Pieces:

• W.A. Mozart:  String Quartet No. 23 in F major, K. 590
• Dmitri Shostakovich:  String Quartet No. 7 in F sharp major, Op. 108

Venue: Baruch Performing Arts Center – Newman Vertical Campus
Baruch College: 25th St. (bet. 3rd and Lexington Aves.)

Performers: THE ALEXANDER STRING QUARTET- Zakarias Grafilo Violin 1, Frederick Lifsitz Violin 2, Paul Yarbrough Viola, Sandy Wilson Cello

Mozart was a composer that was in debt a lot and constantly asking people to lend him money, so he would compose pieces for people that would pay him. Mozart composed, “six quartets for King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia,” (Hildesheimer 1981, 25) and one of the six quartets was String quartet No. 23 in F Major K. 590. Since String quartet No. 23 is one of the pieces I will be listening to, so now I am expecting the piece to be upbeat and glorifying the King of Prussia. Also Haydn, a composer from the Classical period like Mozart, produced many string quartets and “in Vienna, Haydn and Mozart became close friends and influenced each other’s musical style” (Kamien 1998, 155).

Shostakovich composed, “two of his most highly personal works,” (Wilson 1994, 332) and one of them is String quartet No. 7 in F sharp minor.  This piece was, “dedicated to his late wife, and written to commemorate her fiftieth birthday,” (Wilson 1994, 332) so I would assume he wrote about how he misses her and the good times they had. It is interesting that Alexander String quartet will be playing the string quartet in major instead of minor. So I think it will make it interesting and maybe more livelier than the original.

Bibliography

Hildesheimer, Wolfgang. Mozart. New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, c1981.

Wilson, Elizabeth. Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1994.

Kamien, Roger. Music An Appreciation. Boston, Mass. : McGraw-Hill, c1998.