Friday., October 4, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 2:00 pm
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Quintet for clarinet and string quartet in B minor, Op. 115
Allegro
Adagio
Andantino—Presto non assai
Finale. Con moto
~~~ Intermission ~~~
Amy Beach (1867-1944)
Theme and Variations for flute and string quartet, Op. 80
William Bolcom (b. 1938)
Serenata Notturna for oboe and string quartet
Gently—Allegro
Grazioso
Scherzo di medianotte
Andante—Allegro
Johannes Brahms
Clarinet Quintet in B Minor for clarinet and string quartet, Op. 115
Brahms penned his four final chamber works to feature the fine clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld: the trio for clarinet, cello, and piano, op. 114, and this quintet, op. 115, both in 1891, and two sonatas for clarinet and piano, op. 120, in 1894. In his late works Brahms’s style has become terser and his harmonies richer; every musical gesture seems to have more significance.
Brahms handles the ensemble very differently from most other composers. Though challenging for the clarinetist (and the other performers), the quintet has much less soloistic display than one would expect. Brahms treats all five instruments as relative equals, and the clarinet is often in the middle of the ensemble, playing underneath the first violin—in part of the third movement the clarinet is actually playing the bass line under the violins and the viola. Since the clarinet carries through the sound of the strings, Brahms can use it to bring out inner voices and thus create extremely rich textures.
The violin duet that begins the quintet sets the elegiac tone of the whole work. More assertive material appears a bit later, but it does not last long, and the same music later returns quietly and in a slow tempo. The movement dies away quietly.
In the Adagio the strings are muted. The opening section is lyrical and highly syncopated; after an agitated middle section, the opening material returns in full. The third movement opens at a moderate pace but gets into a somewhat faster tempo later.
The last movement is a set of variations on a square-cut theme in the minor mode, a tribute to Mozart’s clarinet quintet K. 581. The first variation features the cello; the second pits the clarinet and cello against the other instruments. In the first half of the third variation the first violin takes the lead, while in the second half the clarinet takes over with a pizzicato accompaniment in the strings. The next variation, in the major mode, is more expressive, with slower figuration. In the last variation the meter changes from duple to triple and the minor mode returns; it pits the clarinet and the first violin against the other instruments. Then in the coda the meter changes again as material from the opening violin duet returns to end the quintet.
Amy Beach
Theme and Variations for flute and string quartet
One of the first important American composers of classical music born and trained in this country, Amy Marcy Beach came from an old New England family. Young men of her generation went to Germany for advanced musical training, but as her parents thought that unsuitable for a woman, she studied privately in Boston. At 18 she married Boston surgeon H. H. A. Beach. Her husband was opposed to her having a career as a concert pianist, but he encouraged her composing. Starting with songs and piano pieces, she grew increasingly ambitious and successful as a composer, producing a Mass, a symphony, a piano concerto, and chamber music; her catalog numbers over 300 works. Following her husband’s death in 1910 she spent several years touring Europe as a pianist. In 1914 she settled in New York, but she appeared frequently around the country as composer and performer. By this time she was one of the most famous musicians in America. As tastes changed, Beach’s music fell into neglect, but as we rediscover the American composers of the late Romantic period, she is proving to be one of the finest of the group.
The Theme and Variations was composed in San Francisco in 1916 on commission from the San Francisco Chamber Music Society. Like a number of Beach’s larger instrumental works, it is based on a vocal composition. The theme is adapted from a part-song for women’s voices titled An Indian Lullaby, which had been published in 1895 as her op. 57, no. 3. The words to the first verse (author unknown) read:
Sleep in thy forest bed,
Where silent falls the tread
Of the needles soft and deep,
Of the pine, of the pine.
The theme (marked “very slowly and expressively”) is played by the strings. In the first variation, in the same tempo, the flute adds arabesques over the strings. The mood changes abruptly in the lively second variation. The third variation is a lugubrious waltz, the fourth an energetic presto. The high point of the piece is the fifth variation, which presents the first half of the theme in a yet slower and more expressive guise. This leads to a return of the presto and a cadenza for the flute. The final variation has the instruments coming in one after another in a fugue that accelerates to a climax; part of the theme returns in the original tempo to conclude the piece.
William Bolcom
Serenata Notturna for oboe and string quartet
During his 35-year teaching career at the University of Michigan, William Bolcom established himself as a prolific composer of symphonies (nine of them), opera, and chamber and piano music, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his Twelve New Etudes for piano. He has been more widely known, however, for his numerous piano rags (such as “Graceful Ghost”) and cabaret-style songs (including “Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise”) that he has performed and recorded with his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris.
The Serenata Notturna is a good example of Bolcom’s “European American” style, commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and premiered in 2005 at the Kimmel Center by Richard Woodhams and the Guarneri Quartet. It takes its title from a Mozart work of 1776 for two groups of strings plus timpani; Bolcom sees the oboe as working in contrast to the strings, and he allows for performances with a string orchestra as well as a quartet. By using the title Serenata he indicates that the piece is composed in a graceful, lyrical manner.
The oboe begins the piece playing against static chords in the strings, as if trying to urge them into action. It succeeds in this and the movement proceeds in a good humor. About midway the viola introduces a nonchalant little tune that the other instruments pass around for the remainder of the movement. In the second movement, the strings have the opening section to themselves, with the oboe entering only after they have reached the end of that paragraph—but, as the tempo marking indicates, everything is graceful. The third movement is lively (why Bolcom describes it as “in the middle of the night” is not obvious); with the little tune from the first movement coming back twice as a contrast. The finale begins with a dramatic introduction somewhat reminiscent of the opening of the first movement; not long after it gets underway the little tune from the first movement comes back yet again, and all concludes cheerfully.