Yesterday (Wednesday) I and three of my OSO colleagues gave a free lunchtime brownbag concert at the Old Church in downtown Portland.\u00c2\u00a0 As we were rehearsing on Tuesday, the conversation drifted around to the subject of dress – what would we wear for this concert?<\/p>\n
The concert came at the instigation of the violinist and raconteur Greg Ewer, who wanted an opportunity to play some favorite quartets with people that he didn’t normally get a chance to perform.\u00c2\u00a0 His ethos behind the concert was to have fun – no pressure, just making music with friends and in front of a friendly audience.\u00c2\u00a0 So, jokingly, he suggested we wear Hawai’ian shirts.<\/p>\n
We were in luck, because our other violinist, In\u00c3\u00a9s Voglar, is married to OSO principal violist Jo\u00c3\u00abl Belgique, who has a world-class collection of the loudest shirts that are legal to wear in public!\u00c2\u00a0 She found four prize specimins (which all happened to basically fit us) and off we went!<\/p>\n
Clothing aside, the program consisted of two quartets: Haydn’s op. 76 no. 5 and Beethoven’s op. 18 no. 6.\u00c2\u00a0 Each is from an opus of six quartets, the Haydn from the end of his compositional life (he only wrote one more group of quartets, the op. 77), the Beethoven from the beginning of his compositional life.\u00c2\u00a0 Beethoven was very much indebted to “Papa” Haydn for his group of op 18 quartets – for Haydn had inspired Mozart to write his set of six quartets dedicated to the older master, and it was Mozart’s set of “Haydn” quartets (K. 385, 421, 428, 458, 464 and 465) that in turn inspired Beethoven to write his initial set of six.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, Beethoven wrote a virtual bar-by-bar remake of Mozart’s A major K. 464 as an homage to the elder composer when he wrote his A major quartet, op. 18 no. 5.<\/p>\n
Another thing that occurs to me is that this brings me closer to my goal of completing my “life list” of playing all of the Beethoven quartets at least once.\u00c2\u00a0 Thus far I’ve performed the following opuses: 18\/2, 18\/6, 59\/2, 59\/3, 74, 95, 130, 131, 132, and 135.\u00c2\u00a0 That means I only have 18\/3 thru 5, 59\/1, 128 and 133 to go!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday (Wednesday) I and three of my OSO colleagues gave a free lunchtime brownbag concert at the Old Church in downtown Portland.\u00c2\u00a0 As we were rehearsing on Tuesday, the conversation drifted around to the subject of dress – what would we wear for this concert? The concert came at the instigation of the violinist and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[136,42,115],"tags":[501,3668],"class_list":["post-1455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chamber-music","category-fun","category-music","tag-beethoven","tag-oregon-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-nt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":600,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/18\/oso-two-for-one-kids-concert-offer\/","url_meta":{"origin":1455,"position":0},"title":"OSO two for one kids concert offer","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This came in from the Oregon Symphony's Director of Marketing today: We are running a special 2-for-1 ticket offer through Ticketmaster online for Songs of Travel. If you know anyone who might like to take advantage of this offer, please feel free to pass on the link and password. **Please\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1951,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/17\/when-time-off-isnt-really\/","url_meta":{"origin":1455,"position":1},"title":"when time off isn’t, really","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow, time is flying by!\u00c2\u00a0 I was just getting my music together for upcoming non-OSO performances, and realized that a quartet concert with the Rovetti Quartet in Astoria's Liberty Theater is taking place very soon - March 1st.\u00c2\u00a0 As they say in the old country - holy crap! Liberty Theater\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"17721680_3f59b17eff_o","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/17721680_3f59b17eff_o-200x266.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":554,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/29\/oso-cl-5-imix\/","url_meta":{"origin":1455,"position":2},"title":"OSO CL 5 iMix","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's my list of recommended listening sources (at least as available on iTunes) for this weekend's upcoming Classical 6 subscription series. If you're interested in reading the program notes for this concert in the comfortable lighting of your home rather than squinting as the lights dim at the Schnitz, click\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "iMix"","block_context":{"text":"iMix","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/imix\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/spacer2.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2583,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/25\/congrats-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1455,"position":3},"title":"congrats","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Congratulations go to Marc Rovetti (with whom OSO principal cellist Nancy Ives and I and former OSO violinist Denise Dillenbeck played a quartet concert in Astoria this spring), who has won the job of Assistant concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra!\u00c2\u00a0 He was already a member of the Philly Orchestra for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "auditions"","block_context":{"text":"auditions","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/auditions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"3342860131_5ba61f7650_o","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/3342860131_5ba61f7650_o-400x296.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7434,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/21\/former-concertmaster-to-join-oso-for-final-concerts-of-season\/","url_meta":{"origin":1455,"position":4},"title":"former concertmaster to join oso for final concerts of season","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"David Stabler of the Oregonian broke the story earlier today: A good friend returns to Portland to close out the final concert of the\u00a0Oregon Symphony's\u00a02011\/12 season. Violinist Jun Iwasaki is scheduled to appear as guest concertmaster to lead the players in Igor Stravinsky's famously furious \"Rite of Spring,\" May 20\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Iwasaki2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3832,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/17\/45th-parallel-inaugurates-success\/","url_meta":{"origin":1455,"position":5},"title":"45th parallel inaugurates success","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo [L-R]: Jun Iwasaki, Charles Noble, Gregory Ewer, Trevor Fitzpatrick, Viorel Bejenaru, Justin Kagan. UPDATE: Northwest Reverb posted a review of the concert on Sunday. Saturday evening saw the inaugural concert of a new presenter in town: 45th Parallel.\u00a0 Founded by artistic director Gregory Ewer (also a violinist in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}