Volume 29 Issue 3 | December 2023 & January 2024

Quartet in E minor, the only surviving chamber work in his repertoire,
was composed in 1873 in Naples, during a production of Aida. If
the performance is as playful as the curation, we are in for a treat.
Alliance String Quartet
seen as Beethoven’s goodbye to his youth, the latter is simply one of
the greatest string quartets ever written. The Pendereckis have been
marking this birthday for years and have just emerged from a period
where they played all 16 string quartets. It will undoubtedly be a
memorable recital.
Alliance and Verona String Quartets
Kicking off 2024 as we concluded 2023, two string quartet concerts
caught my eye, for quite different reasons: the Verona String Quartet
at Music Toronto on January 18, and the newly minted Alliance String
Quartet, at Alliance Française Toronto Toronto, on January 19.
Verona: Mentored along their way by the Cleveland, Juilliard and
Pacifica Quartets, and billed as “a string quartet for the 21st century,”
the Verona Quartet, now quartet-in-residence at Ohio’s Oberlin
Conservatory, “champions the rich breadth of the string quartet repertoire
from the time-honoured canon through contemporary classics.”
Their concert here includes Puccini, Britten, Mozart and Verdi and is,
somewhat cryptically, titled “All Roads Lead to Rome”. It’s certainly true
of Verona itself (600 kilometres but less than three hours from Rome
by train), but also, in one way or another, it speaks to all the works on
the program, each of which links to one or another Italian city. Puccini’s
Crisantemi was written (in one night) in memory of his friend, the Duke
of Aosta. Britten’s String Quartet No. 3 was drafted in Venice, late in his
life (and draws on themes from his Death in Venice composed two years
earlier). Mozart’s String Quartet No. 3 is one of his six Milanese quartets,
so named because he wrote them, age 16 and 17, during the year
he spent in Milan working on his opera Lucio Silla. And Verdi’s String
Alliance:
The Alliance String Quartet comes to its name by happenstance as
much as by design. “It was during the pandemic,” violinist Mayumi
Seiler explained. “I decided to take the opportunity to advance my
French language skills, so I went to Alliance Française Toronto on
Spadina Road, becoming aware of the lovely little concert hall they
have, and their performance series. I was hungry to perform with
musicians I love and respect; Alliance Française was interested in
having us perform, and we had to call it something – “Alliance” felt
like a name that reflected the relationship with the venue but even
more so, the strong bond among us as musicians.”
Cellist Rachel Mercer and Seiler go back the furthest, Seiler says.
“I ran a chamber music series here for about 14 years, called Via
Salzburg, starting in the late 1990s, and Rachel was from the very
beginning our principal cellist; Min-Jeong Koh was once a student of
mine and now we are colleagues at the Glenn Gould School; Rémi has
been a fellow mentor at Toronto Summer Music, is a close friend, and
a musician I admire. And his French is better than mine!
January 19 is described on the AFT website as the “inaugural”
concert of the Quartet, but Seiler is cautious. “The reality is that we
are four established musicians with busy and complicated schedules
who love and respect each other and are looking forward to making
the most of this opportunity. And then …we’ll see.
Repertoire for the concert consists of the Ravel String Quartet,
Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.18, No.6, and “a beautiful work for
string quartet by Canadian composer Stefan Hintersteininger, titled
The Growing Season.”
Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.
Kindred Spirits Orchestra
Krissan Alexander | Music Director
THE GREATEST SHOW
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