{"id":5622,"date":"2010-12-08T21:03:06","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T05:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=5622"},"modified":"2010-12-08T21:05:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T05:05:00","slug":"back-in-the-saddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/08\/back-in-the-saddle\/","title":{"rendered":"back in the saddle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Arnica Quartet - Photo: Martha Warrington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Playing anything after a long period of absence is difficult, but it’s my opinion that chamber music – especially the string quartet – is the most difficult to come back to and do well.\u00a0 There are just so many variables among the four instruments, as well as the sheer breadth and difficulty of the repertoire, that lead to this conclusion.\u00a0 It was on my mind several times during my performance with the Arnica Quartet up at OHSU Auditorium at noon today, as we played Beethoven’s Op. 95 string quartet “Serioso”, and Schumann’s Quintet for piano and strings, Op. 44 with pianist Susan Dewitt Smith.<\/p>\n

The Beethoven presents several difficulties.\u00a0 First of all, it’s by Beethoven, so he doesn’t do you any favors right off the bat.\u00a0 His writing is always uncompromising from a technical standpoint, even from the early Op. 18 quartets.\u00a0 Also, this particular quartet is written in such a spare and austere fashion, both in terms of its musical language and in its orchestration.\u00a0 It is a particularly transparent orchestration, which basically means that each instrument is very exposed (even more than usual in a string quartet setting) and voicing must be handled carefully to make sure that the material is presented in a clearly understandable way.\u00a0 Beethoven is equally sparing with his economy of materials in this quartet, too.\u00a0 Harmonic transitions occur quickly, and with little preparation.\u00a0 There is much more of a reliance on motivic development than on spinning melodies, which also contributes to the concentration of the materials.\u00a0 So too, the mood is terse (hence ‘Serioso’, a nickname bestowed upon the quartet by Beethoven himself), often angry, and the most striking moment of the piece, for me, is in the Allegretto<\/em> movement (the closest that comes to a ‘slow’ movement in the quartet), where he starts a plaintive fugue which builds in intensity until it fragments and breaks apart, leaving only the spooky downward scale of the cello topped by suspensions in the upper strings, played sotto voce<\/em>.\u00a0 It definitely looks forward to some incredible moments in the late quartets, and yet it all happens in the space of about 30 seconds.\u00a0 All of this aside, I think we did pull off a good performance of the quartet, which definitely felt good – even tough it was a tough horse to climb back on after a long absence.\u00a0 And the moment was doubly sweet since it marked the official return of our cellist Heather Blackburn, who had been out all of last year with a playing-related injury.<\/p>\n

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Pianist Susan Dewitt Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Schumann Quintet for piano and strings, Op. 44 is just a joy to rehearse and perform.\u00a0 It is so well written for the forces that it really does go together quite easily, and having such a great pianist such as Susan to play it with certainly made it all the better.\u00a0 Everyone gets their moment in the lime light with this piece, and the piano is involved in just about every moment of the piece.\u00a0 I certainly hope that we get a chance to perform this piece again soon!<\/p>\n

For any of you that haven’t been to the auditorium up at Oregon Health Sciences University for a concert, you’re missing one of the gems of performance spaces in Portland.\u00a0 I wish that it was located downtown so that parking and accessibility would be much easier, but it’s entirely worth the fuss to get up Pill Hill.\u00a0 It’s the perfect combination of lively and dry, with every voice being able to be heard with great clarity – a perfect chamber music setting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Playing anything after a long period of absence is difficult, but it’s my opinion that chamber music – especially the string quartet – is the most difficult to come back to and do well.\u00a0 There are just so many variables among the four instruments, as well as the sheer breadth and difficulty of the repertoire, […]<\/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":[148,136],"tags":[2456,2459,159,2458,2460,2457],"class_list":["post-5622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-chamber-music","tag-arnica-string-quartet","tag-beethoven-op-95","tag-concert","tag-ohsu-auditiorium","tag-schumann-piano-quintet","tag-susan-dewitt-smith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-1sG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7593,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/12\/bainbridge-quartet-makes-debut-in-portland-at-old-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":5622,"position":0},"title":"bainbridge quartet makes debut in portland at old church","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We're really excited about this one! Half of the Arnica Quartet (Charles & Heather) join with two of their oldest friends and former quartet mates: Timothy Schwarz, now of the Serafin Quartet and violin professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania - formerly of the ancient Arcadia Quartet with Charles and\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.arnicaquartet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/tumblr_m3691fQkNq1qg3b40.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":186,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/01\/31\/arnica-quartet-spring-concert-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":5622,"position":1},"title":"arnica quartet spring concert","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Arnica Quartet will present a concert at the new OHSU Center for Health and Healing [directions] in the South Waterfront district on Wednesday, March 14th at 7:00 p.m. We'll be performing the string quartet of Claude Debussy and Beethoven's Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18 no. 6. This concert\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":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3394,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/23\/arnica-doings\/","url_meta":{"origin":5622,"position":2},"title":"arnica doings","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Arnica String Quartet, with guest cellist Marilyn De Oliviera, will be playing a concert presented by the Newport Symphony at the Newport Performing Arts Center on Saturday, December 19 at 7:30 p.m.\u00a0 It's an all-French program: the Debussy String Quartet, op. 10, the Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello,\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":[]},{"id":3649,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/20\/arnica-quartet-performs-in-newport\/","url_meta":{"origin":5622,"position":3},"title":"arnica quartet performs in newport","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday, December 19th, the quartet played the Newport Performing Arts Center in Newport, Oregon as part of the Newport Symphony's 2009-2010 season.\u00a0 We were invited by the NSO's music director Adam Flatt, who Heather and I know well from his years as an apprentice conductor with the Oregon Symphony over\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arnicaquartet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/187854342nSRmlJ_ph-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":737,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/06\/chamber-concert-noon-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":5622,"position":4},"title":"chamber concert noon today","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"If you've got time in your lunch hour for a quick concert of chamber music masterpieces, come on over to the Old Church (1422 SW 11th Ave) at Noon today to hear (mostly) members of the Oregon Symphony play music by Beethoven and Brahms.\u00c2\u00a0 Here's the line-up: Beethoven - Quartet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"mol_brownbaglunch_big.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/mol_brownbaglunch_big.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14046,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/03\/13\/arnica-quartet-in-salem-this-afternoon\/","url_meta":{"origin":5622,"position":5},"title":"arnica quartet in salem this afternoon (past)","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"It's time for our virtually annual performance at the Salem Camerata Musica series at the Salem Library this afternoon. It's a program entitled Beyond Beethoven, and it features three wonderful quartets that one doesn't get to hear very often. The concert is at 2:30, and is free. We hope to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Arnica Quartet","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/DSC_2372-500x332.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5622","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=5622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}