8.570256 4

Fine Arts Quartet Founded in Chicago in 1946, the Fine Arts Quartet is one of the most distinguished ensembles in chamber musictoday, with an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive recording legacy. The Quartet, whosemembers Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Yuri Gandelsman, and Wolfgang Laufer are artists-in-residence at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for over halfa century. Three of the Quartet’s current artists have now been performing together for nearly 25 years. Eachseason, the Fine Arts Quartet tours worldwide, with concerts in such musical centres as New York, London, Paris,Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Mexico City, and Toronto. The Quartet alsocontinues to record new works, adding to its collection of over fifty masterpieces released on CD during the pastfew years. The latest releases include the complete Schumann Quartets on Naxos (8.570151), and completeDohnányi Quartets and Quintets on Aulos. Future releases include the complete Bruckner chamber music, theMendelssohn Viola Quintets, and quartets by American composers Antheil, Herrmann, and Evans, on Naxos, andthe complete early Beethoven Quartets, and quartets by Shostakovich, on Lyrinx. The Quartet’s recent recordingsof the complete Mozart Viola Quintets, released by Lyrinx on SACD, were voted onto the 2003 Grammy entry listand designated a Critic’s Choice 2003 by the American Record Guide. The Quartet’s commitment to contemporarymusic also won special recognition: a 2003-2004 national CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming,given jointly by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. TheQuartet members have helped form and nurture many of today’s top international young ensembles. They have beenguest professors at the celebrated national music conservatories of Paris and Lyon, as well as at two of America’sfinest summer music schools, Yale University and Indiana University. They also appear regularly as jury membersof major competitions such as Evian, Shostakovich, and Bordeaux. Documentaries on the Fine Arts Quartet haveappeared on both French and American Public Television. For more information, please visitwww.fineartsquartet.org.

Nathaniel RosenThe cellist Nathaniel Rosen gained American recognition upon winning the 1977 International NaumburgCompetition, and international stardom the following year when he became the only American cellist ever to winthe Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Competition. Since then, he has been the esteemed guest soloistwith the world’s foremost orchestras. He began studying the cello at the age of six with Eleonore Schoenfeld in hisnative California. Seven years later he met the legendary Gregor Piatigorsky, who soon became his teacher andmentor. At seventeen, Nathaniel Rosen toured the Soviet Union as a finalist in the Third International TchaikovskyCompetition, where he was the youngest of the 42 competing cellists, and one of three Americans to win a prize. Hereturned to Moscow twelve years later (1978) and, with violinist Elmar Oliveira, they became the first Gold Medal-winning American instrumentalists since Van Cliburn (1958). For two seasons he served as principal cellist of thePittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. As principal cellist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he gave the premièreperformances of Robert Linn’s Fantasia for Cello and Chamber Orchestra. In 1988, with the violinist ElmarOliveira, he gave the world première performances of Ezra Laderman’s Concerto for Violin and Cello,commemorating the tenth anniversary of the two soloists’ Gold Medal victories at the Tchaikovsky Competition.Nathaniel Rosen served as Artistic Director of the Interlochen Summer Chamber Music Series and is a foundingmember of the Sitka Summer Music Festival. His recordings include the Cello Sonatas of Brahms, Tchaikovsky’sVariations on a Rococo Theme, Bach’s Cello Suites, and works by Shostakovich, Granados, Falla, Popper, andSaint-Saëns, among others. He teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, and holds the Chauncey DevereuxStillman Chair for Distinguished Visiting Artist at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. He plays a 1738Montagnana cello.

