Ronald Copes, shown coaching last year in the Juilliard String Quartet’s annual seminar, steps out of his role as the J.S.Q.’s second violinist to collaborate with two other string players in a faculty recital on Jan. 22. Photo by Peter Schaaf

How often are we invited to step outside of our usual routines? Ronald Copes, second violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet, will have just that opportunity when he presents a concert of string trios and duos as part of the Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series.

This concert will not only provide Copes an opportunity to perform pieces outside the string quartet repertoire, but it will also give him a chance to collaborate for the first time with cellist and Juilliard faculty member André Emelianoff and violist Ulrich Eichenauer, who plays in the Mendelssohn String Quartet.

Copes explains, "I've known about André for years, and I met him here when I joined the faculty [in 1997]. I've thought the world of him for a long time. This will be my first time performing with him, and I'm looking forward to it immensely. I don't know Ulrich Eichenauer at all—I have not even met him—but I've heard wonderful things about him. André's played with him, [but] this will be a new experience for me."

It is not uncommon for members of permanent chamber groups to collaborate with other musicians in ad hoc ensembles. Copes says, "The experience of playing chamber music outside of your regular ensemble is very refreshing. One of the wonderful things that happens is that, even though you bring your experience into that collaboration, you're forced to look at the habits of communication in a much fresher way. You don't elect to do certain things just because that's the way you've always done them or because that's just what you've arrived at."

The concert's program has a striking symmetry. Opening and closing the concert will be two works by Classical composers: Beethoven's Duet in E-flat Major for Viola and Cello, WoO 32, and the Mozart Divertimento in E-flat Major, K. 563, which Copes describes as "one of the most sublime works ever written." The remainder of the program is comprised of three works written in the early 1920s: Henry Cowell's Seven Paragraphs for String Trio, Anton Webern's Satz für Streichtrio, and Maurice Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello. "The three works show a snapshot of three different locations and represent different trends that infused music of the 20th century," Copes says.

Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series: Ron Copes and Guests Juilliard Theater Wednesday, Jan. 22, 8 p.m. Free tickets available at the Juilliard Box Office.

Perhaps the least familiar composer on the program, Cowell was one of the early experimental American composers. Many of his works feature tone clusters, open forms, incorporation of non-Western instruments, and unusual instrumental techniques (such as scratching or brushing the strings of a piano).

Paragraphs, however, shows Cowell's more traditional side. Copes explains, "In this piece, the aspect of Cowell that comes through is more the investigation of simplicity. They're very simple, highly stylized movements—literally paragraphs. The movements are very short, spare, simple, and clear with the emotional tenor of their character."

The Webern Satz may have been originally intended to be included in his String Trio, Op. 20, composed around the same time. In any case, the work was discarded and only published posthumously. Copes says, "I don't know if he didn't publish it because he didn't think of it as a success, or if he merely abandoned it. It's an unusual work for Webern. I think of it as a bit pointillistic, as opposed to even the Trio. It seems like he's trying to get the picture through these points, which are pretty much uniform density."

The Ravel Sonata stands in stark contrast to the small scale of the Cowell and Webern. In this work, Ravel captures an almost symphonic vastness, using only a violin and cello. Copes explains, "It's a big painting, but only for two instruments. The thrust of the piece is to take radically limited forces and see how large, how bold a tapestry he could create from it. So frequently the approach to minimizing the number of instruments is to capitalize on that and create a sparer or more delicate texture. It seems to me that Ravel was purposefully experimenting with the opposite: how orchestral, how much color can we get from the most severely limited resources possible."

How does a string quartet member feel about playing a concert of mostly string trios? Copes says, "String trios are, in some respects, more challenging. One of the things about string quartets is that you always have homogeneity as an element of the sound scope. With trios, that's much less apparent; you have the individual voices sounding even clearer than with a string quartet. In a quartet, the inner voices play more of a harmonic role, but in the string trio the inner voice is more of a horizontal line than a vertical integration, the way it works in the quartet. I'd hate to say it's more difficult—perhaps it's more difficult to me because I'm used to working with a string quartet." 

Ed Klorman is a third-year viola student.