The work explores the magnetic forces that draw us together and apart in our modern physical and virtual worlds—the invisible threads of influence, the seductive pull of belonging, and the courage required to maintain an authentic and diverse voice within a collective. It achieves this by theatrically incorporating metaphorical scenes of systems that demand uniformity, mining the essence of those who want to exist authentically, and concludes with a message about being fully oneself while contributing to collective harmony - a task that requires both individual courage and collective wisdom.

The journey begins with Movement I, "(Dis)connection," where four musicians enter a sonic landscape where individual voices seem to find each other organically. Slowly, people begin to recognize each other and form groups until a grounded gravitational force, portrayed by the cello, emerges, drawing everyone into its hypnotic orbit. In Movement II, "Connection," the controlling force orchestrates traditional togetherness, uniting in quartet formation and creating music through subtle nods and careful invitations. It is structured and feels familiar, but the harmony is soon dispersed by an individual's need for control and rigidity. In the final movement, "Synchronization," the exchange gradually transforms into rigid conformity and trend-following; individual gestures become collective commands, portrayed by choreographed head movements and bodies that mirror each other and fall into lockstep. As synchronization intensifies, it becomes mechanical and routine. For a while, there seems to be flow in this new setting, and all players seem to go along. But at some point, towards the end, in a somewhat unusual move, some choose withdrawal - stopping the pattern and fading into the background. Others choose transformation - remaining to reclaim the space for authentic expression. Both are acts of liberation with costs and gifts. A final gesture from the shadows offers support across the divide between those who leave and those who stay.

Clarice Assad’s Nexus was commissioned for the Takács Quartet by primary commissioner Justus Schlichting for the Segerstrom Center, Costa Mesa in partnership with co-commissioners, Carnegie Hall, University of Maryland, Middlebury College, BroadStage, Chamber Music in Napa Valley, Portland Friends of Chamber Music, Cal Performances Berkeley and the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan.

Nexus was inspired by watching the Takács Quartet's visceral, whole-body approach to musical expression. Nexus amplifies the natural physicality of chamber music performance into choreographed symbolism.

The work explores the magnetic forces that draw us together and apart in our modern physical and virtual worlds—the invisible threads of influence, the seductive pull of belonging, and the courage required to maintain an authentic and diverse voice within a collective. It achieves this by theatrically incorporating metaphorical scenes of systems that demand uniformity, mining the essence of those who want to exist authentically, and concludes with a message about being fully oneself while contributing to collective harmony - a task that requires both individual courage and collective wisdom.

The journey begins with Movement I, "(Dis)connection," where four musicians enter a sonic landscape where individual voices seem to find each other organically. Slowly, people begin to recognize each other and form groups until a grounded gravitational force, portrayed by the cello, emerges, drawing everyone into its hypnotic orbit. In Movement II, "Connection," the controlling force orchestrates traditional togetherness, uniting in quartet formation and creating music through subtle nods and careful invitations. It is structured and feels familiar, but the harmony is soon dispersed by an individual's need for control and rigidity. In the final movement, "Synchronization," the exchange gradually transforms into rigid conformity and trend-following; individual gestures become collective commands, portrayed by choreographed head movements and bodies that mirror each other and fall into lockstep. As synchronization intensifies, it becomes mechanical and routine. For a while, there seems to be flow in this new setting, and all players seem to go along. But at some point, towards the end, in a somewhat unusual move, some choose withdrawal - stopping the pattern and fading into the background. Others choose transformation - remaining to reclaim the space for authentic expression. Both are acts of liberation with costs and gifts. A final gesture from the shadows offers support across the divide between those who leave and those who stay.

Clarice Assad’s Nexus was commissioned for the Takács Quartet by primary commissioner Justus Schlichting for the Segerstrom Center, Costa Mesa in partnership with co-commissioners, Carnegie Hall, University of Maryland, Middlebury College, BroadStage, Chamber Music in Napa Valley, Portland Friends of Chamber Music, Cal Performances Berkeley and the University Musical Society at the University of Michigan.

So why, then, did he put aside this most precious of his projects to spend a month composing two string quintets, a medium he had not attempted since the B-flat Quintet (K. 174), written in Salzburg fourteen years earlier? We don’t know for sure. Alfred Einstein, in his classic 1945 study of the composer, speculated that the works might have been intended for Frederick William II, an amateur of the cello who had recently succeeded Frederick the Great on the throne of Prussia and promptly appointed renowned cellist-composer Luigi Boccherini as his Kapellmeister. That theory seems baseless, however, because Mozart devoted the dedication of his last three string quartets (K. 575, K. 589, K. 590), composed in 1789-1790, to the Prussian king. It is more likely that Mozart simply needed some cash, fast.