GLAZUNOVString Quintet, Op. 39

Five Novelettes, Op. 15Fine Arts Quartet

Nathaniel Rosen, Cello

570256bk USA 14/1/07 8:17 pm Page 4

8.5702563

Glazunov wrote his Five Novelettes, Op.15, in1881, originally giving them the less evocative title of‘Suite’, to be replaced at the suggestion of Hans vonBülow, distinguished pianist and conductor, formerhusband of Liszt’s daughter Cosima, who took Wagneras her second husband. The first of the pieces, Allaspagnuola (In Spanish style) opens with the pluckednotes of the cello, in accompaniment to the first melody,with its characteristic rhythm. A trio section starts witha cello melody, but the dance soon resumes. Orientaleagain starts with the plucked accompanying notes of thecello, to which the viola adds cross-rhythms, the violinsentering with a dancing rhythm over a suggested drone.A lull brings a viola phrase of oriental character, takenup by the other instruments, one after the other, afterwhich the opening material returns. The thirdmovement, Interludium in modo antico, is in fact in theDorian mode, but has distinct allusions to Russiantradition in its solemnity. Valse offers an immediatecontrast, its characteristic accompanying rhythm firstestablished by the cello and viola. Contrast is providedwith a change of key and mood in the central sectionand increasing excitement before the return of the musicof the opening. The last of the Novelettes is Allaungherese (In Hungarian style). Here again the pluckednotes of the cello provide the opening accompanyingrhythm over which the first violin offers the firstHungarian theme. As before there is a contrastingcentral section, marked here Andantino sostenuto,Capriccioso, with hints at familiar Hungarian gypsyrhetoric. The original rhythm and melodic materialreturns, and finally winds down into a conclusion thatemphasizes the key in its repetition of the tonic chord,with the open strings of the violins. Glazunov later

arranged the work for piano duet.In the 1890s Belyayev came to rely on Glazunov’s

compositional facility for a series of new works for hisnew catalogue of publications and for the entertainmentof his guests at his Friday evenings. The String Quintetin A major, Op.39, was written 1891, and scored, likeSchubert’s, with two cellos. The viola starts the firstmovement with a melody from which the first subjectsection is developed. It is the first cello that initiates thecontrasting Poco più tranquillo in C major, the secondsubject group. Both elements are duly developed andvaried before returning transformed in recapitulation,followed by a coda. A sustained viola note accompaniesthe plucked notes of first and then second violin in the Fmajor Scherzo, before the principal theme is heardpizzicato from the violins and viola. A trio section in Dminor follows, leading to a return of the scherzo and afinal coda. The cello was an instrument that appealedgreatly to Glazunov and it is to the second cello that heentrusts the opening of the D minor Andante sostenuto.The main theme is introduced by the first violin, later tobe taken up by the first cello, and there is a contrastingsection before the return of the original key andthematic material and the final Agitato ed accelerandoin D major. The last movement starts in A minor with atheme of Russian flavour. The viola introduces a fugalsubject, followed by a D major passage marked Piùtranquillo. The main theme and key return, succeededby the second subject in A major. The final sectionstarts Allegro vivo, interrupted by a Graziosoreminiscence of the secondary theme, now augmented,and followed by a concluding Presto.

Keith Anderson

8.570256 2

It is becoming increasingly unnecessary to defend thereputation of Glazunov. He belonged to a generation ofRussian composers that was able to benefit from moreprofessional standards of compositional technique,absorbing and helping to create a synthesis of thenational, that might sometimes be expressed crudelyenough, and the technique of the conservatories, thatmight sometimes seem facile. Glazunov worked closelywith Rimsky-Korsakov, to whom Balakirev, hismother’s teacher, had recommended him, and played animportant part in the education of a new generation ofRussian composers such as Shostakovich.

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was born inSt Petersburg in 1865, the son of a publisher andbookseller. As a child he showed considerable musicalability and in 1879 met Balakirev and hence Rimsky-Korsakov. By the age of sixteen he had finished the firstof his nine symphonies, which was performed under thedirection of Balakirev, whose influence is perceptible inthe work. The relationship with Balakirev was not tocontinue. The rich timber-merchant Mitrofan PetrovichBelyayev had been present at the first performance ofthe symphony and travelled to Moscow to hear Rimsky-Korsakov conduct a second performance there. Heattended the Moscow rehearsals and his meeting withRimsky-Korsakov was the beginning of a new informalassociation of Russian composers, perceived byBalakirev as a threat to his own position and influence,as self-appointed mentor of the Russian nationalistcomposers. Glazunov became part of Belyayev’s circle,attending his Friday evenings with Rimsky-Korsakov,rather than Balakirev’s Tuesday evening meetings.Belyayev took Glazunov, in 1884, to meet Liszt inWeimar, where the First Symphony was performed.

In 1899 Glazunov joined the staff of theConservatory in St Petersburg, but by this time hisadmiration for his teacher seems to have cooled.Rimsky-Korsakov’s wife was later to remark onGlazunov’s admiration for Tchaikovsky and Brahms,suspecting in this the influence of Taneyev and of the

critic Laroche, champion of Tchaikovsky and a strongopponent of the nationalists, a man described byRimsky-Korsakov as the Russian equivalent ofHanslick in Vienna, a comparison that, from him, wasnot entirely complimentary.

