Terra String Quartet

Variations on a Variation Form from the Terra String Quartet

When talking with the members of the Terra String Quartet, the complete awe that Benjamin Britten’s Second String Quartet — and especially its famous third movement, “Chacony” — inspires is palpable. “It takes the audience on an absolute journey that runs the gamut of human emotion,” violinist Harriet Langley said of the final movement. Cellist Audrey Chen elaborated, “There is something so surreal about having gone through that journey all together, and by the end, you feel like you’re transformed in some way.” She also noted, “We’ve had people in tears at the end.” Such enthusiasm becomes contagious and intriguing because you know that the Terra Quartet wants to be the most supportive guide through the work. 

Their commitment to this journey is the heart of the entire concert. Taking Britten’s Second String Quartet as the starting point, the group selected the other music to delineate the work’s genealogy. The ensemble provides direct lines of influence from Purcell’s Chacony in G Minor (which inspired the third movement) to Juri Seo’s newly commissioned String Quartet No. 2, “Overgrown Paths,” (which is a response to Britten’s string quartet). Finally, the group included Haydn’s String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71, No. 2, to illustrate the less direct lines of influence because as violinist Amelia Deitrich rightly notes, “Anything string-quartet related leads us back to Haydn.” 

Just as the Terra String Quartet found artistic inspiration in Britten, so too did Britten find the same by looking to the music of the past, specifically Henry Purcell, the most famous native-born English composer of the Baroque era. As he was developing his own voice, Britten had to navigate two poles of 20^th-century music. On the one hand were the conservative pastoralists, represented by none other than the most renowned English composer of the day, Ralph Vaughn Williams, whose lush Romanticism, tonal harmony, and folk-song inspiration often depicted the English landscape. On the other hand were the avant-garde modernists, exemplified by Igor Stravinsky’s icy, objective Neoclassicism and Arnold Schoenberg’s radically dissonant 12- tone technique. Like the modernists, Britten believed he needed to strike out on his own distinct path, specifically coming out from under the shadow of Vaughn Williams. Yet like the conservatives, he firmly believed his music should be moving and approachable for real audiences. Enter Henry Purcell.

The English Baroque master offered Britten more than mere inspiration; he provided Britten encouragement and even proof that the English school of music could reach the highest caliber. In the 1930s, Britten began arranging Purcell’s songs in his own “realizations” (harmony in the Baroque era was often left up to the performers to fill in and thus “realize”). Britten’s realizations of Purcell were more than an academic exercise. They were an artistic challenge for him to find his own voice. Soon, Britten moved on to arranging Purcell’s instrumental works and using them as inspirations for new compositions, including The Holy Sonnets of John Donne (which features a ground bass in the last song), and The Young People’s Guide to the Orchestra (subtitled “Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell”).

Britten’s arrangement for string quartet of Purcell’s Chacony in G Minor on this afternoon’s program is another example. The Chacony, or “Chaconne” in Italian, was one of the standard Baroque variation forms in which a repeating bassline provides the foundational harmony that holds together a series of variations. For Purcell, it provided the opportunity to compose for instrumental ensembles, while the steady harmonic progression illustrated (then cutting-edge) tonal harmony.

Britten, however, took the four-voiced texture of Purcell’s Chacony and applied it to the string quartet. Compared to Purcell, Britten’s arrangement moves at a slow tempo, and his phrasing is predominantly smooth legato, which starkly differs from the clipped staccato of Baroque performance practice. Overall, both Purcell’s work and Britten’s arrangement convey a stately and refined mood appropriate for a formal occasion, but whereas Purcell’s work is regal, Britten’s is reverent, almost holy.

The leap from Purcell’s Chacony to Britten’s Second String Quartet could never have happened without the intervention of Franz Josef Haydn, who almost single handedly reared the string quartet into the beloved genre it is today. Haydn completed 68 in his lifetime, and changed his approach to satisfy his changing audiences. As the old court system of princes and dukes as patrons slowly gave way to market-based economies with middle-class audiences who identified as “the public,” Haydn developed his own “public” style. Perfected in the “London” Symphonies as well as his six string quartets of Op. 71 and Op. 74, his public style included simplified textures, extroverted and memorable melodies, and enough surprises and wit to charm a mass audience. 

Haydn’s String Quartet in D Major exemplifies his public style. The first movement features a slow introduction (which Beethoven, his student, would imitate, as would Britten much later) before proceeding to an extroverted and exuberant sonata allegro movement. In the Adagio, the first violin imitates an operatic aria with a delicate melody that the composer elaborates in an improvisational style. With the Minuet and Trio, Haydn offers a casual dance movement with a deceptive transition back to the Minuet after the Trio. The final Allegretto consists of a simplified sonata structure in ABA form followed by a lengthy — and exciting — coda, marked Allegro. Brief in scale and mercurial in nature, the movement is just chaotic enough to hold the audience in rapt attention.

