Presents
Joan Manen
String Quartet in F Major
Joan Manen (1883-1971 Juan in Spanish) was born in the city of Barcelona. Like his countryman Pau (Pablo) Casals, he considered himself a Catalan and not a Spaniard. He was an amazing musical prodigy on both the violin and piano, After studying at the Barcelona Conservatory, he embarked on an international career as a violin virtuoso, giving some 4,000 concerts over a period of 60 years, during which time he performed frequently with Pablo Casals, Saint Saens, and Enrique Granados and played under the batons of Antonin Dvorak, Richard Strauss, Fritz Reiner, Felix Weingartner, Bruno Walter, Willem Mengelberger as well as many others. He regularly performed with every major orchestra in Europe and America. As a violinist, he was considered the equal of Pablo Sarasate and the only other Spanish violinist to achieve international fame. German critics hailed him as one of the most outstanding musicians of his time. He was the first violinist in the world to record the complete Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Bruch violin concertos as well as several works by Paganini widely considered too difficult to perform in public. He also turned his talents to composing and his operas were favorably compared to those of his friend Richard Strauss. Much of his career was spent residing in Germany when he was not touring and his reputation there exceeded that which he enjoyed in Spain. In 1930, he founded the Barcelona Philharmonic Orchestra and served as its conductor and music director for several decades.
Manen's String Quartet was published in Vienna in 1922. Its dedication to one Maurice M. Sternberger (1854-1938), a wealthy New York stock broker, give us some hints about its creation. Manen often found himself in New York and was an invitee to the most important musical club in the United States, the Bohemians whose membership literally read like a who's who in classical music. Famous artists as well as important patrons of music belonged. Sternberger was one of the latter and no doubt either contributed to Manen or in some other way proved useful. The Quartet is in three movement which all have titles. The first movement is called Mati, Transparencia. In Catalan, mati means to understand to perceive. The music undergoes many tempi and mood changes. Transparenica is transparency. The short, lively second movement is entitled Mig-dia, exultacio. Mig-da in Catalan means mid-day or noon. Exultacio means joy or reveling. The music, however, is rather like a bumpy horse ride. The finale is marked Vespre e inquietuts. Vespre is evening and inquietuts is worry, concern, restlessness. The music starts off quietly but then becomes extremely agitated and ominous and at times almost violent.
This is an interesting and in many ways an original sounding work deserving of concert performance but which can also be recommended to experienced and competent amateur players.
Parts: $24.95
