ASQ at Juilliard for the Lower String Seminar
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!
Zak Grafilo on his Brahms Transcriptions
Early in 2008, the ASQ was in the midst making plans to do a Brahms chamber music series at Baruch College in New York City where we would perform the three String Quartets, the two Viola Quintets, the two String Sextets, as well as the Piano and Clarinet Quintets. The repertoire was wonderful and it gave us a chance to explore Brahms’ chamber works with some of our closest friends. When we actually sat down and started putting the programs together however, we noticed that some of them were a bit on the short side. In order to fill out these shorter programs the guys asked if I might be up for a little transcribing. I had done pretty well a few years earlier when I arranged four Preludes and Fugues of Shostakovich for our recordings of the Shostakovich String Quartet Cycle, so I was definitely up for the task.
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:
Francis Kuttner Guestblog: Egger on Bartok ala ASQ
Francis Kuttner works on planing Sandy's Fingerboard
Listening to one’s instrument in a concert performance is a highlight for any maker. Getting to hear four of them in a rocking rendition of quartets 1,2 and 3 of Bela Bartok is even better. Last evening’s performance at the exquisite Engelmann Recital Hall had me reminiscing over the 25 years its been since I made these instruments. Hard to believe it’s been that long —1987— since Fritz Maytag and I got together at his Anchor Brewery on Potrero Hill in San Francisco to discuss the possibility of creating a quartet in memory of his sister, Ellen Egger.
A few weeks later I was off to Bubenreuth, Germany(West!) searching for the best wood I could find. And I did. In spades. I managed to convince a wood dealer to sell me some exceptionally beautiful matched Bosnian maple that was cut in the early 50′s. The violin and viola backs were in one piece, and the cello back was from the same trunk. Down in Cremona, my teacher Francesco Bissolotti gifted me really well seasoned spruce from his own stash of wood harvested in the early 70′s in Panneveggio in the val di Fiemme, deep in the Italian Alps. This, too, came from one felled trunk.
I decided that the thing to do would be not to think in terms of creating a quartet per se, but rather, just make the four best instruments possible and let the musicians sort them out. I used the Stradivari P form to make the two violins. For the viola I trusted in my own “Mantovan” model loosely influenced by Camillus Camilli. And for the cello I referred back to Strad and his noble “B” form from which so many notable cellos sprang.
The end result surprised me. I knew they would sound good individually. But I didn’t expect that the sum would be greater than its parts. Listening to them the first time at a rehearsal in Legion of Honor in SF moved both Fritz and myself. 25 years later, with the Alexanders probing, pouncing and plucking in the first half of the Bartok cycle I was carried back to those early impressions of a fresh, vibrant sound, now more burnished, but still quite muscular. 25 years are not much when considering a 400+ years life expectancy. But hearing them now gives me a great satisfaction and confidence that the process is heading in the right direction.
Bravo Zak, Fred Paul and Sandy. I’m a lucky luthier.
— Francis Kuttner
ASQ Goes to NYC!
Fred blogging on the go!
A short blog, or “shblog’ about the ASQ in NYC this week. Monday we begin our spring residency week at Baruch College. It is great to be get back twice a year and connect with the marvelous students, faculty and our friends in the fabulous Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC). The interdisciplinary sessions include classes in English, World Literature, Mathematics, Physics, Music History, Theatre and Communications (a big one for the ASQ). Most of the classes will be held in the concert hall which was called by the New York Times “the best space for chamber music in new york” in the review we received during our Shostakovich cycle a few years ago. It is a delight to watch the students’ faces light up when they experience the impact of the string quartet live in that space.
The special events associated with the residency this week center around the complete quartets of Bela Bartok, which we will perform on Monday and Friday evenings at 7:30 in the Engleman Recital Hall. Though we will play other works as well during the class sessions the students will all get a bit of Bartok in most every class. This is Rock ‘n Roll for the string quartet. Bartok is powerful stuff. We find young people really get this music.
On Thursday afternoon at 2;45, also in Engleman the beautiful house piano (a Steinway model “D”) will get a real work out from the magnificent Joyce Yang, who will join us in the Brahms Piano Quintet. Joyce’s playing transcends age and time. She gives everyone in her audience and her colleagues a glimpse of what music making must be like in heaven. Yes, her playing gets me thinking in off the chart ways. The students will hear her also in a few class settings and she has so generous in what she has offered in these sessions in previous years.
We are all playing on the gorgeous set of instruments made by Francis Kuttner in 1987, the “Ellen M. Eggers” quartet of instruments. In June we will record the Bartok cycle on these fiddles, as we did our most recent complete cycle of the Beethoven Quartets. It’s a blast to make music on these great instruments. For me it feels like one huge 16 string instrument resonating gloriously. It reminds me, and has since we first played them all together, of the great Budapest String Quartet library of congress recordings when they played on a similar set of matched Stradivari”s. Francis says that he didn’t set out to make a “matched set” but indeed they are phenomenally suited to one another.
