Olympic Arts Chamber Music Festival; Guarneri String Quartet at the Japan America Theater; Part 1

<v Speaker>The Olympic Arts Festival of the 23rd Olympiad, Los Angeles, 1984. <v Speaker>Le Festival Olympique des Arts de la 23eme Olympiad, Los <v Speaker>Angeles, 1984. <v Speaker>La Festival Olympica de las Artes de la might 23o <v Speaker>Olimpiáda, Los Angeles, <v Speaker>1984. <v Speaker>Los Angeles ne okay.You zijn Kewl Yaku Hockey you yeomen <v Speaker>no Dinah's you SANCHI Gorden Chi-Chi No Gages side. <v Speaker>These broadcasts are produced by KUSC, the University of Southern California, <v Speaker>Los Angeles, to the support of the Times Mirror Company, the festival's official <v Speaker>sponsor. <v Speaker>The Olympic Arts Festival, Robert J. Fitzpatrick, director, is a production of the Los <v Speaker>Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee. <v Speaker>From the Japan-America Theater in Los Angeles, this is Maryann Bonino welcoming you to

<v Speaker>the third in a series of seven concerts from the Olympic Arts Chamber Music Festival. <v Speaker>Today, the Olympic Arts Festival continues its celebration of excellence and achievement <v Speaker>with an all Beethoven program performed by one of the world's foremost chamber ensembles, <v Speaker>the Guarneri String Quartet. <v Speaker>On the first half of our program, the Guarneri Quartet will perform the string quartet <v Speaker>and A-major opus 18 number five and the Grosse Fuge in B-flat, <v Speaker>Opus 133. <v Speaker>Following intermission, they will return with a single work, Beethoven's Opus 132, <v Speaker>the Quartet in a minor. <v Speaker>Because of its intimate and austere dimensions, the string quartet can be an utterly <v Speaker>revealing idiom. Perhaps for this reason, Beethoven's quartets in many <v Speaker>ways summarize his artistic growth, creative concerns and innermost <v Speaker> struggles during the three distinct periods into which they fall. <v Speaker>Composed at the turn of the 19th century, the quartets of Opus 18 reveal the

<v Speaker>young Beethoven poised at the edge of the classical period and about to plunge <v Speaker>headlong into the romantic era with his eroica symphony. <v Speaker>The A-major quartet, Opus 18, number Five, which opens our program, <v Speaker>has strong classical roots, successfully combining Haydn's brand <v Speaker>of motific development with the formal elasticity of Mozart. <v Speaker>Yet even in this early quartet, we can already feel Beethoven's need to free himself <v Speaker>from accepted patterns. <v Speaker>Adjusting the proportions of classical quartet form, he lightens the traditionally <v Speaker>substantial first movement, follows it with an even lighter minuet and trio, <v Speaker>and only then does he arrive at the weightiest movement of the quartet, a theme with <v Speaker>strikingly original variations that conclude with an unprecedented and highly <v Speaker>developed mental coda written mostly outside the movement's main key. <v Speaker>The four movements of the quartet in A-major are marked Allegro, Minuetto,

<v Speaker>Andante Cantabile and Allegro. <v Speaker>[applause]. <v Speaker>Here now are members of the Guarneri String Quartet as they come on stage at the Japan <v Speaker>America Theater in Los Angeles. <v Speaker>Violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, violist Michael Tree and <v Speaker>cellist David Soyer. <v Speaker>They perform the string quartet in A-major Opus 18 number five by Beethoven. <v Speaker>[performance]