Glazunov, however, remained a colleague andfriend of Rimsky-Korsakov, and demonstrated this afterthe political disturbance of 1905, when the latter hadsigned a letter of protest at the suppression of someelement of democracy in Russia and had openlysympathized with Conservatory students who hadjoined liberal protests against official policies. Rimsky-Korsakov was dismissed from the Conservatory, to bereinstated by Glazunov, elected director of aninstitution that, in the aftermath, had now won ameasure of autonomy. Glazunov remained director ofthe Conservatory until 1930.

In 1928 he left Russia in order to attend theSchubert celebrations in Vienna. Thereafter heremained abroad, with a busy round of engagements asa conductor, finally settling near Paris until his death in1936.

It says much for the esteem in which Glazunov washeld that he was able to steer the Conservatory throughyears of great hardship, difficulty and political turmoil,fortified in his task, it seems, by the illicit supply ofvodka provided for him by the father of Shostakovich,then a student there. Emaciated through the years ofprivation after the Revolution, he eventually assumed amore substantial appearance again, compared by theEnglish press to a retired tea-planter or a prosperousbank-manager, with his rimless glasses and gold watch-chain. His appearance was in accordance with hismusical tastes. He found fault with Stravinsky’s ear andcould not abide the music of Richard Strauss, while thestudent Prokofiev seems to have shocked him with thediscords of his Scythian Suite. His own music continuedthe tradition of Tchaikovsky and to this extent seemedan anachronism in an age when composers wereindulging in experiments of all kinds.

Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)Five Novelettes, Op. 15 • String Quintet in A major, Op. 39

570256bk USA 14/1/07 8:17 pm Page 2

8.5702563

Glazunov wrote his Five Novelettes, Op.15, in1881, originally giving them the less evocative title of‘Suite’, to be replaced at the suggestion of Hans vonBülow, distinguished pianist and conductor, formerhusband of Liszt’s daughter Cosima, who took Wagneras her second husband. The first of the pieces, Allaspagnuola (In Spanish style) opens with the pluckednotes of the cello, in accompaniment to the first melody,with its characteristic rhythm. A trio section starts witha cello melody, but the dance soon resumes. Orientaleagain starts with the plucked accompanying notes of thecello, to which the viola adds cross-rhythms, the violinsentering with a dancing rhythm over a suggested drone.A lull brings a viola phrase of oriental character, takenup by the other instruments, one after the other, afterwhich the opening material returns. The thirdmovement, Interludium in modo antico, is in fact in theDorian mode, but has distinct allusions to Russiantradition in its solemnity. Valse offers an immediatecontrast, its characteristic accompanying rhythm firstestablished by the cello and viola. Contrast is providedwith a change of key and mood in the central sectionand increasing excitement before the return of the musicof the opening. The last of the Novelettes is Allaungherese (In Hungarian style). Here again the pluckednotes of the cello provide the opening accompanyingrhythm over which the first violin offers the firstHungarian theme. As before there is a contrastingcentral section, marked here Andantino sostenuto,Capriccioso, with hints at familiar Hungarian gypsyrhetoric. The original rhythm and melodic materialreturns, and finally winds down into a conclusion thatemphasizes the key in its repetition of the tonic chord,with the open strings of the violins. Glazunov later

arranged the work for piano duet.In the 1890s Belyayev came to rely on Glazunov’s

compositional facility for a series of new works for hisnew catalogue of publications and for the entertainmentof his guests at his Friday evenings. The String Quintetin A major, Op.39, was written 1891, and scored, likeSchubert’s, with two cellos. The viola starts the firstmovement with a melody from which the first subjectsection is developed. It is the first cello that initiates thecontrasting Poco più tranquillo in C major, the secondsubject group. Both elements are duly developed andvaried before returning transformed in recapitulation,followed by a coda. A sustained viola note accompaniesthe plucked notes of first and then second violin in the Fmajor Scherzo, before the principal theme is heardpizzicato from the violins and viola. A trio section in Dminor follows, leading to a return of the scherzo and afinal coda. The cello was an instrument that appealedgreatly to Glazunov and it is to the second cello that heentrusts the opening of the D minor Andante sostenuto.The main theme is introduced by the first violin, later tobe taken up by the first cello, and there is a contrastingsection before the return of the original key andthematic material and the final Agitato ed accelerandoin D major. The last movement starts in A minor with atheme of Russian flavour. The viola introduces a fugalsubject, followed by a D major passage marked Piùtranquillo. The main theme and key return, succeededby the second subject in A major. The final sectionstarts Allegro vivo, interrupted by a Graziosoreminiscence of the secondary theme, now augmented,and followed by a concluding Presto.

