Farewell August 12 and 13

Home , Eleven Chorale Preludes, Jan Swafford, Silence, Tragic Overture (Brahms)

Concert Program VI: Farewell August 12 and 13

Friday, August 12 Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) 8:00 p.m., Stent Family Hall, Menlo School String Quintet no. 2 in G Major, op. 111 (1890) Allegro non troppo, ma con brio s Saturday, August 13 Adagio Un poco allegretto

8:00 p.m., The Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton am Vivace ma non troppo presto Ani Kavafian, Philip Setzer, violins; Paul Neubauer, Yura Lee, violas; Paul Watkins, cello Program Overview Johannes Brahms’s death in 1897 signaled the end of a Johannes Brahms musical era, one born of the Viennese Classical tradition Sonata no. 2 in E-flat Major for Viola and Piano, op. 120, no. 2 (1894) of Haydn and Mozart, nurtured by Beethoven, Schubert, Allegro amabile Allegro appassionato Mendelssohn, and Schumann, and ultimately embodied by Andante con moto the uncompromising quality and ravishing expressivity of Menahem Pressler, piano; Paul Neubauer, viola Brahms’s finest music. At the end of his life, Brahms grew poignantly aware of his music and his era fading into history Intermission Progr ert as the cultural landscape gave way to ever more radical new c ideas. In the soulful timbres of the viola, the clarinet, and his Johannes Brahms closest friend, the piano, Brahms found a voice for the bit- Selections from Klavierstücke, opp. 118 and 119 (1893) on tersweet farewell of his final works. Menahem Pressler, piano c Johannes Brahms Clarinet Quintet in b minor, op. 115 (1891) Allegro SPECIAL THANKS Adagio Music@Menlo dedicates these performances to the following Andantino – Presto non assai, ma con sentimento Con moto – Un poco meno mosso individuals and organizations with gratitude for their generous support: David Shifrin, clarinet; Philip Setzer, Ani Kavafian, violins; Yura Lee, viola; Paul Watkins, cello August 12: The David B. and Edward C. Goodstein Foundation August 13: Marcia and Hap Wagner

Photo of Brahms courtesy of Eugene Drucker in memory of Ernest Drucker.

www.musicatmenlo.org Program Notes: Farewell

Johannes Brahms music reminded him of the Prater, Vienna’s amusement park, Brahms (Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, Vienna) replied, “You’ve guessed it! And the delightful girls there.” Quintet in G Major for Two Violins, Two Violas, and Cello, The Adagio is a set of three free variations based on a touch- op. 111 ing theme whose most characteristic gesture is the ornamental turn in its opening phrase. The following Allegretto serves as the quintet’s Composed: 1890 scherzo, though in spirit it is indebted to the popular waltzes of his First performance: November 11, 1890, in Vienna, by the Rosé Quartet adopted Vienna that Brahms so loved. The finale combines elements of Other works from this period: Detailed in the notes below sonata and rondo, a formal procedure, perhaps borrowed from Haydn, Approximate duration: 30 minutes that Brahms employed in several other important works of his.

For many years, Brahms followed the sensible Viennese custom of taking to the countryside when the summer heat made life in the city Johannes Brahms unpleasant. In 1880 he first visited the resort of Bad Ischl in the lovely Sonata in E-flat Major for Viola and Piano, op. 120, no. 2 Salzkammergut region east of Salzburg, an area of mountains and Composed: 1894 lakes widely famed for its enchanting scenery (and in more recent years Other works from this period: Detailed in the notes below the site of the filming of The Sound of Music). There he composed Approximate duration: 22 minutes the Academic Festival Overture and Tragic Overture and the Opus 87 Piano Trio, cantankerously telling his friends that he was encour- aged to such productivity because the miserable weather confined Hans von Bülow, a musician of gargantuan talent celebrated as both a him constantly to his villa. Two years later, however, he again chanced pianist and a conductor, was an ardent champion of Brahms’s music, and Ischl, again found the weather poor, and again composed; the Opus he made it a mainstay in the repertory of the superb court orchestra at 88 String Quintet dates from the summer of 1882. Brahms then stayed Meiningen during his tenure there as Music Director from 1880 to 1885.

