Telegraph Quartet Performs Beethoven, Dvorak and Weinberg

The 222 Art Gallery transformed into a concert hall on Friday evening in Healdsburg with the classical music performance of the Telegraph Quartet's playing music of Beethoven, Dvorak and Weinberg. The Quartet has been performing together for over a decade. In 2014, they won the Grand Prize in the prestigious Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. The musicians included co-founding member and violinist Joseph Maile who received his B.A. at Juilliard under the tutelage of Itzhak Perlman, violinist Eric Chin, cellist Jeremiah Shaw and violist Pei-Ling Lin originally from Taiwan. The first selection of the concert was Beethoven's "String Quartert #10 in E-flat Major". The work was composed in 1809 around the time when Beethoven knew he would soon be turning completely deaf and was consigning himself to a regrettable life of bachelorhood. The chamber piece was written as a distracting work of joy filled overflowing with  eloquence and beauty. The pizzicato in the 1st movement expressed his indomitable zest for life and the scherzo in its 2nd movement relinquishes a furious, powerful energy. Chin shared an interesting tidbit  from Dvorak's love life relating to the 2nd piece on the program: selections from "Echo of Songs (Cypresses), B. #152". The piece was written for one of his piano students whom he was smitten. Unfortunately for him the attraction wasn't mutual. Twenty years later, however, Dvorak married the woman's younger sister. The cello's underlying melody reveals a melancholy in the 3rd movement followed by vibrato violins in the 4th movement resounding with triumph and resilience. Mieczyslaw Weinberg (b. Warsaw 1919 d. Russia 1996) is a composer not nearly as well-known as the previous composers. Weinberg was a refugee from Warsaw. Following WWII he lived for a time in Pakistan and Belarus. He sent his compositions to Shostakovich whom he admired. Shostakovic was very impressed with Weinberg's compositions and championed his work. Weinberg immigrated to Russia with  Shostakovich's urging and the two became closed friends and supporters of the other's music. The final piece on the program was Weinberg's "String Quartet #6 in E minor, Op. 35 (1946)". There are 6 movements to this composition. The 3rd movement, Allegro con fuoco, is a dissonant fugue followed by a Moderato combo in the 5th and Andante maestoso. Both these movement sounded forceful and optimistic. The sold-out performance at the 222 garnered an enthusiastic and appreciative audience that leapt to their feet hoping for, but not receiving an encore from the highly accomplished and artistic Telegraph Quartet.