CASSATT QUARTET with URSULA OPPENS, piano
Pre-concert Talk with Alexander Platt and Tania Leon

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Alexander Platt and Tania Leon

Alexander Platt, Tania Leon

Pre-concert talk with Alexander Platt and Tania Leon.

Pre-concert talk starts at 2:45pm.
Concert starts at 4:00pm.

Reserved Hall Seats: $50.00, $29.00, $25.00 (partial obstruction)
General Admission/Outdoors/Uncovered: $20.00, Students: $10

cassattquartet.com
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Mozart: String Quartet No.23 in F Major, K.590
Tania Leon: “Ethos”, for piano and string quartet (2014)
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Tania Leon: “going…..gone”, for piano (2012)
Shostakovich: Piano Quintet in G Minor

Muneko Otani, violin
Jennifer Leshnower, violin
Rosemary Nelis, viola
Gwen Krosnick, cello

Ursula Oppens, piano

Cassatt Spring Quartet

The Cassatt String Quartet has performed across the world to critical acclaim since its founding in 1985, with appearances at Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, the Kennedy Center, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Centro National de las Artes, Maeda Hall, and Beijing’s Central Conservatory. The Cassatts have performed on the matched quartet of Stradivarius instruments at the Library of Congress; and, as resident quartet at the University of Buffalo, three complete Slee Beethoven String Quartet cycles.

The Cassatt Quartet’s  recordings were named three times by Alex Ross  in his “10 Best Classical Recordings” feature in The New Yorker Magazine. The group’s discography, which includes over forty recordings, spans the Koch, Naxos, New World, Point, CRI, Tzadik, and Albany labels. They have been featured on NPR’s “Performance Today,” WGBH Boston, WQXR and WNYC of New York, Canada’s CBC Radio, and Radio France.

Ursula Oppens

Ursula Oppens, a legend among American pianists, is widely admired particularly for her original and perceptive readings of new music, but also for her knowing interpretations of the standard repertoire. No other artist alive today has commissioned and premiered more new works for the piano that have entered the permanent repertoire.

With five Grammy nominations to her credit, Ms. Oppens established her reputation early on with a classic recording of Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated.

Tania León

Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. In 2023, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Most recently, León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s next Composer-in-Residence—a post she will hold for two seasons, beginning in September 2023. She will also hold Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-2024 season.

Latin Voices: Celebrating Hispanic and Latino Traditions in Classical and Jazz is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): String Quartet No.23 in F Major, K.590

Allegro moderato
Allegretto
Menuetto: Allegretto
Allegro

Tania León (b.1943): Ethos, for piano and string quartet (2014)

I. In the cage where the heart paces
II. blaze of lights
III. Viridian. Ochre. Cobalt blue.

INTERMISSION

Tania León: going…gone, for solo piano (2012)

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Piano Quintet in G Minor, Op.57
Prelude: Lento
Fugue: Adagio
Scherzo: Allegretto
Intermezzo: Lento
Finale: Allegretto

Tania León is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. Born in 1943 in Havana, of mixed French, Spanish, Chinese, African, and Cuban heritage, she began studying the piano at the age of four and attended Carlos Alfredo Peyrellade Conservatory, where she earned a B.A. in 1963, and the Alejandro García Caturla Conservatory, where she studied piano with Zenaida Manfugás. León was one of an estimated 300,000 Cubans who left Cuba as a refugee on the so-called “Freedom Flights”. In the spring of 1967, she left Cuba and settled in New York City, continuing her studies at New York University under the tutelage of Ursula Mamlok.

In 1969 León became a founding member and the first musical director of Arthur Mitchell’s Dance Theater of Harlem, establishing its music department, music school, and orchestra. She instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series in 1978 and in 1994 co-founded the American Composers Orchestra Sonidos de las Americas Festivals as Latin American Music Advisor. From 1993 to 1997, she was New Music Advisor to Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic. She also served as Latin American Music Advisor to the American Composers Orchestra until 2001. In March 2001 her orchestral work Desde … was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

She has been a guest conductor with the Beethovenhalle Orchestra of Bonn, the Gewandhausorchester of Leipzig, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, the National Symphony Orchestra of South Africa, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, and the New York Philharmonic, among others. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. In 2023, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Most recently, León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s next Composer-in-Residence—a post she will hold for two seasons, beginning in September 2023. She will also hold Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for its 2023-2024 season.

