≈ 60 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: December 20, 2021
The works by Schoenberg (1874–1951) and Beethoven (1770–1827) in this concert share such strong parallels that it’s worth considering them together before describing individual details. Although using the different instrumentations of string trio and string quartet, both pieces were inspired by the composers’ near-death experiences brought on by illness, and were written during their respective convalescences.
Beethoven completed his String Quartet in A minor (later published as Op. 132) with its “Heiliger Dankgesang” third movement, in July 1825, after having been delayed a month by a serious ailment. Schoenberg had only sketched the outline of his String Trio, a commission from Harvard University’s music department, when in August 1946, he suffered a major heart attack, his survival of which enabled him to finish the piece.
These trials of life and death stimulated both composers to push their technical and creative abilities, resulting in these startlingly original works. Musically, the pieces convey the fractured experience of illness—that is, the delirium of hanging on to one’s life in the balance—through a similar design: the juxtaposition of two seemingly irreconcilable sonic worlds, which are introduced and worked out through a five-part structure.
While Schoenberg did not publish the details about how his Trio was influenced by his illness, he had told colleagues, students, and friends about their clear connection. According to the composer’s one-time assistant Leonard Stein, Schoenberg explained the “many juxtapositions of unlike material in the Trio as reflections of the delirium which he had suffered,” that is, “the experience of time and events as perceived from a semiconscious or highly sedated state” (translation by Walter Bailey). The musical material thus evokes the “alternate phases of ‘pain and suffering’ and ‘peace and repose’” through the arrangement of extreme contrasts throughout the work.
The first two parts of the trio, marked “Part 1” and “First Episode” in the score, evoke this dichotomy while presenting the basic thematic material of the work. In Part 1, pain and confusion is reflected in Schoenberg’s use of 12-tone technique, amplified by harsh dissonances and sound effects, rapidly changing musical motifs, and extreme shifts in register. This jumble of organized chaos then gives way to the relative calm of the First Episode, where lyricism and hints of sweet tonality hold sway. Midway through, fragments of a waltz emerge—a memorial reference to Schoenberg’s native city of Vienna, from where he had left permanently for the United States in the 1930s. All these materials are further developed in Part 2 and the Second Episode, reaching a climactic moment in the latter on a 12-note statement played in unison. Part 3 recapitulates parts of the first half of the piece, a kind of summary reflection on what happened before. At the end, the work drifts off on the waltz fragments.
Extreme contrast also characterizes Beethoven’s “Heiliger Dankgesang” movement. Two radically different section of music are twice presented in turn, with a final segment that attempts to reconcile them. The first of these, which Beethoven labelled the “Holy Song of Thanks to the Godhead form a Convalescent, in the Lydian Mode” introduces a very simple hymn-like tune, moving mostly in step-wise fashion, with gradually shifting harmonizations. The pace of their procession is almost achingly slow, and the tension experienced by the musicians to sustain this hymn magnifies its otherworldly aura. This rarified evocation of the world beyond is suddenly interrupted by a return to the “ordinary”. Marked in the score as “feeling new strength” and in the key of D major, the style of this section is completely what the other is not—dance-like phrases, sparkling trills, delicate counterpoint, and bouncy bass lines…an exhilarating vision of life returned or renewed. In the final section, only the first phrase of the hymn is brought back, which each of the instruments take up in turn in complex counterpoint. After culminating in an intense climax, the tension is released through final statements of the hymn phrase. At the end, we, as listeners, feel an ineffable sense that we’ve been profoundly changed.
Sandwiched between the works by Schoenberg and Beethoven is the Movement for String Trio by American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932–2004). Perkinson had a wide-ranging career as a composer and conductor that spanned the genres of classical music, popular music, jazz, and film and television music. Among his many accomplishments, he was co-founder of the Symphony of the New World in New York, and director for the Center for Black Music Research and the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble at Columbia College in Chicago.
Movement for String Trio was Perkinson’s final composition, written in February and March 2004, just before he died from cancer on March 9. In the style of a Baroque opera lament but with 20th-century dissonances, the movement features an elegiac melody, set as a duet between violin and viola, over a repeated descending chromatic line, in plucked and bowed variants by the cello.
By Dr. Hannah Chan-Hartley
Artists
Yosuke Kawasaki currently serves as Concertmaster of the NAC Orchestra. His versatile musicianship allows him to pursue a career in orchestra, solo, and chamber music. His orchestral career began with the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra and soon led to the Mito Chamber Orchestra, Saito Kinen Orchestra, and Japan Century Orchestra, all of which he led as concertmaster. His solo and chamber music career spans five continents, collaborating with artists such as Seiji Ozawa, Pinchas Zukerman, and Yo-Yo Ma, and appearing in the world’s most prestigious halls such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall, and the Royal Concertgebouw.
Kawasaki’s current regular ensembles are Trio Ink and the Mito String Quartet. His passion for chamber music led to his appointment as Music Director to the Affinis Music Festival in Japan. He is also an artistic advisor to a new chamber music festival, Off the Beaten Path, in Bulgaria.
