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Boston Symphony Orchestra Boston Symphony Orchestra BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA UP.&Ili Ozawa,(haws, Musk Director Carl St. Clair and Pascal Verret, Assistant Conductors One Hundred and Sixth Season, 1986-87 SUPPER CONCERT I Thursday, 9 October at 6 Saturday, 11 October at 6 AMNON LEVY, violin BERNARD KADINOFF, viola JOEL MOERSOHEL, cello LAWRENCE WOLFE, double bass PETER HADCOCK, clarinet MATTHEW RUGGIERO, bassoon RICHARD SEBRINO, horn BEETHOVEN Duo in E-flat for viola and cello, Wo0 32 BEETHOVEN Septet in E-flat for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and double bass, Opus 20 Adagio—Allegro con brio Adagio cantabile Tempo di minuetto Tema con variazioni: Andante Scherzo: Allegro molto e vivace Andante eon mote alla marcia—Presto Baldwin piano Please exit to your left for supper following the concert. The performers appreciate your not smoking during the concert. Week 2 Ludwig van Beethoven Duo in E-flat for viola and cello, WoO 32 Septet in E-flat, Opus 20 The British Library in London contains a large manuscript of Beethoven sketches bought from one J.N. Kafka in 1875 and therefore known as the Kafka manuscript. It contains sketches that Beethoven made over the extended period from 1784 to 1800, and it includes a complete movement in sonata form for the unusual instru- mental duo of viola and cello. Beethoven labeled it a duo for two players "with eyeglasses obbligato," from which it has received the nickname the "Eyeglasses Duo." This may have been the beginning of a full-scale three-movement sonata for viola and cello that was never finished. In any case, the movement that exists would certainly have been the first movement of such a sonata. It was most likely written for Baron Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, an important early supporter of the young Beethoven. Zmeskall was eleven years older than Beethoven, an intimate of the best Viennese society, and a reasonably proficient cellist. In one of his often humorous letters, Beethoven refers to the baron's weak eyesight; this suggests that the "Eyeglasses Duo" was intended for him to play on the cello, wearing his glasses, of course. Since Beethoven was a violist who used glasses for reading, he was very likely the other player intended for this charming, private gift. (So far as I know, no musicologist has ever debated the authenticity of a performance by string players who do not wear glasses!) Beethoven composed his Septet between the summer of 1799 and March 1800. Following a private unveiling at the home of Prince Schwarzenburg, it was given publicly in Vienna on 2 April 1800—Beethoven's first concert in Vienna given under his own auspices. This concert, which also included the premiere of the First Symphony, was one of the greatest successes Beethoven ever enjoyed. In December Beethoven wrote to the publisher Hoffmeister to offer him, among other things, the First Symphony and the Septet, which, he assured the publisher, "has been very popular." In fact, the Septet was endlessly arranged for other instruments from wind band to guitar duet (the arrangers included musicians as eminent as Hummel and Czerny). Its lasting popularity may be gauged from the fact that at the auction of Beethoven's effects after his death, the manuscript of the Septet fetched 18 florins as against the 7 florins bid for the Missa solemnis. The Septet has an unusual and attractive instrumentation: violin, viola, cello, bass, clarinet, bassoon, and horn. The size of the ensemble risks the work's being turned into a miniature symphony, but Beethoven keeps the chamber music atmos- phere with kaleidoscopic regroupings of the instruments, giving each a chance to shine. (Even the horn, which was then still a valveless instrument limited in the pitches it could play easily, gets special treatment with thematic ideas designed especially to show off its strengths.) The six-movement layout recalls the leisurely structure of eighteenth-century serenades and divertimentos, though the energy of the Septet is typically Beethovenian for all its grace. (If the serenade genre was reactionary, Beethoven's Septet was nonetheless not the last example of the type; in 1824 Schubert wrote his delightful Octet, modeled directly on Beethoven's Opus 20 with the addition of a second violin.) The Adagio introduction, a gracefully extended dominant pedal, leads to a fiery movement of great energy in Beethoven's most characteristic tempo marking, Alle- gro con brio. The beautiful Andante cantabile has a melody of bel canto lyricism, and Beethoven gives each instrument a chance to sing its song. The minuet theme is a self-borrowing, taken from an easy piano sonata that Beethoven composed about 1796 (he was later persuaded to publish it in 1805 with the misleadingly high designation of Opus 49, No. 2). Scholars have attempted to trace the folklike tune used for the variations in the fourth movement. It was