Telegraph Quartet

Jeremiah Shaw, cello, Joseph Maile, violin, Eric Chin, violin, Pei-Ling Lin, viola.  

The Telegraph Quartet came once again to play at my alma mater as part of the New Millennium Concert Series. 

They have delved deeper than Schubert and Mozart this time.  The three pieces below are all by Czech composers.

String Quartet No. 10, Opus 51 by Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904).  This is the most conservative of these three selections.

• Allegro ma non troppo
• Dumka:  Andante con moto - Vivace
• Romanza:  Andante con moto
• Finali:  Allegro Assai

Five Pieces for String Quarter by Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942).  He was a German jew born in Czechoslovakia and died in the holocaust.  I enjoyed this very much.  It might possibly be called a suite, though certainly not in the classical form.

• I. Alla valse Viennese (Allegro)
• II. Alla serenata (Allegretto con moto)
• III. Alla Czeca (Molto allegro)
• IV. Alla tango milonga (Andante)
• V. Alla tarantella (Prestissimo con fuoco)

String Quartet No. 6, Op.35 by Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996)  I guess this guy is Polish and was born in Warsaw to a musical family.  When the war broke out, he fled to Minsk in the USSR.  Shostakovitch encouraged him to move to Moscow.

• Allegro semplice
• Presto aggitato
• Allegro con fuoco
• Adagio
• Moderato comodo
• Andante maestoso

The Telegraph Quartet is moving toward twentieth and twenty-first century works.  If they can bring us great style as we heard today, I encourage this.  After all, I'm a long time Kronos Quartet fan.