This Week WETA, In Nation’s Capital, To Broadcast Onute Narbutaite’s S.Q. #2, Olivier Messiaen Song Cycle With Renée Fleming, And Magnus Lindberg WP

Front Row Washington
Delayed Broadcast from the National Gallery of Art
Vilnius String Quartet
Mon., September 14, 2009
9:00 PM
(Onute Narbutaite’s String Quartet no. 2 -- Atverk uzmarsties vartus [Open the Gates of Forgetfulness], and Quartets by Beethoven and Brahms)
Program Notes

Live from Lincoln Center
Wed., September 16, 2009
8:00 pm
New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert
(Messiaen's Poèmes pour Mi, featuring soprano Renée Fleming; overture written by composer-in-residence Magnus Lindberg; Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique)

Header credit:

Living classical composer Onute Narbutaite.

Photo credit: (c) Aanonsas [Lithuania, European Union]. All rights reserved. With thanks.

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Recap

N. and I tremendously enjoyed, last night, the Vilnius String Quartet performance of Onute Narbutaite’s beautiful String Quartet no. 2 at the National Gallery of Art (free):

"The imagery of Onute Narbutaite’s String Quartet no. 2: Atverk uzmarsties vartus (Open the Gates of Forgetfulness) is both tragic and lyric. The quartetis a single movement marked by a minimal use of resources. The transparentpolyphonic texture renders each detail clearly. Individual sections of thequartet are separate domains of sound that reflect one another and intertwineonly at transitional moments. The course of development of the quartet isbased upon the juxtaposition of passive and active elements. Serene melancholyis dominant in the first section — the sound is muffled while newrhythmic pulsations of repeated seconds and thirds seem to strike new poeticassociations. The unreal, dreamy, and subconscious moods of the first sectionare overcome by the active element of the second, as diverse rhythmic patterns are achieved by the movement of sixteenth notes. Gradually rising to a higher register, the music moves to a climax that, in fact, brings no resolution. It is rather a kind of question mark, which is followed not by an answer but by a micro-reprise of the first section, a reminder only of the initial melancholy."
(c) Rūta Gaidamavičiūtė