Repertoire

Donor Acknowledgement

This program is made possible by the Joyce S. and Robert U. Nelson Fund. Robert Uriel Nelson was a revered musicologist and music professor at UCLA, who, together with his wife, established a generous endowment for the university to make programs like this possible.

This event is made possible by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund. Classical music was a passion of the Dobrows, who established a generous endowment at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to make programs like this possible. We are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2024 – 25 Dobrow Series.

Program Notes

Program Note by Alexis Descharmes (translated by Leo Marillier)

On January 9, 1937, in the very same hall you’re seating in now, the Kolisch Quartet performed the world premiere of Arnold Schoenberg’s Fourth String Quartet, opus 37. Commissioned by the pianist, composer and patroness Elizabeth Sprague-Coolidge, this score was composed in 1936:  begun while Schoenberg taught at USC and completed after he took up his post at UCLA.

Out of his four string quartets (five if we include an 1897 score realized in a more academic manner, resembling more Brahms or Dvorak than what we identify Schoenberg’s music with), it is undoubtedly the most modern, the more private one. However, its mastery of the twelve tone technique is absolute — its four movements are built upon a single tone row — though mixed with a certain suppleness towards the concept of avant-garde. Technical innovations, such as the trio section of the menuet, the rhythmical trepidation of the fourth movement, or gripping use of playing techniques live along a truly Viennese tone in the shape of the melodies.

His wish, through this Fourth String Quartet, was to strike a balance between eloquence and innovation.

Eleven years later, a 23 year old youngster of a composer launches himself towards the composition of a poetic collection of music: the Livre pour Quatuor. Pierre Boulez, whose centenary will be celebrated in a few months, is a direct heir of Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School, and would turn out to become himself a founding father of Occidental’s contemporary music. Yet, in the Livre pour Quatuor, from 1948, he is an incredibly stubborn young composer, at times clumsy, but unforgiving in his dedication to modernity, and resolutely turned towards the future. This taste for innovation doesn’t stop him from being under the aesthetic influence of great creators whose works he’ll always look towards. As is, the Livre pour Quatuor refers to poetry. The score layout being clearly inspired by Mallarmé’s Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (A Throw of Dice Will Never Abolish Chance), his poetry, and that of René Char are the bedside table companions of the young Boulez. In turn, the Livre takes the form of a collection of poems, from which one may read a part of. The Livre is structured in six great sections (the fourth remaining only as sketch for a long time, before being reconstructed by Philippe Manoury, premiered and recorded by Quatuor Diotima). In 2012, Quatuor Diotima spent several months working on this demanding score, under the guidance of Boulez himself, who brought many revisions to the score. This occasion gave the impulse to complete and record the Livre pour Quatuor. We offer you tonight the first of those six sections, which is made of two movements called 1.a and 1.b.

The 1937 concert mentioned earlier wasn’t a single event, but rather part of a cycle of four concerts, during which the Kolisch Quartet chose to perform all four of Schoenberg’s published quartets aside four of the late Beethoven string quartets (Schoenberg’s 1st performed alongside op.127, the second with op.130 – and the Grosse Fuge – the third with op.131, and the 4th with op.132). As a continuation of and hommage to those memorable concerts, Quatuor Diotima “rebuilt” those programs, and followed their spirit of modernity by adjoining sections of the Livre pour Quatuor, divided in four, giving thus the occasion of the American premiere of the completed 4th movement.

Twelve years later, we wish to give an echo, a sample of this series, with a single concert which unites Boulez, Schoenberg, and Beethoven, this time associating the fourth quartet with Beethoven’s op.130 quartet, in its original conception, which finishes with the monumental Grosse Fuge, published as op.133, after Beethoven’s editor requested it to be published separately because of its dimensions. Following this decision, Beethoven composed a replacement final movement for the now truncated op.130, which constitutes his last completed piece of music.

The Quatuor Diotima is one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world today; it was formed in 1996 by graduates of the Paris national conservatory (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris).  The quartet’s name evokes a double musical significance: Diotima is at once an allegory of German romanticism — Friederich Hölderlin gives the name to the love of his life in his novel Hyperion — and a rallying cry for the music of our time, brandished by Luigi Nono in his composition Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima.

The Quatuor Diotima has worked in close collaboration with several of the greatest composers of the late twentieth century, notably Pierre Boulez and Helmut Lachenmann. The quartet regularly commissions new works from the most brilliant composers of our time, including Toshio Hosokawa, Miroslav Srnka, Alberto Posadas, Mauro Lanza, Gérard Pesson, Rebecca Saunders and Tristan Murail.
Reflected in the mirror of today’s music, the quartet projects a new light onto the masterpieces of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially Beethoven, Schubert, the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg and Webern), as well as Janáček, Debussy, Ravel and Bartók.  In the quartet’s rich discography one finds amongst others, notably, the recording of all six string quartets by Béla Bartók (Naïve, 2019) and their interpretations of the Second Viennese School (Naïve, 2016).  In 2021, the quartet released three musical portraits of Gérard Pesson, Enno Poppe and Stefano Gervasoni and one of Mauricio Sotelo.

On the occasion of György Ligeti’s 100th birthday in 2023, the quartet is releasing an album dedicated to the composer. This album marks the new collaboration between Quatuor Diotima and the label “Pentatone” and is receiving an incredible positive response. Gramophone Magazine writes, among other things: “this new Quatuor Diotima disc should become the go-to Ligeti string quartets disc for the foreseeable future.”

The Diotima Quartet was the first quartet in residence at Radio France from 2019 to 2021. The Diotima Quartet has found a new home in the Grand Est region, sharing strong cultural links with Germany and Switzerland, which resonate with the quartet’s repertoire and partners in Europe. This residency allows the quartet to develop its Academy in partnership with the Cité Musicale-Metz inviting young composers and string quartets from all over the world, a chamber music series in Strasbourg as well as an educational residency at the Ecole Nationale de Lutherie in Mirecourt.

Very active in teaching and training young artists, the Diotima Quartet has recently been an Associate Artist at the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy, an Artist in Residence at the University of Chicago and has been invited to give masterclasses at the University of California in Los Angeles, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, the Casa del Quartetto in Reggio Emilia and York University.
Quatuor Diotima regularly performs in the world’s most prestigious concert halls and concert series. The season opens with a tour in Caucasia region, followed by the anniversary concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.  The Quatuor Diotima has been invited back to the Pierre Boulez Hall in Berlin, Kings Place in London, Bozar Brussels, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Circulo Bellas Artes Madrid, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Amici della Musica Firenze and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. In 2024, the Phiharmonie de Paris will host the world premiere of the new string quartet by Augusta Read-Thomas and the work by Marc Monnet. A major tour takes the quartet to Korea, Japan and China in spring 2024.

The Quatuor Diotima is subsidized by the French ministry of Culture and the Région Grand Est and receives support from Centre National de la Musique, Maison de la Musique Contemporaine, Institut Français, SACEM, SPEDIDAM, ADAMI, as well as private donors.
The Quatuor Diotima is a member of the PROFEDIM, Futurs Composés and FEVIS professional organizations.