Friction Presents
The Highwayman
Mar 17 & 18, 2023
7:30 p.m.
Grace Cathedral & St. Mark's Episcopal
Goethe Lieder
Mignon I
Mignon II
Mignon III
Mignon: Kennst du das Land?
To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores
I. Pelagic Within
II. Dream of Xerxes Blue
III. Central Park Microbial
IV. Invisible Eviction
V. Crying, Together
VI. Follow the Water
VII. Rise Up
The Highwayman
Harp and Altar
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Michi Wiancko (b. 1976)
Noah Luna (b. 1984)
Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980)
Intermission
Performers:
Friction Quartet
Otis Harriel - Violin
Kevin Rogers - Violin
Mitso Floor - Viola
Doug Machiz - Cello
Cara Gabrielson - Soprano
Friction Quartet, whose performances have been called “stunningly passionate” (Calgary Herald) and “exquisitely skilled” (ZealNYC), exists to modernize the chamber music experience and expand the string quartet repertoire. Friction achieves this mission by commissioning new works, curating imaginative programs, collaborating with artists, and presenting interactive educational outreach. Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) declared that Friction Quartet is, “The Bay Area's redoubtable new-music ensemble.”
Since forming in 2011, Friction has commissioned fifty works for string quartet and given countless world premiere performances. To support their mission of commissioning new music, they developed the Friction Commissioning Initiative to work together with their audience to fund specific commissions. Since 2017, they have raised $20,000 that has funded eleven new works, including five by young composers between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. In the past few years, they have been awarded commissioning grants from Chamber Music America and Intermusic SF. They have received additional grant support from IntermusicSF, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the California Arts Council.
Friction has held residencies at the New Music for Strings Festival in Denmark, Interlochen Arts Camp, Lunenburg Academy of Music, Napa Valley Performing Arts Center, Old First Concerts, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, and was the first ensemble in residence at the Center for New Music. They are ensemble educators with SF Symphony’s Adventures in Music Program, KDFC Playground Pop Ups, and more.
Friction appears on recordings with National Sawdust Tracks, Innova Records, Albany Records, and Pinna Records. Their recent albums include Rising, featuring three commissioned quartets about the changing climate and the landscapes of California, and Counter Paint, a collaborative multimedia project created by Pascal Le Boeuf and Danny Clay. They released their full-length debut album, resolve, in 2018.
Friction Quartet won Second Prize in the 2016 Schoenfeld Competition, were quarter-finalists in the 2015 Fischoff Competition, and placed second at the 2015 Frances Walton Competition
Program Notes
Goethe Lieder - Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Between October 1888 and February 1889 Hugo Wolf composed all 51 of his Goethe songs, venturing into areas of the poet’s protean output unexplored by previous composers. This was partly due to Wolf’s refusal to treat a poem that he felt had been set once and for all by Schubert—hence no “Gretchen am Spinnrade” or “Geheimes.”
But he had no qualms about tackling the songs from Goethe’s semi autobiographical novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The four songs presented tonight are sung by the tragic character Mignon an enigmatic outsider who haunted the Romantic imagination.
In setting the songs of Mignon, Wolf stressed that, unlike Schubert and Schumann, he sought to go beyond the verses to portray the characters as they appear in the novel: i.e., as abnormal and unhinged. And he does this above all through a wandering chromaticism.
The first three Mignon songs combine this chromaticism with fragile textures, suggesting both the waif’s innocence and her deep underlying grief. But in “Kennst du das Land” no trace of her childlike innocence remains: this magnificent song is composed on an operatic scale, moving from quiet reflection through mounting ecstasy to a climax of feverish, hysterical abandon.
- Notes by Richard Wigmore
To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores - Michi Wiancko (b. 1976)
Movement 1: Pelagic Within – Our journey begins on the water, as we travel from shoreline to open sea.
Movement 2: Dream of the Xerces Blue – Dedicated to the magic of pollinators specifically to the gossamer-winged butterfly, Xerces Blue, which became extinct after loss of its coastal sand dune habitat in San Francisco’s Sunset District. It was last spotted in the Bay area in 1943.
Movement 3: Central Park Microbial – A tribute to the microbiome of the soil beneath New York City’s Central Park, discovered only in recent years to be shockingly diverse and resilient. The vast majority of the park’s microbes have yet to be studied or even named.
