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Franz Peter Schubert was born in the Habsburg capital of Vienna on January 31, 1797. He died there on November 19, 1828, having lived only 31 years, 9 months, and 19 days.

In his all-too-brief life, Schubert created a body of music the size and quality of which leaves us shaking our heads in wonder. In the last sixteen years of his life, from the age of 15 to 31, Schubert produced, among other works: 9 finished and “unfinished” symphonies; 10 orchestral overtures; 22 piano sonatas; 6 masses; 17 operas; 637 songs; over 1000 works for solo piano and piano four-hands; around 145 choral works; 45 chamber works, including fifteen string quartets and one string quintet.

The tiny (about 5′ 1″), pudgy, be-spectacled ...

In Friendship

One of the most fertile conjunctions in the history of music has been the combination of the smooth sonority of the clarinet and the resonant sound of stringed instruments — that fusion of quite different textures and sounds has produced great music in completely different eras. And that combination of sonorities has at particular moments been energized by the close friendship between a superb clarinet player and a particular composer — from Mozart and clarinetist Anton Stadler, and Carl Maria von Weber and clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, to Brahms and clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, and Carl Nielsen and clarinetist Aage Oxenvad. In Friendship offers two works for clarinet and string quartet that grew out of ...

Recently featured on WNYC’s “New Sounds”, Michael Gandolfi’s Winter Light shows why this new composer is quickly becoming a star in more than just contemporary concert music. It is also another piece on the album inspired by poetry. The work consists of two movements, “Falling Snow” and “Opal,” which both come from American poet Amy Lowell’s collection Pictures of the Floating World.

The poetry in “Falling Snow” depicts an unadorned human experience, and through it, an elegiac acknowledgment of life’s transitory nature. “Opal”features an emotional and erotic relationship between to women, and the woman to whom “Opal” is addressed was actress ...

With Strings Attached features a multitude of collaborations with new music as well as a partnership with the San Francisco Choral Artists. The first work on this recording is not only inspired by the two San Francisco ensembles, and the city itself, it is also inspired by a San Francisco art installation of the same name — language of the birds.

language of the birds
Veronika Krausas (b. 1963)

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Ever since its installation in 2008, Veronika Krausas has been taken by language of the birds, a spectacular outdoor work created by Brian Goggin with Dorka Keehn. The sculpture is located in North Beach, in front of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore. In response ...

When I look back at the past 10 years in the ASQ, one of the most significant accomplishments for me is the extensive recording library that we’ve put together in such a short time. Just the other day I looked at my CD shelf and I counted at least 35 new discs; including a complete Beethoven Cycle (the 2^nd for the ASQ), a complete Shostakovich Cycle (which includes the Piano Quintet, a newly recovered string quartet, AND four of my own string quartet transcriptions), as well as several world premiere recordings of new works written for the ASQ. Our recording activities don’t seem to want to slow down either. Future projects include a Bartók/Kodály Cycle, a Brahms Project (Quartets, Quintets & Sextets) as well ...

Photo © Ellen Appel

I am counting the minutes to the concert with Joyce DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet! In a way, it feels like the culmination of a 20-year quest: waiting for the right venue, the right artists, the right time in my creative life to give Camille Claudel a voice. She is somebody I have thought about since the movie, Camille Claudel, came out in the late 80s. It’s one thing to write music and roles for fictional characters, but quite another to take on the responsibility of someone who actually was on the planet. Having Joyce, the ASQ, and librettist Gene Scheerwith me has certainly made matters clearer and easier.

The quartet has been rehearsing with a fantastic local soprano, Ann Moss, so they ...

The Alexander String Quartet celebrates our 30th anniversary year with a newly commissioned (commission from San Francisco Performances) collaborative vocal quintet, Camille Claudel: Into the Fire by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer featuring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. This work is based on the life of French sculptor Camille Claudel, Rodin’s lover, a confidante of Debussy and a genius in her own right.

Concert Information:

Alexander String Quartet 30th Anniversary with:
Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano
Jake Heggie, composer/pianist

Saturday, February 4, 8pm
Herbst Theatre

Program:

DEBUSSY: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (1893)
HAHN: Venezia (1901)
JAKE HEGGIE: Camille Claudel: Into the Fire (2012) — ...