Program
String Quartet no. 5
movement i
movement ii
Philip Glass
The Four Seasons - Winter
Allegro non Molto - soloist Antonio Cevallos
Largo - soloist Amy Harris
Allegro - soloist Ben Kronk
Antonio Vivaldi
String Quartet no. 5 - movement iii
Philip Glass
Lyric for Strings
George Walker
String Quartet no. 5
movement iv
movement v
Philip Glass
CIVIC
Jonathan Bingham
String Quartet no. 5
Philip Glass
1991
Philip Glass is an American composer born in 1937, he is still alive today. Known for a super stripped down minimalist style, he’s easily one of the biggest modern American composers. His fifth string quartet was written in 1991, and was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet.
When we first started working with Richard this piece felt like a no-brainer. The narrative he came to us with had so many ups and downs - a deep fulfilling joy as well as moments of real despair, and plenty of feelings in between. Richard’s story is a very personal one, but it’s something that anyone can relate to. I hear all of those emotions in Glass’s quartet, all put together in a compositional style that is simple but deeply relatable.
I had a professor tell me one time that performances (and I’d say art in general), are a pre-historic ritual. As long as humans have been around we’ve been coming together, sharing this “art” thing with one another. I think this piece embodies that tradition - all the good and bad that come with it, and so much beyond.
The first time I heard Philip Glass’s music I wasn’t super into it. It wasn’t until I heard his fifth string quartet that I figured there might be some validity to the hype. There’s a part in the last movement, I think you’ll know it when you hear it, that broke through whatever preconceptions I had about his music. Today, there’s nothing that does it for me like Philip Glass. I love the simplicity of it - it’s music without anything more than what it needs. And yet the vortex of juxtaposing patterns and shapes always suck me in. It makes me feel the beautiful complexity of the world, and how powerless we are in the greater scheme of things. There’s been a couple times where I just think about his music and start crying - and not any romantic single-tear-down-the-cheek type of crying. I’m talking full blown sobbing, snot dripping out my nose, real nasty like.
If you've read all of this, I appreciate you taking the time of bearing through my poetic waxing. I just love this music so much, I can’t wait to share it with you and I hope you can connect with it like I do.
Program Note by Isaac Fuentes
The Four Seasons - Winter
Antonio Vivaldi
1723
It may not be overzealous to say that Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has become an essential pillar of the programmatic canon—perhaps one of the most recognizable and enduring works in all of classical music. There is an undeniable universality in Vivaldi’s musical paintings, a clarity of imagery so vivid that it has sustained its immediacy across centuries.
Each movement is accompanied by a sonnet, printed directly above the corresponding music, allowing performers to channel Vivaldi’s vision as they play. Winter is no exception, illustrating the season’s bitter cold, its dangers, and its quieter comforts. Each stanza corresponds to each movement:
To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
To run, stamping one’s feet every moment,
Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold.
Before the fire to pass peaceful,Contented days while the rain outside pours down.
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously,For fear of tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and,
Rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
We feel the chill north winds course through the home
Despite the locked and bolted doors...
This is winter, which nonetheless
Brings its own delights.
Vivaldi’s music renders these sensations with striking immediacy: the relentless rhythmic drive and biting dissonances of the strings evoke the shivering and stamping of bodies bracing against the cold; gentle, rocking pizzicato conjures the quiet patter of rain and snow as one warms by the fire; the precarious, teetering motion of walking on ice gives way to sudden gusts of wind, as if to underscore the volatility of nature itself.
Program Note by Rohan Joshi
Fun fact: Richard loves painting to Vivaldi
Lyric for Strings
George Walker
1946
One of the most eclectic and simultaneously influential American composers, George Theophilus Walker (1922-2018) first followed a traditional path, studying at Oberlin, Curtis, and Eastman schools before embarking on a long and groundbreaking career as a concert composer, notably becoming the first Black Pulitzer Prize winner in Music. Walker published more than 90 works, and was commissioned by many of the major American orchestras.
Walker and I share a hometown - Washington, DC - where June 17 is celebrated as George Walker Day. I first discovered his Lyric for Strings there, on the regional orchestra circuit. I was immediately taken by the strikingly gorgeous work, which, at that time, was less often played than it is now - Walker's music has seen a much-deserved resurgence in recent years - in particular the Lyric (bother AU cellist Geoff Manyin and he may share his COVID-era cello-only rendition) - but all of Walker's work is incredible and widely varied, including serial works, popular song, sonatas of all varieties, and even an autobiography.
Originally the second movement of Walker's first string quartet, and later expanded for string orchestra, the Lyric is often compared directly to Barber's Adagio for Strings - which similarly was first brought to life as an inner movement of a string quartet. In fact, both Barber and Walker studied under the same composition teacher at Curtis, so the stylistic comparison is understandable - yet the Lyric feels at times more extroverted and optimistic, often verging on the operatic in its passion.
The piece is dedicated to Walker's formerly enslaved grandmother, Melvina King, who unfortunately died before the completion of the work - the Lyric stands as testament to both Walker's incredible musical skill and his love for his late grandmother.
Program note by Nick Montopoli
civic
Jonathan Bingham
2021
If a palindromic pattern is to be used in a musical work it’ll likely be a reoccurring figure or small compositional technique. One might expect such a pattern to be based on an order of notes with inversions or retrogrades as in the development sections of fugues and sonatas, not the body of the piece, however, this is the case for CIVIC. As the title suggests, CIVIC is a work having its structure the same forward as it is backward. The palindrome within the work is the form started by the procession-like entrances of the instrumental families of the string orchestra.
The double bass section introduces a theme (A) lasting 7 bars ending on a one note cadence. It’s repeated by the 2nd violins ending on a two note cadence. The violas continue the pattern with only the first six bars with a three note cadence. An entrance from the cellos continue the pattern with the first five bars and a four note cadence; the same with the 1st violins entering the first four bars with a five note cadence—only not so much a cadence anymore as it is a new theme (B). (Each time we hear theme B grow, it’s from its final notes, i.e. the last note is heard first, then the last two, last three, and so on.) The pattern completes when theme B consists of seven notes replacing the seven bars of A. The pattern reverses with B being the dominant theme and a modified A theme growing in backwards one bar at a time—the pattern is the same backward as it is forward. Once the palindrome is complete, both themes are heard side by side then simultaneously for the final section. The piece then ends on the same figure it began on from the double basses.
Keeping up on the work’s identity, the piece consists of 202 bars. If played at the given tempo of 101 beats per minute, the last note will be heard at the 6 minute and 26 second mark. 202, 101, and 626 are all part of CIVIC’s palindromic design.
CIVIC was commissioned by the Portland Youth Philharmonic and received an online premiere April 10, 2021.
About the Composer
Jonathan Bingham is an acclaimed composer for both electronic and acoustic instrumentation. His work has been performed at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, and he has scored over a dozen film productions which have premiered at the New York Film Festival, Rome International Film Festival, and BFI London Film Festival, among others. Having lectured at Stanford and Columbia Universities, he currently serves on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Program note by Jonathan Bingham
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