The acclaimed and popular Juilliard String Quartet will make its fifth appearance with Chamber Music Monterey Bay in late February. The quartet last appeared on the series during CMMB’s 2019–20 season. Founded in 1946, the Juilliard String Quartet continues to inspire audiences around the world, drawing upon its deep and vital engagement with diverse repertoire to deliver performances of unparalleled artistry and enduring vigor.

The first two pieces on this program were written by lovestruck Czech composers. These loves, each unrequited, could not be more different. Cypresses (1887) by Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) originated as the work of a young man head-over-heels in love with one of his teenage students, Josefína Čermáková. In 1865, Dvořák wrote eighteen brief love songs for voice and piano expressing his affection, to no avail. Decades later, now married to Josefína’s sister Anna, he transcribed twelve of these gentle, lyrical songs for string quartet; we will hear three of them. Josefína was ultimately memorialized in the finale of Dvořák’s great Cello Concerto of 1895.

Intimate Letters (1928) by Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) was inspired by the composer’s love over many years for a married woman, Kamila Stösslová, thirty-seven years his junior. Upon completion of this work, his second and final string quartet, Janáček wrote to his muse: “It will be beautiful, strange, unrestrained, inspired, a composition beyond all the usual conventions. It is my first composition that sprang from directly experienced feelings. This piece was written in fire, the earlier pieces only in hot ash.” Janáček heard the work in rehearsal but died three weeks before its first public performance.

The final composition on the program, String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, op. 130, with

Grosse Fuge, op. 133 (1825), is one of the last compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). The Grosse Fuge was the original conclusion of the quartet, but Viennese audiences at the time were perplexed by this monumental and forward-looking movement. Beethoven’s publisher convinced him to replace it with a shorter, more conventional ending, and the Grosse Fuge became a separate piece with a new opus number. The Juilliard String Quartet will present the work with its original Grosse Fuge finale, now widely considered one of Beethoven’s greatest achievements. Igor Stravinsky described it as “an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever.”

The concert will be preceded by a 30-minute presentation by expert musicologist Derek Katz. The talk begins at 6:30 and will provide ticketholders with deeper insight into the evening’s program.

Individual tickets are available for $25–$75. CMMB’s Kids Up Front and Free! program offers free tickets for young music lovers (grades 3–12) and music teachers. Discounted tickets ($15) are available for chaperones. Active military members are also eligible for discounts.

Ticket purchase and pricing details are available online at www.chambermusicmontereybay.org or by calling the office at 831-625-2212. The office is open Monday through Friday, 10am to 3pm.

Chamber Music Monterey Bay remains committed to its mission of enriching the cultural life of the community through high-quality chamber music and educational outreach programs.

Contact:

Chamber Music Monterey Bay
Phone: 831-625-2212
Email: info@chambermusicmontereybay.org
Website: www.chambermusicmontereybay.org