In Depth - Isidore String Quartet Program

On the Isidore String Quartet program Thursday, March 6, 2025 • 7:30 p.m. Memorial Hall:

String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 76, Erdödy, No. 4, “Sunrise”(1797) ……………..  Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)

String Quartet No. 3, “Unrequited” (2015) …………………………………………………...  Billy Childs (b. 1957)

Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 (1865) ………………………………………………………..Johannes Brahms (1833–1896)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

If there were an award for the decade’s fastest rise by a young ensemble, the ISQ would likely win. Formed at Juilliard in 2019, they reconvened after the Covid shutdown under the Julliard String Quartet’s legendary cellist, Joel Krosnick, with coaching by the JSQ’s late violist, Roger Tapping, its current cellist, Astrid Schween, Joseph Kalichstein, Misha Amory, Donald Weilerstein, and Miriam Fried.

In 2022, they won the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition. In 2023, their Chamber Music America showcase performances were heard by many of the nation’s leading chamber music presenters. The same year, the ISQ was awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant and has never looked back or stopped touring. Their 23/24 season included dates in New York, Washington, D.C., Ann Arbor, Aspen, Baltimore, Denver, Calgary, Chicago, Edmonton, Houston, Indianapolis, La Jolla, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Tucson, and Vancouver with European highlights in Amsterdam, Brussels, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Frankfurt, and Hamburg.

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists. He has won both the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize. Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a New Yorker Magazine contributor. His New York Times best-selling book, Every Good Boy Does Fine, A Love Story in Music, was published in 2022.

Denk returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has appeared with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra, as well as on tour with Academy St. Martin in the Fields, and at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 76, Erdödy, No. 4, “Sunrise”(1797),
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)

From earsense: “Haydn composed 78 string quartets of which at least 30 are “celebrated” as masterworks with Op. 76 at the zenith … The six stand alone in a special historical context coming after Mozart and before Beethoven. So beloved and enduring are these works that three have nicknames, bestowed by an adoring public who, at one time, knew each quartet as we might know the stars at night.”

String Quartet No. 3, “Unrequited” (2015)
Billy Childs (b. 1957)

From Billy Childs: “When the Lyris Quartet approached me in 2015 to compose a sort of commentary on the story of Intimate Letters: String Quartet No. 2, by Leos Janáček, I thought that it was a remarkable idea….I wanted to illustrate my perspective on this strange relationship between Janáček and Kamila Stösslová by telling the story of a man who goes through different phases of emotion, before finally coming to terms with the fact that his love for her is one-sided…”

Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 (1865)
Johannes Brahms (1833–1896)

The Brahms Piano Quintet has a unique history. It was a two-cello string quartet, then a two-piano sonata and, after four years, the exceptional work we know today. It is regarded as being at the pinnacle of compositions for this instrumentation along with quintets by Dvořák, Fauré, Franck, Schumann and Shostakovich.

Isidore String Quartet Quartet performs these works:

Thursday, March 6, 2025 • 7:30 p.m.
Memorial Hall