Between the ages of twelve and fourteen, Felix Mendelssohn composed twelve symphonies for strings alone—possibly at the request of his teacher, Carl Friedrich Zelter, who may have intended them as composition exercises. As Mendelssohn biographer R. Larry Todd points out, “The archaic genre of the string symphony, use of the obsolescent continuo, reliance on monothematic sonata form and baroque “spinning out” of the thematic material all reflect Zelter's conservative guidance. And the eighteenth-century antecedents of the sinfonie—admixtures of C. P. E. and J. S. Bach, Mozart, and Haydn—also betray the teacher's taste.” Mendelssohn completed the Symphony No. 1 on March 31, 1824, and the work's premiere took place in November of that same year at a private gathering in honor of his sister Fanny's 19th birthday. While the occasion sounds quaint, these were no ordinary domestic music gatherings. The Mendelssohn family was extremely influential, and as 19th-century theorists A. B. Marx and Heinrich Dorn reported, members of the elite royal orchestra showed up at their home to perform these youthful works. While Mendelssohn’s string symphonies were ultimately forgotten until long after his death, they provide a fascinating window into his musical training and early musical experiences.

Mendelssohn dedicated the Symphony No. 1 to the Philharmonic Society, which gave the London premiere on May 25, 1829, with the composer himself on the podium. (Mendelssohn arranged the scherzo of his famous Octet as an alternative to the Menuetto for the occasion.) Despite Mendelssohn’s youth, his first symphony was well-received, according to The Harmonicon:

... though only about one or two-and twenty years of age, [Mendelssohn] has already produced several works of magnitude, which, if at all to be compared with the present, ought, without such additional claim, to rank him among the first composers of the age…Fertility of invention and novelty of effect, are what first strike the hearers of M. Mendelssohn's symphony; but at the same time, the melodiousness of its subjects, the vigour with which these are supported, the gracefulness of the slow movement, the playfulness of some parts, and the energy of others, are all felt...The author conducted it in person, and it was received with acclamations.

Most Indians will immediately recognize Teen Murti as the name of the New Delhi residence of the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The residence, which now serves as an incredible cultural resource (library, museum, and planetarium) is named for the sculpture that stands in front of it. ‘Teen Murti’ means three statues, figures, or representations in Hindi. Though not directly based on the sculptures, this work shares their title as it is centered around three large musical ‘figures’ that are adjoined by short interludes – similar to the idea behind Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. It lays out three tableauxs: each is rooted in a specific raag and its Hindustani melodic tradition, and those melodies are interwoven using a more Western technique.

At the many concerts of Hindustani musicians I attended while I was in India, I noticed a curious thing that would happen before each performance. The artist would announce the raag to be sung or played that evening, and immediately, many of the cognoscenti in the audience would begin humming the characteristic phrases or ‘pakads’ of that raag quietly to themselves, intoning with the drone that was already sounding on stage. It had a magical feeling – as if that raag was present in the air, and tiny wisps of it were already starting to precipitate into the audible world in anticipation of the performance. I wanted to open this piece in that way, and continue to return to that idea in the interludes.

While I never made it to Teen Murti during the time I lived in Delhi, coincidentally, the first time one of my compositions was premiered in the city was at a concert at Teen Murti, barely a few months after I had returned to the US.

For those familiar with the Hindustani tradition: I hope you will hear in the interludes the strains of Bihag and Bhairav pakads, and in the three murti Malkauns, Bhairav and Jog respectively.

Malkauns, being a madhyam-based raag, is something that sits very differently in the western ear, which continues to percieve S as P (of what would then be a P based raag). I wanted to play with this expectation through the evocation of Malkauns taans that constantly return to this unexpected S from increasingly greater distance and over greater lengths of time.

Basant is one of my favorite raags because it is a beautiful example of the difference of musical aesthetic between Hindustani and Western idioms. When westerners think of the season of spring, this is the classic example that comes to mind. Of course Basant could not be more different in color and mood, and I think hearing both these conceptions of the season of spring allow us to see how multifaceted our aesthetic associations can be.

Jog has been both a source of constant fascination and challenge for me. The use of both shudh and komal G allows for effortless transition between what westerners refer to as the major and minor modes. But both these modes are equally present in Jog, and its complexity allows for such a broad range of expression.

The viola may be the punch line for many musical jokes today, but Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart loved the viola. In addition to his famous Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola and several duos for the same combination of instruments, all six of his extant string quintets were written for two violins, two violas, and a cello. Why might he have favored the instrument? Due to its acoustic imperfection, its muted tone provides a warm sound that balances the sharpness of the violin and the resonance of the cello, and with two on hand, this is even more evident. Second, he was an accomplished violist and often preferred taking the instrument when playing chamber music with friends. The String Quintet No. 4 in G Minor, K. 516, is one of two he completed in spring 1787—fourteen years after his previous effort in the genre. (It is thought that he composed K. 516 and its companion, K. 515 in C Major, as a contrasting pair, much like his Symphonies Nos. 40 in G Minor and 41 in C Major.)

Throughout the String Quintet No. 4, Mozart uses violas to bridge the sonic gap between the cello and the violin. The Allegro opens in the expected dramatic key of G Minor but quickly retreats to the major, setting up a contrast between dark and light. Interestingly, the opening movement ends more unsettled than it began, foreshadowing the unusual minuet that ensues. Far from courtly elegance, Mozart throws out stabbing accents that flirt with restrained anguish—and the trio section offers only a brief moment of repose from the disquietude. The Allegro ma non troppo almost becomes a story unto its own, complete with a remarkable duet for violin and viola. But Mozart reserves his heights of genius for the concluding Adagio—Allegro, which begins with a much more conventional slow movement that paves the way for a highly unorthodox conclusion in G Major, the music’s lively, carefree, and exhilarating mood banishing the darkness that has come before.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is a monument not just in Baroque music—the period between 1600 and 1750—but in solo classical keyboard music generally. Published in two books, one in 1722 when Bach was working in Cöthen and probably composing his Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, the other in 1742 when he was in Leipzig, the collection consists of 48 preludes and fugues exploring each of the 12 major and minor keys. "Well-tempered" points the way to a tuning system that worked well in every key, a circumstance still unusual in developing keyboard instruments.

Given that Bach was exploring the possibilities of the future, it is fortuitous that the Borromeo Quartet’s Nicholas Kitchen took advantage of one of its inconveniences when arranging both volumes of the Well-Tempered Clavier for string quartet. As he wrote in his notes, the project began on a “bus in Romania, November 4, 2016,” and continued every time the quartet traveled.

Beijing traffic was what opened the door to further progress! Every time that we moved anywhere in the city to rehearse or play, we spent nearly an hour in traffic. Not having to drive myself, I decided to dive into the project that had been waiting so long— arranging Book One for string quartet. And indeed, after a few more traffic jams, I had a good start.

Although Kitchen’s arrangements may have occupied him during his journeys, Bach’s music is far from a diversion—it demands intensity, but not overwrought drama. As Kitchen explains the experience of performing the preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier,

You have to play the dialogue of the parts feeling and hearing the intrinsic character of every detail, creating the meaning of every interval as it forms, no more, and no less. This has a kinship with the kind of listening that benefits much great quartet music, and this is probably no accident, considering the depth of the way so many great quartet composers took the Well-Tempered Clavier into their musical work. But in the Well-Tempered Clavier, the combination of complex intensity and completely distilled musical and emotional content makes demands on your listening that are extreme. Responding to these demands makes us stronger in our control and more sensitive in our perception.