Movement 4: Invisible Eviction – The world is on fire.
Movement 5: Crying, Together – A song of mourning dedicated to our most vulnerable populations.
Movement 6: Follow the Water – A return to the ocean, and the rivers that flow into it.
Movement 7: Rise Up – A celebration, a call to action, and a meditation on our collective humanity.
To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores, a multi-movement work for string quartet, celebrates the beauty and vitality of the natural world, suggesting hope and inspiration as humanity addresses fears and worries for our planet. The central themes of regeneration and resilience highlight the need to help protect each other and our most vulnerable populations.
This work was written for the Jupiter Quartet, and commissioned by Bay Chamber Concerts in celebration of the organization’s 60th anniversary, in partnership with the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Michi Wiancko
The Highwayman - Noah Luna (b. 1984)
This piece was one of the first commissioned by Friction Quartet, in early 2013. Written by long time friend of the quartet, Noah Luna, it was originally written for Tenor and String Quartet. The version you will hear tonight will be performed by Soprano and String Quartet.
This piece uses text from Alfred Noyes famous romantic ballad, The Highwayman. Published in 1906, this ballad is considered one of the best English ballads to be written especially in terms of oral delivery. Using such vivid imagery , repetition and alliteration, the poem musically jumps of the page when recited.
The ballad was completed in two days and almost half a century later, Noyes wrote, "I think the success of the poem... was because it was not an artificial composition, but was written at an age when I was genuinely excited by that kind of romantic story."
The text has been adapted for this music by singer-songwriter, Tom Woodward. Expertly set to music by Noah, the music reflects the text perfectly. Using techniques of sound-painting and motifs in the music, the result is a tightly composed circular piece of music that brings you on a journey worthy of the ballad.
- Notes by Otis Harriel
Harp and Altar - Missy Mazzoli (b. 1980)
Harp and Altar was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. At its core, this piece is a love song to the Brooklyn Bridge. The title comes from a poem by Hart Crane, in which he describes the Brooklyn Bridge as “that harp and altar of the Fury fused”. The Borough of Brooklyn is impossible to describe, but the Brooklyn Bridge seems to be an apt symbol for its vastness, its strength and its history.
Halfway through the work the vocalist Gabriel Kahane’s pre-recorded voice enters, singing fragments of these lines from Crane’s poem, The Bridge: Through the bound cable strands, the arching path upward, veering with light, the flight of strings, taut miles of shuttling moonlight syncopate the whispered rush, telepathy of wires.
- Missy Mazzoli
Lyrics
Goethe Lieder - Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Lyricist - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Translation - Richard Stokes
Mignon I
Heiss’ mich nicht reden, heiss’ mich schweigen,
Denn mein Geheimnis ist mir Pflicht;
Ich möchte dir mein ganzes Innre zeigen,
Allein das Schicksal will es nicht.
Zur rechten Zeit vertreibt der Sonne Lauf
Die finstre Nacht, und sie muss sich erhellen;
Der harte Fels schliesst seinen Busen auf,
Missgönnt der Erde nicht die tief verborgnen Quellen.
Ein Jeder sucht im Arm des Freundes Ruh,
Dort kann die Brust in Klagen sich ergiessen;
Allein ein Schwur drückt mir die Lippen zu,
Und nur ein Gott vermag sie aufzuschliessen.
Mignon II
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Weiss, was ich leide!
Allein und abgetrennt
Von aller Freude,
Seh’ ich an’s Firmament
Nach jener Seite.
Ach! der mich liebt und kennt
Ist in der Weite.
Es schwindelt mir, es brennt
Mein Eingeweide.
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt
Weiss, was ich leide!
Mignon III
So lasst mich scheinen, bis ich werde,
Zieht mir das weisse Kleid nicht aus!
Ich eile von der schönen Erde
Hinab in jenes feste Haus.
Dort ruh’ ich eine kleine Stille,
Dann öffnet sich der frische Blick;
Ich lasse dann die reine Hülle,
Den Gürtel und den Kranz zurück.
Und jene himmlischen Gestalten,
Sie fragen nicht nach Mann und Weib,
Und keine Kleider, keine Falten
Umgeben den verklärten Leib.
Zwar lebt’ ich ohne Sorg’ und Mühe,
Doch fühlt’ ich tiefen Schmerz genung.
