Uneasy Friendships
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:53 |
| 2. | Zemlinsky: Quartet No. 3 for Strings, Op. 19 | 00:25:41 |
| 3. | Berg: Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5 | 00:07:49 |
| 4. | Schoenberg: Kammersymphonie, arranged for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano, Op. 9 (arr. Webern) | 00:24:05 |
The strong and occasionally tense relationships between musicians of early 20th-century Vienna are the stuff of musical legend. Alexander Zemlinsky was a brilliant composer and pedagogue, and he was a crucial mentor for modernist innovators Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg. Zemlinsky’s landmark third string quartet, full of expressive and dissonant turns, shows that his students had a powerful influence on him as well. Berg’s Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano show a sweet and lyrical side to this master of modern music, though there are plenty of dramatic honks and shocking sounds in the mix as well. And in the uproarious Kammersymphonie by Schoenberg, we hear his knack for building exciting, momentum-filled sweeps out of musical ideas that seem at first to be disjunct fragments. His exhilarating, raucous work is made all the more colorful and virtuosic in this arrangement by Anton Webern for violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and piano—the instrumental combination that Schoenberg brought to fame in his groundbreaking Pierrot Lunaire.
PROGRAM
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Alexander Zemlinsky (1871–1942) |
Quartet No. 3 for Strings, Op. 19 (1924) Escher String Quartet (Adam Barnett-Hart, Aaron Boyd, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Brook Speltz, cello) |
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Alban Berg (1885–1935) |
Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5 (1913) Anthony McGill, clarinet; Gloria Chien, piano |
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Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) |
Kammersymphonie, arranged for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano, Op. 9 (arr. Webern) (1906, arr. 1922–23) Tara Helen O'Connor, flute; Tommaso Lonquich, clarinet; Kristin Lee, violin; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Gilbert Kalish, piano |
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Escher String Quartet
Anthony McGill
Gloria Chien
Tara Helen O'Connor
Tommaso Lonquich
Kristin Lee
Nicholas Canellakis
Gilbert Kalish
The Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its profound musical insight and rare tonal beauty. A former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Quartet has performed at the BBC Proms at Cadogan Hall and is a regular guest at Wigmore Hall. In its hometown of New York, the ensemble appears frequently with CMS.
Highlights of the 2024–25 season find the Quartet performing in many of the great venues and organizations in the United States, including Alice Tully Hall, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Shriver Hall Concert Series, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, University Musical Society at University of Michigan, Spivey Hall, and Chamber Music Houston. In addition to their North American engagements, the Quartet returns to Wigmore Hall for a BBC live broadcast recital as well as other engagements in Germany and continental Europe.
The Quartet has made a distinctive impression throughout Europe, with recent debuts including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerthaus, London’s Kings Place, Slovenian Philharmonic Hall, Les Grands Interprètes Geneva, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Auditorium du Louvre. The group has appeared at festivals such as the Heidelberg Spring Festival, Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy, Dublin’s Great Music in Irish Houses, the Risør Chamber Music Festival in Norway, the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, and the Perth International Arts Festival in Australia. The Quartet continues to flourish in its home country, performing at the Aspen Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, Toronto Summer Music, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, OKM Festival, Chamber Music San Francisco, Music@Menlo, and the Ravinia and Caramoor festivals.
Beyond the concert hall, the Quartet is proud to announce the creation of a new nonprofit entity, ESQYRE (Escher String Quartet Youth Residency Education). ESQYRE’s mission is to provide a comprehensive educational program through music performance and instruction for people of all ages. The quartet has also held faculty positions at Southern Methodist University and the University of Akron.
Within months of its inception in 2005, the ensemble came to the attention of key musical figures worldwide. Championed by the Emerson String Quartet, the Escher quartet was invited by both Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman to be Quartet in Residence at each artist’s summer festival.
The Escher String Quartet takes its name from the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher, inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.
Clarinetist Anthony McGill, Principal Clarinet of the New York Philharmonic, is one of classical music’s most celebrated performers and advocates. Hailed by the New York Times for his “brilliance, penetrating sound and rich character,” McGill was named Musical America’s 2024 Instrumentalist of the Year and received the 2020 Avery Fisher Prize. As a soloist, McGill performs with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, and Chicago Symphony. He is a sought-after chamber musician and recording artist, collaborating with the Pacifica Quartet and pianist Gloria Chien on acclaimed albums like American Stories and Here With You. An advocate for equity in classical music, McGill founded the #TakeTwoKnees movement and collaborates with the Equal Justice Initiative. He directs Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program and teaches at Curtis. A Curtis graduate himself, McGill serves on several arts organization boards and is a Backun Artist.
