Photo via Fine Arts Quartet - fineartsquartet.com
Fine Arts Quartet
The Fine Arts Quartet members from left to right: Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, Gil Sharon, and Niklas Schmidt
The world-famous Fine Arts Quartet returns to Milwaukee for a series of three concerts May 5–11 and a special “encore” on July 13. The Quartet, founded in 1946, was UWM's quartet-in-residence for 55 years (1963-2018). It is one of the longest-standing string quartets, still giving concerts and workshops throughout the world. Ralph Evans, first violinist for the last 43 years, replaced the founding violinist Leonard Sorkin in 1982, and violinist Efim Boico joined the following year. The quartet is rounded out by Gil Sharon and Niklas Schmidt.
The program of the first concert, May 5 at St Paul’s Episcopal Church, begins with the first string quartet of Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, a Spanish (Basque) composer often referred to as the Spanish Mozart. Arriaga, a remarkable child prodigy, composed this wonderful, sophisticated classical quartet in 1823 when he was only 16! Sadly he died from ill health shortly before his 20th birthday. This will be followed by Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No.7, a four-movement work completed in 1960. After intermission, the Quartet will play Mendelssohn's String Quartet Op.44, No.2 in E minor (Op.44, No.2). Composed in 1837, and revised in 1839, it is one of his most delightful string quartets.
The second concert in this series, on May 9th, will take place at UWM's Recital Hall. In that program, the Quartet will be joined by the fine Romanian violist Razvan Popovici, currently Professor of Viola at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp. They will perform two great string quintets, rarely performed, despite the fame of the two composers: Beethoven's String Quintet, Op.29 and Mendelssohn's String Quintet No.1, Op.18.
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At their third concert, May 11 at the Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts, the Quartet will be joined by guest violist Razvan Popovici in Mozart's masterful String Quintet K.593 in D Major, guest pianist Fabio Witkowski in Schumann's Trio Märchenerzählungen, and guest pianist Gisele Witkowski in Dvorak's famous Piano Quintet in A Major, Op 81.
Encore with Mozart
The Quartet will return to Zelazo on July 13 to present Mozart’s Piano Concertos No. 16 and 26 in the chamber music arrangement by Ignaz Lachner for piano, string quartet and string bass. The piano part is the original Mozart but Lachner, a friend of Schubert and himself a composer, transcribed the orchestra accompaniment for string quartet and bass. Alon Goldstein will be the pianist and Andrew Gantzer, Assistant Principal Bass of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, will play the bass.
Evans shared this back story: “I have always been a huge fan of Mozart's divine piano concertos, so it was revelation to me when one day, I read in an old journal that the fine composer Ignaz Lachner, a friend of Schubert, had made chamber versions of most of the Mozart piano concertos using string quintet to replace the full orchestra. Immediately, I started fantasizing: could the 19th century sheet music for these arrangements still exist? I started a search and to my amazement and good fortune, I was able to locate those parts in a library in Australia (not Austria! where Lachner had lived).
“We happened to be performing a concert with the superb pianist Alon Goldstein around that time, and when I told him about my discovery, he happily agreed to try them out with us,” he continued. “After we determined that the arrangements were outstanding, Alon proposed we perform them with him in Milwaukee and at other concert venues around the US. It turned out that concert presenters were eager to program these arrangements, and the response has been so positive, we have already recorded ten of them for the Naxos label!”
Once again, these concerts are free and open to the public with many thanks to St. John’s on the Lake who graciously host the Quartet. The Friends of the Fine Arts Quartet has contracted with Create Wisconsin to manage the funds for all concerts. They have created a dedicated account—The Fine Arts Quartet Fund—for that purpose. Please visit their site: https://fofaq.org/ for further information and to learn how you can help bring the FAQ to Milwaukee in the future. Thanks also to The Peck School of the Arts, UW-Milwaukee, for assisting with the performances in the Zelazo Center and the Fine Arts Recital Hall.
Fine Arts Quartet perform 7 p.m. May 5 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church; 7:30 p.m. May 9 at UWM’s Fine Arts Recital Hall (Pre-talk 6:30 p.m.); 3 p.m. May 11 at UWM’s Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts (Pre-talk 2 p.m.); and 3 p.m. July 13 at the Zelazo Center (Pre-talk 2 p.m.)
