PROGRAM NOTES

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
STRING QUARTET NO. 11 IN F MINOR, OP. 122

In his book, The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross notes: “The period from the mid-thirties onward marked the onset of the most warped and tragic phase in twentieth-century music: the total politicizing of the art by totalitarian means.” Writing exactly what he pleased was nearly impossible for Shostakovich. He labored under the watchful eye of the Soviet political machine that looked over his shoulder and breathed down his neck for his entire career. Very public government-sanctioned scrutiny was routine, used as a mind game to keep all artists in line with the State. Shostakovich was batted between the emotional extremes of being praised and respected or mercilessly slapped and shamed for composing in styles perceived as being outside the boundaries of acceptable music (either because it was too Western modernist, or because the underlying source material was considered a provocative anti-government statement). This pendulum of approval/disapproval/apology submitted/approved again was the soul-wrenching rhythm of his life. Regardless of any of these circumstances or questions, his music stands as the ultimate testament to his strength of spirit and sheer talent.

Shostakovich wrote fifteen string quartets in all, including the popular String Quartet no. 8, which uses the musical motif of his musical signature (the D S C H, using the notes D E♭C B). String Quartet No. 11 premiered in 1966, as the Vietnam War raged on, and the Beatles gave their final touring concert. In the previous year, Vasily Shirinsky, the original second violinist for the Beethoven String Quartet, had died. Working together with the composer since 1938, the group premiered almost all of Shostakovich’s string quartets. In this exceptionally tight artistic partnership, the loss of Shirinsky, who was only 65 years old, was heart wrenching. Shostakovich dedicated the eleventh quartet to his memory (and would subsequently dedicate the quartets nos. 12, 13, and 14 to the remaining original group members), and placed it in F minor, a key traditionally representative of mourning. Rather than the typical three to four movements, No. 11 contains seven miniature movements with no pause between, allowing for the mood to sustain. A striking feature is the fragile thinness of the overall texture created by the dominance of simple melody and accompaniment where often only one, two, or three of the part lines are sounding simultaneously. It’s as if the underlying message is, “one of us is missing.” Punctuating the conclusion of the quartet is a high C held by the first violin for 18 measures, first bolstered by the spare harmonies of the accompanying parts, and then soaring alone like a final salute.

-Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot

Juantio Becenti (b. 1985)
THE FOREST AT DAWN, A SUITE FOR STRING QUARTET

This piece was conceived at a residency on the La Plata mountains (Montezuma county, Colorado) at a historic national park service rangers station. Artists from various fields would spend a few weeks in seclusion during the summer months in residency and produce works to be shared with the community. I found myself at times awaiting dawn and watching the shadows of the trees change slowly. The conceptual image of a descent into darkness before the return of light remained with me and is the basis for this piece.

-Juantio Becenti

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
STRING QUARTET NO. 23 IN F MAJOR, K. 590

In mid July of 1789, as the Bastille was being stormed and the French Revolution exploded onto the world stage, Mozart sat down and wrote a letter to his friend Michael Puchberg. In the letter Mozart detailed upcoming projects: 

I am composing six easy clavier sonatas for Princess Friederike and six quartets for the King, all of which Kozeluch is engraving at my expense. At the same time the two dedications will bring me something.

That “something” was money, and Mozart was likely mentioning this to Puchberg as a way of reassuring him that he would be able to pay back the money he was asking his friend to loan. (Habitually overspending his budget on luxury goods, Mozart was constantly asking his friends for funds.) The “King” in the letter was Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, remembered today for building the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Mozart visited him in Potsdam as part of a whirlwind concert tour he organized for himself that included stops in Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and Leipzig where Mozart paid a visit to the Thomaskirche—Johann Sebastian Bach’s final workplace. In Potsdam, Mozart continued to cross paths with Bach family history: Johann Sebastian’s son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, had been employed in the court orchestra of Friedrich II “The Great,” father of Friedrich Wilhelm II. Both royal father and son were accomplished amateur musicians, the former on flute (J.S. Bach’s Musical Offering being written for him) and the latter on the cello.

