Ravinia 2019, Issue 2, Week 3

String Quintet in E-flat major, op. 97—both of which are nicknamed “American.” After com- posing the quartet rapidly between June 8 and 23, he scribbled a note of relief on the manuscript: “I am satisfied. It went quickly.” A group of ex- patriate Czechs, led by the composer playing the first violin part, gave a private performance in Spillville. The Kneisel Quartet presented the of- ficial premiere in Boston on January 1, 1894. Although the quartet’s formal structure clear- ly relies on European conventions, its melodic and harmonic content draws from the musical wealth of the United States. In an article printed in the New York Herald on December 15, 1893, Dvořák reviewed the products of his American period: “I have indeed been busy since I came to this country. I have finished a couple of com- positions in chamber music [Opp. 96 and 97]. … They are both written upon the same lines as this symphony [“From the New World”] and both breathe the same Indian spirit.” Dvořák introduced the spirited rhythm and modal melodic construction he discovered in the music of African and Native Americans, par- ticularly in the opening theme. The Lento ’s pro- found melancholy likely reflects the displaced composer’s yearning for his native Bohemia. Sounds of the Iowan landscape echo through the scherzo-like third movement, whose main theme Dvořák allegedly patterned after the call of a scarlet tanager. The finale contrasts a ram- bunctious opening gesture with a more long- lined melody. –Program notes © 2019 Todd E. Sullivan JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET The Juilliard String Quartet was created in 1946 as the quartet-in-residence of its namesake, The Juilliard School. Throughout its history the en- semble’s credo has been to “play new works as if they were established masterpieces, and estab- lished masterpieces as if they were new”; the JSQ has performed more than 500 works, including the premieres of more than 60 pieces by Ameri- can composers. In recent seasons the quartet has performed at such venues as the Vienna Konzer- thaus, Bonn’s Beethoven Festival, Madrid’s Pala- cio Real, Paris’s Cité de la musique, Tokyo’s Kioi Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall and Queen Eliz- abeth Hall, the Moscow International Perform- ing Arts Center, Australia’s Musica Viva Cham- ber Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre. In 2011 the JSQ was the subject of the film Keeping Beetho- ven Contemporary , which showed the quartet rehearsing and performing Beethoven’s op. 130 quartet with the original Grosse Fuge , and in 2015 it created an app offering an interactive experience with Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet. Through its annual seminar at Juilliard, the ensemble has worked with numerous graduate quartets-in-residence and has been instrumental in forming other string quartets, including the Afiara, Alexander, Emerson, La Salle, and Shanghai. Among the JSQ’s over 100 recordings to date are four Grammy-winning albums, including the complete quartets of Bartók and Schoenberg, quartets by Debussy and Ravel, and Beethoven’s late quartets. The quartet was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1986 and was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 1993. The ensemble was bestowed a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011—the first classical music ensemble to be so recognized. The Juilliard String Quartet first appeared at Ravinia in 1976 and has returned nearly every summer since 2000; tonight marks its 20th season at the festival. This performance also marks the first appearance at Ravinia of Areta Zhulla, the quartet’s first violinist as of the 2018–19 concert season. Antonín Dvořák RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JUNE 17 – JUNE 23, 2019 94