Terra String Quartet

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
String Quartet in D Minor, K. 421

In 1782 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was attempting to make a name for himself in Vienna, working as a freelance composer and performer after he resigned from the court of Archbishop Hieronymous Colloredo of Salzburg a year earlier. (He felt the position stultified his creative impulses, especially his desire to compose secular music as opposed to the music for religious services, which took up most of his time at that court.) His days as a famous child prodigy were well behind him and he had to prove to the fickle Viennese that he had gained maturity in his music-making. To do so, the young Mozart looked to the music of Franz Josef Haydn, at the time considered to be the composer of renown, to help him further refine his compositional technique. In particular, Mozart admired how Haydn was able to incorporate elements of counterpoint (often referred to as the “learned” style) into textures that outwardly appealed to popular taste. Haydn’s 1781 set of six string quartets, published as his Op. 33 and advertised as being written in a “new and entirely special” style, served as a catalyst for Mozart. He voraciously studied them and modeled six of his own string quartets, written between 1782-1785, on these works.     

This project famously caused Mozart to struggle more with his compositional process than he was normally accustomed to. Until this time Mozart was known for formulating works in his head and seamlessly recording them on paper, but proof of his struggle comes from studying manuscript copies where one sees many corrections mainly due to Mozart attempting to implement Haydn’s innovative combination of counterpoint and popular Galant style. These growing pains proved to be crucial to Mozart growing into his mature style; upon hearing some of these new quartets, Haydn remarked to Mozart’s father Leopold, “Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition.”   

Upon publication, Mozart decided to dedicate these quartets to Haydn, expressing his respect for the elder statesman in this letter: 

To my dear friend Haydn: 

A father, having resolved to send his sons into the great world, finds it advisable to entrust them to the protection and guidance of a highly celebrated man, the more so since this man, by a stroke of luck, is his best friend. – Here, then, celebrated man and my dearest friend, are my six sons. – Truly, they are the fruit of a long and laborious effort, but the hope, strengthened by several of my friends, that this effort would, at least in some small measure, be rewarded, encourages and comforts me that one day, these children may be a source of consolation to me. – You yourself, dearest friend, during your last sojourn in this capital, expressed to me your satisfaction with these works. – This, your approval, encourages me more than anything else, and thus I entrust them to your care, and hope that they are not wholly unworthy of your favor. – Do but receive them kindly, and be their father, guide, and friend! From this moment on I cede to you all my rights over them: I pray you to be indulgent to their mistakes, which a father’s partial eye may have overlooked, and despite this, to cloak them in the mantle of your generosity which they value so highly. From the bottom of my heart I am, dearest friend,  

Your most sincere friend, 

W. A. Mozart 

The String Quartet in D Minor, K. 421, was the second in the set and was composed in 1783. The first movement is one of the most compact in Mozart’s output, exploring the development of shorter motives in a sonata form movement (a hat tip to Haydn) as opposed to the longer melodies found in many of his other works. As the contrapuntal writing is in the foreground, along with Mozart’s decision to write in a minor key, this movement evokes elements of Baroque style. The second movement has a more lyrical bent, mostly in F Major with a touch of anguish in the middle. The third movement, a minuet and trio, was reported by Mozart’s wife Constanze to have been written while she was giving birth to their first son Raimund Leopold. Given this supposed correspondence to these events, one can’t help but hear the pains of labor in the intense D minor minuet broken momentarily by a trio that seems too happy, possibly depicting Mozart’s attempts to comfort Constanze. The last movement is an homage to Haydn, a theme and variations movement that takes many rhythmic and metric elements from the last movement of Haydn’s String Quartet in G Major, Op. 33 No. 5.   

BENJAMIN BRITTEN
String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25

Benjamin Britten set sail for North America in April 1939, a pacifist and conscientious objector hoping to find shelter from the looming war in Europe. While on the continent (he also spent time in Canada) he explored the idea of permanently relocating to the U.S. as he was actively seeking out new professional opportunities elevating him to a new level of compositional maturity. He also found new personal maturity; his relationship with the tenor Peter Pears, who accompanied him on this journey, fully blossomed into a romantic partnership while they were on holiday in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Many of Britten’s most important works were composed during his North American period, including Les Illuminations and the Violin Concerto. 

