Thalea String Quartet at Caramoor

The question of what constitutes “American” music strongly motivated philanthropist Jeannette Meyer Thurber’s decision to found the National Conservatory of Music in late 19th-century New York City. Antonín Dvořák’s travels to America were prompted by Thurber’s invitation to take on the roles of artistic director and professor of composition at her National Conservatory of Music, whose mandate was, according to Michael B. Beckerman, “... remarkably progressive: the most talented Americans, instead of following custom by going abroad to study with the great and near-great, might now stay home and study at an excellent educational institution. Thurber’s notion of quality was not class-, race-, or gender-bound. The school was to be open to women, people of color, the handicapped, and the poor. Scholarships were available and all were encouraged to apply.” In addition to her educational mission, Thurber was specifically interested in Dvořák because his music blended the international style established by German composers with the music of his Czech roots; she thought he would be the perfect teacher to help develop an American style of art music.

Upon his arrival in 1892, Dvořák went in search of musical material that could help him in his assigned mission. He befriended baritone Henry Thacker Burleigh, a Black student at the conservatory, and asked him to sing spirituals and plantation songs that formed the core of the musical traditions of enslaved Black people in America. He asked music critic Henry Krehbiel for transcriptions of Native American melodies. Using these sources as inspiration, Dvořák set out on composing his Symphony No. 9, “From the New World,” from January through May, 1893.

Shortly after completing the work, Dvořák told The New York Herald: “The future of this country must be founded upon what are called the Negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.” His proposal created a shockwave that rippled to Europe via transatlantic cable. Reactions from prominent musicians were featured on the front page of The Paris Herald for three days. “In his lifetime, he had a lot of conflict with composers about his use and his belief that the spirituals were sort of, in their own essence, their own musical form and that’s what I think is so important from his work,” shares Thalea violist Lauren Spaulding. “Although he is not the creator of the American sound in any way shape or form, he was the first to really say this music is real.” While the debate initiated by Dvořák’s bold statements raged on in musical circles on both sides of the Atlantic, he decided to take respite amongst a Czech community in Spillville, Iowa to help alleviate his homesickness and spend time where he could hear the sounds of both his native tongue and the birdsong he so sorely missed.

Dvořák loved trains, so being on one from New York City to Iowa brought Dvořák much joy. Spillville indeed offered a quick recharge. Five days after arriving, he immediately started composing a string quartet influenced by American sources. His encounter with the “Kickapoo Medicine Show” traveling through Spillville gave him further exposure to Native American musical materials. Dvořák is able to capture all these influences (including the birdsong of the scarlet tanager in the third movement and the sounds of a train in the fourth movement) in what has become one of the most popular string quartets in the repertoire.

Today the Thalea String Quartet continues to explore the question that Thurber and Dvořák sought to answer. “I guess programs are always kind of a combination of trying to be really intentional and using what you’ve got in your back pocket. Over the last couple years we’ve accumulated a number of these works like the DBR [Daniel Bernard Roumain], for instance, and Gabriella Smith, for different kinds of projects. At some point, we just kind of discovered how a lot of the music is deeply rooted in American musical traditions, and we wanted to tell the narrative of how American musical traditions have found their way into the string quartet repertoire,” explains Thalea violinist Christopher Whitley about the origins of today’s program.

“There has been this appetite for these [underrepresented] composers, which I think is really excellent. But what we’ve been trying to find is a way to continue to broaden the conversation a little bit while staying true to what our values are in programming … A topic that I think this program really reflects on is this idea that classical music is the greatest musical form, and [that] we all really need to still care about it 400 years after it started. You don’t have to scratch the surface too deep to realize that it’s also rooted in the same kind of systematic racism that kept [composers like] Florence Price out of the concert halls,” says Whitley. Creating programs like this “allows us then to play music by the Beatles, it allows us to find music that’s influenced by hip hop artists, allows us to open up to artists that are underrepresented … By integrating these different musical languages we’re also staying part of that same conversation.”

Spaulding adds, “What's happening right now socially in the classical music scene is incredible and I think it’s opened a lot of eyes to the way that the structure has been set up … It’s this continuation of the conversation of what creates classical music and how do we redefine that, in a way that audiences can feel connected and feel their heritage and feel who they are … and experience the world in a way that they maybe haven’t heard yet, so I think that’s the important conversation for us to continue.”

Composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain’s works often explore the interrelationship of music July 28 – July 31 / IIIand social justice. In program notes for his String Quartet No. 5, he writes:

As a Haitian-American composer, I was raised by immigrant parents from Haiti, who experienced American life both before, and after, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their views were informed by life on a free Island nation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; life in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois; and life in the complex diversity of Pompano Beach, Florida. They identified with Malcolm and Martin, Maya and Rosa, and the great Haitian warriors, Makandal and Toussaint. Civil rights, for our household, was global, local, and part of the very fabric of our lives and culture. I created [this work] as a musical portrait of Rosa Parks’ struggle, survival, and legacy. The music is a direct reflection of a dignified resistance. It’s telling that this work may, in fact, be performed on stages that didn’t allow the presence of so many, so often. I often refer to the stage as the last bastion of democracy, where all voices can and should be heard, where we are all equal, important, and necessary. The first movement (not included in today’s performance) was inspired by Parks’ statement, “I made up my mind not to move.” It is the longest of the three movements and is characterized by a driving, insistent rhythm throughout, which evokes the dignified persistence of Parks herself. The second movement, titled “Klap Ur Handz,” is based around the communal activity of clapping. The final movement, “Isorhythmiclationistic,” is much more solemn and introspective in nature.

Thalea first performed part of DBR’s String Quartet No. 5 here at Caramoor in April 2021. “We heard the first movement as angry Philip Glass. It’s really intense and aggressive, and audiences really responded to that piece,” says Whitley. For today’s concert they are also performing the “Isorhythmiclationistic” movement, which Whitley describes as “ just strikingly beautiful. It’s simple, but really emotionally powerful and resonant.”

In program notes for her work, composer Gabriella Smith says:

I wrote Carrot Revolution in 2015 for my friends, the Aizuri Quartet. It was commissioned by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia for their exhibition The Order of Things, in which they commissioned three visual artists and myself to respond to Dr. Barnes’ distinctive “ensembles,” the unique ways in which he arranged his acquired paintings along with metal objects, furniture, and pottery, juxtaposing them in ways that bring out their similarities and differences in shape, color, and texture. While walking around the Barnes, looking for inspiration for this string quartet, I suddenly remembered a Cézanne quote I’d heard years ago (though which I later learned was misattributed to him): “The day will come when a single, freshly observed carrot will start a revolution.” And I knew immediately that my piece would be called Carrot Revolution. I envisioned the piece as a celebration of that spirit of fresh observation and of new ways of looking at old things, such as the string quartet — a 250-year-old genre — as well as some of my even older musical influences (Bach, Perotin, Gregorian chant, Georgian folk songs, and Celtic fiddle tunes). The piece is a patchwork of my wildly contrasting influences and full of weird, unexpected juxtapositions and intersecting planes of sound, inspired by the way Barnes’ ensembles show old works in new contexts and draw connections between things we don’t think of as being related.

The Thalea musicians immediately fell in love with Carrot Revolution upon first hearing and were excited to have the opportunity to play it at UCLA’s Tune In Festival. Having it in their repertoire came in handy when they were asked to design an educational program pairing a musical work with a children’s book. One of the book choices, Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds, was a natural fit according to Whitley. “We paired the two together and it ended up being hilarious. ​​ Kids love it! Lauren was running around in a carrot costume … ” Spaulding adds that “when we started playing, all of these kids started drumming, just banging in full force on their laps. It was like a mosh pit!”

Spaulding brought Alex Vittal’s arrangement of the B-side of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album to her audition for Thalea and it has since become one of the quartet’s favorite pieces to play. She shares that “what is so unique about this particular arrangement is that I think it’s the most difficult piece we’re playing. It’s very challenging, it has lots of effects and we’re all playing two parts at once … The B-side [of Abbey Road] works in essence like a classical suite would, which I think was really cool and what makes it so successful in the classical concert hall setting.”

In his program notes for his arrangement, Vittal writes:

I was first exposed to The Beatles’ Abbey Road in my later teenage years after I had begun learning the electric bass as a hobby to go alongside my main instrument, the viola, and it was a revelatory experience for me. I loved the entire album immediately, but the long form of the B-side in particular struck me as particularly brilliant on so many levels. The songs have such great movement and energy, explore so many emotions and musical styles, and have a fascinating structure. Listen for a recurrence of the opening theme of ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ at the close of ‘The End.’ ‘Her Majesty’ was actually the first ever hidden track included on an album, and is a sort of silly coda to the whole set. Even more striking to me than the songs themselves are the bold and singular musical styles of each of the four Beatles. You can really hear their unique personalities throughout the entire B-side, from Paul’s sensitivity and passion to John’s bravado to George’s virtuosity to Ringo’s sense of humor.

In this arrangement, a true labor of love written and re-written countless times over seven years, I have sought to remain as true as possible to the original recording, including capturing individual personality quirks in the original recording. I believe that we collectively love The Beatles both because of the quality and originality of their songs, but even more so for their musical personalities and public personas. I hope this performance brings you closer to The Beatles and their peerless Abbey Road.

— Daniel Doña