We’re in the midst of preparing repertoire for two concerts we have coming up in March. The first is a Marzena concert that is part of the March Moderne festival of new music taking place all over Portland. The crowning piece that concludes Arnica’s contribution to the festival is the Grosse Fugue, which was Beethoven’s originally intended ending to his Op. 130 string quartet. Friends and his publisher persuaded him to publish the fugue under a separate opus number (133) and compose a new, more audience friendly ending for the quartet. It puts quartets that wish to perform the work in a bit of a quandary, since the original version clearly placed the center of gravity of the entire work on the massive, dramatic, and often chaotic sounding fugue. If one performs the revised version of the quartet (with the newly composed finale), it places the center of gravity of the fifth movement Cavatina, which is one of the most sublime pieces in all of Western art music. We have performed Op. 130 once before, and chose to use the replacement finale movement, but this time, since we’re already doing the fugue for the Marzena concert, we’ll be doing the quartet in its original configuration. That will be part of an all-Beethoven concert presented at the Liberty Theater in Astoria, Oregon. Enough of this arcana – here’s a video of the American String Quartet performing the Cavatina:

and here is the Alban Berg Quartet performing the Grosse Fugue (split into two videos):
Part One

Part Two

Newport Performing Arts Center

Saturday, December 19th, the quartet played the Newport Performing Arts Center in Newport, Oregon as part of the Newport Symphony’s 2009-2010 season.  We had a great crowd of very enthusiastic music lovers, and the concert was very well received.  We hope to return to their season in the future – it was a shame that we weren’t able to stay after the concert and meet more people and see more of Newport.  Unfortunately, we had to drive back to Portland for an Oregon Symphony rehearsal and concert Sunday morning.

Cary Lewis - Photo: Charles Noble

Our guest pianist for the Franck Piano Quintet that we were fortunate to collaborate with one of our favorite artists in Portland, pianist Cary Lewis.  He played with passion and sensitivity, and really brought this work to life for us!

Marilyn de Oliviera

We also had the great fortune of having another wonderful guest cellist for this concert, and we stayed in the family after having invited Trevor Fitzpatrick to perform with us at the OHSU concert earlier this year.  This time his wife, Marilyn deOliveira, also a member of the Oregon Symphony, was able to perform a highly demanding program with great grace, humor, and artistic excellence.  Thank you, Marilyn!

We’ve got two three concerts already on the books for the upcoming 09-10 season – here’s some preliminary information:

OHSU Concert Series
Program TBA
October 28, 2009 @ 12 Noon
Oregon Health Sciences University Auditorium
3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Rd
[map]

French Program with pianist Cary Lewis
Ravel – Sonata for Violin and Cello
Debussy – Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
Franck – Piano Quintet

December 19, 2009 @ 7:00 p.m.
Newport Performing Arts Center
777 West Olive, Newport, Oregon
www.newportsymphony.org

Camerata Musica Salem
Program TBA
March 21, 2010 @ 2:30 p.m.
Salem Public Library, Loucks Auditorium
www.cameratamusica.org