A string quartet by John Adams

Synopsis

In New York City on today’s date in 2008, The Juilliard School’s FOCUS! Festival showcased music from the opposite coast, including the world premiere of a new string quartet by Californian composer John Adams.

14 years earlier, Adams had written a work for the Kronos Quartet and pre-recorded tape that he titled John’s Book of Alleged Dances, because, as he said, “the steps for the dances had yet to be invented.”

His new work for 2008 had a more serious title: simply, String Quartet, and was premiered by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Adams had heard the Saint Lawrence Quartet perform his Book of Alleged Dances, and was so impressed he wanted to write a new work for the ensemble, but found it an intimidating experience, given the great string quartets written by composers of the past ranging from Haydn to Ravel.

“String quartet writing is one of the most difficult challenges a composer can take on,” confessed Adams. “Unless one is an accomplished string player and writes in that medium all the time — and I don’t know many these days who do — the demands of handling this extremely volatile and transparent instrumental medium can easily be humbling, if not downright humiliating.” 

Music Played in Today's Program

John Adams (b. 1947): String Quartet No. 1; St. Lawrence String Quartet; Nonesuch 523014

On This Day

Births

• 1715 - Austrian composer Georg Christoph Wagenseil, in Vienna

• 1782 - French composer Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, in Caen

• 1852 - British composer Frederic Hymen Cowen, in Kingston, Jamaica

• 1862 - English composer Fritz (Frederick) Delius, in Bradford, Yorkshire

• 1876 - English composer Havergal Brian, in Dresden, Staffordshire

• 1924 - Italian composer Luigi Nono, in Venice

Deaths

• 1946 - British composer Sydney Jones, 84, in London

• 1962 - Austrian composer and violinist Fritz Kreisler, 86, in New York City

Premieres

• 1728 - Gay & Pepusch: ballad-opera, The Beggar’s Opera, at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London; This work, mounted by the London impresario John Rich, proved so popular that it was staged 62 times that season. As contemporary wags put it, the wildly successful work “made Gay Rich and Rich Gay” (Gregorian date: Feb. 9).

• 1781 - Mozart: opera, Idomeneo in Munich at the Hoftheater;

• 1826 - Schubert: String Quartet, Death and the Maiden, as a unrehearsed reading at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, two amateur musicians. Schubert, who usually played viola on such occasions, could not perform since he was busy copying out the parts and making last-minute corrections.

• 1882 - Rimsky-Korsakov: opera The Snow Maiden, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Feb. 10)

• 1892 - Chadwick: A Pastoral Prelude, by the Boston Symphony. Arthur Nikisch conducting

• 1916 - Prokofiev: Scythian Suite (Ala and Lolly), at the Mariinsky Theater in Petrograd, with the composer conducting (Julian date: Jan. 16)

• 1932 - Gershwin: Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra, in Boston, with the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky and the composer as soloist

• 1936 - Constant Lambert: Summer’s Last Will and Testament for chorus and orchestra, in London

• 1981 - John Williams: first version of Violin Concerto (dedicated to the composer’s wife, actress and singer Barbara Ruick Williams), by Mark Peskanov and the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Williams subsequently revised this work in 1998. This premiere date is listed (incorrectly) as Jan. 19 in the DG recording featuring Gil Shaham.