s away from Bad Ischl until 1889, but thereafter it became his annual Brahms was welcomed at Meiningen and he ventured there frequently and country retreat until his last summer seven years later. It was at Ischl happily during the following years to hear his works played by the orchestra and to take part in chamber ensembles. In March 1891, he was present

am during the summer of 1890 that Brahms composed what his biographer Walter Niemann called “the most passionate, the freshest, and at a performance of Weber’s f minor Clarinet Concerto by the orchestra’s the most deeply inspired by nature” of all his works—the String Quintet principal player of that instrument, Richard Mühlfeld, and he reported to in G Major, op. 111. Clara Schumann that “it is impossible to play the clarinet better than Herr Brahms was fifty-seven years old in 1890. By that time he had Mühlfeld does here.” So strong was the impact of that experience that acquired the great hedgerow of beard that is so familiar from the photo- Brahms was shaken out of a yearlong creative lethargy, and the Clarinet Trio graphs of him in later life, a pronounced corpulence, and a feeling that (op. 114) and the Clarinet Quintet (op. 115) were composed without dif- he had “worked enough; now let the young people take over.” When he ficulty for Mühlfeld in May and June of 1891. Three years later, during a submitted the score of the new quintet to his publisher Fritz Simrock summer retreat at Bad Ischl in the Austrian Salzkammergut, Brahms was again inspired to write for the clarinet, and he composed the Two Sona-

ert Progr ert in December 1890, a month after it had been premiered in Vienna by the Rosé Quartet, he attached a note to the manuscript: “With this tas for Clarinet and Piano in anticipation of Mühlfeld’s visit in September. c letter you can bid farewell to my music—because it is certainly time Except for the Four Serious Songs and the Eleven Chorale Preludes to leave off.” His dear friend and faithful correspondent Elisabeth von inspired by Clara’s death in 1896, these sonatas were the last music that on Herzogenberg, reminding him that his health was excellent and that he Brahms wrote. Brahms also wrote a transcription of these sonatas for

c was at the peak of his popularity, wrote to him, “He who can invent all viola, featured on tonight’s program. this [i.e., the G Major Quintet] must be in a happy frame of mind! It is The autumnal opening movement of the E-flat Major Sonata follows the work of a man of thirty.” Still, Brahms was not to be swayed, and the traditional sonata-form model. The first theme, suffused with cool sun- he announced his retirement as a composer. When he heard the cel- light, is an almost perfect example of melodic construction—rapturously ebrated clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld at Meiningen the following spring, lyrical in its initial phrases, growing more animated and wide-ranging as it however, his resolve was broken, and he again took up his pen to pro- progresses, and closing with a few short, quiet gestures. After a transition duce the resplendent valedictories of his last years: the Clarinet Trio on the main subject followed by a brief moment of silence, the sec- (op. 114), Quintet (op. 115), and sonatas (op. 120); the fantasies ond theme, another gently flowing melodic inspiration, is introspectively and intermezzos for piano (opp. 116–119); the Four Serious Songs intoned by the viola. The development section is compact and lyrical rather (op. 121); and the Chorale Preludes for Organ (op. 122). than prolix and dramatic and leads to the balancing return of the earlier The quintet’s opening Allegro is one of Brahms’s typically mas- materials in the recapitulation. The sonata’s greatest expressive urgency terful sonata forms, broad in scale and gesture yet enormously subtle is contained in its second movement, an ingenious stylistic hybrid of folkish and integrated in detail. The cello is entrusted with announcing the Austrian ländler, sophisticated Viennese waltz, and Classical scherzo. The main theme through a dense but glowing curtain of accompanimental movement’s principal, minor-mode formal section flanks a brighter central rustlings from the upper strings. The complementary melody, almost chapter that Brahms marked forte ma dolce e ben cantando (“strong but Schubertian in its warm lyricism, is presented in duet by the violas. The sweet and well sung”). For the finale of this, his last chamber composition, development incorporates much of the thematic material from the Brahms employed one of his most beloved structural procedures, the vari- exposition but keeps returning, almost like a refrain, to the rustling ation. The theme is presented by the viola with two echoing phrases from figurations of the movement’s opening. The earlier themes are reca- the piano alone. This spacious melody is the subject of five variations, the pitulated in heightened settings to round out the movement. When Max last of which, a sturdy strain in a portentous minor key, is largely entrusted Kalbeck, the composer’s friend and eventual biographer, said that this to the piano. An animated coda brings this splendid and deeply satisfying sonata to its glowing conclusion. —Richard Rodda *Bolded terms are defined in the glossary. Music@Menlo 2011 Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms Selections from Six Pieces for Solo Piano, op. 118; Selections Quintet in b minor for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, from Four Pieces for Solo Piano, op. 119 op. 115 Composed: 1893 Composed: 1891 Published: 1893 First performance: November 24, 1891, in Meiningen, by Richard First performance: Ilona Eibenschütz premiered Opus 118, nos. 3 Mühlfeld and the Joachim Quartet and 5, and Opus 119, nos. 2, 4, and 1 or 3, in London on January 22, Other works from this period: See Sonata in E-flat Major for 1894; she followed this with the premiere performance of the com- Viola and Piano, op. 120, no. 2. plete Opuses 118 and 119 on March 7, also in London. Approximate duration: 39 minutes Other works from this period: Brahms completed the Opus 118 and 119 sets as part of a concentrated wave of piano miniatures com- The mood of the Clarinet Quintet, contemporaneous with the E-flat posed from 1892 to 1893. A total of twenty such pieces have come Major Viola Sonata described above, is expressive and autumnal, with down to us from these two years, though Brahms almost certainly com- many hints of bittersweet nostalgia, a quality to which the darkly lim- posed more, which he likely destroyed. (Brahms is notorious for foiling pid sonority of the clarinet is perfectly suited. The opening movement the efforts of many music historians by having burned reams of letters, follows the traditional sonata plan, with the closely woven thematic drafts, and any evidence of works he considered less than satisfac- development characteristic of all Brahms’s large instrumental works. tory.) The autumnal tone of Brahms’s later years is also captured in the The main theme, given by the violins in mellow thirds, contains the Clarinet Trio, op. 114, and Clarinet Quintet, op. 115, both composed motivic seeds from which the entire movement grows. Even the sway- in 1891, and the two clarinet sonatas, op. 120, of 1894—all inspired by ing second theme, initiated by the clarinet, derives from this opening the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. melody. The Adagio is built in three large paragraphs. The first is based on a tender melody of touching simplicity uttered by the clari- The piano was Brahms’s instrument. And like fellow composer-pianist net. The central section is an impetuous strain in sweeping figurations Beethoven (the giant whose footsteps Brahms admitted to hearing seemingly derived from the fiery improvisations of an inspired Gypsy behind him throughout his creative career), Brahms poured into the clarinetist. The Adagio melody returns to round out the movement. piano some of his most deeply felt personal statements. Like Beethoven, Brahms performed an interesting formal experiment in the third move-