Vor Kummer altert’ ich zu frühe;
Macht mich auf ewig wieder jung!
Mignon (Kennst du das Land?)
Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,
Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht?
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn.
Kennst du das Haus? Auf Säulen ruht sein Dach;
Es glänzt der Saal, es schimmert das Gemach,
Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn mich an:
Was hat man dir, du armes Kind, getan?
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Beschützer, ziehn.
Kennst du den Berg und seinen Wolkensteg?
Das Maultier sucht im Nebel seinen Weg;
In Höhlen wohnt der Drachen alte Brut;
Es stürzt der Fels und über ihn die Flut!
Kennst du ihn wohl?
Dahin! dahin
Geht unser Weg! O Vater, laß uns ziehn!
Mignon I
Bid me not speak, bid me be silent,
For I am bound to secrecy;
I should love to bare you my soul,
But Fate has willed it otherwise.
At the appointed time the sun dispels
The dark, and night must turn to day;
The hard rock opens up its bosom,
Does not begrudge earth its deeply hidden springs.
All humans seek peace in the arms of a friend,
There the heart can pour out its sorrow;
But my lips, alas, are sealed by a vow,
And only a god can open them.
Mignon II
Only those who know longing
Know what I suffer!
Alone and cut off
From every joy,
I search the sky
In that direction.
Ah! he who loves and knows me
Is far away.
My head reels,
My body blazes.
Only those who know longing
Know what I suffer!
Mignon III
Let me appear an angel till I become one;
Do not take my white dress from me!
I hasten from the beautiful earth
Down to that impregnable house.
There in brief repose I’ll rest,
Then my eyes will open, renewed;
My pure raiment then I’ll leave,
With girdle and rosary, behind.
And those heavenly beings,
They do not ask who is man or woman,
And no garments, no folds
Cover the transfigured body.
Though I lived without trouble and toil,
I have felt deep pain enough.
I grew old with grief before my time;
O make me forever young again!
Mignon (Do you know the Land?
Do you know the land where the lemons blossom,
Where oranges grow golden among dark leaves,
A gentle wind drifts from the blue sky,
The myrtle stands silent, the laurel tall,
Do you know it?
It is there, it is there
I long to go with you, my love.
Do you know the house? Columns support its roof;
Its great hall gleams, its apartments shimmer,
And marble statues stand and stare at me:
What have they done to you, poor child?
Do you know it?
It is there, it is there
I long to go with you, my protector.
Do you know the mountain and its cloudy path?
The mule seeks its way through the mist,
Caverns house the dragons’ ancient brood;
The rock falls sheer, the torrent over it!
Do you know it?
It is there, it is there
Our pathway lies! O father, let us go!
The Highwayman
Part I
The wind was dark among the trees
The moon a ghost upon the seas
a moonlit road cut by the moor
and the Highwayman came riding
The Highwayman rode to the tavern door
His hatted head and collared chin
Velvet coat and brown doeskin
His unwrinkled boots up to his thigh
His gun and dagger, mirrored sky,
the starred and cloudless windy sky.
He stumbled on the tavern yard
Tapped at windows locked and barred
The landlord's black-eyed daughter heard
Bess, the landlord's daughter
With a rose red love-knot in her black hair.
And in the yard the gate it creaked
The stableman froze, attention piqued
He loved the landlord's daughter
The landlord's red lipped daughter
And quietly he listen'd and heard the robber say
“I'll be rich by morning light.
But if they come, for me they prey.
I'll come to you by moonlight
though hell should bar the way."
Her hair was free her vision vast
In the fading light, disappearing fast
He swallowed the scent of the girl
whose bloom was a face of beauty and sweet perfume
He rode to the west in the unlit night.
Part II
At dawn and noon and sunset too
Until the rise of tomorrow's moon
Instead of him came a purple moor
Soldiers came marching, marching, marching
The king's men came marching to the tavern door.
They didn't speak, they drank instead
And tied the daughter to the bed
With guns in wait at her window
Her skin as white as settled snow
She was bait by her window
They perched her up to see the view
And pressed a gun against her too
"But if they come, for me they prey.
I'll come to you by moonlight though hell should bar the way."
