Ésme Quartet with Pianist Yekwon Sunwoo | February 20, 2024 | House Program

CLASSICAL / ENSEMBLE SERIES
ESMÉ QUARTET WITH
PIANIST, YEKWON SUNWOO
FEBRUARY 20, 2024 AT 7:30 PM
CLASSICAL / ENSEMBLE SERIES
ESMÉ QUARTET WITH
PIANIST, YEKWON SUNWOO
FEBRUARY 20, 2024 AT 7:30 PM

CLASSICAL / ENSEMBLE SERIES
ESMÉ QUARTET
WITH PIANIST,
YEKWON SUNWOO
PROGRAM
ESMÉ QUARTET
Wonhee Bae, Violin I
Yuna Ha, Violin II
Dimitri Murrath, Viola
Yeeun Heo, Cello
WITH
Yekwon Sunwoo, Piano
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN
FANNY MENDELSSOHN
String Quartet in E Flat Major,
“The Joke,” Op. 33, No. 2
Allegro moderato
Scherzo
Largo e sostenuto
Finale
String Quartet in E Flat Major
Adagio ma non troppo
Allegretto
Romanze
Allegro molto vivace
INTERMISSION
JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Quintet in F Minor, Opus 34
Allegro non troppo
Andante, un poco adagio
Scherzo: Allegro – Trio
Finale: Poco sostenuto – Allegro
non troppo – Presto non troppo

PROGRAM NOTES
The string quartet that opens tonight’s concert is
remarkable for the joyously light character that
pervades much of the music. Its nickname, “The
Joke,” is certainly well deserved for two reasons:
first, instead of a Minuet, Haydn writes a faster
Scherzo which includes a Trio that makes great
use of surprising glissandos (or slides) into
pitches; and second, for the way in which the
last movement ends with a coda that keeps
interjecting silences that generate a series of false
endings before the final cadence whispers away.
For the vast majority of women musicians and
composers, life and posterity have not been kind,
with a clear case of such gender injustice found
in the career and music of Fanny Mendelssohn
(1805-1847). Felix’s older sister by three years,
Fanny was by all accounts just as precocious as
her younger brother, and despite being provided
with the same musical tutors as Felix, was
expected to marry and run a family household.
She followed this domestic path, marrying the
Berlin court painter Wilhelm Hensel in 1829, which
coincidentally, was the same year that she began
sketches for a piano sonata that in 1834 she
adapted into her only string quartet. Beyond this
scant information, little more is known of this work
until the music was published in 1988 by Breitkipf
& Härtel, a long-standing publisher of Felix’s
music. The work has since gained considerable
popularity with modern audiences for the way it
demonstrates its own unique originality. This can
be immediately heard in the fantasy-like opening
movement that starts expressively in C minor, and
only towards the end settles into the work’s home
key of E flat major. The second movement returns
to C minor in the fast, filigree-like outer sections
that are offset with the vibrant fugal writing of
the C major Trio. The Romanze in G minor, displays
subtle fluidity in the melodic writing such that the
music never seems to cadence but is continually
spun into new sections. The final movement, with
its clear Rondo design and emphasis on exciting
two-part counterpoint doubled at the unison or
in octaves, rounds off the work quite triumphantly
in E flat major.
Many composers seem to have followed Robert
Schumann’s model of writing only one piano
quintet during their careers and making this work
almost symphonic in design and length. Brahms
(1833-1897), whose early career received much
encouragement from Robert Schumann, likewise
composed only one piano quintet. Curiously,
the Brahms piano quintet started out as a string
quintet but was completed as a sonata for two
pianos (a version that is performed today as Opus
34B). At Clara Schumann’s urging, this two-piano
work was adapted for piano and string quartet,
and it is this arrangement that has become a
favourite of chamber music performers and
audiences. All four movements display melodies
and musical textures that are immediately
captivating while at the same time are organized
to support the music’s larger structural form with
a high degree of controlled expansiveness.
©2024 by John Burge for the Isabel
ABOUT ESMÉ QUARTET
At home in Germany, the Esmé Quartet is one of
the most dynamic and multi-faceted string quartets
of its generation, winning audiences and reviewers
over with its infectious energy and immaculate
ensemble playing. The four South Korean
musicians’ ensemble was the first all-female string
quartet to win the first prize and four special prizes,
including the Mozart and the Beethoven Prize, at
the 2018 International String Quartet Competition
at London’s Wigmore Hall: a sensational launch of
an international string quartet career.
This success in competition also proved the
springboard for worldwide concert activities,
ranging from the USA to Europe’s great musical
centres and all the way to Asia, where they were
celebrated during a prestigious residency at
Seoul’s Lotte Concert Hall during the past season.
Furthermore, innumerable concert tours and
guest appearances have taken the Esmé Quartet
to festivals and concert halls such as the Lucerne
Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Schleswig-
Holstein Music Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall,
the Flagey Musiq3 Festival in Brussels, L’Auditori
in Barcelona, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the
Heidelberg String Quartet Fest and Hamburg’s
Elbphilharmonie. In the summer of 2018, they
were also the Quartet in Residence at the
Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