Britten had written many works for string quartet in his younger days, with his first String Quartet in F written in 1928 when he was only 14. He would write five more works for quartet that would serve as youthful precursors to what he would call his String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, written near the end of his North American sojourn in 1941 when he was in Escondido, CA staying with his friends Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson. The work was commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, the doyenne of musical patrons of the 20th century, who had also commissioned Bela Bartok’s String Quartet No. 5 and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 4.   

The work is in four movements, being one of the sole examples in Britten’s output to adhere to the traditional plan. Musicologist Peter Evans states that Britten channels formal innovations explored by Beethoven in his String Quartet in Bb Major, Op. 130, especially in the first movement where what at first seems like a slow introduction turns out to be a major formal element revisited during the course of the movement. In her review of the premiere of the quartet given by the Coolidge Quartet, critic Isabel Morse Jones wrote that “Britten wanted to bring the music to consciousness mysteriously, as from another world.” After a relatively brief second movement scherzo we find ourselves back in a sound world unique to Britten in the third movement, described by Jones in her review as “In Memoriam for a Lost World.” While composing this quartet, Britten rediscovered the English poet George Crabbe, who, like Britten, was born in Aldeburgh. From the collection of Crabbe’s poems that Peter Pears discovered in an antiquarian bookshop came the inspiration for Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, and the music found in the String Quartet No. 1, especially in the third movement, can be seen as precursors to the music found in the opera. The fourth movement, according to Evans, is where Britten pays homage to Haydn in using development of motifs to humorous effect. 

FELIX MENDELSSOHN
String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, Op. 80

While the first two works on this recital come from pivotal moments in Mozart’s and Britten’s search for a mature style, Felix Mendelssohn’s last complete major work was the String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 80, written two months before his death and widely seen as a reaction to the untimely death of his sister Fanny. The last five years of Mendelssohn’s life were hectic ones. During this ttime,he was constantly traveling between Leipzig, Berlin and London. Mendelssohn was instrumental in founding the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843 and was deeply involved in the administration of the school along with serving on its faculty. He was also the music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, a position he held from 1835 onwards. In Berlin, Mendelssohn served as Kapellmeister to Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Mendelssohn was highly in demand in London; along with playing concerts as a piano soloist he fell into favor with Queen Victoria and was known to accompany her in performances of his lieder and other works during private gatherings at Buckingham Palace. Juggling all these duties, along with raising five children with his wife Cecile, understandably led to the consequence of Mendelssohn being severely overworked.  

Upon returning from England in 1847, he learned of Fanny’s sudden passing after she suffered a stroke during a rehearsal of her brother’s cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht for one of her Sunday musicales. He was still in transit making a stop in Frankfurt and was unable to attend the funeral. Too heartbroken to continue to Berlin to pay his respects, he was convinced to travel to Switzerland with his wife Cécile and brother Paul for an extended sojourn to both mourn his sister as well as take some much-needed rest. For a while he was too grief-stricken to compose and took to painting watercolors as his sole creative outlet. After a few months he did start writing music again, and in his diary he started sketching the scherzo movement of the F minor quartet. 

The Opus 80 work signified a major turning point in Mendelssohn’s compositional style. The long melodic lines and light scherzo character found in much of his music, including his last set of Opus 44 string quartets, gives way to jagged and disjointed music ripe with raw emotional expression, serving the purpose of Mendelssohn processing his grief over the loss of his beloved sister. The first movement opens with dramatic tremolo figures, with the first violin outlining the intensely expressive interval of a diminished fourth that, according to musicologist R. Larry Todd, ties all four movements together. The second movement scherzo is worlds away from the fairy world of his incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, evoking instead the sarcastic and menacing tone of the analogous movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95; it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s choice of key matches that of Beethoven’s “Serioso.”  The third movement provides a moment of respite from the intensity of the first two, albeit in a reflective mood of prolonged sadness possibly inspired by the slow movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in F major, Op. 59 No. 1. Frenetic energy returns in the last movement, driving towards a climactic cry of anguish. 

In September of 1847, Mendelssohn finally summoned the courage to visit Berlin. According to his nephew, the stress of seeing Fanny’s undisturbed rooms and visiting her grave “destroyed all the good effects produced by the journey to Switzerland.” He returned to Leipzig unable to fulfill conducting obligations at the Gewandhaus. In late October, he suffered a series of strokes and died on 4 November. He was buried shortly afterwards next to Fanny in the cemetery of Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Berlin. 

— Daniel Doña

Daniel Doña is a violist on the faculty at the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Music,  He is a member of the Arneis String Quartet.