She twisted hands against the knots
In vain they turned to bloody spots
Stretched and strained through crawling time
Till at midnight's stroke she touched the trigger
The trigger at last was hers
That's all she needed to caress
With muzzle pressed beneath her breast
She didn't risk detection she stood up to attention
And watched the road in moonlight
The blood of her veins in moonlight
The horse's hooves resounded like a heartbeat in the air
A pulsing in the distance; were they deaf and did not hear?
Over the crested hill, The Highwayman came riding
The soldiers stood there, still pulsing in the silence, the beating of the night
Near he came towards her
Her eyes were wide in mourning, he hesitated then
A shot rang out in warning he stalled outside her den
She shattered into moonlight and warned him with her death
He turned and vanished westward unaware of who was there
she died over the musket drenched in rose-red blood.
The ensuing dawn he heard the news; his face grew grey to hear
That Bess, the landlord's daughter, had died for his escape.
Back he rode, impassioned shrieking a the sky
The road ablaze behind him, he raised his dagger high
They shot him on the highway
He fell down like a dog, a lace collar at his neck
And now on windy winter nights
When the moon's a ghost upon the seas and a road cuts by the moor
the Highwayman comes riding
The Highwayman rides to the tavern door
He stumbles on the tavern yard and raps at windows locked and barred
And hums a tune to her waiting there
Bess, the landlord's daughter
With a rose red love-knot in her black hair.
Performer/ Composer Bios
Michi Wiancko is a composer, arranger and violinist whose work has been performed by ensembles, bands and orchestras around the world. She has collaborated with artists from across a wide musical spectrum and performed with some of the great musical artists of our time.
She has been commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Lyric Theater, On Site Opera, Ecstatic Music Festival, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Camerata Bern, The SPCO’s Liquid Music series, Aizuri Quartet, Enso Quartet, Sybarite5, East Coast Chamber Orchestra, and Metropolis Ensemble. She also composes music for short and feature-length films, commercials, and for her own band, Kono Michi.
Michi’s first opera, Murasaki’s Moon premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in May of 2019. This work created in collaboration with librettist Deborah Brevoort and director Eric Einhorn from OnSite Opera. Michi is a 2018 recipient of an Opera America Commissioning Grant.
Upcoming projects include new compositions for yMusic and NOW Ensemble, and arrangements and reimaginings for Camerata Bern, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, soprano Anna Prohaska, and violinist Anne Akiko Meyers.
“Wiancko played to the brilliant hilt. She tossed off the dizzying demands with extraordinary confidence and focus. Her sound remained shimmering, whether she was walking technical tightropes or sending songful lines aloft.”
— The Cleveland Plain Dealer
A passionate collaborator and performer, Michi has been fortunate to work with artists across a vast musical spectrum: Missy Mazzoli, Steve Reich, Silkroad, Yo-Yo Ma, Wye Oak, Emily Wells, Laurie Anderson, William Brittelle, Daniel Wohl,
Photo credit: Anja Schütz Emanuel Ax, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Judd Greenstein, David T. Little, Gabriela Lena Frank, Vijay Iyer, International Contemporary Ensemble, The Knights, A Far Cry, Alarm Will Sound, Mark Morris Dance Group, and the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, among others.
Described by Gramophone Magazine as an "alluring soloist with heightened expressive and violinistic gifts,” Michi gave her violin solo debuts with the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, performed her recital debut in Weill Hall, and released a solo album of works by Émile Sauret on Naxos. More recently, she recorded two different projects for Nonesuch Records: a new string quartet composed by Laurie Anderson, and a new work by Steve Reich entitled “Pulse” with the International Contemporary Ensemble, which they performed in Carnegie Hall as part of Steve Reich’s 80th birthday celebration.
A native of California, Michi shares her time between New York and Gill, a small farming community in western Massachusetts, where she and her husband, composer Judd Greenstein have created a music festival and artistic retreat at their home - 100 acre hilltop former dairy farm, Antenna Cloud Farm.
“The very model of a modern, cool composer,” Noah Luna enjoys a whirlwind career: composing original concert music, writing orchestrations for pop, rock, and hip hop artists, conducting orchestras and for live concerts and recordings, and advocating for young musicians to become more involved in contemporary music.
Noah has been Young Artist-in-Residence with the Berkeley Symphony through their “Under Construction Project” (Now: Earshot), editor and arranger for San Francisco Chamber Orchestra’s Incredible Shrinking Orchestra Project arranging massive works for 14 players of the SFCO, and continues to foster relationships with his ever-expanding community’s finest ensembles.