As an educator Kawasaki has given masterclasses and performed side by side with students in schools across Canada. Well-versed in the string quartet literature he was entrusted by Seiji Ozawa as the youngest faculty member of the Ozawa International Chamber Music Academy at the age of 26. He was also an adjunct professor of violin at the University of Ottawa School of Music from 2013 to 2022 alongside the beloved pedagogue Yehonatan Berick.
Kawasaki began his violin studies at the age of six with his father Masao Kawasaki and Setsu Goto. He was subsequently accepted into The Juilliard School Pre-College Division and further continued his education and graduated from The Juilliard School in 1998 under the tutorship of Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Felix Galimir, and Joel Smirnoff.
Canadian violinist of German and Lebanese ancestry, Jessica Linnebach has established herself as an accomplished artist with a thriving multi-faceted career encompassing solo, chamber, and orchestral performances.
Known for her “burnt caramel sound, utterly fearless virtuosity...and romantic lyricism” (Artsfile), Jessica has performed as soloist with orchestras around the world. A passionate chamber musician, Jessica is a member of the Ironwood String Quartet along with her NAC Orchestra colleagues Emily Kruspe, Carissa Klopoushak, and Rachel Mercer. They are frequent performers at various chamber music series and festivals, including the WolfGANG and the NAC’s Music for a Sunday Afternoon series, as well as Ottawa ChamberFest, Pontiac Enchanté, Ritornello, and Classical Unbound festivals. As part of a commitment to reaching broader audiences, Jessica is one of the Artistic Directors of the Classical Unbound Festival, a chamber music festival in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
Accepted to the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age 10, Jessica remains one of the youngest ever Bachelor of Music graduates in the history of the school. While there, Jessica’s primary teachers were Aaron Rosand, Jaime Laredo, and Ida Kavafian. At 18, she received her Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City where she studied with Pinchas Zukerman and Patinka Kopec.
Jessica resides in Ottawa where she has held the position of Associate Concertmaster with the NAC Orchestra since 2010. A natural leader, Jessica has performed numerous times as guest Concertmaster with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Jessica plays a circa 1840 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (Guarnerius del Gésu 1737) violin. Her bows are crafted by Ron Forrester and Michael Vann.
In 2014, after 12 years living abroad, violist David Marks returned to Canada to accept the position of Associate Principal with the NAC Orchestra. Born in Vancouver, David grew up in Virginia in the heart of a musical family. From an early age he experimented with composing, writing, drawing, and painting; these passions have resulted in dozens of original songs, paintings, and murals. Viola studies took him across the U.S. and Europe for lessons with Roberto Diaz, Atar Arad, Karen Tuttle, Gerard Caussé, Thomas Riebl, and Nobuko Imai; to the Banff Centre; L’Académie de Musique Tibor Varga; and Prussia Cove.
In Europe, David performed as Principal Viola with L’Orchestre de Montpellier and L’Opera de Bordeaux, La Orquesta de la Ciudad de Granada, Holland Symfonia, and Amsterdam Sinfonietta. He was Principal Viola of the London Philharmonic under the batons of Vladimir Jurowski, Christoph Eschenbach, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Marin Alsop. As a fixture on the contemporary music scene, he performed across Europe with the Asko/Schonberg Ensemble, Ensemble Modern, Mondriaan Quartet, Fabrica Musica, and Nieuw Amsterdamse Peil. He was a member of the avant-garde Dutch contemporary music group, Nieuw Ensemble, with whom he toured China and recorded over 40 works.
As a folk musician, David has toured Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia singing his songs with The History of Dynamite. His folk-opera The Odyssey was performed at the Banff Centre and subsequently at Theater de Cameleon in Amsterdam. He plays fiddle and guitar and has performed with Van Dyke Parks, Bill Frisell, and Patrick Watson.
He lives with his wife and four children in Wakefield, Quebec.
Described as a “pure chamber musician” (The Globe and Mail) creating “moments of pure magic” (Toronto Star), Canadian cellist Rachel Mercer has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across five continents.
Grand prize winner of the 2001 Vriendenkrans Competition in Amsterdam, Rachel is Principal Cello of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and Artistic Director of the “5 at the First” Chamber Music Series in Hamilton. Rachel regularly collaborates with her longtime duo partner, pianist Angela Park, and was cellist of Juno Award–winning piano quartet Ensemble Made In Canada (2008–2020), AYR Trio (2010–2020), and the Aviv Quartet (2002–2010). Rachel has given masterclasses across North America, South Africa, and in Israel and has given talks on performance, careers, and the music business. An advocate for new Canadian music, Rachel has commissioned and premiered over 25 solo and chamber works, including cello concertos by Stewart Goodyear and Kevin Lau.
She can be heard on the Naxos, Naxos Canadian Classics, Centrediscs, Analekta, Atma, Dalia Classics, and EnT-T record labels, and released a critically acclaimed album of the Bach Suites on Pipistrelle in March 2014, recorded on the 1696 Bonjour Stradivarius Cello from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank. Rachel plays a 17th-century cello from Northern Italy.
www.rachelmercercellist.com