presents
DOVER QUARTET
EDGAR MEYER, double bass
Joel Link, violin
Bryan Lee, violin
Milena Pajaro-Van De Stadt, viola
Camden Shaw, cello
Sunday, October 30, 2016 | 7pm
Herbst Theatre
MOZART
Divertimento in D Major, K.136
ROSSINI
Duo in D Major for Cello and Double Bass
DVOŘÁK
String Quartet in F Major, Opus 96 “American”
Allegro
Andante
Presto
Allegro
Andante molto
Allegro
Allegro ma non troppo
Lento
Molto vivace
Vivace ma non troppo
INTERMISSION
MEYER
Quintet for Double Bass and String Quartet
Movement I
Movement II
Movement III
Movement IV
This project is supported, in part, with funds provided by the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF),
the California Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
San Francisco Performances acknowledges the generosity of Concert Partners: Dennis and Kathleen Abbe; Treva Marcus.
The Dover Quartet is represented by MKI Artists (formerly Melvin Kaplan, Inc.), 115 College St.,
Burlington, VT 05401 melkap.com
Edgar Meyer is represented by IMG Artists, 7 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019 imgartists.com
For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545
| 1
2011–13, and to Curtis, where it became the
conservatory’s first Quartet-in-Residence, in
2013–14.
For more information, visit doverquartet.com.
ARTIST PROFILES
The Dover Quartet makes its San Francisco
Performances debut with this recital.
Edgar Meyer returns to SF Performances for
the ninth time since 1991. He has also appeared
three times on the Family Matinee Series.
The Dover Quartet’s rise from up-andcoming young ensemble to occupying a spot
at the top of their field has been “practically
meteoric” (Strings). Catapulted to prominence
after sweeping the 2013 Banff International
String Quartet Competition, the group has become a major presence on the international
scene. 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).
In the 2016–17 season the Dover Quartet
will release its debut recording, featuring
three works by Mozart: his two final string
quartets and the Quintet in C minor. Released
on the Cedille label, this program recalls the
1965 debut album of the Guarneri Quartet,
whose founding violist, Michael Tree, joins
the Dover Quartet on the recording. Also this
season the group will undertake three complete Beethoven quartet cycles for the first
time. In Buffalo, NY, the Quartet performs in
the University at Buffalo’s famous “Slee Cycle,” which has presented annual Beethoven
quartet cycles since 1955. The other two cycles will be performed at the University of
Connecticut and the Montreal Chamber Music Festival; during the Montreal residency,
the group also plays Mendelssohn’s Octet
with the winners of the 2016 Banff International String Quartet Competition—the competition at which they themselves took the
Grand Prize and all three Special Prizes in
2013. Rounding out the Quartet’s season are a
2 | five-city U.S. tour with bassist-composer Edgar Meyer; a tour of the West Coast with mandolinist Avi Avital, playing music by Bach,
Smetana, Sulkhan Tsintsadze, and David
Bruce; and a tour of Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland, debuting in every city.
During the 2015–16 season, the Dover
Quartet performed more than 120 dates
around the world, including debuts at Carnegie Hall, Yale University, the Lucerne Festival, and as part of the Lincoln Center “Great
Performers” series. The season also saw the
Quartet launch a newly created three-year
faculty residency at Northwestern University
and embark on its first tour of Israel as well
as on three European tours. A mainstay on
the festival circuit, the Quartet also undertook weeklong residencies at the Santa Fe
Chamber Music Festival and Arkansas’s Artosphere, like those they have done in the past
at Bravo! Vail and Chamber Music Northwest.
The group’s world-class collaborators have
included pianists Anne-Marie McDermott,
Marc-André Hamelin, and Jon Kimura Parker; violists Roberto Díaz and Cynthia Phelps;
and the Pacifica Quartet.
