UMS Concert Program, November 6, 1977: The Concord String Quartet --

Concert: Third
Complete Series: 4081
Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The University Musical Society niversity of Michigan
Presents
The Concord String Quartet
MARK SOKOL, F Violinist ANDREW JENNINGS, Second Violinist
JOHN KOCHANOWSKI, Violist NORMAN FISCHER, Cellist
Sunday Afternoon, November 6 , 1977, at 2:30 Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan
PROGRAM
String Quartet in Bflat major, Op. 18, No. 6
Allegro con brio
Adagio, ma non troppo Scherzo: allegro
La Malinconia, adagio; allegretto, quasi allegro
"Crossings" for String Quartet (196674)
Verging (performable alone as String Quartet No. 3)
The Silence
Ascent (performable alone as String Quartet No. 4)
Beethoven
Ben Johnston
INTERMISSION
String Quartet No. IS in G major, Op. 161, D. 887
Allegro molto moderato Andante un poco moto Scherzo: allegro vivace Allegro assai
Schubert
The Concord String Quartet plays on a matched set of instruments made by the Italian violinmaker Sergio Peresson of Udine.
Nonesuch, CRI, Vox, and Turnabout Records
Third Concert
Fifteenth Annual Chamber Arts Series
Complete Programs 4081
Crossings
Notes by Ben Johnston
Twice it has happened to me that during or just after the lengthy composition process required to produce a complex work (I work very slowly on such pieces, with much care and computation), an almost equally elaborate one will emerge with surprising speed and fluency. Such was the case when in 1964, I interrupted the nearly fiveyear struggle to complete my Sonata for Microtonal PianoGrindlemusic to produce, in little over two months, the String Quartet No. 2. The second such occurrence came in 1966, just after the intricate effort to compose the orchestral piece Quintet for Groups, when I seized as my single precompositional determinant the same kind of microtonally modulating, justtuned twelvetone sets that had served as the generative basis of the string parts in the final section of Quintet for Groups, and also for the opening movement of String Quartet Xo. 2. The work that emerged this time, in every other aspect almost throughcomposed in about a month of intensive work, was String Quartet No. 3, a singlemovement work here presented as the first movement, Verging, of the diptychlike "Crossings."
One may equally well consider "Crossings" a triptych, since The Silence--the middle movement is a more than merely pregnant pause, but constitutes a tenuous and breathless traverse of a ridge or bridge between two opposite canyon walls. The "Ascent" (String Quartet No. 4) completes the composite work, "Crossings."
This quartet, commissioned in 1973 by the Fine Arts Quartet, was premiered by them in 1974, and subsequently played widely by that group. It is now performed in correct juxtaposition with its opposite bridgehead, String Quartet No. 3 (though authorized like the fourth for separate performance), as part of the total work, "Crossings."
The Concord Quartet
Each year the Concord String Quartet makes an extensive tour of the United States, performing on the major college campuses from Yale to the University of California, and appearing on leading chamber music series throughout the country. The Concord is currently QuartetinResidence at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Soon after its formation in 1971, the Concord String Quartet won the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award, and was similarly honored by the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. The Concord maintains a large and varied repertoire ranging fom most works of the standard repertoire to many of the more obscure ones like the quartets of Arriaga and the Schoenberg Quartet Concerto. Of particular interest is their commitment to the performance and commissioning of new works--a commitment which has resulted in new quartets from some of America's leading composers, among them George Rochberg, Lucas Foss, Jacob Druckman, and Ben Johnston.
MARK SOKOL, a native of Seattle, studied at the Juilliard School of Music, and was a member of the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Buffalo before joining the Quartet. ANDREW JENNINGS, born in Buffalo, graduated from Juilliard where he worked with Ivan Galamian and members of the Juilliard Quartet. He has made several recordings of solo works in addition to numerous recital and orchestral appearances. JOHN KOCHANOWSKI, a native of South Bend, Indiana, also studied at Juilliard and toured Europe as a soloist prior to joining the Quartet. NORMAN FISCHER, an Oberlin graduate, has also been a recitalist and soloist in his home state of Michigan and elsewhere in the East.
COMING EVENTS
Victoria de los Angeles, Soprano......Tuesday, November 8
(replacing Mirella Freni)
Songs by A. Scarlatti, Piccinni, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Faure, and Spanish composers Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestrade Waart . . Friday, November 11
Diepenbrock: Excerpts from Marsyas; Dvorak: "Te Deum" (with the Festival Chorus);
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 Penca & Topeng Babakan, West Java .... Saturday, November 12
The Pennsylvania Ballet.....Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
November 14, IS, 16 Ballet Folklorico Mexicano......Saturday, November 19
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
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