Ursula Oppens, a legend among American pianists, is widely admired particularly for her original and perceptive readings of new music but also for her knowing interpretations of the standard repertoire. No other artist alive today has commissioned and premiered more new works for the piano that have entered the permanent repertoire. A graduate of Radcliffe and Juilliard where she studied with Felix Galimir and Rosina Lhevinne. In 1969 she won the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Competition and in 1976 an Avery Fisher Career Grant. She served on the faculty at Tanglewood from 1984 to 2008, and was Distinguished Professor of Music at Northwestern University from 1994 to 2008. Currently she is Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

With five Grammy nominations to her credit, Ms. Oppens established her reputation early on with a classic recording of Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated; she has gone on to premiere works by many of the greatest composers of our time. She has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s finest orchestras, such as the Boston Symphony, the Berlin Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the London and Los Angeles Philharmonics and has collaborated with the Arditti, Juilliard, Pacifica, and Cassatt Quartets. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Cassatt String Quartet has performed across the world to critical acclaim since its founding in 1985, with appearances at Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, the Kennedy Center, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Centro National de las Artes, Maeda Hall, and Beijing’s Central Conservatory. The Cassatts have performed on the matched quartet of Stradivarius instruments at the Library of Congress; and, as resident quartet at the University of Buffalo, three complete Slee Beethoven String Quartet cycles. The Cassatt Quartet’s recordings were named three times by Alex Ross in his “10 Best Classical Recordings” feature in The New Yorker Magazine. The group’s discography, which includes over 40 recordings, spans the Koch, Naxos, New World, Point, CRI, Tzadik, and Albany labels. They have been featured on NPR’s “Performance Today,” WGBH Boston, WQXR and WNYC of New York, Canada’s CBC Radio, and Radio France.

The Cassatt Quartet is deeply committed to nurturing young musicians and has given classes for composers and performers at the American Academy in Rome, the Toho School in Tokyo, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the University of Pennsylvania. and Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and Syracuse Universities.

Written in June of 1790 and given the number 590 in Ludwig Koechel’s 1862 catalogue of the composer’s work, Mozart’s F Major Quartet is the last string quartet he ever wrote, composed roughly a year and a half before his death, at 35. It was the third and last of an eventually abandoned project of six string quartets to be written for King Frederick William II of Prussia, a commission Mozart had snagged on a visit to Berlin in 1789. But Mozart, ever short of funds, was forced to quit the idea and instead turn over the whole affair to his Viennese publisher, Artaria—who, taking their time (and in a manner which reminds one of how Schubert was treated by his publishers), did not bother to publish the three completed works until December of 1791, three weeks after the composer’s death.

From the opening theme of the first movement of the quartet, two characteristics appear: one of constant thematic development and the soloistic role given to all four of the musicians (something which Haydn, as the father of the string quartet, had pioneered, and from which his younger colleague would learn). The developmental mid-section and the recapitulation are concise, with the coda starting as a second development section but quickly wrapping things up in Mozart’s witty, operatic manner. As to the second movement, marked not the usual slow Adagio or Andante but rather Allegretto, Alfred Einstein once remarked, “One of the most sensitive movements in the whole literature of chamber music, it seems to mingle the bliss and sorrow of a farewell to life. How beautiful life has been! How sad! How brief!” Looking back from the vantage point of our cynical 21st century, we may dismiss such a comment as quaint and sentimental; and yet, while Mozart had confidently sketched his own musical catalogue to contain musical projects going past the year of grace 1800, common sense would dictate that, in certain ways, the proverbial walls were closing in. The bedrock of the movement is little more than a plain, simple rhythm, soon subjected to a plethora of emotional depths, developments and meditations.

