Concert Program IV

AFTERMATH: 1945

The Second World War constitutes one of the most traumatic chapters in human history. The devastation wrought by the war and the profound angst of its aftermath inspired a wide range of responses throughout the world’s artist community, from solemnity to outrage to despair. Richard Strauss, known for such spirited works as Don Quixote and Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, marked the 1945 bombing of Dresden with his elegiac Metamorphosen, a meditation for twenty-three solo strings (presented here in its rarely heard original string septet form). Fifteen years later, while in Dresden scoring a film about the 1945 bombing, Dmitry Shostakovich dedicated his haunting Eighth String Quartet “in memory of victims of fascism and war.” The program concludes with Benjamin Britten’s darkly exquisite song cycle The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Composed in the same year as Metamorphosen, Britten’s defiant response to the calamity of war ends with his triumphant setting of John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud.”

• Listen to violinist Daniel Ching of the Miró Quartet discuss Shostakovich’s String Quartet no. 8.»

PROGRAM

Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Metamorphosen (1945)

Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975)
String Quartet no. 8 in c minor, op. 110 (1960)

Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)
The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, op. 35 (1945)

Wednesday, August 4

8:00 p.m., Stent Family Hall, Menlo School
Tickets: $72 adult; $35 student

Prelude Performance*
6:00 p.m., Martin Family Hall
Free Admission

Thursday, August 5

8:00 p.m., The Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton
Tickets: $60/$50 adult; $30/$20 student

ARTISTS

Matthew Plenk, tenor
Ken Noda, piano
Jorja Fleezanis, violin
Lily Francis, violin
Beth Guterman, viola
Erin Keefe, viola
David Finckel, cello
Ralph Kirshbaum, cello
Scott Pingel, bass
Miró Quartet
   Daniel Ching, violin
   Sandy Yamamoto, violin
   John Largess, viola
   Joshua Gindele, cello

*Learn more about Prelude Performances »

Image: German photographer, April/May 1946. Demolition of the walls protecting the Neptune Fountain on the Schlossplatz in Berlin. Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, Germany/© DHM/The Bridgeman Art Library