Many of Haydn’s mainstay string quartet conventions permeate Britten’s Second String Quartet, even shaping the final movement that directly draws on Purcell. In the first movement, Allegro calmo senza rigore, Britten reached “the greatest advance I have yet made,” he said, experimenting with timbres and textures, while maintaining the outline of sonata form. Rather than acting as a mere introduction as it would for Haydn, the slow opening becomes one of three themes, which are superimposed in the compressed recapitulation. The Vivace then picks up the frenzied folk momentum from the middle of the first movement and develops the idea more fully to a fevered pitch only to interrupt the flow with a slow, eerie chromatic theme. 

Then begins the magisterial Chacony. In 21 variations, Britten proceeds on path that is simultaneously predetermined and random, that combines deep Romantic emotions with objective rationalist procedure, and that makes direct reference to its source of inspiration while also barely resembling it in spirit or letter. What holds the 17-minute movement together are the dotted rhythms and upward leaping motive directly lifted from Purcell, while the ground bass harmony maintains the forward momentum more subliminally. Britten, however, breaks up the stream of variations with three solo cadenzas — for cello, viola, and finally violin — that abstract Purcell’s melodies from time and space.

If Purcell and Haydn represent Britten’s lineage, then Juri Seo may represent his musical progeny. A professor of composition at Princeton, Seo reflects much of Britten’s spirit in her own music. She brings the radical trends of the 20^th-century modernists (including timbral effects and experimental structures) into dialogue with classical tonality and forms. Along with music history, the natural world also inspires the Korean American composer, as she understands nature as “infinitely fine,” noting that no matter how small in detail the natural world remains perfectly, intricately formed. 

Commissioned by Caramoor with guidance from the Terra String Quartet to respond to Britten’s music, Seo’s String Quartet No. 2, “Overgrown Paths,” brings together her historicism, experimentalism, and naturalism. The work features enharmonic harmonies that create unique timbres in the 20^th-century vein while nodding to the historical past with her own slant on a chacony. In her note for her work, she writes:

Despite its cyclic harmonic motion and somewhat closed phrase structure, a successful chacony carries a sense of relentless forward momentum, like the cycles of the seasons or the passage of time. Along the way, it reveals an infinite path from one place to another. Following Britten’s lead in deconstructing the form, I treat the chacony not as a fixed template but as a guideline — perhaps a spiritual root. The main theme of my first movement, also named Chacony, is a chromatically descending line, albeit with an unusual harmonization. This theme is embedded at various depths within the music, constantly rising to and receding from the surface. Smaller harmonic loops alight at various moments, forming chacony within chacony. 

Paired with the substantial chacony is the second movement, titled Aria, like an epilogue … in which Seo “was thinking of something ephemeral, minute, and precious — like a little wildflower.”

By the end of the concert, the Terra String Quartet shares three composers’ variations on a classic variation form: Purcell’s stately pomp, Britten’s reverent homage, and Seo’s philosophical rumination. Along the way, the ensemble demonstrates that Britten’s music remains, as Amelia said, “as relevant today as it was in his time.” Moreover, their example may encourage us all to enjoy discovering connections between past and future as we each seek our own path here and now.

—Eric Lubarsky

Eric Lubarsky works at Carnegie Hall as a managing editor, where he oversees publishing projects for the Hall’s educational and social impact programs and creates program books for main stage presentations and free concerts around New York City. He holds a PhD in musicology from the Eastman School of Music, and his research focused on performance revivals, concert life, and the 20^th-century early music movement.

Recent prizewinners at the 2025 Bordeaux and Wigmore Hall International Quartet Competitions, 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. Known for their sincere storytelling, commitment to artistic excellence, and versatile approach to repertoire, TSQ strives to foster conversation and genuine human connection through their performances and pedagogy.

TSQ is the 2024-25 fellowship Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music, where they coach undergraduate chamber group ensembles, as well the 2024–25 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts. They have performed at numerous festivals and venues across the world, with recent concerts at Capital Region Classical, Rockport Music, Guarneri Hall, Chamber Music Raleigh, Randolph College, and the Emilia-Romagna Festival in Italy. TSQ is invested in education and community work, having been the ‘23-24 Project Music Heals Us Arts Leadership Ensemble, and they were also chosen as the inaugural Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival’s Professional Fellowship Quartet at East Carolina University. Their mentors and coaches include the members of the Brentano Quartet, Ara Gregorian, Hye-Jin Kim, and Marcy Rosen.

TSQ has won top prizes at the 2025 Bordeaux Quartet Competition, the 2025 Wigmore Hall Quartet Competition, the 2023 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the 2023 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, and 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 Mahjong and poker together.

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.