Brahms’s oeuvre of piano works falls neatly into distinct stylistic peri- ment. Beginning with a sedate Andantino, the music soon changes s ods which outline his compositional trajectory. The first group of piano mood and meter to become an ingenious combination of scherzo works—composed throughout the 1850s and early 1860s—includes and rondo that is closed by a fleeting reminiscence of the movement’s three large scale sonatas (opp. 1, 2, and 5), the Scherzo in e-flat minor first melody. The finale is a theme with five variations, the last of which am (op. 4), and two sets of variations on themes by Handel (op. 24) and recalls the opening melody of the first movement to draw together the Paganini (op. 35). Though skillfully crafted, these works make extreme principal thematic strands of this masterful quintet. and virtuosic demands of their pianist. They betray Brahms as a brash —Richard Rodda young Romantic, as eager to announce himself to the piano literature through these works as Beethoven was through his own early piano sonatas, opp. 2 and 10. The Eight Pieces, op. 76, of 1878 heralded a new stage in Brahms’s piano style. With this set, Brahms discovered a genre in ert Progr ert which he would continue to feel at home throughout the rest of his career: compact, self-sustaining miniatures, devoid of thematic con- c nection from one to the next. The remainder of his solo piano offerings

comprises similar sets to the Opus 76 pieces. The autumnal Six on

Pieces, op. 118, illustrate the character of all these later works: subtle, c yet immediately emotive, and each with its own distinct personality. The Six Pieces encompass a wide spectrum of emotions, from the fist-shaking opening to the morose finale in e-flat minor. The musi- cologist Michael Steinberg has written of these pieces: “Here, in these late musings of a keyboard master who had discovered how to speak volumes with the sparest of gestures, we find the essence of Brahms.” Composed in the summer of 1893, Opuses 118 and 119 were sent as gifts to Clara Schumann immediately upon their completion. Brahms biographer Jan Swafford has surmised, “[H]e may have composed the pieces to try and keep Clara Schumann going in body and soul. Since she could only play a few minutes at a time now, and because she loved these miniatures so deeply, maybe they did keep her alive.” Swafford also suggests that the young pianist Ilona Eibenschütz, whose exquisite pianism and feminine charms enchanted the composer equally, may have inspired the genesis of these lyrical, heartfelt utterances. (Eibenschütz premiered Opuses 118 and 119 in London in 1894 and recorded a number of Brahms’s late piano pieces.) —Patrick Castillo