UW Pro Arte Quartet concert highlights Bolcom, Milhaud, Mozart

American composer William Bolcom believes an artist’s role is to mirror society.

Bolcom’s Piano Quintet No. 2 — commissioned by the UW Pro Arte Quartet as the third of four works to help celebrate its centennial season — serves that combined social and artistic purpose.

“It is a very broad and passionate piece, and very emotional,” says Bolcom, a Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning composer who retired as musical composition teacher from the University of Michigan in 2008. “It’s a kind of warning, even a lament perhaps, about what we’ve become in our lives today,” he says.

Bolcom’s composition will receive its world premiere performance by the Pro Arte Saturday, Saturday, March 24, at the Wisconsin Union Theater, located in the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon St., on the UW–Madison campus. The 8 p.m. concert, which also will feature UW–Madison associate professor of piano Christopher Taylor, is free and open to the public. No reservations or tickets are required.

The concert will be preceded by a free 3 p.m. lecture, also at the Wisconsin Union Theater, entitled “Concert Music Today: A State of the Union Address” by noted New York Times classical music critic Anthony Tommasini. Events also include a 5 p.m. dinner at the Memorial Union’s Tripp Commons (details and reservations at www.uniontheater.wisc.edu or 608-265-ARTS ) and a free 7 p.m. concert preview discussion featuring both the composer and the lecturer.

The third of the centennial season’s four concerts also includes Webern’s Langsamer Satz, (Slow Movement); Darius Milhaud’s String Quartet No. 7, Op. 87, (dedicated to and premiered by the Pro Arte in 1925) and Mozart’s famous String Quintet in G minor, K. 516. The Mozart work will feature guest artist and violist Samuel Rhodes, who serves on the faculty at The Juilliard School and is a member of the famed Juilliard String Quartet, performing with the Pro Arte.

A piano quintet offers a fuller sound than a string quartet, Bolcom says, which will help give his composition a broader, more emotional appeal.

“The quintet made up of a piano and a string quartet has an almost orchestral feel, versus a trio of violin, cello and piano, which has a whole other atmosphere,” he says. “The piano quintets most emblematic of this are those by Schumann and Brahms, especially Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor. I’d like to invoke and evoke the expansive feelings those pieces exude.”

Bolcom, named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America, is familiar with Pro Arte and, especially, with Taylor. Pairing the pianist with the quartet made the composer even more enthusiastic about his commission, he says.

“The Pro Arte is one of the icons of the string quartet world and I’m thrilled to write for them,” Bolcom says. “I’ve also known Christopher Taylor since he was a boy, so it has been a real delight to write this piece thinking of them in combination.”

Taylor was age 10 when he first came in contact with Bolcom, who was a champion of the 1970s ragtime revival. The young pianist had learned some of Bolcom’s piano rags and tried his hand at composing his own, sending them off to Bolcom. The older composer was encouraging and supportive, says Taylor, who looks forward to performing the new work.

“My initial impression is that it’s fairly stark in a lot of ways, but there also are passages that are lyrical and quite beautifully written,” says Taylor. “It’s a great piece and I hope I can be its advocate.”

Both Taylor and Bolcom are confident the piano quintet marks a new step both in the composer’s storied career and for the Pro Arte. Each has high hopes for the March 24 world premiere performance.

“I hope both the musicians and the audience will leave with the satisfaction that something emotionally right has happened for them,” Bolcom says.

The Quatuor Pro Arte of Brussels, founded in 1911-12, was performing at the Wisconsin Union Theater on the UW campus on May 10, 1940, when Belgium was overrun and occupied by Nazi forces, turning three of its original four musicians into war orphans. By October of that year, the group had officially become the UW Pro Arte Quartet, making it the first university artist ensemble-in-residence in the US. That academic affiliation became a business model for most other quartets around the world.

Current musicians in the Pro Arte, believed to be the world’s oldest continuously performing string quartet and the first quartet anywhere to enjoy a university ensemble-in-residence status, include violinists Suzanne Beia and David Perry, violist Sally Chisholm and cellist Parry Karp.

For more information on the centennial celebration and a complete schedule of events, visit http://www.proartequartet.org.

– By Michael Muckian