The Dark, Coiled Intensity of f Minor

Bach Prelude in f minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier

Beethoven Quartet in f minor, Op. 95

Bruce Adolphe Coiled (inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 95) (2017)

Shostakovich Quartet No. 11 in f minor

Mendelssohn Quartet in f minor, Op. 80

 The program starts with a Bach Prelude that introduces f minor as a key that admits little light, closed in and dense. In Op. 95 (“Serioso”), Beethoven wrote a work that is compact and brutal. When the Brentano Quartet approached Bruce Adolphe to write a work inspired by the Beethoven he answered immediately: “Opus 95: so many nuggets of genius: the unhinged rhythmic knots, the scales off the cliff's edge, the muttering, the gnashing of molars!” The result is his new work, “Coiled,” written for this program. That coiled intensity also informs Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet in f minor (Beethoven’s f minor is also his eleventh), that compressed, eloquent masterpiece. And it is no coincidence that Mendelssohn’s final quartet, written in the anguished aftermath of his beloved sister’s death, refers in key and affect directly to this seminal Beethoven work.