Concert Program

Faculty Recital Series

Avalon String Quartet

Blaise Magnière, violin
Richard O. Ryan Endowed Chair in Violin

Marie Wang, violin

Anthony Devroye, viola

Cheng-Hou Lee, cello

Thursday, October 1, 2026
7 p.m.
NIU Recital Hall

Program

Notes

Leoš Janáček: String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters” (1928)

“Today I wrote down in tones my sweetest desire. I struggle with it. It prevails.” The 73-year old Czech composer Leoš Janáček wrote these words to his love interest and muse Kamila Stösslová concerning his second string quartet.  Its subtitle “Intimate Letters” refers to the more than 600 hundred letters he wrote to her. Although the composer was obsessed with Kamila, their relationship remained platonic. Both Janáček and Kamila were married to other spouses. 

Most of Janáček’s late works were inspired by Kamila, but none were thus influenced to the degree of the second string quartet. It is Janácek’s greatest and most passionate chamber work, composed in 1928, the year of his death. It employs Janáček’s typical architectural montage of melodies, many of which resemble speech. The quartet favors modal and whole-tone scales over chromaticism and avoids traditional cadences. 

The first movement portrays the composer’s first impression of Kamila, “when the earth trembled.” The trill that opens the movement is an important motive that runs throughout the work. Janáček builds his texture through the stratification of short, terse motives that he sometimes connects to form ebullient melodies. The movement is replete with passionate outbursts and chords with added tones.  It ends in Db major—Janáček’s key of love and ultimate happiness. The second movement begins as a peaceful landscape which is interrupted by a polka that nods to BedÍich Smetana, the revered Czech nationalist composer, whom Janáček came to admire only late in life. The third movement begins as a ghostly and wistful berceuse with provocative harmonies. The movement gradually increases in speed and intensity as it becomes charged with sexual energy. The finale opens with a folk-like dance.  The zenith of the movement occurs as the second violin plays a pizzicato melody over tremolos over the bridges of the other three instruments. The ecstatic trills of the coda echo the end of the famous Sinfonietta.

— John K. Novak, Professor of Music Theory, Northern Illinois University

Ménilmontant (1926)

The year 2026 marks the centenary of one of the masterpieces of the silent movie era, Ménilmontant. While it draws on multiple styles, the movie possesses many of the qualities of French impressionism, and its haunting poetry feels timeless. The Russian-French director Dimitri Kirsanoff employed revolutionary editing techniques and relied entirely on visual storytelling, with no intertitles to interrupt the flow of the narrative. Kirsanoff began his career as a cellist in a movie theater, and there is indeed something very musical about Ménilmontant, both in its flow and surface rhythm. In writing the score I sought to highlight the sensitivity and poetry of the material while reinforcing the larger structural arc. I also chose to combine musical material from that period with more modern styles, in the hope that this extraordinary film will continue to enthrall audiences for generations to come.

— Blaise Magnière

Biographies

Described by the Chicago Tribune as “an ensemble that invites you — ears, mind, and spirit — into its music,” the Avalon String Quartet has established itself as one of America’s leading chamber music ensembles. The Avalon has performed in major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the 92nd St Y in New York; the Library of Congress and National Gallery of Art in Washington DC; Wigmore Hall in London; and Herculessaal in Munich.

In 2025 the quartet recorded string quartets by Florence Price and Leo Sowerby for Naxos. They have recordings on labels such as Cedille Records, Bridge Records, Naxos, Channel Classics, and Albany. The quartet’s live performances and conversations have been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, Canada’s CBC, Australia’s ABC, the ARD of Germany, and France Musique.

The Avalon captured the top prize at the ARD Competition in Munich (2000) and First Prize at the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York City (1999). It is the resident quartet at the Northern Illinois University School of Music.