Hailed as “the next Guarneri Quartet” (Chicago Tribune), the Dover Quartet draws from
the lineage of that distinguished ensemble,
as well that of the Cleveland and Vermeer
Quartets; its members studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and Rice University’s
Shepherd School of Music, where they were
mentored extensively by Shmuel Ashkenasi,
James Dunham, Norman Fischer, Kenneth
Goldsmith, Joseph Silverstein, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, and Peter Wiley. It was
at Curtis that the Quartet first formed, and its
name pays tribute to Dover Beach by fellow
Curtis alumnus Samuel Barber. The group
has since returned for residencies: to Rice in
In demand as both a performer and a composer, Edgar Meyer has formed a role in the
music world unlike any other. Hailed by The
New Yorker as “...the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled history
of his instrument,” Mr. Meyer’s unparalleled
technique and musicianship in combination
with his gift for composition have brought him
to the fore. His uniqueness in the field was recognized by a MacArthur Award in 2002.
As a solo classical bassist, Mr. Meyer can
be heard on a concerto album with the St.
Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hugh
Wolff, featuring Bottesini and Meyer concertos both alone and with Yo-Yo Ma and Joshua
Bell. He has also recorded an album featuring three of Bach’s Unaccompanied Suites for
Cello. Mr. Meyer was honored with his fifth
Grammy® Award in 2015 for Best Contemporary Instrumental album for his Bass & Mandolin collaboration with Chris Thile. As a composer, Mr. Meyer has carved out
a remarkable and unique niche in the musical world. His music has been premiered and
recorded by Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo
Ma, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Bela
Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Hilary Hahn, and the
Emerson String Quartet, among others.
Collaborations are a central part of Mr.
Meyer’s work. He has been and remains a
member of numerous groups whose members include Chris Thile, Bela Fleck, Zakir
Hussain, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Mark
O’Connor, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Joshua
Bell, Mike Marshall, and Amy Dorfman,
among others. His debut album in 1985 featured the first public appearance of Strength
in Numbers, whose members were Bush,
Douglas, Fleck, O’Connor, and Meyer.
For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545
Mr. Meyer began studying bass at the age
of five under the instruction of his father
and continued further to study with Stuart
Sankey. In 1994 he received the Avery Fisher
Career Grant and in 2000 became the only
bassist to receive the Avery Fisher Prize. Currently, he teaches bass in partnership with
Hal Robinson at the Curtis Institute of Music
in Philadelphia. edgarmeyer.com
PROGRAM NOTES
Divertimento in D Major,
K.136
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg
Died December 5, 1791, Vienna
Mozart wrote three “divertimenti” for
strings, K.136–138, in Salzburg early in 1772,
just after his sixteenth birthday. The exact
form of these works is unclear, however, and
for years scholars have debated how they
should be classified. Though they carry the
designation “Divertimenti” on the title page
of the manuscript, this is not in Mozart’s
hand, and in any case these three pieces
lack the minuet movement characteristic of
the divertimento form. Even the size of the
instrumental forces Mozart had in mind is
unclear—though scored for four string instruments, these works may be played by
either quartet or string orchestra. There are
few clues within the music itself: while these
“divertimenti” are full of idiomatic quartet
writing, they show an extroverted brilliance
that suggests an orchestral sonority.
Alfred Einstein believes that this music,
composed after Mozart’s second trip to Italy,
may have been written for use during his third
Italian tour late in 1772 and that the simple
addition of horns and oboes would transform
these quartet-like works into symphonies on
the three-movement Italian model. Mozart
may thus have extracted double service from
these three pieces: as divertimentos for string
quartet in Salzburg and as potential symphonies intended for the court of Milan, where
he had been feted during previous tours. The
uncertainty about the form of these works
has led to their being classified variously
(and erroneously) as the “Salzburg symphonies” and as “quartet-symphonies.”
