Concert Three | Healing Modes

We welcome you to our evening escape, Healing Modes. Throughout the ages, music has not only addressed a need for healing, but it has also been thought of as an agent of healing itself. We need to look no further in our own tradition of the string quartet than the great Op. 132 of Beethoven. The third movement, a holy song of thanksgiving, portrays Beethoven coming back to physical health and expressing joy at the return of his creative powers.

It wouldn’t fully feel like a Brooklyn Rider program without a foot very firmly in the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, so we decided to include several recent commissions and works from past BR projects. Reena Esmail’s Zeher (poison) and Caroline Shaw’s Schisma were part of our Healing Modes commissioning project and recording. Evan Ziporyn’s Qi is a selection from a meditative moment in a Zen garden, and John Cage’s iconic In a Landscape is a work we first programmed back near the beginning of our journey as a string quartet. And we end with Philip Glass’ String Quartet No. 4, a veritable temple of healing resonance, written in memoriam to his friend, the artist Brian Buczak.

We are all constantly reminded that there is a profound need for healing in the world we live in, and that healing needs to exist on so many levels; physical, spiritual, political, societal, and environmental. We hope this program provides an extended moment of reflection and restoration.

– Brooklyn Rider

Brooklyn Rider
Johnny Gandelsman | Violin
Colin Jacobsen | Violin
Nicholas Cords | Viola
Michael Nicolas | Cello

John Cage (1912–1992)
In a Landscape [9′]

Evan Ziporyn (b. 1959)
Garden from Qi [10′]

Reena Esmail (b. 1983)
Zeher [9′]

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 –1827)
Heiliger Dankgesang from String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132 [15′]

Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)
Schisma [6′]

Philip Glass (b. 1937)
String Quartet No. 4, Buczak [23′]

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