The opening of the minuet of the F major Quartet is rich in its use of appoggiaturas—quick, ornamental little notes, played just before the “big” ones of a particular tune: in the case of the main “A” section, these notes are long, while in the central Trio, they are short. This quality, combined with the movement’s habitually irregular phrase lengths (say, seven, or five bars to a phrase, instead of the usual four), create a brilliant air of eccentricity which must have made Haydn proud, as he doubtless mused over those Artaria prints of these “Prussian” quartets death the tragic loss of his young friend. Cast in an equally (and wonderfully) complicated fusing of sonata and rondo form, the quartet’s finale is something of a miracle from the composer’s pen. A high-speed car chase of a movement, this vivacious ending indeed has all of the “Papa Haydn” manner, with sudden contrapuntal passages, unexpected silences, and even the imitation of bagpipes—providing a brilliant conclusion to Mozart’s tragically short quartet career.

Premiered in February of 2014 at New York’s Symphony Space by the very artists we hear today, Tania León’s Ethos for piano and string quartet was—fittingly for our purposes today—was performed as part of a concert celebrating the composer’s 70th birthday. Ethos is dedicated to the memory of Isaiah Sheffer—the late Founding Artistic Director of Symphony Space and a longtime acquaintance of the composer. Ethos was commissioned by Symphony Space with support from the New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artists Program.

Each of the three movements is titled after lines from poems by Isaiah’s daughter, Susannah Sheffer, as found in her collection This Kind of Knowing (2013, Cooper Dillon Books):
I. In the cage where the heart paces,
II. blaze of lights
III. Viridian. Ochre. Cobalt blue.

Composed and premiered by Anthony de Mare in 2012, Tania León’s going…gone was commissioned as part of his trailblazing series “Liaisons: re-imagining Sondheim from the Piano.” In this case, the composer—remembering the days of her youth in New York when she would queue for inexpensive Broadway theater tickets—ruminates of Stephen Sondheim’s wistful “Good Thing Going” from his 1981 musical, Merrily We Roll Along.
– Alexander Platt

As is well known, Dmitri Shostakovich had a close working relationship with the members of Russia’s Beethoven String Quartet, and he entrusted the premieres of most of his 15 quartets to them. Early in this celebrated relationship, while they were preparing their performance of the very first of them, the ensemble wondered as to whether Shostakovich might compose a quintet for piano and strings that they might play together; Shostakovich agreed almost immediately. He composed the Piano Quintet in G Minor during the summer of 1940 and performed it with the group in Moscow on November 23rd of that year in the hall of the Moscow Conservatory. So enthusiastically was it received by the audience on that occasion, that the performers had to repeat the Scherzo and Finale.

The opening movement is broad and declamatory in style; the Bach-like fugue of the second movement, which follows without pause, is dramatic and profound, with its principal theme simultaneously sounding as if it might be a melancholy Russian folk song. After building to an impassioned climax —by which time all of the instrumentalists have had their chance with this strange idea—the music relaxes and gradually fades into a muffled silence. The feeling that this is the composer’s homage to the many preludes and fugues of J.S. Bach has not escaped many. Ten years later, Shostakovich would compose his own 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano in reverence to the Leipzig master who was, along with Mahler, his very favorite composer.

The fiery Scherzo is typical (but never wearisome) of the composer’s grand guignol style, bursting forth with two repetitions of an almost naive little tune in the piano, against an aggressive accompaniment in the strings. More than one commentator has noted as to how this may symbolize the Russian individual, in his ultimately hapless struggle with the Soviet state. While writing the Quintet Shostakovich was once again in favor with Joseph Stalin and his henchmen, having just recovered from a nervous breakdown induced by their continual harassment of him in the 1930s. The Intermezzo, again invoking the composer’s love of Bach, contrasts a flowing melody with a persistent “walking bass” line.

The mood of the Finale, recalling that of the composer’s Fifth Symphony of 1937, is overwhelmingly positive; within its generally martial character it even contains the quotation of the tune traditionally played at the entrance of the clowns in Russian circuses. But here again, evoking the tradition of the “fool” in the works of Dostoyevsky, and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, we are led to question as to whether this joyous, parade-ground atmosphere is genuinely hopeful or tragically false; Shostakovich gives us perhaps a hint when this mood is suddenly extinguished in a “wisp of a coda” (to quote James Keller), or, in the words of Melvin Berger: “an indifferent shrug.” Whatever the case, any joviality this work inspired amongst its Russian audiences, forced or otherwise, would soon be obliterated: seven months to the day after the Piano Quintet’s premiere, Adolf Hitler would commence his Operation Barbarossa, unleashing the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
– Alexander Platt

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