Boulez 100
Pierre Boulez’s Livre pour quatuor is rich with musical complexity and radical thinking, a vast statement from a provactive young composer. At the same time, the score—left unfinished—also has a fragmentary quality. JACK performs individual movements from Boulez’s only string quartet, creating fragmentary conversation between them and their predecesor Anton Webern's Six Bagatelles and the recent, aphoristic Nothing More by Eva-Maria Houben. Anthony Cheung's richly expressive Twice Removed provides a further take on multi-layered artistic expressions, while Austin Wulliman's Escape Rites draws its inspiration from Boulez' friendship with John Cage, who wrote his String Quartet in Four Parts while corresponding with Boulez, who was writing his Livre.
Program:
Pierre Boulez, Livre pour quatuor (Excerpts)
Eva-Maria Houben, Nothing More for String Quartet
Anton Webern, Six Bagatelles for String Quartet Op. 9
John Cage, String Quartet in Four Parts
Austin Wulliman, Escape Rites
Anthony Cheung, Twice Removed
Anthony Cheung’s Twice Removed was commissioned by JACK Quartet with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, 92nd Street Y, and Wigmore Hall.