Biography

Jeffrey Myers  -  violin             
Ryan Meehan  -  violin 
Jeremy Berry  -  viola        
Estelle Choi  -  cello

One of the most exciting young ensembles to emerge on the chamber music scene in recent years is the Calidore String Quartet, noted for its fiery brilliance, musicianship, and palpable energy. Formed in 2010 at the prestigious Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, the Calidore String Quartet has been described as “a miracle of unified thought” (La Presse, Montreal) and as “four highly intelligent, deeply sensitive virtuosos” (Strings magazine). Using an amalgamation of “California” and “doré” (French for “golden”), the ensemble’s name represents a reverence for the diversity of culture and the strong support it received from its home of origin, Los Angeles, California (the “golden state”). In 2016, the Calidore String Quartet made international headlines as the Grand-Prize winner of the first M-Prize International Chamber Music Competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the largest prize for chamber music in the world (U.S. $100,000). In 2016 the Quartet was named a BBC New Generation Artist for the 2016-2018 seasons and became the first North American ensemble to win the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. The Calidore is the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Delaware. Previously it served in this capacity at the University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. 3rd LMMC concert.

https://www.calidorestringquartet.com/

Notes

“The Hunt” (or “The Hunting”) Quartet is the fourth of the six “Haydn” quartets Mozart wrote in the early 1780s. Its nickname is not the composer’s, though one cannot fault a listener for detecting simulated horn calls in the opening bars (and often thereafter), nor the somewhat bouncy rhythm suggestive of riding, nor the overall mood of good cheer and open-air spirit. But these are not the qualities that make this quartet great. It is the economy of means, the intricate interplay of voices, the mastery of control over every aspect of composition that bespeaks genius at both the conscious and subconscious level of the listener. 

German-born Jörg Widmann regularly ranks annually among the half dozen or so most performed contemporary composers in the world. Collectively his ten string quartets, composed over a period from 1997 to 2020, stand among his most significant achievements. In the Third, as in many other of his compositions, Widmann engages in musical dialogue with famous composers of the past. The Third pays tribute to Beethoven (the pervasive rhythmic pattern that informs the first movement of the Seventh Symphony), Schumann (the so-called “Grandfather Dance” tune from the end of Papillons), and Mozart. It is no accident that both Mozart’s Quartet K. 458 and Widmann’s Third are “Hunt” quartets. Midway through Widmann’s quartet are veiled references to the opening of the Mozart quartet. However, Widmann’s twelve-minute, single-movement work incorporates sounds Mozart would never have dreamed of, including cries, calls, and shouts from the musicians, and physical gestures suggesting the horse-mounted hunters cracking their whips.

Smetana’s First String Quartet, which he entitled “From My Life,” is perhaps the first autobiographical or programmatic piece of chamber music ever written. Smetana left the following remarks: “The first movement depicts my youthful love of art, my romantic moods, an indescribable longing for something intangible, and a foreboding of the unhappiness to come ... The second movement is like a polka, and reminds me of the happy days of my youth, when I composed dance tunes and was known as a passionate lover of dancing ... The third movement recalls my first love and happiness with the girl who later became my first wife ... The finale describes my joy in discovering that I could treat elements of Bohemian national music in my work. My joy in following this path was checked by the terrible catastrophe of my sudden deafness.”

Robert Markow