published in 1838, apparently as a folk song, with the text, "Ach Schiffer, lieber Schiffer," but there is no evidence that the tune predates the Septet. The lively scherzo is a companion piece to the third movement of the First Symphony, but in the symphony Beethoven still fol- lowed the convention of calling it a minuet. In both cases the verve of the music takes it far out of the sphere of the courtly dance. The final movement reveals Beethoven's indebtedness to Muzio Clementi, from whose E-flat piano sonata, Opus 23, No. 3 (composed not later than 1789), he adapted the theme for the Presto. Beethoven's version, though, is much faster and livelier; it whirls the Septet to a brilliant conclusion. —Steven Ledbetter Amnon Levy Amnon Levy's musical career began in Tel to the first violin section. He was soloist Aviv, where he was born. After hearing him with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops play, Jascha Heifetz urged his teachers to on several occasions, performing concertos send him to America for further study, and of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and William Wal- he continued his training at the Juilliard ton. While a solo artist with orchestras in School and the Curtis School of Music. Israel he played for the Israeli Army, and Mr. Levy joined the second violins of the he has also been soloist with orchestras Boston Symphony in 1964, moving in 1972 throughout this country and in Mexico. Bernard Kadinoff BSO violist Bernard Kadinoff plays a Tes- Emanuel Vardi, Nicholas Moldavan, and tore viola which was owned previously by Milton Katims. A former Wellesley College the eminent British violist Lionel Tertis. faculty member, Mr. Kadinoff currently Before becoming a member of the Boston teaches viola and chamber music at Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1951, he was a University and at the Boston University member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra Tanglewood Institute. He has made record- under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. ings of contemporary music for Deutsche Born in New York City, Mr. Kadinoff began Grammophon, and he has taken part in the violin lessons when he was six, switching to Fairbanks Music Festival in Alaska. His viola in his late teens. He was educated at frequent solo and recital performances have the City College of New York and the included a concerto appearance with the Juilliard School; his teachers included Boston Pops under Erich Kunzel. Joel Moerschel Cellist Joel Moerschel was born in Oak the Eastman Philharmonic and a member Park, Illinois, and began his cello studies of the Corning Philharmonic and the at the Chicago Musical College, where his Rochester Philharmonic, as well as cellist teacher was Karl Fruh. He was principal for Musics Nova and the Eastman Honors cellist with the Chicago Civic Symphony String Quartet. Mr. Moerschel is currently and performed as soloist with the Oak Park a member of the contemporary music Symphony and the Michigan City Sym- ensemble Collage. A member of the Boston phony. Mr. Moerschel earned a bachelor's Symphony Orchestra since 1970, he has degree and performer'S certificate at the performed extensively as a recitalist and Eastman School of Music, where he was a chamber musician in Boston, New York, student of Ronald Leonard. Before coming and the midwest. to Boston, he was principal cellist of Lawrence Wolfe Lawrence Wolfe is a native of Boston and a appearances throughout the northeast have graduate of the New England Conservatory included Carnegie Hall and Jordan Hall. of Music, where he studied double bass with He has appeared as performer and conduc- Leslie Martin and Gary Karr. As a student tor with the contemporary music ensemble at the Tanglewood Music Center, he was Collage, and he is conductor of the Boston awarded the Albert Spaulding Prize for the Radio Orchestra. Mr. Wolfe's record, "Law- most promising instrumentalist. When he rence Wolfe, Double Bass," on Titanic joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in records, led to his appointment as a judge 1970, he was its youngest member; in 1981 at the 1982 International Double Bass he was appointed assistant principal bass Competition on the Isle of Man in England. of the BSO and principal bass of the Boston He is currently on the faculties of Boston Pops. Mr. Wolfe has performed as soloist University and the New England with both the BSO and Pops, and his recital Conservatory. Peter Hadcock Peter Hadcock is E-flat clarinetist and Music in Connecticut. Currently on the fac- assistant principal clarinetist of the Boston ulties of the New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, which he joined in and the Tanglewood Music Center, he was 1965. Mr. Hadcock holds a bachelor's visiting professor of clarinet at Eastman in degree and performer's certificate from the the spring of 1982. Mr. Hadcock has edited Eastman School of Music.
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