Prizewinners at the 2023 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and 2023 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, the Terra String Quartet is a vibrant young international ensemble based in New York City. They are composed of graduates of The Juilliard School, The New England Conservatory, Harvard University, and the Curtis Institute of Music. Praised for their “remarkable maturity and musicality” and “superb ensemble playing” (Hyde Park Herald, Chicago), these four musicians hail from across the globe and, through their unique individuality as artists, are committed to infusing the string quartet with equal parts passion, spontaneity, and humor.

TSQ has performed at numerous festivals and venues across the world, with recent concerts at Capital Region Classical, Rockport Music, First Mondays at Jordan Hall, Guarneri Hall, Chamber Music Raleigh, and the Emilia-Romagna Festival in Italy. TSQ is deeply invested in education and community work, having been the 2023-24 Project Music Heals Us Arts Leadership Ensemble and the inaugural Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival’s Professional Fellowship Quartet at East Carolina University. They are currently the 2024-25 Fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music, where they coach Yale College undergraduate chamber groups and receive mentorship from the members of the Brentano Quartet. Other mentors include Ara Gregorian, Marcy Rosen, Hye-Jin Kim, Daniel Avshalomov, Natasha Brofsky, Catherine Cho, and Calvin Wiersma.

TSQ is the recipient of the Silver medal at the 2023 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, Bronze medal at the 2023 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, and the Grand Prize and Gold Medal at the 2022 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. They were also awarded the Christine and David Anderson Career Development Prize at the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In their spare time, they enjoy playing games like Mahjong together and learning about instruments and bows.

Korean-Australian violinist Harriet Langley received her education from New England Conservatory, Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth, and The Juilliard School. An accomplished soloist, she has performed with ensembles including the London Chamber Orchestra, the Verbier Festival Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Reno Philharmonic, the Gyeonggi Philharmonic of Korea, and the Orchestre National de Belgique. Harriet has also performed at the Seiji Ozawa Academy, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, YellowBarn, and the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove. Other than music, Harriet enjoys reading, going to museums, and she has a passion for perfumes and teas.

Violinist Amelia Dietrich earned her Bachelor of Music from The Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles under the teaching of Robert Lipsett, and her Master’s degree from The Juilliard School studying with Ida Kavafian. She grew up studying in North Carolina with her long-time mentor, Ara Gregorian. Amelia has concertized in chamber series across the US, Europe, and Australia, including Alice Tully Hall’s Wednesdays at One, National Sawdust, The Guggenheim, the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival, the ClasClas Chamber Festival in Spain, and the Moritzburg Festival in Germany. Beyond her performance career, Amelia has a passion for pedagogy and mentoring young musicians. She is a mentor and chamber music coach with the New York Youth Symphony, maintains a private teaching studio in New York City, and teaches at Suzuki on the Island- a school in Manhasset, NY. She enjoys running, is an avid cook, and has a passion for fashion and interior design.

Violist Chih-Ta Chen, from Kaohsiung, Taiwan, is the winner of the 2022 Chimei Arts Award and the 2018 Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award. His passion lies in chamber music, and he has been featured at Music@Menlo, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Taos School of Music, Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, and the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival. Currently, Chen holds the Jean J. Sterne and Edwin B. Garrigues Fellowship as a student at the Curtis Institute of Music, studying under Roberto Diaz, Hsin-Yun Huang, Ed Gazouleas and Misha Amory. Previously, he attended the New England Conservatory and Tainan National University of the Arts and studied with Mai Motobuchi, Yong-Zhan Chen, and I-Chen Wang. In his free time, he loves playing badminton and spending time with his two-year-old gray cat, Cheetah.

Washington state native and cellist Audrey Chen has concertized with the Seattle Symphony and the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and has been featured as a guest with the Jupiter Chamber Players, Parker Quartet, Argus Quartet, and Borromeo Quartet. An avid chamber musician, she has performed at festivals across the country, including Yellowbarn, Olympic Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, Four Seasons Chamber Music, Perlman Music Program, and Tanglewood Music Center. A graduate of the Harvard/NEC dual degree program, Audrey received her B.A. from Harvard University and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory, where her teachers included Laurence Lesser and Lluis Claret. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center under Marcy Rosen, and she also teaches chamber music at CUNY Hunter College. Audrey was named a 2022 recipient of the prestigious Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Outside of music, she enjoys watching films, cooking/baking, and making greeting cards.