Whatever its form, Mozart’s K.136 is delightful music and has been an audience
favorite for centuries. The amiable opening
Allegro makes virtuoso demands on both the
first and second violins; particularly effective here is Mozart’s very brief (ten-measure)
excursion into D minor during the development, a moonlit episode amid the movement’s generally sunny atmosphere. Einstein
describes the Andante as “graceful and ‘tender,’ quite in the Italian fashion.” The effervescent final Presto—in sonata form rather
than the expected rondo—uses as its main
theme a variation of the first movement’s
opening theme, a rare example of cyclic writing by Mozart. In the course of the development, the teenaged composer throws in an
extended passage of accomplished contrapuntal writing.
Duo in D Major for Cello
and Double Bass
GIOACCHINO ROSSINI
Born February 29, 1792, Pesaro
Died November 13, 1868, Paris
In the fall of 1823 Rossini arrived in London
for a visit that extended well into the following year. Earlier in 1823 Rossini had overseen
the successful premiere of Semiramide in
Venice, and now he was content to relax and
enjoy himself in England. During his months
there, Rossini was often invited to spend
“musical evenings” with members of the English aristocracy, and it was for one of these
evenings that he composed his Duo for Cello
and Double Bass. The duet for this unusual
combination of instruments was written for
Sir David Salomons, a prominent London
banker and amateur cellist, to perform with
the great bassist Domenico Dragonetti. Salomons paid Rossini the handsome sum of fifty
pounds for the music, and in return the composer inscribed the manuscript “al suo amico
Salomons.” That manuscript remained in the
possession of the Salomons family for many
years and was not published until it was sold
at a Sotheby’s auction in London in 1968.
Salomons must have been a fairly accomplished cellist, for the part is by no means
easy: Rossini treats the two instruments as
equals and writes the bass part specifically
for Dragonetti, who was at that time the
greatest bass player in the world. The Duo
is in three brief and attractive movements,
and Rossini writes deftly for this unexpected
combination of sounds—he keeps textures
clear so that the sound of both low instruments emerges clearly, and he builds the Duo
on pleasing thematic material. The opening
Allegro, in sonata form, requires some deft
playing from both instruments, and the cello
in particular is sent high into its range. The
Andante molto features a long melody for
cello over pizzicato accompaniment from
the bass, and in the second half Rossini cre-
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ates some unusual sonorities by giving each
instrument a series of 32nd note runs. The
concluding Allegro returns to the athletic
manner of the opening movement. The two
instruments take turns with the leading melody here, and Rossini rounds the movement
off with a coda of near-operatic exuberance.
String Quartet in F Major,
Opus 96 “American”
ANTONIN DVOŘÁK
Born September 8, 1841, Muhlhausen, Bohemia
Died May 1, 1904, Prague
Dvořák spent the years 1892–95 as director of the National Conservatory of Music in
New York, and while he was burdened with
a heavy teaching and administrative load,
these years were very productive musically,
seeing the composition of the “New World”
Symphony, the “American” Quartet, and the
Cello Concerto. This issue of a specifically
“American” influence on these works has intrigued music lovers for years: how did life—
and music—in America influence Dvořák?
Nationalistic Americans were quick to claim
that here at last was an authentic American
classical music based on American materials, but Dvořák himself would have none of
that. He denounced “that nonsense about my
having made use of original American melodies. I have only composed in the spirit of
such American national melodies.”
Exactly what Dvořák meant by composing
“in the spirit” of American music is unclear,
and the tantalizing question of influence remains, especially in a work like the “American” Quartet. In the summer of 1893 Dvořák
took his family to Spillville, Iowa, for a vacation away from New York City. Spillville
was a Czech community, and Dvořák spent
a happy and productive summer there, surrounded by familiar language, customs, and
food. He sketched the “American” Quartet in
only three days (June 8–10, 1893) and had it
complete in fifteen. Dvořák’s comment was
concise: “Thank God. It went quickly. I am
satisfied.”
Generations of listeners have been more
than satisfied with this quartet. Quiet string
tremolandi provide the foundation for the
viola’s opening theme—its rising-and-falling
shape and sharp syncopations will provide
much of the substance of the first movement.
