The Portland String Quartet makes rare appearance at USM

As part of its 40^th year anniversary celebration, The Portland String Quartet will perform with University of Southern Maine faculty member, pianist Laura Kargul, on Sunday, February 8, 2009. (Snow date is Monday Feb 9, 7:30 p.m.) The concert begins at 3 p.m. in Corthell Concert Hall on the USM Gorham campus.

The PSQ will perform two string quartets -- Mozart's Quartet in G Major, K.387, and Walter Piston’s String Quartet No.1 -- and will be joined by Kargul for the Piano Quintet in F minor by Cesar Franck. Tickets are $15 for the general public; $10 for seniors and staff; and $5 for students. Call the Music Box Office at 780-5555 for reservations.

Mozart's “Quartet in G Major, K.387” is the first of a set of six that Mozart wrote without commission and dedicated to Franz Joseph Haydn. Haydn's influence on the younger Mozart was profound and can be evidenced in the brilliant formal construction of this work as well as in the active and equal dialogue achieved. A double fugue which begins the last movement is a prime example of Haydn's influence and Mozart's genius.

Walter Piston, the grandson of an Italian sea captain who shipwrecked off the coast of Maine, was born in Rockland in 1894. His student and professional life centered in the Boston area where he studied art and music, and where he taught on the Harvard Music Faculty for 34 years. His “String Quartet No.1” was written in l933 and reflects his emersion into and respect for classical traditions. Within this Neo-Classical format, however, asymmetrical and often jazzy rhythms project his "contemporary" influence.  Dissonance, too, is celebrated. In the middle section of the second movement he introduces a fugue ("dissonant counterpoint") that attains stunning power in a climatic stretto that resolves into the calm of the movement's opening theme.

The “Piano Quintet in F minor” by Cesar Franck is considered to be one of the greatest works in this genre. Composed late in his life, in 1879, the quintet is a product of his mature style, infused both with a mystical quality and sweeping romanticism. Kargul says that she finds it to be the moodiest and most passionate of all piano quintets.

"Franck has a distinctive way of writing - there is no mistaking his style for anyone else's,” she says. “There is always great craft and intelligence in his work, but the overwhelming impression is that he writes straight from the heart. His musical language conveys a whole universe of emotion that is immediately accessible to any listener. This quintet combines an impetuous, fiery energy with intensely personal and deeply moving lyricism."