FROM THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, BOOK I, BWV 846-53Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)/Arr. by Nicholas Kitchen

Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C MajorPrelude and Fugue No. 2 in C MinorPrelude and Fugue No. 3 in C-Sharp MajorPrelude and Fugue No. 4 in C-Sharp MinorPrelude and Fugue No. 5 in D MajorPrelude and Fugue No. 6 in D MinorPrelude and Fugue No. 7 in E-Flat MajorPrelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-Flat Minor

THE WORLDS REVOLVE FOR PIANO AND STRING QUARTET (2016)Elena Ruehr (b. 1963)

The Worlds RevolveLike Ancient Womengathering FuelIn Vacant Lots

WORLD PREMIERE

:: intermission ::

STRING QUARTET NO. 12 IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 127Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Maestoso—AllegroAdagio, ma non troppo e molto cantabileScherzando vivaceAllegro

This concert is made possible in part through the generosity of the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation.

9june

Thurs

day

8 PM

borromeo string quartetNicholas Kitchen, violin

Kristopher Tong, violin

Mai Motobuchi, viola

Yeesun Kim, cello

WITH

Donald Berman, piano

the program

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 13

WEEK

2

FROM THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, BOOK I, BWV 846-853Johann Sebastian Bach (b. Eisenach, March 21, 1685; d. Leipzig, July 28, 1750)/Arr. Nicholas Kitchen

Composed 1722; 30 minutes

The “Preludes and Fugues in all the major and minor keys,” by Johann Sebastian Bach, firstappeared in 1722, when Bach was employed as Kapellmeister at the court in Cöthen. The“Clavier” (or Klavier) of Bach’s german-language title indicated that the pieces could beplayed on any of several keyboard instruments, with clavichord and harpsichord the mostcommonly used for study and performance in his time. Probably intending them forpedagogical use, Bach composed 24 sets of Preludes and Fugues, and copies of thembegan to circulate in hand-written manuscript form.

Twenty years later, during his years in Leipzig, Bach composed a second volume,also comprising 24 preludes and fugues for keyboard, in all the major and minorkeys. Now commonly referred to as “The 48,” the Preludes and Fugues, Book I andBook II, have become de rigueur for the education and training of pianists andharpsichordists—indeed, of all musicians.

During the past decade, the violinist Nicholas Kitchen has transcribed for theBorromeo String Quartet the 24 Preludes and Fugues, Book I, of J. S. Bach’s

seminal work for keyboard. In the history of music, arrangers have frequently adapted a fullsymphonic score, a string quartet, or an opera score to a keyboard reduction, an arrangementof all the instruments’ voices that can be played on the piano. Such a piano reduction mightbe for the convenience of musicians at rehearsals, or it might be (as in the case of thevoluminous repertoire of four-hand piano arrangements) for the edification and entertainmentof the pianists.

Kitchen’s transcriptions of “The 24” have reversed that direction, teasing out of the originalkeyboard score the independent polyphonic lines that Bach so ingeniously wove together.Applying them judiciously and artfully to the appropriate voices in the Borromeo Quartet,Kitchen has created a score for modern strings that retains the clarity of Bach’s intentionsand the elegant beauty of his Baroque manner.

THE WORLDS REVOLVE FOR PIANO AND STRING QUARTET Elena Ruehr (b. Ann Arbor, 1963)

Composed 2016; 17 minutes

Elena Ruehr, an award-winning faculty member at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,was a student of William Bolcom (at the University of Michigan) and Vincent Persichettiand Bernard Rands (The Juilliard School). Her compositions include works for chamberensemble, orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble, instrumental solo, opera, dance, and silentfilm. She is a guggenheim Fellow and has been a fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute andcomposer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Dr. Ruehr has receivedcommissions from many soloists and ensembles, most recently this work for Piano andString Quartet, composed for Donald Berman and the Borromeo String Quartet, anddedicated to David Deveau.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

14 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM

The title page for the 1722autograph of J. S. Bach’sThe Well-TemperedClavier, Book I

The composer Elena Ruehr

Elena Ruehr writes about The Worlds Revolve:

The Worlds Revolve for piano and string quartet

These four movements for piano and string quartet take their titlesfrom T.S. Eliot’s fourth Prelude. This poem has been a favorite ofmine since I was a teenager, evoking in the last few lines somethingthat seems both ancient and prescient. The first movement (TheWorlds Revolve) has a melody that actually mimics the rhythm of thefirst stanza and evokes an ancient tune. Like Ancient Women usesblock chords to create a quiet grandeur. gathering Fuel is a virtuosicflurry, and In Vacant Lots seems to me to evoke an ancient city, nowempty. Composed for Donald Berman and the Borromeo StringQuartet, the work is warmly dedicated to David Deveau.