The year 1786 was the zenith of Mozart’s career in Vienna. Perhaps because of intrigue but more probably because the geometrical expansion of deep expression in his newest music did not suit the fickle taste of the Viennese, his local popularity began to wane. Though he tried to economize by moving from his spacious apartment in the Schullerstrasse (now a Mozart museum known as the “Figaro House”) to a smaller flat at 224 Landstrasse, he could not abandon his taste for fine clothes and elegant entertaining, and took on debts, some to the textile merchant Michael Puchberg, a fellow Mason. On April 2, 1788, an announcement signed by Mozart appeared in the Wiener Zeitung stating that he was offering for sale by subscription three new quintets “finely and correctly written” that would be available at Puchberg’s establishment in the Hohe Markt after July 1st. The intention was apparently that Puchberg would keep the proceeds to repay a debt. To create the promised trio of works (18th-century publishing practice demanded that instrumental works usually be issued in sets of three, six or twelve), Mozart created anew the Quintets in C major (K. 515) and G minor (K. 516) and arranged the Wind Octet in C minor (K. 388) for five strings (K. 406). The quintets were completed in April and May during a hectic interruption in the composition of Don Giovanni (those same weeks saw Mozart’s only meeting with Beethoven, when the sixteen-year-old Bonn musician came to Vienna for a fortnight of lessons, and the death of Papa Leopold Mozart in Salzburg), but the number of subscribers was so small that Mozart placed another ad in the Viennese press on June 25th. That, too, was largely ignored, and the project was dropped, though Artaria & Co. brought out K. 515 in 1789 and K. 516 a year later. Mozart returned to the string quintet form in December 1790 and April 1791 with works in D major (K. 593) and E-flat (K. 614) for the wealthy Hungarian amateur violinist Johann Tost. They were the last pieces of chamber music he wrote.

The grace, grandeur, and optimism of the C major Quintet are evident from its first measures, which introduce as main theme an upward traversal of the tonic chord by the cello which is greeted with a closing reply by the violin. This apparently simple thematic pattern is the subject of some bewitching, proto-Romantic harmonic peregrinations before a contrasting thought, a flowing line of undulating shape, is advanced by the violin. Both motives are treated expansively in the development section before their full recapitulation rounds out the movement. The following Menuetto, with its irregular phrase lengths, uncertain tonality, and chromatic inflections, brings an element of pensiveness to the score that was only hinted in the opening Allegro. The Andante is an elaborate, almost operatic duet for the first violin and the first viola in the form of a sonatina (sonata without a development section). The finale, a skillful combination of sonata and rondo, resumes the buoyancy and high spirits of the first movement.

In its turbulent, proto-Romantic emotionalism, compact form, and harmonic daring, the G minor Quintet has frequently been compared to the Symphony in that same key (No. 40, K. 550) composed a year later. Though the Quintet’s closing movement finally achieves a tonality that Alfred Einstein characterized as a “disconsolate major,” the unshakable focus of this magnificent musical canvas is deep pathos bordering on tragedy. The Quintet’s drama is joined with the first gesture of the opening movement, a portentous main theme of broken phrases, sighing chromaticism, and unsettled emotion presented by the high strings without a supporting foundation in the bass. The darker instruments then take over the theme, which is subjected to considerable chromatic modification before leading to the formal subsidiary subject, a sad strain given by the violin above the throbbing accompaniment of the lower strings in the somber tonic key of G minor. The music modulates only grudgingly to the structurally contrasting tonality of B-flat major, though the new key does nothing to mitigate the premonitory nature of the music. The development section is tightly woven and argumentative, and bridges to a full recapitulation of the themes from the exposition, which maintain their gloomy demeanor to the end of the movement.

With its almost violent changes of dynamics, its halting rhythmic motion and its grim expression, the second movement is the least dance-like of minuets. Though the central trio section slips into the key of G major, it offers only tentative respite from the movement’s pervasive sense of foreboding. The sonatina-form Adagio, whose pathos is heightened by the muted sonorities of the strings, is among the most moving essays in Viennese Classicism, “far more probing, more emotional than any other slow movement in all of Mozart’s music,” according to John N. Burk. The finale consists of two broad musical chapters. The first is a deeply felt, G minor Adagio, a touching cavatina for the violin that serves as the preamble to the second section, which follows without pause. The music that closes the Quintet is a lovely rondo whose G major brightness does not so much dispel the troubling music that has come before as cast it into bold relief.

©2026 Dr. Richard E. Rodda