Keith Anderson

8.570256 2

It is becoming increasingly unnecessary to defend thereputation of Glazunov. He belonged to a generation ofRussian composers that was able to benefit from moreprofessional standards of compositional technique,absorbing and helping to create a synthesis of thenational, that might sometimes be expressed crudelyenough, and the technique of the conservatories, thatmight sometimes seem facile. Glazunov worked closelywith Rimsky-Korsakov, to whom Balakirev, hismother’s teacher, had recommended him, and played animportant part in the education of a new generation ofRussian composers such as Shostakovich.

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was born inSt Petersburg in 1865, the son of a publisher andbookseller. As a child he showed considerable musicalability and in 1879 met Balakirev and hence Rimsky-Korsakov. By the age of sixteen he had finished the firstof his nine symphonies, which was performed under thedirection of Balakirev, whose influence is perceptible inthe work. The relationship with Balakirev was not tocontinue. The rich timber-merchant Mitrofan PetrovichBelyayev had been present at the first performance ofthe symphony and travelled to Moscow to hear Rimsky-Korsakov conduct a second performance there. Heattended the Moscow rehearsals and his meeting withRimsky-Korsakov was the beginning of a new informalassociation of Russian composers, perceived byBalakirev as a threat to his own position and influence,as self-appointed mentor of the Russian nationalistcomposers. Glazunov became part of Belyayev’s circle,attending his Friday evenings with Rimsky-Korsakov,rather than Balakirev’s Tuesday evening meetings.Belyayev took Glazunov, in 1884, to meet Liszt inWeimar, where the First Symphony was performed.

In 1899 Glazunov joined the staff of theConservatory in St Petersburg, but by this time hisadmiration for his teacher seems to have cooled.Rimsky-Korsakov’s wife was later to remark onGlazunov’s admiration for Tchaikovsky and Brahms,suspecting in this the influence of Taneyev and of the

critic Laroche, champion of Tchaikovsky and a strongopponent of the nationalists, a man described byRimsky-Korsakov as the Russian equivalent ofHanslick in Vienna, a comparison that, from him, wasnot entirely complimentary.

Glazunov, however, remained a colleague andfriend of Rimsky-Korsakov, and demonstrated this afterthe political disturbance of 1905, when the latter hadsigned a letter of protest at the suppression of someelement of democracy in Russia and had openlysympathized with Conservatory students who hadjoined liberal protests against official policies. Rimsky-Korsakov was dismissed from the Conservatory, to bereinstated by Glazunov, elected director of aninstitution that, in the aftermath, had now won ameasure of autonomy. Glazunov remained director ofthe Conservatory until 1930.

In 1928 he left Russia in order to attend theSchubert celebrations in Vienna. Thereafter heremained abroad, with a busy round of engagements asa conductor, finally settling near Paris until his death in1936.

It says much for the esteem in which Glazunov washeld that he was able to steer the Conservatory throughyears of great hardship, difficulty and political turmoil,fortified in his task, it seems, by the illicit supply ofvodka provided for him by the father of Shostakovich,then a student there. Emaciated through the years ofprivation after the Revolution, he eventually assumed amore substantial appearance again, compared by theEnglish press to a retired tea-planter or a prosperousbank-manager, with his rimless glasses and gold watch-chain. His appearance was in accordance with hismusical tastes. He found fault with Stravinsky’s ear andcould not abide the music of Richard Strauss, while thestudent Prokofiev seems to have shocked him with thediscords of his Scythian Suite. His own music continuedthe tradition of Tchaikovsky and to this extent seemedan anachronism in an age when composers wereindulging in experiments of all kinds.

Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)Five Novelettes, Op. 15 • String Quintet in A major, Op. 39

