Biography

Peter Winograd  -  violin             
Laurie Carney  -  violin 
Daniel Avshalomov  -  viola       
Wolfram Koessell  -  cello

with

Cynthia Phelps, viola

Now in its 45th concert season, the American String Quartet (ASQ) has long been one of the world's most esteemed ensembles of its kind. Formed in 1974 when its original members were students at the Juilliard School, the ASQ was launched by winning both the Coleman Competition and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award in the same year. Innovative programming and a creative approach to education has resulted in notable residencies inclu­ding at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado (1974 to the present) and the Manhattan School of Music (1984 to the present). It has also served as resident quartet at the Taos School of Music, the Peabody Conservatory and the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The ASQ is known both for its presentations of the complete quartets of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bart6k and Schoenberg, as well as champions of new music. Cynthia Phelps, principal violist of the New York Philharmonic, joins the ASQ in perfor­mances of masterful quintets by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Brahms. First appearance in this formation.

Notes

Nearly all string quintets fall into one of two categories: those with two violas and those with two cellos. Mozart was the first important composer of the former, Boccherini of the latter. The quintets of Mendelssohn and Brahms (two each) also conform to the Mozartian model. Compared to a string quartet, the addition of a second viola darkens the color, enriches the texture, and increases contrapuntal possibilities, Mozart's penultimate work in the genre was composed in late 1790, a year before his death. Nobility of thought, expansiveness of form, brilliance of scoring, and mastery of contrapuntal technique inform this masterpiece. Mendelssohn wrote his second string quintet in 1845, but it was not publicly performed until 1852, five years after his tragically early death. It opens with characteristic Mendelssohnian energy and elan. The second movement, in G minor, has a gentle, playful quality. The third, something of an elegy, leads without pause into the fourth, which begins with a shout of joy and ends with an exuberant display of virtuosity.

Brahms' second string quintet dates from 1890 when the composer was already feeling the signs of old age (although he was only 57). Brahms even told his publisher Simrock that he could expect no more compositions from him. Despite the composer's melancholic frame of mind, there is scarcely a trace of this in the outer movements. The Quintet is a 'fittingly magisterial piece . . . showing him at the very height of his inventive powers' (biographer Malcolm MacDonald)

Robert Markow