We will be giving a talk to the students at the Juilliard School early on Thursday evening, and on Sunday we will once again be joined by Joyce Yang when we perform our dear friends Sid and Shirley Singers series at their home in Mamaroneck. Sid and Shirley played “matchmaker” , introducing us to Joyce, for which we are most totally grateful.
— Fred
UCSF Chancellor’s Concert Series at Mission Bay
Tomorrow the ASQ heads to the Genentech Hall at the University of California, San Francisco’s Mission Bay Campus for the Chancellor’s Concert Series.
About the UCSF Chancellor’s Concert Series at Mission Bay:
Classical music lives on in this series dedicated to favorites works by classical composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and others. You’ll enjoy performances by professional and semi-professional artists.
Thursday, April 19, 2012 – 12:00pm
UCSF Chancellor’s Concert Series at Mission Bay
University of California, San Francisco – Mission Bay Campus
Genentech Hall Atrium
San Francisco, California
Tel: (415) 476-2675
Web: www.campuslifeservices.ucsf.edu/artsevents/
Program:
Shostakovich-Grafilo Prelude & Fugue in C Major, Op. 87 No. 1
Shostakovich Quartet No. 4 in D Major, Op. 83
Berkeley Chamber Performances
Zakarias Grafilo, Frederick Lifsitz, violins; Paul Yarbrough, viola; Sandy Wilson, cello. Photo credit Rory Earnshaw.
About Berkeley Chamber Performances:
“Berkeley Chamber Performances is committed to presenting intimate chamber music concerts to the East Bay community. We program a diverse range of musical styles that often expand the boundaries of chamber music by providing established and emerging musical ensembles the opportunity to perform traditional, contemporary, and original works.”
About the Berkeley City Club:
“Although Julia Morgan is renowned as the architect of the Hearst Castle at San Simeon, the Berkeley City Club is her most complete castle-like creation. Built in eleven months, this six-story landmark opened in 1930 as the “Berkeley Women’s City Club” with a membership of over 4,500. Originally a social club and residence for women, the Berkeley City Club has been available to both women and men since 1962 and today serves as a club, hotel, dining room, event and conference center. This historic building also hosts guided public tours, art exhibits and provides a beautiful venue for theatre and musical performances.”
Look for pictures on Twitter and Facebook!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 – 8:00pm
Berkeley Chamber Performances
Berkeley City Club
Berkeley, California
Program:
Janáček Quartet No. 1, “Kreutzer Sonata”
Beethoven Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95, “Serioso”
Shostakovich-Grafilo Prelude & Fugue in C Major, Op. 87 No. 1
Shostakovich-Grafilo Prelude & Fugue in D-flat Major, Op. 87 No. 15
Shostakovich Quartet No. 4 in D Major, Op. 83
www.berkeleychamberperform.org
www.berkeleycityclubhotel.com
World Premiere of Cindy Cox’s Patagón Tonight!
Just about to head up to Sonoma county for this evening’s World Premiere of Cindy Cox’s new quartet Patagón, we’re all looking forward to sharing this exciting event with Santa Rosa Junior College’s SOLD OUT house.
I had a chance to discuss the process on “Curtain Call with Charles Sepos” to be broadcast live today at KRCB.org FM 90.9 from 12:15-12:45. Click here to stream it live and to find the links to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes!
What is so touching about this premiere is that the composer herself is so joyful. Cindy recently exclaimed: “yes – that’s just what I imagined – it works!” That might not seem so surprising considering her extraordinary expertise and dedication, but after so many months of dedicated and solitary work — she has to trust in four guys to dispatch it in just under 30 minutes! In fact it’s a hell of a responsibility, but one that pumps its own kind of adrenaline. It’s a little like the high you’d expect a tightrope walker without the safety net to experience. It’s unnecessarily risky — after all, no one required us to commission a new piece — there are lots of “old” ones that we’ve yet to learn, or we could have dug out an old favorite. But being part of the creative process of “midwifing” a new work into the repertoire is something special. “Delivery” is everything, and our audience is ready to receive it. We believe the work is both charming and engaging on many fronts — and it’s spectacular to observe for it’s unusual techniques and sonic textures that are spell-binding (if wretchedly difficult to execute), so much so, that the time flies by. Performing the piece recently in an unofficial “Preview,” we were amazed that what was supposed to be 27 minutes felt like about 15 or less! We were so preoccupied with the process that it was over before we realized. Evidently our listeners felt pretty much the same, and the response was thrilling!
Take a listen to the penultimate movement from Patagón, from the live preview performance:
Tonight in the best tradition, we’ll surround the new work by established chestnuts – beginning with Beethoven’s Serioso op. 95 from 1809 and finishing with Shostakovich’s 4th from 1949.
— Sandy Wilson
Curtain Call airs live Fridays, 12:00 noon to 1:00 PM, Pacific Time, on NPR affiliate KRCB FM Radio 91.1 FM and 90.9 FM in Western and Northern Sonoma County, airs live on Bay Area Comcast Cable channel 961, streams live at krcb.org, and podcasts at www.krcb.org/curtain-call and on iTunes.
