From Francaix to Nielsen

This Concert is sponsored by Ariel Premium Supply, Inc.

May 4
​7:30 PM

Free Admission 

Grace United Methodist Church
6199 Waterman Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63112
​
Free parking at the venue  
PROGRAM

Jean Françaix: Quartet for English Horn, Violin, Viola, and Cello
Traditional / arr. Danish String Quartet: Selections from Wood Works Suite
Carl Nielsen: String Quintet in G major

FEATURED ARTISTS


Cally Banham, English Horn
Ann Fink, Violin
Siyu Zhang, Violin
Hannah Ji, Violin
Alejandro Valdepeñas, Viola
Andrew Francois, Viola
Melissa Brooks, Cello
Jennifer Humphreys, Cello

Program notes by Ann Fink
Jean Françaix: Quartet for English Horn, Violin, Viola, and Cello
Jean Françaix (1912-1997) was a French composer, pianist, and orchestrator. He was born in Le Mans, a city in the Northwestern part of France. His father was a musicologist, pianist, and composer as well as the Director of Le Mans Conservatory, where Jean Françaix would later attend. His mother was a vocal teacher. Françaix was a gifted child and in 1922, he published his first composition. The publisher introduced him to the famous teacher and composer, Nadia Boulanger. Françaix became one of her most talented students. By the 1930’s, Françaix was experiencing a great deal of career success as a composer. His neoclassical style was extremely popular in Paris, and his chamber music as well as his ballet music was in high demand. He also performed as a pianist all over Europe and later in the U.S., often with his duo partner and cellist, Maurice Gendron. Françaix even toured with Francis Poulenc, performing Poulenc’s double piano concerto.

Françaix composed his Quartet for English Horn, Violin, Viola, and Cello in 1971. His unique voice is perfectly demonstrated with this unusual combination of instruments. The quartet was one of the only works that Françaix composed in 1971, which was highly unusual for Françaix.
He claimed he would often start a new piece before the current project was finished, a pace of composing he kept up until his death.

Traditional / arr. Danish String Quartet: Selections from Wood Works Suite
Wood Works is the name of the album created and performed by The Danish String Quartet, featuring Nordic folk music from several regions of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The Danish String Quartet traces its beginnings to a music camp for kids in the Danish countryside. Then in
2001, when the musicians were teenagers they began serious string quartet studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Their current cellist joined in 2008. The DSQ has made its career performing classical music, but in 2013, they decided to record several Nordic folk tunes that were part of the history of their local music tradition and which held special meaning for them. As most indigenous music is, the majority of these folk tunes were used in celebration or ceremony. They would often be played by one or two instruments, maybe fiddles, and the melodies would be repeated over and over. The DSQ has taken these melodies and added sophisticated harmonies and voicings and created compositions ready to experience in a concert hall.

Carl Nielsen: String Quintet in G major
Carl Nielsen was born in 1865, in a small village on the Island of Funen, in Sortelung, Denmark. Nielsen’s father made a living painting houses but was also an amateur fiddler and cornetist. His mother would often sing folk songs around the house and helped instill a love of music in all of her 12 children! Nielsen studied violin, piano, and composition from the age of six, and in 1979, he joined a Danish military band as a bugler and trombonist. In 1884, Nielsen received permission to leave the military band and study violin and music theory at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. After graduation he supported himself by first playing in the second violin section of the Royal Danish Orchestra and then later conducting. He also taught private lessons and received support from his patrons who funded his composition projects. It wasn’t until the success of his first symphony in 1894 that Nielsen’s career as a composer really took off. For the next thirty years he was often in demand as a composer and was awarded a teaching position at the Royal Danish Academy. He remained a professor at the academy until his death in 1931. Nielsen is mostly remembered for his symphonies, and few people outside of Denmark know his chamber music. This is very much the case for his rarely performed Quintet in G major for two violins, two violas, and cello. He began composing the work in 1888, after completing his first
successful piece for string orchestra, Little Suite for Strings. The quintet was played occasionally in the decade following its completion, but wasn’t officially published until after his death.