KOMITAS: Selected Armenian Folk Songs
Komitas, born Soghomon Soghomonian, was an Armenian priest, musicologist, and composer, who is considered to be the founder of modern Armenian classical music and a pioneer of ethnomusicology. Orphaned at an early age, Komitas received his education at an Armenian seminary, was ordained, and went to Berlin to study music. Komitas acknowledged that he used his Western training to build a uniquely Armenian tradition. He dedicated his life to reclaiming native melodies of his people, collecting and transcribing over 3,000 pieces of Armenian folk music, (of which half were unfortunately lost).

Komitas’ tragic life, which mirrored the fate of his own people, has given him an almost mythical dimension and has made him a symbol of the suffering of an entire nation. Having witnessed relentless cruelty and massacres during the Armenian genocide, Komitas eventually suffered a mental breakdown and would later die in a psychiatric hospital in Paris.

Partly due to his traumatic story, Komitas’ music has become an enduring symbol of a home deeply treasured by the Armenian diaspora. Karen Ouzounian describes his music as:

At times joyously upbeat and at times melancholic, these folk songs were written before the genocide that scattered Armenians across the world. But for so many Armenians this music provided a connection to their homeland as they built new lives abroad; and for listeners they provide a window into the Armenian soul.

SETH GROSSHANDLER: Dances for String Quartet (World Premiere)
Seth Grosshandler received his B.A. in Music from Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 1979, with a focus on music composition. His thesis composition — Quintet for Piano and Winds — won the Reed College Class of 1921 Award, given for “creative work of notable character, involving an unusual degree of initiative and spontaneity.” He then spent a year in Paris, France, studying composition and orchestration, before going to law school. During law school and throughout his brief (35-year) gig as a lawyer, he performed as a pianist in several chamber music concerts in the New York City and Chicago areas. Since retiring as a lawyer in mid-2018, he has focused again on composition, while continuing to perform his own and others’ works.

In 2023 Ulysses Quartet premiered Grosshandler’s Suite for Clarinet Quintet with clarinetist Oskar Espina Ruiz, a warmly engaging piece that harkens back to Felix Mendelssohn with its delightful play with dance modalities. Today’s performance of Dances for String Quartet is the world premiere.

FANNY MENDELSSOHN HENSEL: String Quartet in E-flat Major
Older sister to her significantly more famous brother Felix, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel was an extraordinarily gifted musician. Today’s history books portray Fanny as the talented and overlooked sibling to her brother, rather than as the influential performer and prolific composer that she was. While Felix went on to enjoy a very successful public career in music, Fanny was encouraged to follow convention and get married and raise a family. But as a wife and mother, Fanny did foster a private musical career through weekly house concerts for audiences of up to 200 guests.

Fanny composed an estimated 450 works, some of which were published under her brother’s name, but the majority of which still remain unpublished. In her String Quartet in E-flat Major, as in much of her repertoire, Fanny’s admiration for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Felix Mendelssohn is quite clear.

With a flair of Romantic-tinged Classicism, the first movement opens with an Adagio, a departure from classical tradition that certainly raised an eyebrow from her brother. The movement unfolds rhapsodically, reflecting at length over its opening phrase, a downward melodic gesture ending with a sigh motive.

The Allegretto that follows is fleet and acrobatic, but with a scurrying middle-section fugato like the scherzo from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. The third-movement Romanze is the emotional heart of the quartet, remarkable for its extraordinarily wide expressive range and heart-wrenching chromaticism.

The final movement opens with a flurry of whirlwind figuration, which rarely stops to catch its breath, and goes by in a fiery blur.

CHRISTINA BOUEY: Soul
Soul written by Ulysses Quartet’s own Christina Bouey is meant to awaken the listener’s emotions and feel whatever their essence needs to feel in that moment. When Christina felt inspired to write the piece, she was on a walk by the Hudson River in Manhattan and was pondering what it meant to live, experience and encounter different aspects of life with deep meaning and intention.

FELIX MENDELSSOHN: String Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 44, No. 1
Written in 1837, the three quartets of Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 44 mark a happy time in Mendelssohn’s life and career. The young composer’s numerous successes had installed him as the most renowned musician in Europe. In 1835 he was appointed Music Director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, which would grow into one of Europe’s premier ensembles under his leadership. And on a personal note, when Mendelssohn began writing Opus 44, he had recently married the lovely Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud, with whom he would go on to have five children.

The joy that filled these years is clearly translated in the exuberance of Opus 44. Though the Quartet in D Major was the last of the set to be composed, it was published as Opus 44, Number 1. In a letter to violinist Ferdinand David, Mendelssohn writes:

I have just finished my Third Quartet, in D major, and like it very much. I hope it may please you, as well. I rather think it will, since it is more spirited and seems to me likely to be more grateful to the players than the others.

The first movement is a rather epic creation, built on a grand scale and full of energy. Although it is technically composed in a sonata-allegro form, the experience of hearing it evokes not so much a strict form as an odyssey, a journey to many different lands.

Mendelssohn’s reverence for the airy structures of Classicism continues into the second movement, a gentle Minuet that unfolds in a gorgeous blossoming of harmonies. The third movement, Andante espressivo, offers a lilting intermezzo style, with a playful obbligato line that contrasts an elegant melody. Everyone unites for the final Presto con brio, a perpetual-motion caper that easily morphs into a jauntily poised melody.