Get to know the composers: Washington, Janáček & Schumann
Happy (snowy!) spring everyone!
It’s concert week 1 — this tour is a little more extended than our usual run of shows. The first leg of the tour has concerts coming up this Friday in Saint John and Sunday in Florenceville-Bristol.
Folks in Moncton and Fredericton, we’ll be coming your way next week! And we’ll be wrapping up the show in St. Andrews the following weekend.
Tickets are still available - click on the link to grab yours in advance!
Shelley Washington - Middleground
Shelley Washington (b. 1991) writes music to fulfill one calling- to move. With an eclectic palette, Washington tells stories focusing on exploring emotions and intentions by finding their root cause. Using driving, rhythmic riffs paired with indelible melodies, she creates a sound dialogue for the public and personal discourse. Shelley performs regularly as a vocalist and saxophonist, primarily on baritone saxophone, and has performed and recorded throughout the Midwest and East Coast- anything from Baroque to Screamo. She holds degrees from Truman State University; a BA in Music focusing on saxophone, and a Masters of Arts in Education. She also holds a Masters of Theory and Composition from NYU Steinhardt, where she studied with Dr. Joseph Church, Dr. Julia Wolfe, and Caroline Shaw. As an educator, she taught for the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program, and was acting Artistic Director for the Noel Pointer Foundation, located in Brooklyn, NY. In the Fall of 2018 she began studies at Princeton University in pursuit of the PhD of Music Composition. Shelley is a founding member of the composer collective, Kinds of Kings.
We’re pumped to be playing Shelley Washington’s quartet MIDDLEGROUND. MIDDLEGROUND was included on PUBLIQuartet’s Grammy-nominated album, Freedom, and Faith, released in 2019. Sometimes Shelley writes poetry to go with her music — a beautiful extension of the piece, and the best kind of program note in our opinion.
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MIDDLEGROUND: the space grounded, the between, the center. The Heartland. The prairie, the grasslands, Konza, Flint Hills, Manhattan, Emporia, Salina. Where we gathered.
Home of the heart, heart of the home.
The years spent in cars, daydreaming, scooping handfuls of wheat, racing out into amber fields, cycling together, water wheel ice cream, fireworks and apples. The stories shared, books read sprawled in the yard, family prayers over anything, late evening walks, quiet nights. Open arms, open hearts, humble and extraordinary.
Together, with our wonder, our joy, we created an incredible painting with abounding colors. The kinds of colors that linger in the minds eye long after they are out of sight and cradle you long after goodbyes are spoken and car doors closed. The kinds that find you counting the days until the next birthday, the next holiday, the next bike ride, the next Camp, the next anything just so you can see them again. When you close your eyes you feel their warmth. They stay.
The middle ground: my refuge born from the land living in my heart. Where my home is, living and breathing outside of my body, thousands of miles apart. This hallowed ground.
For my family.
You can hear the folk influence in MIDDLEGROUND - in parts almost fiddly, and at other moments open and reminiscent like the prairie summers Washington describes in her poem. The piece is a lot of fun to play - groovy and rolling.
Here’s a sweet interview with Shelley in her home studio!
Leoš Janáček -
String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata” (1923)
Leoš Janáček was a prominent Czech composer and ethnomusicologist who only rose to recognition in his sixties. Deeply influenced by his native Moravia, he was known for using folk-inspired melodies, sometimes even rhythmically mimicking the natural speech patterns of the Czech language. His music is now known for its dramatic intensity, and his String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata” is no exception.
Kreutzer Sonata was composed in just nine days, and is a frenetic and intense exploration of human emotion, betrayal, and obsession, and the complexities of love. Like a game of telephone, the quartet was loosely inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s novella of the same name, whose title was named after Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. What a loop!
While folks have tried to link the structure of Janáček’s quartet to the plot of Tolstoy’s novella, neither the score nor Janáček ever left any convincing clues to the piece having a parallel narrative to the story. We do find that the story’s plot is helpful for contextualizing some of the bizarre and frenetic emotional outbursts that you can hear in the music, though.
Tolstoy’s dark novella follows a suspicious and jealous lover, who falls further into paranoia that leads to the tragic murder of his wife after suspecting she was having an affair with her musical partner (with whom she played Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, hence the title). In Janacek’s “Kreutzer Sonata”, we experience Tolstoy’s novel through the wife’s perspective.
As explained by Kurt Baldwin: “About his string quartet, Janacek wrote: “I had in mind the pitiable woman who is maltreated, beaten and murdered…”. In the quartet, Janacek presents the vantage point of the woman, as he interprets it, and he attempts to depict her emotional and psychological torment as she struggles to find a path toward personal fulfillment. Janacek’s interpretation of Tolstoy affords us the opportunity for greater insight into the characters of the story, and creates the opportunity to even find beauty and serenity in an otherwise tragic scenario.”
Robert Schumann -
String Quartet No. 1 (1842)
Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential figure in the early Romantic movement. Known for his deeply expressive music, Schumann’s works are often marked by their lyrical beauty and emotional depth. In addition to his compositions, Schumann was an advocate for new music, and his critical writings helped shape the landscape of 19th-century German music.
Schumann was known for concentrating on specific genres at particular times, and his String Quartet No. 1 was written during his “chamber music year” in 1842. He was having a rough year on the personal front - his wife Clara was out on tour, and he was home alone struggling with depression. As a forever-student, he spent this time working away at counterpoint exercises, studying Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn’s string quartets.
Schumann wrote his first quartet in the midst of these studies, and you can clearly hear hints of Mozart and Beethoven throughout the piece. It is a work of lyrical beauty and rhythmic energy and showcases his deep connection to the Romantic movement. The quartet’s melodic lines are expansive and expressive, with a contrasting blend of melancholy and joy. Its compositional structure is quite traditional, but is full with moments of emotional intensity and lightheartedness, reflecting the composer’s own internal balance of optimism and melancholy. Schumann’s ability to craft a seamless flow of ideas brings together lyrical expression with dynamic contrasts, balancing both inner turmoil and emotional resolution. Schumann was deeply influenced by his relationship with his wife, Clara Schumann, and this quartet, like much of his work from this period, is often interpreted as a reflection of his personal life.
Program
Middleground Shelley Washington
String Quartet No. 1 "Kreutzer Sonata" Leoš Janáček
I. Adagio - Con moto
II. Con moto
III. Con moto - Vivo - Andante
IV. Con moto - (Adagio) - Più mosso
- Intermission -
String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1 Robert Schumann
I. Introduzione: Andante espressivo - Allegro
II. Scherzo: Presto - Intermezzo
III. Adagio
IV. Presto