Juilliard String Quartet brings multilayered program to State Theatre

The Cornell Concert Series brings the Juilliard String Quartet to Ithaca's State Theatre Feb. 15 at 8 p.m. for a program of works by Gunther Schuller and Beethoven. Photo courtesy of the Cornell Concert Series

Celebrated for more than 50 years of uncompromising musicianship and emotional intensity, the Juilliard String Quartet is hailed both at home and abroad as the quintessential American quartet. The quartet's concert at Historic Ithaca's State Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 15, at 8 p.m. contains all the ingredients of a memorable evening of music: two great quartets by Beethoven and the Ithaca premiere of a new quartet written by Gunther Schuller. The Juilliard String Quartet's appearance is sponsored by the Cornell Concert Series.

Tickets for the concert -- ranging from $19 to $30 for adults and $11 to $18 for students of any age attending any institution -- are on sale at the ticket center at Clinton House (116 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca; 273-4497 or 1-800-284-8422), at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office (255-3430) and at the Dillingham Center on the Ithaca College campus through Feb. 14. Tickets also are available from the Cornell Concert Series Web site at http://www.arts.cornell.edu/ccs and through http://www.ithacaevents.com. Student Rush tickets (subject to availability) for $5 will be on sale Feb. 13 and 14.

Schuller's String Quartet No. 4 was composed in the spring and early summer of 2002 and is dedicated to the memory of Felix Galimir, violinist, master chamber music coach and long-time faculty member of the Marlboro summer institute in Vermont. The work was commissioned by Brian Sands of New Orleans, a friend and admirer of Galimir. Sands lived with his family immediately above the Galimirs in New York. A significant part of his childhood and youth were spent listening to the sounds of practicing and rehearsing wafting up to him from the floor below.

Sands had the idea of commissioning a string quartet in Galimir's memory. The members of the Juilliard String Quartet chose the composer. "When my colleagues and I were informed of his intention," said violist Samuel Rhodes, "we began to think of who would be a suitable composer -- one who took very much into account the traditions of the past, bringing them forward in his own original way to our own time as well as having something distinctively American as part of his musical vocabulary. We quickly recognized that those qualities exactly describe the music of Gunther Schuller."

Schuller's new quartet, while very rich and intense, subtly references music by both Beethoven and Mozart. The two quartets by Beethoven on the Feb. 15 program were chosen by the members of the quartet to unify the program. The quartet will play Beethoven's String Quartet in G major, Opus 18, No. 2 and Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3.