Chamber music lovers rejoice. Serendipity has brought a new string quartet to town.
Area music lovers already know three of the four quartet players. Two are members of the Fort Lewis College Music Department: cellist Katherine Jetter and violinist Richard Silvers. Fans of the San Juan Symphony will recognize violinist Lauren Avery, concertmaster of our regional orchestra. The new addition is violist Andrew Picken, “a semi-retired professional musician from Pasadena,” Jetter said. “Andrew recently moved to the area. He loves the mountains,” and, she underscored: “He also loves trains. For the time being, we’re calling what we are doing ‘Quartets with Friends.’”
If you go
WHAT: “A Viennese Soirée,” Quartets with Friends at Fort Lewis College.
WHEN: 3 p.m. Sunday.
WHERE: Roshong Recital Hall, Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
TICKETS: Adults $15, students free. Pay at the door.
MORE INFORMATION: Email jetter_k@fortlewis.edu or call 247-7377.
Picken travels between Colorado and California. He is principal violist for the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra as well as the Los Angeles Master Choral Orchestra and the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. With degrees from UCLA and Northwestern University, he founded the Pasadena String Quartet. He has a private studio, and as Jetter noted, he loves trains.
“After meeting Andrew last year, Richard instigated the whole quartet idea,” Jetter said. “We first thought of performing then, but there were not enough weeks free. So, last summer we got together for an afternoon and read portions of about 12 to 15 quartets. We all loved Mozart and had to narrow down which one of his fabulous works we would perform.”
The ensemble geared up for a performance in late October, but an unexpected family emergency required rescheduling.
So now, “A Viennese Soirée” will take place at 3 p.m., Sunday in Roshong Recital Hall on the FLC campus.
The program’s fanciful title suggests an evening party with special music in a Viennese salon. Roshong Recital Hall will have to do.
The program will open with Mozart’s Quartet in F, K.590.
“It was the last quartet Mozart composed, part of a set referred to as the ‘Prussian’ Quartets,” Jetter said. “Mozart composed these after he met the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II, who was an amateur cellist. Mozart gives the cello a larger role, acknowledging the king. And in creating this symmetry, he gives every voice a share of the spotlight. The resulting democratic interplay makes the quartet feel much like an opera, albeit comic at times. Unfortunately, Mozart did not live long enough to see this published.”
Before a short intermission, the quartet will play Schubert’s Quartet-Satz in c minor.
“The Schubert – it’s a one-movement work and it attracted us because it is a short piece and rounds out the program,” Jetter said. “It was written in 1820, the same year as Schubert’s ‘Unfinished Symphony.’”
After intermission, the musicians will plunge into a big Romantic-era work: Brahms’ Quartet in A minor.
“We will conclude our program with Brahms’ 1873 Quartet,” Jetter said. “Brahms was influenced by the quartet writing of Haydn and Mozart, so it seemed a natural progression in our program, and the motive it includes of notes F-A-F relates to a saying Brahms had: Frei, aber from, ‘Free, but glad.’
“There are several wonderful Brahms quartets,” she said. “We first narrowed it down to two and played parts of both and eventually voted. Ah, democracy.”
Now that the players have launched a new chamber group, they have added the upcoming Bach Festival with a twist.
“We’ll be performing the ‘Dissonant’ Quartet during the San Juan Symphony Bach – Mostly Mozart festival in March,” Jetter said.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
