Love & Levity Daniel Hass

• Daniel Hass: String Quartet No. 1 "Love and Levity":
• 1 Hass: String Quartet No. 1 "Love and Levity": I. Love 11:31
• 2 Hass: String Quartet No. 1 "Love and Levity": II. Hermit's Waltz 04:19
• 3 Hass: String Quartet No. 1 "Love and Levity": III. Largo 07:40
• 4 Hass: String Quartet No. 1 "Love and Levity": IV. Levity 09:22
• Piano Quartet:
• 5 Hass: Piano Quartet: I. Allegro moderato 09:34
• 6 Hass: Piano Quartet: II. Con fuoco 05:42
• 7 Hass: Piano Quartet: III. Rubato - Con moto 08:02
• 8 Hass: Piano Quartet: IV. Allegro leggiero 06:06
• Total Runtime 01:02:16

Info zu Love & Levity

These two quartets were written in the summer of 2021. There was a pandemic going on, and I spent most of the summer in my apartment, reading books and feeling the momentum of life melting away in the heat.

Early that summer, I read Haruki Murakami’s first novel, “Hear the Wind Sing,” and in the introduction he tells an anecdote from a baseball game:

”In the bottom of the first inning, Hilton slammed Sotokoba’s first pitch into the left field for a clean double. The satisfying crack when the bat met the ball resounded throughout Jingu Stadium. Scattered applause rose around me and in that instant, for no reason and based on no grounds whatsoever, it suddenly struck me: I think I can write a novel.”

This story had an effect on me similar to the crack of the bat, as I’d never written concert music but had always wanted to.

My only idea of how to start composing was to improvise at the piano. There are parts of the piano quartet that are direct transcriptions of these sessions, such as the cadenza-like development section of the first movement. But even the most structured-sounding passages began as improvisations before being arranged into an almost naively typical sonata structure. The piano quartet, while clearly an “early” piece, introduced me to my own language, and got me addicted to composing.

I started writing Love and Levity, my first string quartet, immediately after finishing the piano quartet. The Renaissance Quartet wasn’t even really a thing yet, but I knew who I was writing it for. I consider the piece to be, at its core, Beethovenian: in its thematic and structural tautness, but even more so in its motion towards excess—staying on an idea for too long, playing something too fast or too slow, too quiet or too loud. The title came from this anachronistic romanticism, this desire to talk about big feelings, but always with a bit of humor, always a bit weird.

Jazz and contemporary songwriting are as important to this music as the classical tradition. The scherzo movement, “Hermit’s Waltz,” is a jazz piece, complete with a transcription of an actual solo taken by guitarist Jacob Drab. The outer movements feature chords, melodies, and instrumental techniques taken from American folk musics such as rock, bluegrass, and the blues. These musics are not only emblems of New York, the city I call home, but contain the DNA of virtually all contemporary music. I leave it to you to discover what any of that means, and how it all came out. (Daniel Hass)

Renaissance String Quartet: (String Quartet No. 1)
Randall Goosby, 1st violin (String Quartet No. 1)
Jeremiah Blacklow, 2nd violin (String Quartet No. 1)
Jameel Martin, viola (String Quartet No. 1)
Daniel Hass, cello (String Quartet No. 1)
Valerie Kim, violin (Piano Quartet)
Brian Hong, viola (Piano Quartet)
Daniel Hass, cello (Piano Quartet)
Han Chen, piano (Piano Quartet)

Daniel Hass
Canadian cellist and composer Daniel Hass has built an impressive career that encompasses a diverse range of pursuits, genres, and achievements. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras across Canada, the Unites States, and Europe; has been commissioned by the Glenn Gould Foundation, Random Access Music, Tribeca New Music, and the Revolve Dance Program; and has received awards and grants from institutions such as the Stulberg Competition, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Sylva Gelber Foundation.

Daniel is a founding member of the Renaissance String Quartet, alongside violinists Randall Goosby and Jeremiah Blacklow, and violist Jameel Martin. The quartet had its debut recital in New York in April of 2023, where they premiered Daniel’s first string quartet, “Love and Levity.” A month later they went on an extensive tour of Jamaica, performing and teaching at schools across the country. At the their recital in Kingston, which benefited Jamaica Red Cross and the Immaculate Conception High School Orchestra, the quartet performed a variety of classical and Jamaican compositions, including Daniel’s arrangements of “Satisfy My Soul” by Bob Marley and “Many Rivers to Cross” by Jimmy Cliff.

A sought-after chamber musician in New York, Daniel frequently performs as a guest artist with the Jupiter Chamber Players, the Omega Ensemble, and Random Access Music. Uniquely versatile as cellist, Daniel often performs and records with modern jazz ensembles such as Orlando Furioso (winner of the 2023 German Jazz awards) and Phillip Golub’s Abiding Memory Quintet, as well as with pop and folk artists such as May Rio, Lila Dupont, and Sloppy Jane.

Daniel is an alum of the Perlman Music Program. He graduated from Juilliard in 2017 as a recipient of the Kovner Fellowship, and in 2021 with a Master's Degree. He studied with cellists Timothy Eddy and Joel Krosnick, and violinists Areta Zhulla and Itzhak Perlman. He plays the 1730 ‘Newland’ Joannes Franciscus Celoniatus cello from Turin, Italy, on generous loan from the Canada Council for the Arts.

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