Pianist Gloria Chien has a diverse musical life as a performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at age 16 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard. In 2009 she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, and the following year was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo. In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as Co-Artistic Director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became Artistic Directors at Chamber Music Northwest in 2020, and were named the recipients of the 2021 Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music from CMS. Ms. Chien received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from New England Conservatory, where she was named the Advisor for the prestigious Institute for Concert Artists in 2024. She is an artist-in-residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee; a Steinway Artist; and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.
Tara Helen O’Connor, recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, was the first wind player to participate in CMS’s Bowers Program. A regular performer at major music festivals around the country, she is also the Co-Artistic Director of the Music from Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico, the Artistic Director of the Essex Winter Series, a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, and a founding member of the Naumburg Award–winning New Millennium Ensemble. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings, and Bridge Records, and can be heard on numerous film and television soundtracks. She has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion, St. Lawrence, and Emerson String Quartets. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, O’Connor is on faculty at Yale School of Music. Additionally, she teaches at Bard College and the Manhattan School of Music.
Italian clarinetist Tommaso Lonquich enjoys a distinguished international career, having performed on the most prestigious stages of four continents. Praised by reviewers for his “passion, sumptuous tone, magical finesse, and dazzling virtuosity,” he is Solo Clarinetist with Ensemble MidtVest, the acclaimed chamber ensemble based in Denmark. As a chamber musician, he has partnered with Christian Tetzlaff, Pekka Kuusisto, Carolin Widmann, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Nicolas Dautricourt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Nicolas Altstaedt, Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, Anneleen Lenaerts, Yura Lee, Gilles Vonsattel, and the Danish and Vertavo string quartets. As a guest principal in several orchestras, he has collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fabio Luisi, and Leonard Slatkin. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Radio Television Orchestra of Slovenia, Orchestra Canova, and the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza, among others. He is Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Schackenborg Musikfest, a summer festival set in a royal castle in Denmark. He has conceived several collaborative performances with dancers, actors, and visual artists and has been particularly active in improvisation, leading workshops at the Juilliard School. He has given master classes at the Manhattan School of Music, the Royal Danish Academy, and the Royal Welsh College of Music. Lonquich can be heard on more than twenty albums and is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program. Alongside his artistic career, he is a practicing psychoanalyst and co-founder of the International Center for Lacanian Psychoanalysis in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant as well as a top-prize winner of the International Naumburg Violin Competition and the Astral Artists’ National Auditions, Kristin Lee is a violinist of remarkable versatility and impeccable technique who enjoys a vibrant career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. Lee has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Hawai’i Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and many others. She is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of Emerald City Music in Seattle. Lee released her critically acclaimed debut solo album, American Sketches, on First Hand Records in November 2024. In 2026, she will collaborate with Grammy-nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion, featuring a new commission by Vivian Fung. Lee’s violin was crafted in Naples in 1759 by Gennaro Gagliano and is generously loaned to her by Paul and Linda Gridley. She is an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program.
Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised in the New Yorker as a “superb young soloist.” Recent highlights include solo debuts with the Virginia, Albany, Bangor, and Delaware symphony orchestras; concerto appearances with the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra; Europe and Asia tours with CMS; and recitals throughout the US with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he is a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals. Canellakis is the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (where he was recently appointed to the cello faculty) and New England Conservatory.
The profound influence of pianist Gilbert Kalish as an educator and pianist in myriad performances and recordings has established him as a major figure in American music-making. This season he appears with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic, performs at the Ojai Music Festival, and holds a residency at the San Francisco Conservatory. In 2006 he was awarded the Peabody Medal by the Peabody Conservatory for his outstanding contributions to music in America. He was the pianist of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players for 30 years, and was a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, a group that flourished during the 1960s and 70s in support of new music. He is particularly known for his partnership of many years with mezzo-soprano Jan DeGaetani, as well as for current collaborations with soprano Dawn Upshaw and cellists Timothy Eddy and Joel Krosnik. As an educator and performer he has appeared at the Banff Centre, the Steans Institute at Ravinia, the Marlboro Music Festival, and Music@Menlo; from 1985 to 1997 he served as chairman of the Tanglewood faculty. His discography of some 100 recordings embraces both the classical and contemporary repertories; of special note are those made with Ms. DeGaetani and that of Ives' Concord Sonata. A distinguished professor at SUNY Stony Brook, Mr. Kalish has been an Artist of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2006.