Fine Arts Quartet Offers Summer Festival
Three free concerts in July. And what a lineup of compositions.
Fine Arts Quartet (L to R, Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Gil Sharon, Niklas Schmidt
Classical music festivals, including the local program featuring the Fine Arts Quartet, are a special seasonal pleasure. The 2023 edition of the FAQ Summer Festival will present three free chamber concerts on Sunday, July 9; Thursday, July 13; and Sunday, July 16. Quartet members Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Gil Sharon, and Niklas Schmidt will be joined by guest musicians at two festival concerts. Additional festival activities, including an open rehearsal, are listed on the website of the Friends of the Fine Arts Quartet, which produces the event in collaboration with the Peck School of the Arts at UW-Milwaukee.
The July 9 concert, at the UWM Zelazo Center, features two quintets: Quintet No. 1 for Piano and String Quartet by Ernest Bloch, and Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. Pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel, life partners who frequently play together and also serve as co-artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, will perform with the FAQ.
Swiss-born Ernest Bloch wrote the Quintet No. 1 in 1923 while serving as musical director of the Cleveland Institute of Music. Writing in Classical Today, Dan Davis characterizes the piece as suffused with “the often demonic energy and hushed mystery that jostle each other in Bloch’s music.”
Though Franz Schubert wrote his quintet for string quartet and second cello shortly before his death in 1828, it was not publicly performed until 1850. Musicologist Kai Christensen describes the quintet as immersing the listener in “that peculiar Schubertian dichotomy of sublime lyrical euphoria on one hand, and dark, profoundly unsettling anxiety on the other.”
The Jewish Community Center hosts the second concert, an all-quartet recital July 13. Felix Mendelssohn was only 18 when he wrote the Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13, just a few months after the death of Ludwig van Beethoven. Clearly influenced by Beethoven’s chamber writings, this passionate work references a song Mendelssohn had written while in the throes of youthful romance. The song asks “Ist es wahr?” (“Is it true?”)
Joseph Haydn’s Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, may be the most popular of his 63 string quartets. Its nickname, “The Lark,” celebrates a lovely melody played on the first violin’s E-string during the opening movement.
The FAQ returns to the Zelazo Center on July 16 for the third concert. The program opens with the Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41, written in 1842 by Robert Schumann. Schumann had a remarkable output of chamber music that year: three string quartets, one piano quintet, one piano quartet, and one piano trio.
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra double bassist Brittany Conrad will join the quartet in performance of the String Quintet in G Major, Op. 77 by Antonin Dvorak. The piece won first prize in an 1875 chamber music composition competition, impressing the jury with its “distinction of theme, technical skill in polyphonic composition, mastery of form,” and “knowledge of the instruments.”
All festival concerts are free with no ticketing. However, the July 13 concert requires reservations. Here is a summary of the performances:
Sunday, July 9 – 3 p.m. performance (2 p.m. pre-concert talk) – Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, 2419 E. Kenwood Blvd.
Thursday, July 13 – 7:30 p.m. performance (6:30 p.m. pre-talk) – Milwaukee Jewish Community Center, Community Hall, 6225 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Whitefish Bay (Reservations required – make a reservation at https://tinyurl.com/ykvwp85e.)
Sunday, July 16 – 3 p.m. performance (2 p.m. pre-talk) – Zelazo Center
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July 13 is a Thursday. Please correct date reference