The Other Side of the Looking Glass

The Other Side of the Looking Glass

Presented by MusicaNova Orchestra in partnership with Music on the Desert

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

 Menuetto:  Presto from Quartet Op.77, No. 2

Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)

 Entr'acte 

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887)

  String Quartet No. 2

     I.  Allegro moderato

     II.  Scherzo - Allegro

     III.  Notturno - Andante

     IV.  Finale - Andante/Vivace

Julian Nguyen, violin I

Izayah Dutche, violin II

Grace Wills, viola

Hannah Shute, cello

The common thread between these three pieces is the entr'acte - an interval between two acts of a play or opera; a piece of music or a dance performed during an entr'acte. It is an invitation to imagine the hustle and bustle of the theater and create your own world and story around the works presented here today.

Pultizer Prize winner Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte is the fulcrum for the program. 

Shaw writes: "Entr’acte was written in 2011, after hearing the Brentano Quartet play Haydn’s Op. 77 No. 2 — with their spare and soulful shift to the D-flat major trio in the minuet. It is structured like a minuet and trio, riffing on that classical form but taking it a little further. I love the way some music (like the minuets of Op. 77) suddenly takes you to the other side of Alice’s looking glass, in a kind of absurd, subtle, technicolor transition."

It was only natural, then, to open this concert with the minuet from the Haydn Quartet. While Shaw employs a multitude of aural delights not yet conceived of in Haydn's time, you will still be able to hear the compositional ingenuity and creative spark that inspired her in Haydn's buoyant middle movement.

The connection to the Borodin comes in the thirrd movement of his second string quartet. The Nocturne is a gorgeous, evocative movement that has been featured in numerous movies, notably the Disney short film "The Little Matchgirl", a Fantasia-style animation. It’s not technically an entr'acte, but the incidental role that the Nocturne plays in the film, along with the catchy themes and compelling textures of the rest of the quartet, land it alongside the Shaw and Haydn.