Verona Quartet/JIJI Program Notes by Joseph Gusmano

Isaac Albeniz (1860–1909): Asturias

Isaac Albeniz is one of Spain’s most widely recognized post-Romantic pianist-composers. Though he does not play guitar, several of his piano works have become mainstays in classical guitar repertoire. At age seven he passed the entrance exams for piano at the Conservatoire de Paris but was deemed too young to study.

Asturias was originally titled Leyenda by the composer. The current name was invented by the German publisher Hofmeister. The piece does not resemble any folk music from northern Asturias, but instead evokes Andalusian flamenco guitar gestures of southern Spain. The opening theme suggests a strumming technique in which the thumb and finger of the strumming hand alternate between the melody and a repeated pedal note. The dramatic staccato chords capture the sharp movements of a flamenco dancer.

Gulli Bjornsson (b. 1991): Dynjandi

Gulli Bjornsson is a guitarist, composer, and programmer from Iceland. His music tends to blend electronics with live instruments and visuals. Bjornsson also draws inspiration from Icelandic folk music and nature. He teaches Electronic Music Composition at the University of Kansas, and has degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, the Yale School of Music, and Princeton University. His compositions have been performed by the Aizuri Quartet, Contemporaneous, Mirror Strings, and many other ensembles and soloists from around the world.

Dynjandi, or “Thunderous,” is the largest waterfall in the Westfjords region of Iceland, standing 100 meters tall. The piece opens with a gentle melody that slowly builds inertia, swelling into a powerful stream of arpeggios. Bjornsson said of his piece, “The intense beauty of the waterfall stuck with me and became my inspiration as I tried to capture the essence of this waterfall in some way through virtuosic music. Dynjandi cascaded down a mountainside creating a total of 7 waterfalls, the form of the music is in 7 sections.”

Ludwig von Beethoven (1770–1827): String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1

Beethoven was commissioned to compose this quartet by Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz. Lobkowitz also commissioned Beethoven’s 5th, 6th, and 7th symphonies. After giving an earlier version of the quartet to Karl Amenda, Beethoven cautioned him, “Be sure not to hand on to anybody your quartet, in which I have made some drastic alterations. For only now have I learnt to write quartets; and this you will notice, I fancy, when you receive them.” This earlier version, known as the Amenda Manuscript, was eventually published by Bärenreiter around 1965.

The theme from the first movement is similar to Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 32, K. 454. Beethoven borrows the theme for the Finale from one of his earlier string trios, Op. 9, No. 3 in C Minor. This early work is full of classical gestures: simple elegant melodies, distinct harmonic accompaniment, and formal symmetry. The second movement gives us a premonition of the moody, tempestuous nature of Beethoven’s later, more Romantic works.

INTERMISSION

Roland Dyens (1955–2016): Tango en Skaï

Roland Dyens was a French classical guitarist, composer, and arranger. He was born in Tunisia but spent most of his life in Paris where he studied classical guitar with Alberto Ponce Désiré Dondeyne. Dyens compositional and performance style was highly improvisational. He often began his concerts with an improvised piece of music and in many cases, he would improvise the program itself. A journalist once described Dyens as having the “hands of a classical musician and the mind of a jazz musician.”

Tango en Skaï began as one of those improvised pieces that Dyens would use to begin his concerts. Eventually he was convinced to write it down and the piece was published in 1985 by Henry Lamoine. The title literally translates to Tango in PVC; Skaï is a slang term for fake leather, or polyvinyl chloride. This suggests that the piece is a mimicry or pale imitation of a real tango.

Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805): Quintet in D Minor, Fandango

Luigi Boccherini was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era. His father, Leopoldo Boccherini, was an accomplished cello and double bass player and his brother, Giovanni Boccherini, was a poet and a dancer who wrote libretti for Antonio Salieri and Joseph Haydn. Though much of his music is modeled after forms established by Haydn, Boccherini helped promote the use of the cello as a melodic force in the string quartet.

Boccherini’s Quintet in D Minor also has the title “Fandango”, which is a lively folk dance popular in Spain and Portugal. This dance was first introduced in Spain in the 17th century, and Catholic authorities initially banned it, describing it as a “godless dance.” Just as the Consistory was about to vote on whether or not the fandango ought to be outlawed, they allowed two dancers to enter and perform it. The church officials were so moved by the performance that they jumped up and joined the dancers.

Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840): 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Caprice No. 24

Niccolo Paganini was one of the most virtuosic and prolific violinists of all time. Many of the techniques he developed on his instruments became the foundation for modern violin technique. His influence as a composer can also not be understated. Both Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann have made piano arrangements of Paganini’s works. Liszt published a series of six etudes based on Paganini’s music. The most famous of these etudes, La campanella, borrows a melody from Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in B Minor, which includes actual handbells during the finale.

The 24 Paganini Caprices are a staple of solo violin repertoire, with Caprice No. 24 being one of the most technically demanding. The piece begins in A Minor, but closes in A Major, and the material is generated by way of theme and variation. The opening theme of the piece serves as a thread that links all of the other variations. Some of these variations are tender and gentle, while others are full of fiery and explosive figurations.