began to exhibit an altogether new degree of contrast and depth of expressive content.

In the fall of 1824 the 27 year-old Schubert’s syphilis entered its latent phase. His health and good spirits began to return, although he was still prone to violent depressive jags, particularly when he drank – which meant often.

His dark days aside, Schubert had reason for hope, because for a lucky few syphilitics, latency was permanent. Sadly, that was not Schubert’s fate. During the summer of 1827, he begins experiencing recurring headaches. By the fall, it was clear that Schubert’s three-year period of latency had come to its end and that his syphilis was once again advancing.

All of this, then, is the backdrop for the miracle that was the month of September 1828. His increasingly severe headaches aside, Schubert accomplished what still seems, to this day, to have been impossible. In the space of a few weeks, he completed his last three piano sonatas – in C Minor, A Major, and Bb Major; six songs from the Schwanengesang collection; and the String Quintet in C Major. The quintet – scored for two violins, a viola, and two ‘cellos – is among the handful of greatest chamber works ever composed. (That is not an opinion; that is a fact.)

With its sprawling, gloriously lyric themes, incredible harmonic detail, explosive contrasts, and juxtapositions of harmonic light and darkness, the Quintet is also the quintessential late Schubert work, in which expressive content is deepened immeasurably by the grievous circumstances of Schubert’s life experience.

The Quintet was to be Schubert’s last completed work. In mid-October of 1828 – just a few weeks after having completed the Quintet – Schubert’s appetite disappeared. Weakened by tertiary syphilis and the toxic, mercury-based medications he was taking for the syphilis, Schubert took to his bed with a high, persistent fever, almost certainly caused by a bacterial typhoid infection. Schubert died at three o’clock in the afternoon on November 19, 1828.

Deeply saddened by Schubert’s premature death, the Viennese poet Franz Grillparzer wrote this epitaph: “Music has buried here great riches but far fairer hopes.”

That may be. But we do have the Quintet, and as Schubert’s “last musical will and testament”, it has no equal.

— Robert Greenberg

Robert Greenberg will be joining the Alexander String Quartet on the final concert of the Schubert Series with San Francisco Performances as a guest lecturer on May 5, 2012. Find out more about Robert on www.robertgreenbergmusic.com

Saturday May 5, 2012 – 10:00 am
Franz Schubert Series
San Francisco Performances Inc.
Herbst Theatre
San Francisco, California

www.performances.org

Program:
ASQ with lecturer, Robert Greenberg
Schubert Quintet in C Major, D. 956, Op. posth. 163 (1828) with cellist, David Requiro

Fifth Floor Juilliard View over Broadway

This was perhaps our 6th visit over as many years to Professor Toby Appel’s unique course in which very practical aspects of the professional musician’s working career are discussed with successful practitioners to the fore.

Topics of classes may include:

• The Bach Suites, with Yehuda Hanani
• String design and function, with Fan Tao
• Instrument adjustment, with Guy Rabut
• Interview/discussion, Cynthia Phelps (principal violist of the NY Philharmonic)
• Bass restoration and set up, with David Gage
• How to make a career in music, with Charles Wadsworth
• Children’s concerts and alternative careers in music, with Bruce Adolphe
• Finding a university teaching position, with Jesus Castro Balbi
• How does one survive more than 25 years in a string quartet? With the Alexander String Quartet.

Typically Toby will bring in guests to speak on topics not usually available to Juilliard students. How to speak to your violin maker about sound. What is a sound?

For the ASQ, our presentation focused on everything from developing residencies with or without academic affiliations, and preparing for exhausting comprehensive cycles – including the Bartok cycle which we just completed in Manhattan. We also discussed developing repertoire identity, personnel changes, supportive and cooperative interpersonal relationships, and balancing the necessary maintenance “chores” that sustain the ongoing enterprise.

In a two hour span, there’s plenty of time to get to a wide variety of topics and even leave enough time to perform a few random movements of Bartok along the way. It was a credit to Toby and to his class of 2011-12 that the questions were substantial and challenging. These are curious and gifted students who didn;t waste the opportunity to get at some gnarly issues and hear some candid responses from “people in the know.”

Well done Toby – and thanks for inviting us back again!

My original idea was to find piano works that were composed around the same time as the works that we were performing on the series. The nice thing was that the series began with the Op. 18 String Sextet and ended with the Op. 115 Clarinet Quintet, so I had pretty much the entire Brahms piano repertoire to choose from. At one point, Paul pulled me aside and said, “if you’re going to transcribe something from the late piano works; like the Op. 118 or 119 piano pieces, you must do the A Major Intermezzo.” And that’s how it all started – Paul’s request for the A Major Intermezzo was what got me motivated to transcribe this particular piece for the ASQ.

Whenever I start a transcription, it usually begins with two or three recordings. When I was transcribing the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues the recordings that helped me hear the voicings for my arrangement were Roger Woodward’s on Celestial Harmonies (read my post about Roger Woodward’s recording) and Tatiana Nikolaeva’s on Melodiya. I followed the same formula for the Brahms as well. I listened to several different recordings of the Intermezzo and there were three particular recordings that I pulled inspiration from: Arthur Rubinstein’s on RCA Red Seal, Julius Katchen’s on London, and Radu Lupu’s on Decca. From these three, I put together an ideal composite of how I imagined the string parts would sound like. Take a listen to the Radu Lupu recording below and compare it to my string quartet transcription.

 
Compared to the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, the Brahms Intermezzo was much more complicated to put together. I was quite surprised when I first looked at the score because how sparse the writing was. But yet, the aural effect of the voicing together makes it sound incredibly rich. When I began arranging the parts, I wanted to make sure that I conveyed that same sort of richness. In the middle, or “B” section of the piece, I did a little bit of Brahms channeling by ‘composing’ a pizzicato line for the viola. Brahms loves to combine three’s against two’s and often with strings he’ll do this with pizzicato, so I thought, “Why not?!? It’s something Brahms would have done!” I particularly enjoy this section of the piece because I get to take a short break while the other three play as a string trio.

I’m still a bit hesitant when ever we perform this piece because I’m always afraid that the pianists in the audience will storm out of the hall, offended that I’ve ruined one of Brahms’ greatest piano works. Thankfully, I’ve been pleasantly surprised when pianists come up to me afterwards saying how “Brahmsian” the transcription sounds and how the voicings of the Quartet are wonderfully exposed in a way that is practically ideal. I just hope that when I die, Brahms will say that he was pleased with my transcription.

—Zak Grafilo

Listen to an excerpt from Zak’s Intermezzo in A Major as recorded on the ASQ’s new release With Strings Attached:

Purchase With Strings Attached:

Allegro Classical
Amazon.com