PREVIEW NOTES

Trio Cavatina with Samuel Rhodes, Sunday, October 20 – 3:00 PM Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center

Program Quartet No. 2 in E‐flat Major, K. 493 solos and duos within the trio setting. The second movement begins with simple material: tense, creeping Born: January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria music for the strings alternating with more open Died: December 5, 1791 in , Austria material for the piano. All three instruments join for a Composed: 1786 slow interplay, clearing the way for a short, agitated Last PCMS performance: piano cadenza about two‐thirds of the way through. The Members of the Miro Quartet with Shai Wosner, 2011 music then toughens and grows in nervous anger, Duration: 32 minutes ending with a sharp, decisive piano chord and pizzicato double and triple stops in the strings. Commissioned by Franz Anton Hoffmeister, the Piano Quartet in E‐flat Major was originally intended to be the Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 60 second of three piano quartets by Mozart. Due to its Johnannes Brahms considerable complexity, sales of Piano Quartet No. 1 Born: May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany were so poor that Hoffmeister abandoned the other two Died: April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria commissions. Contrasting sections of soloistic and Composed: 1855‐75 chamber writing, the work features an incredible Last PCMS performance: amount of interplay between the piano and strings. The Musicians from Marlboro, 2009 light and playful first movement is followed by a tender Duration: 32 minutes second movement. This second movement contains a compassionate dialog between the members of the A letter from Brahms, sent with the manuscript to ensemble, and the piece concludes with a feverish Theodor Billroth, includes the following mysterious rondo full of interplay within the ensemble. comment about this piece: "The quartet has communicated itself to me only in the strangest ways... Piano Trio No. 1 For instance, the illustration to the last chapter of the Leon Kirchner man in the blue frock and yellow waistcoat." This refers, Born: December 24, 1919 in Brooklyn, New York somewhat obliquely, to Goethe's Sorrows of Young Died: September 17, 2009 in New York, New York Werther, which Brahms greatly admired. The work, after Composed: 1954 going through three revisions, reflects the turbulent and Last PCMS performance: Music of our Time, 2006 vacillating self‐doubts that Brahms felt so deeply. Duration: 15 minutes Smaller, more darkly oppressive movements than the first of Op. 60 do not exist anywhere else in Brahms' The prominent American Leon Kirchner wrote chamber output, while the andante in E Major is his first Piano Trio in honor of the 50th anniversary of the considered one of the most beautiful. Above all, Coleman Chamber Series in Pasadena, California. A however, the work fully deserves its Goethe student of Arnold Schoenberg, Kirchner is known for his connections, for neither Brahms nor Werther enjoyed a irregular rhythms and highly chromatic music. The first contented course en route to their respective destinies. of two movements is described as “perpetual variation Brahms remained deeply dissatisfied with the work, and on certain motive and harmonic fragments, in a sort of wrote to his publisher Fritz Simrock: "You may attach a ‘stream‐of‐consciousness’ unfolding.” Very scattered in picture on the title page, i.e. a head with the pistol thematic material; it pits the stings against the piano in before it" as yet another homage to Werther. consistent variation, with one measure dictating the next. The scoring is colorful and rewarding, with sizable