San Francisco Performances presents Dover Quartet with Edgar Meyer
2016-10-30
Herbst Theatre
401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-4522 USA
7:00 PM, Sunday, October 30, 2016

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• Mozart: Divertimento for strings, K. 136
• Rossini: Duo for bass and cello
• Dvorák: Quartet in F Major, Op. 96, “American”
• Edgar Meyer: Quintet for strings

[7:03 PM lights down, announcements, performers out]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Divertimento for strings in D Major, K. 136

1. [7:05 PM] Allegro
2. [7:09 PM] Andante
3. [7:14 PM] Presto
   [work ends 7:17 PM; long pause to clear the stage for the next section]

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868): Duo in D Major for Cello and Double Bass (1823)

1. [7:21 PM] Allegro
2. [7:26 PM] Andante molto
3. [7:29 PM] Allegro
   [work ends 7:34 PM; applause and bows, then off]

[7:36 PM banter from Camden, and an invitation to support the group by buying their new CD]

Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904): String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96, “American” (1893)

1. [7:39 PM] Allegro ma non troppo
2. [7:47 PM] Lento
3. [7:55 PM] Molto vivace
4. [7:59 PM] Vivace ma non troppo
   [set ends 8:05 PM]

[8:30 PM lights down, performers back out]

Edgar Meyer (b.1960): Quintet for Double bass and String Quartet (1995)

1. [8:31 PM] Movement I: “A cross between theme and variation and variations on a ground bass”
2. [8:41 PM] Movement II: “moderate with some sense of humor”
3. [8:47 PM] Movement III: “slow and devoid of humor”
4. [8:55 PM] Movement IV: “fast (and difficult)”
   [set ends 9:00 PM; back for a couple bows, but no encore tonight]

Dover Quartet

• Bryan Lee: violin;
• Joel Link: violin;
• Camden Shaw: cello;
• Mileno Pajaro-Van De Stadt: viola.

• Edgar Meyer: contrabass.

Had a thoroughly enjoyable day today!

Started off the day right with a stout cup of Major D and an egg sandwich for brunch, then puttered about the house enjoying a slow Sunday.

Hopped into the car a bit after lunch and enjoyed a light-traffic trip to San Francisco, and found a free parking spot (yay!) without too much search-trouble only a block or two from my initial destination, the Exploratorium, where I met my friends Jeff & Sandra. It was crowded, to be sure (as it should be, on a free-admission day), but not any worse than a typical busy day. Lots fun wandering around in there and playing with science-y exhibits. I think my favorite was doing mind-control on the fish (kept in a cylindrical aquarium surrounded by a dark/light striped background which could be rotated clockwise or counter clockwise, the fish would swim in the same direction as the turning background and speed up/slow down as they reacted to the moving stripes – the explanation mentioned something about trying to maintain their relative position (of perceived safety?)? Guess I should have studied it longer!

Did I mention that the museum was full of employees AND visitors decked out in festive Halloween costumes? The fat dude dressed up in a pink ballerina's tutu rollerblading down the Embarcadero was worth a chortle. And it was funny to see little kids suspiciously eyeing the ghouls and zombies and such who were helping with the various exhibits. It's hard to be scared when someone's offering you a bubble wand as big as your head!

Come 5 PM and it was closing time at the museum. We launched ourselves across town, re-parked, and reassembled at Little Gem, a fine addition to the civic-center dining scene. Plenty of tempting choices on the menu tonight – it was tough making a decision! – but I eventually settled on the bibimbap, which turned out to be a good choice, though it was very non-Korean. Or non-traditional. No meat (except the egg). No kimchee! But lots of yummy veggies and brown rice. Very filling! Desert was very tempting, but we demurred in order to head over to the venue without having to worry about making a last-minute dash.

Dusk was painting the dark edges of the low-lying clouds in faint shades of purple as we walked to Herbst – Maxfield Parrish would have been inspired by the spectacle, and City Hall was magically lit in complimentary white, the blue dome showing off quite well against the clouds. Probably should have tried to frame some photos, but I was feeling a little lazy, and unhappy about the various wires and posts that would have marred the view, so instead I tried only to capture it in my memory.

Headed inside the theater and was happily reminded that I'd arranged for seats dead center in the third row. Magnifico! This is exactly the right place to be when you're about to listen to a top-notch string quartet!

The Mozart Divertimento was an appealing appetizer to start things off, full of sparkle and grace, but really too short to do anything more than whet my eagerness for the rest of the show. I was a little put off that the stage crew needed a couple minutes to reset the stage … how hard could it be to remove a couple chairs and music stands? But apparently they were working off precise instructions, and the supervisor in charge was careful to make sure that all was just exactly perfect before they left the stage to the performers.

Rossini's Duo for bass and cello was an excellent vehicle for Edgar to display his mastery of the bass, and Camden performed equally well on the cello. It's a shame this piece doesn't get performed all that frequently, but that's how it goes … my guess is that the audience for contrabass works is considerably smaller than the audience that heads out to hear the string quartet repertoire!

The set closed with an appealing performance of Dvorák's “American” quartet, which seemed to me to really do well at evoking the feeling of traveling across the wide-open spaces of middle America, particularly in it's use of various train rhythms during the close of the piece. Well done!

Following intermission we were treated to a performance of Edgar's Quintet for contrabass and string quartet. Composed nearly ten years ago, I'm surprised that I don't recall having heard it before. It's entirely possible that I heard him perform it with the Emerson String Quartet at Cal or Stanford in 1995 when the work was premiered… unfortunately, my online notes don't run that far back, so answering THAT question means a trip to the garage to rummage through boxes of ephemera. Anyways, I enjoyed the work, and thought that it offered plenty of variety for the listener. Hopefully I'll get a chance to hear it again someday in the future!

Program Notes

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2016 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2016 event list! ☸ On to the next event!