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Casting a Long Shadow

Saturday, February 25, 2012
8:00 pm

Abramson Family Recital Hall
Katzen Arts Center, American University
Tickets

Featuring the Left Bank Quartet (David Salness and Sally McLain, violins;
Katherine Murdock, viola; and Evelyn Elsing, cello) and Jonathan Richards on viola

Johannes Brahms	String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1 (1865, rev.1873)
Anton Webern	Sechs Bagatellen, Op. 9 (1913)
Max Bruch	Viola Quintet in A Minor, Op. posthumous (1918)

Brahms struggled for years with the enormity of Beethoven’s shadow, reputedly
composing and destroying some twenty quartets before allowing this one, honed to
crystalline impact, to stand. Bruch’s and Webern’s later ‘responses’ to the Brahms
challenge, each legitimate, and written in startlingly close proximity, provide a
fascinating study in contrasts.
Program Notes

                                                                                                                                                            

A Tribute to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge

Saturday, April 21, 2012
8:00 pm

Dumbarton Church
Georgetown, Washington, DC

Featuring the Left Bank Quartet, Mark Hill, oboe, and TBD, viola and cello

Arthur Bliss	Music for Oboe and Four Strings (1927)
Benjamin Britten	String Quartet No.1 in D Major, Op. 25 (1941)
Frank Bridge	String Sextet (1912)

As exemplifications of one person’s making a difference go, few rival that of Elizabeth
Sprague Coolidge. Her efforts were prodigious, bold, and profoundly discerning.
Chosen from the myriad numbers of those who received commissions from Coolidge,
these three English composers share a war-torn age that sharpened their nationalism
even as it heightened their eloquent and distinctly individual voices.