One important detail to remember here is that Mozart lived and worked in a unique transitional moment in 18th century society. Aristocrats and royals were still hiring musicians and composers for their household concerts, while public concerts were simultaneously an increasing form of entertainment for the rising middle class. So, whereas previous generations like Bach or Haydn relied heavily on church or court appointments to survive, Mozart was in the special position of leveraging his fame as an Enlightenment era poster-child / wunderkind to lobby for the jobs he wanted (though it didn’t always work). Reflecting this, Mozart was probably hopeful that by providing samples of his work to the court in the form of the sonatas and quartets, he might gain more regular work and income from Prussian court, in some capacity.

Strikingly, there is no record in the Prussian royal accounts of payments to Mozart. It’s unclear what happened. In the end, he wrote only three quartets, Nos. 21, 22, and 23 (the “Prussian” quartets) in 1790 and sold them to a publisher. No. 23, K. 590, would be the last quartet written in his lifetime. But what luminous final quartets! They sparkle with the hummable genius we love about Mozart—one gorgeous melody after another, spilling out with ease. Featured throughout them all is the cello, Friedrich Wilhelm’s instrument.

-Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot

George Harrison (1943-2001)
HERE COMES THE SUN

As soon as we hear the opening melodic gesture (the upward curve of which happens to form a smile on the musical staff) of Track 7 on the Beatles’ Abbey Road, we are immediately affected, and the mood lifts. It’s no wonder “Here Comes the Sun” has been used in everything from movie soundtracks to accompanying joyful celebrations of individuals leaving the hospital after successful treatments. The very genesis of the song came from a desperate need to shift a dark mood, so its impact is embedded in its very DNA, so to speak.

It was the summer of 1969 and things were not going well for the group dynamics of the Beatles. Things had been rocky for some time. “Beatlemania” had been such a strange, and often stressful, phenomenon for the Fab Four to navigate, so by 1966—just two years after their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show—burnout kicked in, and they gave their final official concert on tour in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park. They were also growing up. No longer the bright-eyed 21-24 year olds, they were maturing into individuals with diverging interests and artistic visions. Every now and again one of the four would declare “I quit,” and then return. Drugs were also playing an insidious role in the well being of the band members and their circle of friends and business associates. The biggest blow was arguably the death of their manager from the very beginning, and beloved friend, Brian Epstein. An accidental drug overdose claimed his life in August of 1967, just three months after the release of the band’s biggest success to date with Stg. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Floundering after the loss of their anchor of Epstein (Lennon commented, “I knew that we were in trouble then...”), pressures mounted as the band took on too much. They were not only striving to evolve creatively in the studio, but disastrously attempting to steer the business side by creating the Apple Records label amongst other ventures—tasks for which they lacked knowledge or experience. (Included in these experiments was the Apple Boutique, a luxury good store recorded in the 1968 film Hot Millions starring Bob Newhart and Maggie Smith.) In the midst of all of this, George Harrison had been amassing a collection of songs he had written.

Lennon and McCartney were at the helm of the Beatles as the self-appointed head songwriters, traditionally allowing Harrison and Starr an allocated one or two tracks per album. This became increasingly frustrating to Harrison with his backlog of material ready for the studio. Additionally, his loathing for acting the part of businessman, attending meetings for which he didn’t care, was building to a boiling point. Playing hooky from one of these meetings was the backdrop for “Here Comes The Sun.” Harrison shared the story in his autobiography I, Me, Mine:

“Here Comes the Sun” was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: ‘sign this’ and ‘sign that.’ Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever; by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton’s house. The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric’s acoustic guitars and wrote “Here Comes the Sun.”

In the end, “Here Comes the Sun” has proven to be the most popular of the Beatles catalogue with over 350 million plays on Spotify alone by the end of 2019.

Here comes the sun...
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right

Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here

Here comes the sun...
Here comes the sun and I say
It’s all right

Little darling, the smile’s returning to their faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here

Here comes the sun...
Here comes the sun and I say
It’s all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, music and cultural critic, and freelance writer. A graduate of New England Conservatory, she writes program annotations for ensembles nationwide.