CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Ensemble ACJW
The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute

Weill Recital Hall
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 7:30 PM

“top notch … adventurous”—New York Times

Ensemble ACJW

ANDERS HILLBORG Brass Quintet
DRUCKMAN Come Round
SCHUBERT String Quintet in C Major, D. 956

The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education—is made possible by a leadership gift from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Major funding has also been provided by Mercedes and Sid Bass, The Irving Harris Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Kovner Foundation, Martha and Bob Lipp, Mr. and Mrs. Lester S. Morse Jr., Judith and Burton Resnick, Susan and Elihu Rose, and The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, with additional support from Mr. and Mrs. Nicola Bulgari, Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation, Susan and Ed Forst, The William Petschek Family, and Suki Sandler.

Program Notes:

ANDERS HILLBORG (b. 1954)
Brass Quintet

Swedish composer Anders Hillborg has written pieces for nearly every medium available to him. From vocal, chamber, and symphonic to film scores and pop tunes he is a musician of considerable breadth. Beginning his musical life in choirs and rock bands, he came to the study of composition in his mid twenties. This brings an inclusiveness and adventurous spirit to his music mixed with an eye for new sounds and experimentation. On his Brass Quintet he noted its preoccupation with “the pulsative element; the music ticks and pulsates, and the rubato of classical music is foreign to it. The piece has two principal moods: one is a rhythmically vital structure in which brief fragments are thrown out, each between the instruments in fiery, pulsative explosions; while the other is a calm, completely accentless stream with no audible rhythm.”


JACOB DRUCKMAN (1928–1996)
Come Round

An advocate of what he referred to as ”new romanticism,” Jacob Druckman was known for his sense of both dramatic gesture and color. Creating works of startling beauty and a refined sense of structure, Druckman is one of the distinctive voices in American music. Born in Philadelphia in 1928, he first encountered music studying violin and piano but quickly moved on to composition by the age of 15. He attended The Juilliard School in New York to study composition and continued studies with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris. An incredibly prolific composer, Druckman wrote works for a variety of chamber groups, voice, orchestra, and electronics.

The work heard this evening, Come Round, was written towards the end of his life and shows the composer at his finest in both the meticulously crafted form and the dazzling sounds he extracts from the ensemble. The title itself is a nod to the cyclic nature of the piece, which continues to turn inward on a few very distinct musical phrases. Built as a set of six variations within three movements, it is so cyclical in its nature that it turns round and round referring to itself with no instigating theme. Druckman himself describes the work as having “no ‘theme’ in the sense of a central or original form from which the others spring, but rather six equal incarnations of the same musical materials coexisting in three successive trochees.” Twice these circular variations are interrupted by a ritornello of almost identical material (at the opening of the second and third movements).


FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
String Quintet in C Major, D. 956

In a vast and thorough output, only once did Schubert elect to write a string quintet. The work he created was both a knowing nod to admired predecessors as well as a bold look at his own compositional craft. Written only two months before his death in 1828 at the young age of 31, it was Schubert’s final instrumental work. It remained silent, however, for more than twenty years, not receiving its premiere performance until 1850 by Josef Hellmesberger’s quartet and cellist Josef Stransky, at the Musikverein in Vienna. The full score finally appeared in 1853, published by the Diabelli Publishing house. A work of symphonic rather than chamber proportions, the piece spans nearly an hour exploring all of the nuances and emotional intricacies of its musical material. Along with countless melodies and textures of delicate balance are striking and rough gestures like the final two notes of the work, approaching the final tonic chord from a jarring half step above.
The most notable quality of the piece is its insistence for depth and a leaning towards the darker shades in tone. This could have something to do with the fact that it was the last work he penned, or simply the unconventional choice of two celli to fill out the quintet rather than the typical addition of a second viola to the string quartet, as Mozart and Beethoven did. Regardless, the piece has an uncanny ability to shift from light to dark with a remarkable ease and suddenness. This is particularly true in the Adagio. Seeming to hover on the edge of distress, the movement tiptoes across a tightrope of restrained feeling, toying with notion of an explosion of either joy or panic. Halfway through the movement the music finally dives headfirst with heartfelt trills and runs dashing throughout the ensemble.

After the intensely crafted second movement, the Scherzo comes at the listener like a cannon. With the open strings of both cellos vibrating at full capacity, the sound Schubert conjures from the five musicians belies the symphonic proportions of the piece. Wild and raucous at its opening, with eyes closed it can be hard to believe that there are only five musicians onstage. The final Allegretto is, to many, an easy way out. After the heft and pathos of the previous three movements the final gesture seems like a lighthearted farewell. Though clearly more overtly derived from folk materials as it dances from hummable tune to tune, there remains a brief tinge of the experience gained over the previous three movements throughout.

As the last work that he wrote, the Quintet truly came at the peak of two of the most prolific and artistically meaningful years of Schubert’s life. With his song cycle Winterreise, his Fantasia for piano and violin, and his Ninth Symphony (likely written in 1826 but certainly revised in 1828) Schubert’s musical preoccupations had turned towards the depths and often darkness of the human psyche. Dying weeks after finishing the quintet, his final solace was reading, one of his favorite authors: the Upstate New York treasure James Fennimore Cooper.

— John Glover

Composer and writer John Glover has written program notes and created online classes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Sinfonietta, Pacific Youth Symphony, and Opera America.


© 2009 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Ensemble ACJW
Ensemble ACJW is the performing arm of The Academy—a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. Ensemble ACJW performs at Carnegie Hall and The Juilliard School in addition to bringing performances and educational events to the Saratoga Springs community through a partnership with Skidmore College. The ensemble comes together in different sizes and configurations, having the opportunity to play intimate chamber music as well as larger conducted chamber orchestra works.

The Academy is a two-year fellowship that provides the finest post-graduate musicians with performance opportunities, advanced musical training, intensive teaching instruction and experience, and the skills and values necessary for careers that combine musical excellence with education, community engagement, and advocacy. The program reflects the belief that the artist of tomorrow will require both the ability to perform at the highest level and the capacity to give back to the community, inspiring the next generation of musicians and music lovers.

The Academy was launched in January 2007. The fellows in the program were selected because of their extraordinary level of musicianship, deep commitment to education and community engagement, and leadership qualities. Fellows are graduates of leading music schools, including The Curtis Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College The New School for Music, New England Conservatory, San Francisco Conservatory, Stony Brook University, and Yale School of Music. Please visit acjw.org for more information about the program.