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National Radio Series 2024–2025

Berg and Brahms for Strings

First Aired Mar 19, 2025
0:58:59
audio Audio / Radio Program
1. Introduction 00:00:50
2. Berg: Quartet for Strings, Op. 3 00:24:56
3. Brahms: Quintet in G major for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, Op. 111 00:32:43
4. Closing 00:00:30
⟨ National Radio Series

Both Alban Berg and Johannes Brahms hail from the Viennese school of classical composing and the work featured on this program showcase the strength and musicality that came out of that period. Brahms’ G major String Quintet, Op. 111 evokes the fresh mountain air and serene lakes that would have surrounded the composer as he wrote this work from his idyllic summer retreat in Upper Austria. While Brahms’ Quintet is one of the final he wrote, Alban Berg’s String Quartet No. 3 was composed during the early period of his career. In it, you can hear him begin to develop the hyper-romantic language he would become known for in works like his famous, “Lyric Suite.”

PROGRAM

Alban Berg

(1885–1935)

Quartet for Strings, Op. 3 (1910)

Amphion String Quartet (David Southorn, Katie Hyun, violin; Andy Lin, viola; Mihai Marica, cello)

Johannes Brahms

(1833–1897)

Quintet in G major for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, Op. 111 (1890)

Philip Setzer, Shmuel Ashkenasi, violin; Richard O'Neill, Arnaud Sussmann, viola; Paul Watkins, cello
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Philip Setzer

Violin

Violinist Philip Setzer is a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet. He has appeared as soloist with the National Symphony, Aspen Chamber Symphony, Memphis Symphony, New Mexico Symphony, Puerto Rico Symphony, Omaha Symphony, Anchorage Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He also participated for three summers in the Marlboro Music Festival. His ideas and concepts led to the creation of the Emerson’s two highly praised collaborative theater productions: The Noise of Time, premiered at Lincoln Center in 2001 and directed by Simon McBurney; and Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Russian Fantasy, co-created with writer-director James Glossman in 2016. Premiered at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Black Monk has been performed at the Tanglewood and Ravinia Festivals, Princeton University, Wolf Trap, and Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, Korea. He also tours and records in a piano trio with David Finckel and Wu Han. Philip Setzer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and began studying violin with his parents, both former violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra. He continued his studies with Josef Gingold and Rafael Druian, and studied at The Juilliard School with Oscar Shumsky. Mr. Setzer currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at SUNY Stony Brook and Visiting Faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is also the Director of the Shouse Institute, a program for emerging artists of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit. He plays a violin made by Samuel Zygmuntowicz in Brooklyn in 2011.

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Arnaud Sussmann

Violin/Viola

Winner of a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Arnaud Sussmann has distinguished himself with his unique sound, bravura, and profound musicianship. Minnesota’s Pioneer Press writes, “Sussmann has an old-school sound reminiscent of what you'll hear on vintage recordings by Jascha Heifetz or Fritz Kreisler, a rare combination of sweet and smooth that can hypnotize a listener.” A thrilling musician capturing the attention of classical critics and audiences around the world, he has recently appeared as a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony and the New World Symphony. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Tel Aviv Museum in Israel, London’s Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Dresden Music Festival in Germany, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. He has been presented in recital in Omaha on the Tuesday Musical Club series, in New Orleans by the Friends of Music, and at the Louvre Museum in Paris. He has also given concerts at the OK Mozart, Moritzburg, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, La Jolla SummerFest, Mainly Mozart, Seattle Chamber Music, Chamber Music Northwest, and Moab Music festivals. He has performed with many of today’s leading artists including Itzhak Perlman, Menahem Pressler, Gary Hoffman, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Wu Han, David Finckel, and Jan Vogler. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Sussmann is Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach and Co-Director of Music@Menlo’s International Program, and teaches at Stony Brook University. In September 2022, Sussmann was named Founding Artistic Director of the Boscobel Chamber Music Festival.

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Paul Marc Mitchell

Paul Watkins

Cello

Acclaimed for his inspirational performances and eloquent musicianship, Paul Watkins enjoys a remarkably varied and distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. He is the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and in 2019 he was appointed Professor of Cello at the Yale School of Music. He has performed as concerto soloist with prestigious orchestras throughout the world under eminent conductors including Bernard Haitink, Paavo Berglund, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Charles Mackerras, Andris Nelsons, Edo de Waart, Hannu Lintu and Vasily Petrenko. A dedicated chamber musician, Paul was a member of the Nash Ensemble from 1997 until 2013, when he joined the Emerson String Quartet. With the Quartet he has travelled extensively, performing at major international festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Ravinia, Edinburgh, Berlin, and Evian, and has collaborated with artists such as Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Evgeny Kissin, Renée Fleming, and Barbara Hannigan. He is a regular guest artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

 

He took first prize in the 2002 Leeds Conducting Competition, and has held the positions of Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra. In recent seasons he made his conducting debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Omaha Symphony. His extensive discography as a cellist includes more than 70 recordings, including 18 solo albums for Chandos. His first recording as a conductor, of the Britten and Berg violin concertos with Daniel Hope, received a Grammy nomination.

 

Paul’s future plans include solo performances and recordings with, among others, Alessio Bax, Anthony Marwood, Lawrence Power, Leila Josefowicz, Edward Gardner, and Sir Andrew Davis. He is also in demand as a visiting teacher and has residencies this season at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin.

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