Philomusica Quartet Returns To The East Side Monday

Philomusica String Quartet. Photo from Facebook.

The Philomusica String Quartet will close its spring season featuring bright quartets by Joseph Haydn and Felix Mendelssohn and a celebration of Latin dance by William Grant Still.

The Quartet (violinists Jeanyi Kim and Alexander Mandl, violist Nathan Hackett and cellist Adrien Zitoun) began a residency with the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music 15 years ago and built a new audience when they transferred their residency to Wisconsin Lutheran College eight years ago. An East Side audience welcomes their return to the East Side for at least one concert a season when the Philomusica returns to its original location.

William Grant Still. Photo by Carl Van Vechten. (Public Domain).

A well-established Haydn completed his final series of quartets in 1796, including the String Quartet in C major, Op. 76, No. 3 “Emperor.” He incorporated a melody that had been instantly popular – a commissioned anthem, “God Save the Kaiser.” Written for Austria, German nationalists adopted it in their campaign to unify the separate German states. As “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles,” the song recalls to us the horrors of Hitler‘s Reich. But the tune also appears in two Protestant hymns – including “Praise the Lord! Ye heavens adore Him.” Why is the music so effective? Mandl suggests the success of the melody, in part, is due to its constraint within a single “singable” octave.

The slow second movement of the quartet offers variations on the song, but Haydn does not tinker with the melody. The quartet passes the melody from one player to another in an evermore complex accompaniment to the song. This constrained development is echoed within the rest of the work, which is harmonically consistent with the central theme.

The Philomusica was quick to choose Mendelssohn’s Quartet Op. 44 No. 1 in D Major when deciding on a Mendelssohn work. To Mandl, this quartet is “extremely well-balanced. Mendelssohn keeps it moving. It never becomes stagnant, even in the reflective moments in the first movement.” Mandl recognizes “certain tones still reverberating from his (most famous) Octet.”

Mandl finds that “Mendelssohn’s devotion to Bach is so clear in the Andante. You can hear a Bach aria being sung. The weaving that he does in this piece is not necessarily the easiest, but he creates absolutely fantastic patterns of sound that it’s quite unusual for most other composers of the time.”

Grant Still is known for his contributions to an emerging American sound in the classical music of the mid-20th century. As an African-American composer and conductor, he championed African and African-American themes. But he sought other popular influences as well. He based the dance suite,  Danzas de Panama on Panamanian folk tunes researched by musicologist Elisabeth Waldo.

The first dance, Tamborito, becomes a melodic dance between the first violin and other instruments. The dance features beats enabled by string players tapping their instruments. The second dance features a South American waltz. The Panamanian waltz, Mejorana y Socavon, incorporates very simple tunes into a light waltz rhythm. The third slow movement, Punto, appears the most Mexican sounding of all. Mandl suggests that “you can imagine somebody taking a nap or resting in their hacienda.” A percussive, highly spirited fast dance, Cumbia y Congo, concludes the suite. Again the string quartet must suggest African drumming.

The Philomusica Quartet often carefully selects music to match a particular theme. In this case, “there is no thread,” Mandl explains. These accessible pieces are just “fun for us to play.”

The Philomusica Quartet will perform at 7 p.m. on Monday, June 5, at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music at 1584 N. Prospect Ave. Tickets are available online or at the door.