In addition to his work with popular musicians, he is orchestrator for Bollywood films, independent feature films, and two PBS Specials for Ethan Bortnick: “The Power of Music” and “Generations of Music.” Most recently, he composed and conducted orchestrations for a series of live shows for the band Streetlight Manifesto, premiering on Broadway, and is currently touring with the band Hanson, conducting the orchestra for their “String Theory” tour.
Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (NY Times), “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out NY), and praised for her “apocalyptic imagination” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Scottish Opera and many others.
In 2018 she became, along with Jeanine Tesori, one of the first woman to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the category of “Best Classical Composition”. She is currently the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia.
Her 2018 opera Proving Up, created with longtime collaborator librettist Royce Vavrek and based on a short story by Karen Russell, is a surreal commentary on the American dream. It was commissioned and premiered by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and Miller Theatre, and was deemed “harrowing… a true opera for its time” by the Washington Post.
Her 2016 opera Breaking the Waves, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects, was called “one of the best 21st-century American operas yet” by Opera News. Breaking the Waves received its European premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival; future performances are planned at LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Adelaide Festival. Her next opera, The Listeners, will premiere in 2021 at the Norwegian National Opera and Opera Philadelphia. In 2016, Missy and composer Ellen Reid founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female composers created in partnership with the Kaufman Music Center. Her works are published by G. Schirmer.
Soprano, Cara Gabrielson, was a 2020 National Semifinalist in The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and made her San Francisco Symphony debut as the Soprano Soloist in Bach’s Magnificat. This season she joins the roster of The Metropolitan Opera covering First Cretan Woman in Idomeneo. In 2021-22 she sang Bach cantatas with Boise Baroque Orchestra, performed a solo recital for the Oregon Bach Festival and returned to the San Francisco Symphony as the Soprano Soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana and Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. In 2019-20 she was an Emerging Artist with Opera Idaho where she sang Galatea (Acis & Galatea) and Poussette (Manon) while covering Mimì (La bohème) and the title role in Manon. She is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and an alumna of the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto, Opera Saratoga Young Artist Program, Tafelmusik Baroque Institute Fellowship and Houston Grand Opera's Young Artists Vocal Academy.
Friction Quartet, whose performances have been called “stunningly passionate” (Calgary Herald) and “exquisitely skilled” (ZealNYC), exists to modernize the chamber music experience and expand the string quartet repertoire. Friction achieves this mission by commissioning new works, curating imaginative programs, collaborating with artists, and presenting interactive educational outreach. Joshua Kosman (San Francisco Chronicle) declared that Friction Quartet is, “The Bay Area's redoubtable new-music ensemble.”
Since forming in 2011, Friction has commissioned fifty works for string quartet and given countless world premiere performances. To support their mission of commissioning new music, they developed the Friction Commissioning Initiative to work together with their audience to fund specific commissions. Since 2017, they have raised $20,000 that has funded eleven new works, including five by young composers between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. In the past few years, they have been awarded commissioning grants from Chamber Music America and Intermusic SF. They have received additional grant support from IntermusicSF, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the California Arts Council.
Friction has held residencies at the New Music for Strings Festival in Denmark, Interlochen Arts Camp, Lunenburg Academy of Music, Napa Valley Performing Arts Center, Old First Concerts, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, and was the first ensemble in residence at the Center for New Music. They are ensemble educators with SF Symphony’s Adventures in Music Program, KDFC Playground Pop Ups, and more.
Friction appears on recordings with National Sawdust Tracks, Innova Records, Albany Records, and Pinna Records. Their recent albums include Rising, featuring three commissioned quartets about the changing climate and the landscapes of California, and Counter Paint, a collaborative multimedia project created by Pascal Le Boeuf and Danny Clay. They released their full-length debut album, resolve, in 2018.
Friction Quartet won Second Prize in the 2016 Schoenfeld Competition, were quarter-finalists in the 2015 Fischoff Competition, and placed second at the 2015 Frances Walton Competition.
Join Friction Quartet for more concerts!
Program IV:
Lyric Suite
May 5 & 6
Description: Catch two mainstays of the string quartet repertoire reverently interpreted by Friction Quartet. Curated by Kevin Rogers, this concert presents two complex 20th century works that contain some of the most emotional and passionate passages of the whole quartet repertory.