When the critically-acclaimed Jerusalem Quartet played their most recent Tucson concert in 2023, it focused on Haydn, Shostakovich and Beethoven.
When it returns to open Arizona Friends of Chamber Music‘s evening concert series on Wednesday, Oct. 22, the quartet is still flirting with Haydn and Beethoven. But the middleman this go-around is Leoš Janáček’s “Kreutzer Sonata” String Quartet No. 1.
The concert comes nearly two years to the day since the last time we had the ensemble on the Leo Rich Theater stage. The group, in fact, loves Tucson in October, judging by their history here. They have played an October date with Arizona Friends every other year since their 2011 Tucson debut with one exception: their show here in 2019 was in April.
Wednesday’s program opens with Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat Major No. 4 “Sunrise” and closes with Beethoven’s String Quartet in B-flat Major and Grosse Fuge.
Jerusalem Quartet returns to Tucson as part of its 30th anniversary tour.
In the middle is the Janáček, which some might mistakenly connect the dots to Beethoven. After all, Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No 9 is nicknamed “Kreutzer” after the German composer dedicated the work to violinist Rudolphe Kreutzer. Fun fact: Kreutzer was the fall-back dedicatee; Beethoven initially nicknamed the No. 9 after Afro-Polish violinist George Bridgetower, who premiered the work in 1803, but when the two men had a falling out two years later, Beethoven changed the name.
So just what inspired Janáček to use the moniker on his maiden string quartet 120 years later?
The short answer: Beethoven.
More accurately: Beethoven adjacent.
Bear with us; it’s an intriguing story.
Some 63 years after Beethoven composed the Kreutzer Sonata, the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote “The Kreutzer Sonata,” which had nothing to do with music.
Tolstoy’s 1889 novella was a twisted exploration of how sexual abstinence can lead to jealous rage. In the novel by the author of “War and Peace,” the main character recounts what led him to kill his wife. Tolstoy concluded that the root causes for the deed dealt with the basic difference between the sexes.
Russian authorities immediately censored the book.
In widely reported program notes, Janáček said he was imagining “a poor woman, tormented and run down” like the wife in Tolstoy’s novella. The sonata plays out that psychological drama with moments of conflict, emotional outbursts and passion.
The drama in both Tolstoy’s novella and Janáček’s string quartet are a direct homage to Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” with its emotional intensity and complex yet contradictory structure that tests even the most technically proficient musicians.
The Beethoven B-flat Major quartet we’ll hear on Wednesday has flashes of that drama mixed in with some lighthearted, dance-like passages.
Wednesday’s concert starts at 7:30 p.m. at Leo Rich, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $45, $12 for students with ID through arizonachambermusic.org.