A songful second subject in the violin has
a rhythmic snap that some have felt to be
American in origin, though such a snap is
typical of the folk music of many lands. The
development contains a brief fugal passage
derived from the opening viola subject, but
| 3
this passes quickly and introduces little complication into this movement’s continuous
flow of melody.
Many regard the Lento as the finest movement in the quartet. It too seems a continuous flow of melody, as the violin’s soaring
theme—marked molto espressivo—arches
hauntingly over throbbing accompaniment.
This melody passes from violin to cello and
on to the other voices; the ending—where
the cello has this theme and the other instruments alternate pizzicato and bowed notes—
is especially effective.
The scherzo rips along cheerfully, its main
theme sharing the rhythm of the quartet’s
opening theme; about twenty measures into
this movement, Dvořák gives the first violin a
melody he heard a bird singing during one of
his first walks around Spillville (bird-lovers
should know that musicological and ornithological research has identified that bird as
the scarlet tanager). The scherzo alternates
this cheerful opening section with interludes
that are in fact minor-key variants of that
opening before Dvořák round things off with
a da capo repeat. The most impressive thing
about the rondo-finale is its rhythmic energy,
in both the themes themselves and the accompanying voices. Some of the interludes
recall the shape of themes from earlier movements before the blazing rush to the close—
the coda of this movement is one of the most
exhilarating Dvořák ever wrote.
The issue of American influence—whether
spiritual, rhythmic, or in the songs of native
birds—on the music Dvořák wrote in this
country will probably never be settled. Listeners may decide for themselves the ways
in which this quartet seems to embody what
Dvořák called the “spirit” of American music.
Quintet for Double Bass
and String Quartet
EDGAR MEYER
Born November 24, 1960, Oklahoma City
Edgar Meyer grew up in Tennessee and attended the University of Indiana, where he
won numerous competitions and seemed
headed toward the life of a virtuoso performer. But the range and breadth of his
talents—he has been attracted equally to
classical music, jazz, country music, bluegrass, world music, and fiddling—led him
to a much wider career. Meyer has recorded
the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello (on
the double bass), and he has joined such
colleagues as violinist Mark O’Connor and
cellist Yo-Yo Ma for Appalachia Waltz and
Appalachia Journey, a compilation of mu-
4 | sic based on fiddle tunes; he has recorded
with banjoist Béla Fleck, mandolinist Chris
Thile, and many others. Meyer’s “classical”
compositions include several concertos for
bass and orchestra, a Concerto for Bass and
Cello (premiered by Meyer and Yo-Yo Ma
under the direction of Seiji Ozawa), a Violin
Concerto (premiered and recorded by Hilary
Hahn), and a Concerto for Violin and Bass
(premiered with Joshua Bell at the Tanglewood Festival).
Combining a string quartet with an extra
instrument has proven a fertile challenge
for many composers. Mozart and Brahms
wrote superb Clarinet Quintets, Mozart wrote
a Horn Quintet as well as six Viola Quintets,
and Schubert a Cello Quintet. But quintets
for double bass and string quartet are rare.
Dvořák wrote one splendid example in 1875,
and Darius Milhaud wrote two, but composers have largely steered clear of this combination (though it should be noted that one of
the most popular pieces of music ever written—Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik—was
originally conceived for string quartet plus
double bass).
Meyer’s Quintet for Double Bass and String
Quartet was commissioned for the Emerson
String Quartet by a consortium of presenters.
The Emerson—with Meyer as bassist—gave
the premiere in 1995, and those forces recorded the Quintet in that same year. For that
recording, Meyer was asked to provide program notes, but he refused to write at length,
saying that “detailed program notes could be
considered a distraction or even a failing.”
Instead, he contributed six concise sentences that offer the best possible introduction to
this music: “The piece is in four movements.
The first is a cross between theme and variation and variations on a ground bass. The
second movement is moderate with some
sense of humor. The third is slow and devoid
of humor. The fourth is fast (and difficult). If
this leaves you wondering what to expect, all
the better.”
—Notes by Eric Bromberger
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For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org | 415.392.2545