570256bk USA 14/1/07 8:17 pm Page 2

8.570256 4

Fine Arts Quartet Founded in Chicago in 1946, the Fine Arts Quartet is one of the most distinguished ensembles in chamber musictoday, with an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive recording legacy. The Quartet, whosemembers Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Yuri Gandelsman, and Wolfgang Laufer are artists-in-residence at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for over halfa century. Three of the Quartet’s current artists have now been performing together for nearly 25 years. Eachseason, the Fine Arts Quartet tours worldwide, with concerts in such musical centres as New York, London, Paris,Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Mexico City, and Toronto. The Quartet alsocontinues to record new works, adding to its collection of over fifty masterpieces released on CD during the pastfew years. The latest releases include the complete Schumann Quartets on Naxos (8.570151), and completeDohnányi Quartets and Quintets on Aulos. Future releases include the complete Bruckner chamber music, theMendelssohn Viola Quintets, and quartets by American composers Antheil, Herrmann, and Evans, on Naxos, andthe complete early Beethoven Quartets, and quartets by Shostakovich, on Lyrinx. The Quartet’s recent recordingsof the complete Mozart Viola Quintets, released by Lyrinx on SACD, were voted onto the 2003 Grammy entry listand designated a Critic’s Choice 2003 by the American Record Guide. The Quartet’s commitment to contemporarymusic also won special recognition: a 2003-2004 national CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming,given jointly by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. TheQuartet members have helped form and nurture many of today’s top international young ensembles. They have beenguest professors at the celebrated national music conservatories of Paris and Lyon, as well as at two of America’sfinest summer music schools, Yale University and Indiana University. They also appear regularly as jury membersof major competitions such as Evian, Shostakovich, and Bordeaux. Documentaries on the Fine Arts Quartet haveappeared on both French and American Public Television. For more information, please visitwww.fineartsquartet.org.

Nathaniel RosenThe cellist Nathaniel Rosen gained American recognition upon winning the 1977 International NaumburgCompetition, and international stardom the following year when he became the only American cellist ever to winthe Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Competition. Since then, he has been the esteemed guest soloistwith the world’s foremost orchestras. He began studying the cello at the age of six with Eleonore Schoenfeld in hisnative California. Seven years later he met the legendary Gregor Piatigorsky, who soon became his teacher andmentor. At seventeen, Nathaniel Rosen toured the Soviet Union as a finalist in the Third International TchaikovskyCompetition, where he was the youngest of the 42 competing cellists, and one of three Americans to win a prize. Hereturned to Moscow twelve years later (1978) and, with violinist Elmar Oliveira, they became the first Gold Medal-winning American instrumentalists since Van Cliburn (1958). For two seasons he served as principal cellist of thePittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. As principal cellist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he gave the premièreperformances of Robert Linn’s Fantasia for Cello and Chamber Orchestra. In 1988, with the violinist ElmarOliveira, he gave the world première performances of Ezra Laderman’s Concerto for Violin and Cello,commemorating the tenth anniversary of the two soloists’ Gold Medal victories at the Tchaikovsky Competition.Nathaniel Rosen served as Artistic Director of the Interlochen Summer Chamber Music Series and is a foundingmember of the Sitka Summer Music Festival. His recordings include the Cello Sonatas of Brahms, Tchaikovsky’sVariations on a Rococo Theme, Bach’s Cello Suites, and works by Shostakovich, Granados, Falla, Popper, andSaint-Saëns, among others. He teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, and holds the Chauncey DevereuxStillman Chair for Distinguished Visiting Artist at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. He plays a 1738Montagnana cello.

GLAZUNOVString Quintet, Op. 39

Five Novelettes, Op. 15Fine Arts Quartet

Nathaniel Rosen, Cello

570256bk USA 14/1/07 8:17 pm Page 4

A composer of precocious talent, Glazunov came of a generation that was able to benefit from theinspiration of the Russian nationalist composers and the increased professionalism of theconservatories. His attractive Five Novelettes, a set of finely crafted genre pieces with hints ofSpanish, Hungarian and Oriental dance rhythms, were written when he was sixteen. His StringQuintet of ten years later shows similar assurance. Like Schubert’s it is scored for two cellos, aninstrument for which Glazunov had a particular fondness.

Recorded at The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, from 2nd to 4th February, 2005 Producer and Engineer: Adam Abeshouse • Editors: Paul Cox and Adam Abeshouse

Booklet Notes: Keith AndersonCover Painting: Hungarian Folk Dancing, 19th century engraving (artist unknown)

(National Museum of Hungary, Budapest/The Art Archive / Dagli Orti [A])

Alexander KonstantinovichGLAZUNOV

(1865-1936)

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Five Novelettes, Op. 15 31:161 Alla spagnuola: Allegretto 6:332 Orientale: Allegro con brio 3:573 Interludium in modo antico: Andante 5:154 Valse 6:295 All’ungherese 9:01

String Quintet in A major, Op. 39 32:126 Allegro 9:537 Scherzo: Allegro moderato 6:148 Andante sostenuto 7:589 Finale: Allegro moderato – Allegro vivo 8:08

Fine Arts QuartetRalph Evans, Violin • Efim Boico, Violin

Yuri Gandelsman, Viola • Wolfgang Laufer, Cello

Nathaniel Rosen, Cello

570256 Inlay USA 14/1/07 8:23 pm Page 1