U.Va. Chamber Music Series Rivanna String Quartet

March 12, 2009 - 8:00pm
  • Thursday, March 12th, 2009
  • Old Cabell Hall
  • 8:00pm
  • $20 / $10 students / 5 ARTS$ / Free under 18

Rivanna String Quartet

Through its energetic performance of the chamber music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Anton Webern and Johannes Brahms, the University of Virginia’s Rivanna String Quartet will beautifully capture the eloquent musical portrayal of emotions on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 8pm in Old Cabell Hall.

The Rivanna String Quartet’s appearance in the fourth of the University of Virginia’s Chamber Music Series offers a youthful, vibrant ensemble, which has established the intimate relationship necessary to exploit the remarkable ability of composers, regardless of era, to create emotionally charge music. Comprised of the string principals of the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra and UVA faculty, the Rivanna Quartet features the extraordinary talents of violinists David Colwell and David Sariti, violist Ayn Balija and cellist Adam Carter.

Commissioned by King William II of Prussia, the Quartet in D Major, K. 575 demonstrates Mozart’s assignment to highlight the cello, the King’s instrument. Although barely altering Haydn’s structure of the genre, Mozart fills the four movements with cello solos yet creatively balances the play between all the instruments. Unlike Haydn’s works, the quartet explodes with tremendously deep emotion and thought expressed through Mozart’s construction of harmony and melody.

Surprise! Recognized as a devout advocate of the Second Viennese School’s atonality, Anton Webern composed Langsamer Satz in a tonal voice, the voice of a twenty-one-year-old in love. Expressing the intoxication of new love from desire to torture blissfully resolved, the single movement takes on the traditional sonata form associated with post-Brahms Romanticism. Intending to compose an entire string quartet, he ultimately created one movement. Written in 1905 on a hiking trip with his cousin who would become Webern’s wife, the Langsamer Satz was lost until its public premier fifty-seven years later.

In the Romantic era, Johannes Brahms adopts the Classical structure of the string quartet. In what is called the “War of the Romantics,” Brahms utilizes the sound of the string instruments to portray deep Romantic sentiments, rather than fitting music to a genre as his contemporaries Wagner and Liszt, proponents of programmed music. Quartet in A Minor, Op 52, No. 2 illustrates Brahms genius to fully exploit the affections of the soul through his incorporation of motives, harmonic creativity and blurred articulations. Brahms provides an intense sensual experience through the virtuosity of Rivanna String Quartet to contrast the anguished eruptions in the minor key and the stunningly sensuous returns to lyricism.

This emotionally charged concert will be performed by the Rivanna String Quartet on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 8pm in Old Cabell Hall of the University of Virginia. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for students, 5ARTS$ for UVA students and free for those under 18. To purchase tickets please call the Cabell Hall Box Office at (434)924-3984, 12pm-5pm, Monday through Friday. A reception follows.

 

Event Details

Who: University of Virginia Chamber Music Series
What: Rivanna String Quartet

Program:
Mozart: Quartet in D Major, K. 575
Webern: Langsamer Satz
Brahms: Quartet in A Minor, Op. 52, No. 2
When: Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 8pm in Old Cabell Hall, UVA

Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for students, 5ARTS$ for UVA students and free for those under 18. To purchase call the Cabell Hall Box Office at (434)924-3984, 12pm-5pm, Monday through Friday. For more information, visit artsandsciences.virginia.edu/music

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Box Office: 434.924.3984

Address

UVA Department of Music
112 Old Cabell Hall
P.O. Box 400176 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4176

Email: music@virginia.edu