Music Around the Corner @ Glad Day Lit
The Dior Quartet
May 23, 2026
Program Notes
For artist bios, please visit musicaroundthecorner.com/artists
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet in G major, Op. 77 No. 1
I. Allegro moderato
II. Adagio
III. Menuetto
IV. Finale
Joseph Haydn has been aptly coined the ‘Father of the String Quartet’: in his long and successful career, he was one of the first to popularize the string quartet grouping and explore its full potential. He wrote almost 70 quartets, each one evolving and exploring the blend of instruments and their virtuosic capabilities, as well as innovating on musical forms and dissonances. However, this rather dry and Wikipedia-esque summary of his achievements in the genre does little to capture how delightful his string quartets are - zany, unpredictable, and full of musical confidence, which were apparently also good descriptors of Haydn’s personal character.
Op. 77, No. 1 was the second-last of Haydn’s completed quartets, and although written very late in his life, it does not carry a single wrinkle of age. The first movement is an Allegro moderato characterized by the well-articulated, buoyant march in its main theme, while the second theme is more focused and lyrical. The Adagio second movement follows, and its theme, first invoked by the instruments in unison, is directly inspired by elements borrowed from the first movement. The third movement, a Menuetto marked Presto, is a lively, surprisingly ardent Scherzo with a first violin part that explores the dizzying heights of the instrument’s register, incorporating leaps of two octaves or more. The Finale is enlivened by accents, and the writing includes several canonic sequences, melodies piling on top of themselves in their hurry to reach the end of the piece.
(Program note by Emma Meinrenken)
Aleksandra Vrebalov (1970- )
Pannonia Boundless
“I wrote this piece as an homage to those musicians who, from the margins of society as much as from well-known concert halls, have the power to touch our hearts,” remarked Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov about her Pannonia Boundless, written in 1998 for the Kronos Quartet. The music of the Roma musicians of Pannonia, a historical region that today stretches across parts of Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, and Hungary, lies at the heart of this single-movement string quartet, as it does in much of Vrebalov’s work. Throughout the piece, lyrical and improvisatory solos for each of the four instruments gradually transform into a folk-like dance, culminating in a fiery, virtuosic finale that evokes the sound and techniques of traditional fiddle playing.
Program note by Noa Sarid
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73
I. Allegretto
II. Moderato con moto
III. Allegro non troppo
IV. Adagio
V. Moderato
It is 1946, the Second World War has just ended, and Shostakovich is lying low. Once a young model Soviet composer and a two-time winner of Stalin’s Music Prize, he became one of the most vulnerable figures in Soviet music. Bruised by the assault on his Ninth Symphony the year before – denunciated by Stalin himself – he had to find a way to navigate the tension between artistic integrity and political survival. His solution was to write music that works simultaneously on two different levels of meaning: one, public, intended for the ruling ideological gaze, and another that adheres to his inner emotional and creative forces.
The first movement of the five is a playful Allegretto in a classical Sonata form. The first subject, a twisted F major, presents a sarcastically playful dance in the first violin, contrasted by a sombre second subject, which subtly contains themes from his Ninth Symphony. The complex development is a double fugue, ending in grandiose celebratory chaos. The final two notes, an innocent perfect cadence played pizzicato, are yet another wink to Shostakovich’s coded writing.
The Moderato con moto is a wooden, biting waltz, a far cry from its elegant Viennese origins. The following movement, Allegro non troppo, unleashes an unsettling and violent theme and breaks out of the relative familiarity of the waltz. Uncertain of its metre, yet boldly insistent, it is quintessential Shostakovich.
In contrast to the frenetic virtuosity of the first three, the Adagio, with its bleak unisons and barren landscapes, is a moment for dark reflection. It devolves into fog, from which the final Moderato movement rises. The cello begins stirring up the stillness, with the pizzicato acting as small pinpricks of light, which slowly begin to brighten the atmosphere. There seems to be some hope for joy in the middle section, but the light becomes painfully bright as the violins rise higher in their register. The emptiness returns, and although the dance from the first movement returns, it is muted - simply a memory of more hopeful times.
(Program note adapted from Noa Sarid by Emma Meinrenken)