STRING QUARTET NO. 12 IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 127Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)

Composed 1825; 39 minutes

After the publication of his String Quartet No. 11, Op. 95, Beethoven left the genre alone for a full twelve years. In the summer of 1822 he once again began thinking in string quartetterms and proposed to one of his publishers, C. F. Peters, that he might develop some newquartet sketches. For whatever reasons—perhaps because of his greater interest in theMissa solemnis then in progress—the publisher declined, and Beethoven put his string quartet sketches aside.

A few months later, in November, Beethoven was contacted by an amateur cellist from St.Petersburg. During a residency in Vienna, Prince Nicholas galitzin (born in 1795) had formedhis own quartet of string players, who explored works of the great local composers—Mozart,Haydn, and Beethoven among them. galitzin offered Beethoven a commission for “one, two,or three” new string quartets.

Although he already had substantial sketches for a new quartet, Beethoven’s attention wasfocused not only on the Missa solemnis but also on the new Symphony No. 9. Finally, in 1824,after the successful public performances of those two works (galatzin became an importantsubscriber of the Missa solemnis), Beethoven turned his full attention to the string quartetcommission. He eventually completed three quartets for galitzin: No. 12 in E-flat major(Op. 127, completed in February 1825), No. 15 in A minor (Op. 132, July 1825), and No. 13in B-flat major (Op. 130, November 1825).

The first performance of Op. 127 did not go well. Beethoven blamed his old friend andcolleague, Ignaz Schuppanzigh:

The Quartet was a failure the first time that Schuppanzigh played it, for he, being sovery stout, now needs more time than he formerly did before he can grasp anything,and many other circumstances were the cause of its not succeeding. This was alsopredicted by me, for although Schuppanzigh and two others draw their pension from

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 15

1823 Portrait of Beethovenby the Austrian artistFerdinand Georg Waldmüller

FROM PRELUDES BY T.S. ELIOT

His soul stretched tight across the skiesThat fade behind a city block,Or trampled by insistent feetAt four and five and six o’clock;And short square fingers stuffing pipes,And evening newspapers, and eyesAssured of certain certainties,The conscience of a blackened streetImpatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curledAround these images, and cling:The notion of some infinitely gentleInfinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth,and laugh;The worlds revolve like ancient womenGathering fuel in vacant lots.

Princes, his Quartet is no longer what it was when all wereconstantly playing together. On the other hand, it has beenperformed six times by other artists in the best possible manner,and received with greatest applause….

In this letter to his nephew, Carl, Beethoven failed to mention thathe, Beethoven, had not finished copying out the parts until the lastminute, a handicap equally as responsible for a rocky performanceas Schuppanzigh’s corpulence.

The limited success of the first performance of the String Quartet Op. 127 (which Beethoven did not attend) continued to irritate the composer. He blamed his old friend and colleague Schuppanzigh, even though the violinistand his colleagues had received the score only days before the performance. Beethoventhen called upon the violinist Joseph Böhm, curtly entreating him to prepare a second performance as soon as possible. Böhm wrote:

…so I undertook the difficult task…rehearsed frequently under Beethoven’s owneyes. I said ‘eyes’ intentionally, for the unhappy man was so deaf that he could nolonger hear the heavenly sound of his compositions. …Beethoven, crouched in a corner,heard nothing, but watched with strained attention. …The quartet was performedfinally and received with a real storm of applause. Now Beethoven was satisfied.

The three outer movements are in E-flat major; they enclose a second movement, Adagio, inA-flat. In form, the first, second, and fourth movements follow a classical style: I—Maestosoand Allegro, a majestic introduction followed by sonata-allegro construction; III—Vivace, witha complex scherzo and a trio; IV—Finale, in brisk sonata-allegro format. The extraordinarysecond movement, Adagio non troppo e molto cantabile, comprises a theme and six variations.The pastorale character of the entire quartet is consecrated by the main theme of this slowmovement, bringing echoes of the Missa solemnis, which Beethoven had just completed.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

16 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM

1820s lithograph of the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh(1776-1830)

NATIONAL THEATRE OF LONDON IN HD

TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 7 PM

HamletDue to the overwhelming demand of the National Theatre of London’s presentation of Hamlet with Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch, Rockport Music provides this encore broadcastpresentation.