Dover Quartet
Performers
Dover Quartet
·· Joel Link, Violin
·· Bryan Lee, Violin
·· Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, Viola
·· Camden Shaw, Cello
Program
TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No. 3
BARTÓK String Quartet No. 3
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.Salon Encores
Get together with people who love music after this Weill Recital Hall concert for a free drink and discussion with the evening's musicians.
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At a Glance
TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat Minor, Op. 30
Although chamber music doesn’t figure prominently in Tchaikovsky’s catalog, his few mature works for small ensembles are of exceptionally high quality. The last of his three string quartets, composed in 1876, was conceived as a memorial to a departed colleague at the Moscow Conservatory and anticipates the elegiac Piano Trio of 1882.
BARTÓK String Quartet No. 3
Composed in the summer of 1927, the third of Bartók’s six quartets was influenced by the imaginatively colored sound world of Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite, which the Hungarian had heard in Vienna earlier that year. What Theodor Adorno called the quartet’s “iron concentration” and “wholly original tectonics” are reflected in its highly compressed form.
DVOŘÁK String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major, Op. 105
Dvořak was at the peak of his form and fame when he wrote the last of his 14 string quartets in 1895. In its hearty embrace of the Czech idiom, the A-flat–Major Quartet celebrates the composer’s return to his Bohemian homeland after nearly three years in the United States. The bewitching score highlights Dvořak’s seemingly limitless fund of melody, as well as his mastery of harmony, texture, and rhythm.
Bios
Dover Quartet
The phenomenal Dover Quartet catapulted to international stardom following a stunning sweep of the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, where it won every prize. Named winner of the Cleveland Quartet Award and honored with the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Dover Quartet has become one of the most in-demand ensembles in the world. The quartet’s rise from up-and-coming young ensemble to the top of its field has been “practically meteoric” (Strings). With its burnished warmth, incisive rhythms, and natural phrasing, the quartet’s distinctive sound has helped confirm its status as “the young American string quartet of the moment” (The New Yorker). The Dover Quartet is quartet-in-residence at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Chamber Music Northwest, Artosphere Festival, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, and Peoples’ Symphony Concerts in New York. It was recently named first-ever quartet-in-residence at the Kennedy Center.
In 2018–2019, the Dover Quartet performs more than 100 concerts across North America, including performances at the Kennedy Center, San Francisco Performances, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Spivey Hall, Celebrity Series of Boston, Chamber Music Society of Detroit, and Carnegie Hall. In addition, the quartet’s season features tours of Hong Kong, Europe, and Australia; collaborations with Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Peter Serkin, Anthony McGill, and Roomful of Teeth; and premieres of new works by Caroline Shaw and Matan Porat. The quartet was thrilled to be invited by maverick filmmaker and cultural icon David Lynch to be featured at his Festival of Disruption in Los Angeles last fall.
Joel Link plays a violin by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (Paris, ca. 1857), on loan from Desirée Ruhstrat. Bryan Lee plays a violin by Riccardo Antoniazzi (Milan, 1904). Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt plays the “Kroyt” viola by Michele Deconet (Venice, 1780), generously on loan from the grandson of Boris Kroyt of the Budapest String Quartet. Camden Shaw plays a cello by Samuel Zygmuntowicz (Brooklyn, 2010).