New York, New York 

April 2/3, 2023 

New York Philharmonic String Quartet

Frank Huang, violin

Qianqian Li, violin

Cynthia Phelps, viola

Carter Brey, cello

The distinguished New York Philharmonic String Quartet returns to Cincinnati. Opening with Mozart’s innovative Dissonance quartet, this program explores a range of emotions through Thompson’s stream-of-consciousness response to political mayhem and Schubert’s deeply melancholic and powerful work written as he faced his own mortality.  

Program Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465, Dissonance

In 1781 Joseph Haydn published his six “Russian” Quartets, Op. 33 and effectively revolutionized the string quartet. While string quartets had previously focused primarily on the first violin with accompaniment from the other three instruments, Haydn instead spread thematic development across all four instruments in a musical give and take. This change appealed to Mozart, who heard the set of quartets shortly after his arrival in Vienna from his native Salzburg. After leaving the medium behind for ten years, Mozart was inspired to revisit the string quartet with his series of six “Haydn” quartets, which he composed between 1782 and 1785. The C Major quartet was the last of the set to be complete.

The quartet’s nickname, “dissonance,” refers to the highly chromatic opening Adagio. This opening two-minute section seems years ahead of its time; ramping up the dramatic tension by repeatedly eschewing a chromatic resolution in favor of ongoing development before finally bursting into the consonance of C Major. From here, the movement becomes a masterfully crafted sonata form full of Viennese high classicism as Mozart moves the melody and counterpoint among all four musicians.

Mozart demonstrates his operatic gift for lyricism throughout the second movement. Here, a more homophonic texture sets the stage for the dramatic tension created by the singing call and response between the violin and cello. As both the melodic beauty and aching harmonies intensify throughout the movement, a four-note ornamentation grows into a recurring motif. The third movement Menuetto is anything but a simple dance form. Mozart writes a musical drama that nearly completes a full sonata form before the trio even occurs. The trio then doubles down on the implied conflict as the shift to a minor key only intensifies the restless pathos before returning to the primary minuet and allowing us to hear its chromatic gestures in a new context.

The finale is an absolute masterpiece of formal construction that demonstrates Mozart’s technical mastery without sacrificing his gift for beautiful melody. Rather than a simple rondo, Mozart adds elements of a theme and variations by constantly varying the rondo theme throughout. As the movement progresses, the dramatic character of the music follows the formal plan of a sonata as the rondo theme and episodes wander and develop. All of this is delivered through rich counterpoint, irrepressible driving rhythms, and a variety of melodic character that is striking.

Joel Thompson (b. 1988)

In Response to the Madness

I only made one rule for myself: each time before sitting down to compose this piece, I had to ingest all the major news stories of the day. The result of this experiment in compositional process is a stream-of-consciousness response to the political mayhem, the massacres, the climate, and our seemingly futile attempts at trying to make things better. It is essentially a scream into the void – or perhaps into a mirror. What does this music do for all the chaos in the world? This craft to which I’ve dedicated my life cannot directly cool the planet, save lives, or reinstate civility and understanding into our government and society. The piece is merely a response to the madness – one to which I hope listeners can relate – but I also hope it gives voice to our current angst and perhaps inspires us to change our tune.

With love,
Joel Thompson

March 2019

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

String Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D. 810, Death and the Maiden

By 1824, Schubert was quite ill, and only saw improvement after a period of hospitalization and a new regimen of porridge, tea, and curative baths. Despite his condition, he wrote two quartets in rapid succession between January and March – No. 13 in A Minor, “Rosamunde” and No. 14 in D Minor, “Death and the Maiden.” Schubert’s letters from this time show a poet coming to terms with his own mortality, so it is perhaps only fitting that he chose to revisit the theme from his 1817 song “Der Tod und das Mädchen” in the D Minor quartet. Here, Schubert seems to reflect on the question raised Matthias Claudius’s original poem – whether death is a gentle friend or terrible seduction – as even the grimmest passages are given an unsettling beauty.

The quartet opens with a triplet figure that Schubert spins into the basis for the first movement. This opening gesture provides thematic material as well as the nervous pulse that drives to a frenetic development interspersed with sweeter interludes. A loose recapitulation leads to a chilling coda.

The second movement, Andante con moto, provides the basis for the quartet’s nickname as it’s theme is pulled directly from Schubert’s 1817 song. This “Death and the Maiden” theme goes through five variations, first reintroducing the triplet figure from the opening movement, then shifting the melody to the cello, the third uniting the ensemble in fortissimo gestures, the fourth shifting to a lighter G Major, and the fifth ultimately restoring the melodic clarity of the original theme. Schubert provides a lighter moment in the Scherzo as the quartet splits into a high and low call-call-and-response that is only broken by the interjection of a fanciful trio section. The dotted rhythm established in the Scherzo carries forward into the finale’s raging rondo and transforms into the traditional rhythm of a tarantella. Even within this frantic movement, Schubert’s gift for lyricism shines through in moments of longing sighs and reflection. The incessant pattern continuously disintegrates until finally coalescing again into unisons before the prestissimo coda drives the quartet to a decisive conclusion.