CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Brentano String Quartet
Part of: Chamber Sessions I
Brentano String Quartet is also performing April 13.
Performers
Brentano String Quartet
·· Mark Steinberg, Violin
·· Serena Canin, Violin
·· Misha Amory, Viola
·· Nina Lee, Cello
Program
MOZART String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428
MATTHEW AUCOIN String Quartet (NY Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
RAVEL String Quartet in F Major
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.Pre-Concert Talk
Pre-concert talk at 6:30 PM: Members of the Brentano String Quartet and composer Matthew Aucoin in conversation with Ara Guzelimian, Provost and Dean, The Juilliard School.This concert is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for young artists established by Mr. and Mrs. Anthony B. Evnin and the A.E. Charitable Foundation.
Support for the 125 Commissions Project is provided by members of Carnegie Hall's Composer Club.
In honor of the centenary of his birth, Carnegie Hall’s 2019–2020 season is dedicated to the memory of Isaac Stern in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to Carnegie Hall, arts advocacy, and the field of music.
At a Glance
This evening’s program explores how composers put their distinctive marks on the string quartet. Mozart did it with forward-looking harmonies in his E-flat Major String Quartet—one of the six he dedicated to Haydn—but its wit and genial tone also suggest the influence of the dedicatee. Ravel stressed color, melody, and rhythmic daring when composing his masterful String Quartet in F Major, which owes an immense and inarguable debt to Debussy’s String Quartet from nine years earlier, both in surface detail and at deeper levels. This evening’s program also features the New York premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s new String Quartet, which is organized according to the different forms of attention that it embodies or enacts. Its three movements can be thought of as three studies in distinct kinds of human attention.
Bios
Brentano String Quartet
Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared around the world to popular and critical acclaim. The quartet has served as artist-in-residence at Yale University since 2014. Previously, the quartet served as the collaborative ensemble for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and artist-in-residence at Princeton University.
The Brentano String Quartet has performed at the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York; the Library of Congress in Washington, DC; the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; the Konzerthaus in Vienna; Suntory Hall in Tokyo; and the Sydney Opera House. The quartet embarked on its first European tour in 1997 and was honored in the UK with the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Most Outstanding Debut.
In addition to its interest in performing very old music, the Brentano String Quartet frequently collaborates with contemporary composers. Recent commissions include a piano quintet by Vijay Iyer; a work by Eric Moe with soprano Christine Brandes; and a viola quintet by Felipe Lara with violist Hsin-Yun Huang. In 2012, the quartet provided the central music (Beethoven’s Op. 131 String Quartet) for the critically acclaimed independent film A Late Quartet.
The Brentano String Quartet has worked closely with many important composers of our time, including Elliott Carter, Charles Wuorinen, Chou Wen-chung, Bruce Adolphe, and György Kurtág. The quartet has also been privileged to collaborate with such artists as soprano Jessye Norman and pianists Richard Goode, Jonathan Biss, and Mitsuko Uchida.
The Brentano String Quartet is named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars believe to be Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved” and the intended recipient of his famous love confession.