In 2019, the Esmé Quartet became HSBC Winner
of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, also taking first
prize at the 55th Possehl Music Prize in Lubeck.
The Quartet’s debut CD, featuring works by
Ludwig van Beethoven, Unsuk Chin and Frank
Bridge released in early 2020 by Alpha Classics,
won a 5-star review from Diapason d’Or and was
named one of the best classical albums of 2020
by WQXR Radio in New York. In October of that
year, the Esmé Quartet also received the Hans
Gal Prize of the German Academy of Sciences
and Literature in Mainz and the Villa Musica
Foundation.
Highlights of the 2022/23 season included
extensive tours of America and Japan as well as
invitations to London’s Wigmore Hall, Stuttgart’s
Liederhalle and the Teatro Vittoria in Turin, in
addition to three concerts at the 2023 Hong Kong
Arts Festival. One of these concerts featured the
solo concerto Absolute Jest for string quartet and
orchestra by John Adams, accompanied by the
venerable Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.
The four musicians, who are bound by many years
of friendship, have studied with Heime Muller
(Artemis Quartet) in Lubeck and with Oliver Wille
(Kuss Quartet) in Hanover. They also received
important artistic impulses from Gunter Pichler
(Alban Berg Quartet), Alfred Brendel, Eberhard
Feltz, Andras Keller (Keller Quartet), Christoph
Poppen and Jonathan Brown (Cuarteto Casals).
In its concerts, the Esmé Quartet, whose name
is derived from medieval French and means
“beloved,” is celebrated for its spellbinding
dynamics, stylistically assured interpretations and
perfect ensemble playing, which has also aroused
the interest of many renowned guest artists—as
demonstrated most recently by their collaboration
with Eckart Runge, the long-time cellist of the
Artemis Quartet.
ABOUT YEKWON SUNWOO
Yekwon Sunwoo has been hailed for his
“unfailingly consistent excellence” (International
Piano) and celebrated as “a pianist who
commands a comprehensive technical arsenal
that allows him to thunder without breaking
a sweat” (Chicago Tribune). A powerful and
virtuosic performer, he also, in his own words,
“strives to reach for the truth and pure beauty
in music.”
The first Korean Gold medallist of the Van
Cliburn International Piano Competition,
Yekwon’s 23/24 season includes appearances
with the Macao, Armenian, Kalamazoo & Victoria
Symphonies, Slovak Philharmonic, Orchestre
de Chambre de Paris as well as a US tour with
the Esmé String Quartet.
In previous seasons, he has performed as soloist
with the Munich Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev,
Royal Danish Orchestra with Thomas Søndergård,
Fort Worth and Tucson Symphonies, Washington
Chamber Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony
Orchestra, Houston Symphony, National Orchestra
of Belgium, Sendai Philharmonic and Royal
Scottish National Orchestra amongst others.
Recital appearances include Carnegie Hall,
Wigmore Hall, Elbphilharmonie, Salle Cortot,
Hong Kong Arts Festival and a tour of Japan. An
avid chamber musician, Yekwon’s collaborators
include Benjamin Beilman, Linus Roth, Andrei
Ionita, Sebastian Bohren, Isang Enders, Tobias
Feldmann, Gary Hoffman, Anne-Marie McDermott
and the Jerusalem and Brentano Quartets. He has
also toured Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama
with the Kumho Asiana Cultural Foundation and
performed at Chamber Music of Lincoln Center’s
Inside Chamber Music Lectures.
In addition to the Cliburn Gold Medal, Yekwon
won first prizes at the 2015 International German
Piano Award, the 2014 Vendome Prize held at
the Verbier Festival, the 2013 Sendai International
Music Competition and the 2012 William Kapell
International Piano Competition.
Born in Anyang, South Korea, Yekwon began
learning the piano at the age of 8 and made
his recital and orchestral debuts in Seoul at 15.
His teachers include Seymour Lipkin, Robert
McDonald, Richard Goode and Bernd Goetzke.
In 2017, Decca Gold released Cliburn Gold
2017 two weeks after Yekwon was awarded
the Gold Medal and includes his awardwinning
performances of Ravel’s La Valse and
Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Sonata. In 2020
Yekwon went on to release his first studio album
for Decca Universal Music Korea featuring an all
Mozart programme. His second album featuring
Rachmaninov solo works was released in
September 2023.