A Musical Trip to Western Europe

Philomusica Quartet.

The Philomusica Quartet will present a European Sampler offering a journey through the string quartet traditions of Germany, Italy, and France Monday evening at Wisconsin Lutheran College.

Uniquely, the Philomusica Quartet has maintained the same personnel since its founding in 2008: violinists Jeanyi Kim and Alexander Mandl, violist Nathan Hackett, and cellist Adrien Zitoun.

Kim, who serves as Associate Concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, has also held concertmaster positions with Milwaukee Musaik and the Present Music ensemble. She will be featured as soloist in the Symphony’s upcoming Bach Celebration concert on March 21. Mandl divides his time between teaching at Wisconsin Lutheran College and UW-Parkside, conducting several regional orchestras, with recent international appearances in Brazil and Holland. Both Kim and Mandl are regular artists at the Sunflower Music Festival. As for Hackett, he is a long-term member of the Milwaukee Symphony who spends part of his summer performing at the Washington Island Music Festival. Zitoun, who joined the Milwaukee Symphony in 2001, is also a core performer with the Present Music Ensemble and appears regularly at the Washington Island Music Festival.

See their biographies for additional details.

For this concert violinist Alex Ayers will substitute for Mandl as the latter completes his recovery from shoulder surgery. A native of Waukesha, Ayers has been a member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra since 2013. He has played chamber music locally with Milwaukee Musaik, Present Music, and each summer with festivals around the country.

The program includes Ludwig Van Beethoven‘s 11th quartet, the String Quartet in F Minor Op. 95 “Serioso” (1814), which marks a transition as Beethoven began to structure his writing to please himself. Musicologist Melvin Berger observes that, “The subtitle, ‘Serioso’ was an obvious reference to the prevailingly somber mood of the piece. The composer’s growing deafness, precarious health, frustration in love, financial insecurity, and unhappy family life had combined to make him angry, bitter, and deeply despondent.”

In this work, Beethoven demonstrated an groundbreaking efficiency of style. The quartet is a compressed and concentrated composition with an emotional range that far exceeds its length. Kai Christensen writes that, “The second movement is the tender heart of the quartet. Beginning as a lyrical slow movement, it promises compassionate relief from the huge kinetic (and potential) energy of the first movement. Here is the true window into Beethoven’s late quartets with their liquid ecstasies amidst imponderable complexities.”

The program’s second work is by Italian musician Antonio Bazzini, who became a celebrated violinist who toured across Europe. He spent several years in Germany as a friend of Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. Returning to Italy, he was a key figure in the Italian instrumental renaissance of the late 19th Century, a champion of chamber music in a country consumed by opera.

Bazzini’s String Quartet No. 2 in D Minor Op. 75 (1874) is known for its lyrical and accessible qualities, combining classical structures with romantic expressivity. The second movement has a deeply lyrical character, reminiscent of a “song without words,” as it’s been described, also echoing the Italian operatic tradition.

The final work on the program is Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major (1903), which masterfully combines impressionism, neoclassicism, and exotic influences into a work of formal and sensual beauty. The quartet creates striking colors and layered soundscapes while showcasing Ravel’s neo-classical craftsmanship—a quality that distinguishes it from Claude Debussy‘s more freely impressionistic quartet, to which it is often compared.

This concert offers a unique opportunity to experience three masterpieces of the string quartet repertoire, exploring contrasting styles and emotional landscapes.

The Philomusica concert begins at 7:30 p.m. at Schwan Hall (8815 Wisconsin Ave.) on the Wisconsin Lutheran Campus on Monday, February 10. Tickets may be purchased at the box office (414-443-8802) or online. Free parking is available in a garage just east of the hall.

The Philomusica will segue from a European Sampler to English Elegance in a final spring concert on April 14 at the Wisconsin Lutheran Campus. The concert will feature works by Arnold Bax, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Wisconsin composer Brian Packham. Clarinetist Todd Levy will join the Quartet for the Coleridge-Taylor Quintet for Clarinet and Strings. (Mandl is confident that he will return for that concert.)