Using the Motherhouse Chapel’s ornate, reverberant space as a magnificent soundscape, Agarita’s reflective program this evening is inspired by Andrea Casarrubios’ profound work Seven for solo cello, which is the concert’s centerpiece. But before featuring this recent work inspired by the global pandemic, we begin tonight’s journey inward with a masterpiece of the Classical Era.

PROGRAM

W.A. MOZART | PIANO CONCERTO NO. 23 | ADAGIO

JESSICA MEYER | BUT NOT UNTIL

HANS KRÁSA | TANEC FOR STRING TRIO

ANDREA CASARRUBIOS | SEVEN

D. SHOSTAKOVICH | PIANO TRIO NO. 2 IN E MINOR | LARGO AND ALLEGRETTO

CHRISTOPHER CERRONE | HOYT-SCHERMERHORN

J. BRAHMS | PIANO QUARTET NO. 3 IN C MINOR | ALLEGRO NON TROPPO

PROGRAM NOTES

The genius that he was, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart supremely elevated any genre that he touched. Sonatas, symphonies, operas, string quartets, concertos – his comprehensive mastery of these forms is a shocking feat for one human being. As far as the piano concerto genre, there were early keyboard concertos by Haydn, Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach and others (and even J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 from the Baroque Era is an early example with its massive harpsichord part), but Mozart’s 27 piano concertos truly demonstrated the genre’s dramatic possibilities to the world. Particularly his later concertos, including the Piano Concerto no. 23 in A major whose Adagio movement you will hear on this program, reached a level of musical profundity on the scale of operas and symphonies, which were taken more seriously at the time. This Adagio, in fact, recalls an operatic style with its aria-like melodies from the keyboard and its pastoral silician rhythm, common in arias of the Baroque era decades before. The performance on this program has been arranged by Agarita for piano quartet; the listener loses the sound of flute, clarinets, bassoons and horns that were used in the larger original instrumentation, but gains a deeper sense of intimacy and personal nuance that chamber music grants.

Jessica Meyer is an award-winning composer and violist living in New York City who draws on an array of styles – from traditional classical to Indian raga and Appalachian fiddling – to express her own unique compositional voice. About her work for two violas titled But Not Until, Meyer writes: But Not Until is a duo based on a series of ironic interpersonal experiences that reminded me of the David Foster Wallace quote, “The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” This is Sarah Silver Manzke’s first performance on viola, rather than violin.

Czech composer Hans Krása was one of the many incredible artists killed at Auschwitz in 1944. Incredibly, Krása was still writing while imprisoned, and his work Tanec (“Dance”) for string trio is full of vitality. Reminiscent of Béla Bartók, he utilizes a folk style that is direct and raw in expression, with a sensitive, soulful middle section that is surprisingly romantic for a work that otherwise has incredible edge. The small work, only about five minutes long, spans a powerful range of emotional states in a brief period. It is difficult not to wonder what other vibrant works this composer might have expressed, had his life been spared.

Spanish-born cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios is a well-known performer who has recently gained acclaim for her compositions. Seven for solo cello is perhaps her most significant work to date, and the context for the work is especially meaningful. Casarrubios writes: 

Commissioned by Astral Artists and Thomas Mesa for his project Songs of Isolation, Seven is a tribute to the essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to those who lost lives and are still suffering from the crisis. The piece ends with seven bell-like sounds, alluding to New York's daily 7 PM tribute during the lockdown—the moment when New Yorkers clapped from their windows, connecting with each other and expressing appreciation for those on the front lines.

In 1943, Dmitri Shostakovich mentioned starting work on a piano trio “with Russian folk themes” that would be dedicated to his close friend, the Russian polymath Ivan Sollertinsky. Yet before Shostakovich even completed the first movement, Sollertinsky passed away due to heart issues. The death impacted the composer profoundly: "it is impossible to express in words all the grief that engulfed me on hearing the news about his death", he wrote to Sollertinsky’s widow, and proclaimed that "to live without him will be unbearably difficult.” Struggling from depression during this mourning process, Shostakovich struggled to compose and even stated that "it seems to me that I will never be able to compose another note again.” His Piano Trio no. 2 in E minor was born out of this intense darkness. The third movement Largo is a heart-wrenching passacaglia: the piano repeats the same 8-bar chord progression with varying intensity, allowing the violin and cello to trade off their wailing, raw melodies that express intense grief. The final movement, Allegretto – Adagio is a “Dance of Death” that was inspired, according to biographer Ian MacDonald, by horrific reports that concentration camp guards would force Jews to dance by their own graves before executing them. The music is sardonic and wicked, with cackling staccatos that eventually become searing melodies that utilize Jewish scales. The passion and intensity of this trio is something the genre had scarcely known, and the work remains one of the most important, powerful trios in the literature.

Chris Cerrone is a GRAMMY-nominated composer who utilizes electronics to enhance the timbres, colors and expression of his music. His mastery of the electro-acoustic genre is exemplified in his work Hoyt-Schermerhorn, about which Cerrone writes:

Hoyt–Schermerhorn is a tribute to the New York nightscape. Named after a subway station in Brooklyn where I have spent many a night waiting for the train, the piece explores the myriad and contradictory feelings that often come to me late at night in my city of choice—nostalgia, anxiety, joy, panic. Originally, Hoyt–Schermerhorn was conceived as a graphic score. In the first version, sonorities were chosen at the beginning of the piece at the pianist’s discretion. By doing this, I was trying to capture a kind of automatic or intuitive texture. However, eventually I decided that it was my own intuition that I wanted; to create improvisatory and almost aimless texture, I actually had to work quite intensely and diligently to create what I desired to sound like effortless improvisation. This section slowly transforms into the second half of the piece, a (mostly) soft and gentle lullaby, coated with a shatter of fragmented electronics breaking the quiet haze.

It is well-known amongst musicians that the heart of Johannes Brahms is in his chamber music writing. The kind of personal compositional voice he used, the perfect balance between the instruments, the type of dialogue between them he was able to achieve, and the experimental musical timbres he utilized all make the genre stand out in his oeuvre. Brahms’ three piano quartets are incredibly different from one another in mood and style, with the Piano Quartet in C Minor being the most severe. Biographers agree that this work is heavily influenced by his unrequited love for Clara Schumann, his mentor Robert Schumann’s wife, whose name is subtly spelled out in one of the first movement’s thematic motives. When Brahms wrote an initial draft of the piece 20 years before returning to it and completing it, Robert Schumann was in declining health and forced into an asylum, where he died in 1856. Although the circumstances are argued upon, efforts by Brahms to unite with Clara failed, and a deep depression afflicted the composer. References to Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (a dark tale of unrequited love) help to further contextualize Brahms’ mental state as he wrote this piece. The first movement Allegro non troppo, programmed tonight, begins with a bare chord in the piano, to which the strings respond nervously. After a mysterious introduction, what sounds like gunshots from the piano (two fortissimo chords) properly begin the piece. The intensity of this dramatic movement is not without relief: the second theme, introduced by the piano, is a heavenly chorale that offers a reprieve and some hope. However, darkness envelops the music once again, and in typical Brahmsian fashion the movement ends more calmly than expected – uncertain, and in a state of emotional exhaustion.