BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS

Sunday, October 29, at 3:00 p.m. at Jordan Hall

BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS Malcolm Lowe, violin Harold Wright, clarinet Burton Fine, viola Richard Svoboda, bassoon Jules Eskin, cello Charles Kavalovski, horn Edwin Barker, double bass Charles Schlueter, trumpet Doriot Anthony Dwyer, flute Ronald Barron, trombone Alfred Genovese, oboe Everett Firth, percussion with GILBERT KALISH, piano LAURENCE THORSTENBERG, English horn MAX HOBART, violin MICHAEL ZARETSKY, viola

C.P.E. BACH Quartet in A minor for piano, flute, viola, and cello, Wq 93 Andantino Largo e sostenuto Allegro assai Mr. KALISH; Ms. DWYER; Messrs. FINE and ESKIN

PERLE Sextet for Piano and Winds (1988) Allegro Allegretto Andante tranquillo Allegro Mr. KALISH; Ms. DWYER; Messrs. GENOVESE, THORSTENBERG, WRIGHT, SVOBODA, and KAVALOVSKI INTERMISSION

BART6K Contrasts, for violin, clarinet, and piano Verbunkos (Recruiting Dance): Moderato, ben ritmato Pineho (Relaxation): Lento Sebes (Fast Dance): Allegro vivace Messrs. LOWE, WRIGHT, and KALISH

BRAHMS String Quintet No. 1 in F, Opus 88 Allegro non troppo ma con brio Grave ed appassionato — Allegretto vivace — Tempo primo — Presto Allegro energico Messrs. LOWE, HOBART, FINE, ZARETSKY, and ESKIN

Baldwin piano Nonesuch, DG, RCA, and New World records .

C.P.E. Bach Quartet in A minor, Wq 93, for flute, viola, cello, and piano

Of all the talented offspring of Johann Sebastian Bach, the second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, was perhaps the most gifted, certainly the most imaginative. He attended the University of Leipzig, recognizing that a full liberal education was an essential part of a musician's training, especially in an age that regarded the average musician as an ignorant servant. Emanuel enjoyed the company of literary people and earned a

reputation as a wit throughout his life. Soon after his graduation, he was called into the employment of the crown prince of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, whom he served for three decades. Yet in all that time, the conservative king never truly appreciated Emanuel's musical importance or musicianship. Yet during those years Emanuel became the most famous keyboard player and teacher in Europe, partly through the publication of his book Essay on the True Manner of Playing the Clavier (1753). In 1767 he was named to fill the position vacated by the death of Telemann and moved from Berlin to Hamburg, remaining there until his death some twenty years later. There he was suddenly heavily involved in church music as well as many civic events that required music.

Emanuel Bach received his first tutelage from his father, and naturally his early music reflected the Baroque style in which he grew up. But over his large output of solo keyboard music — numbering some four hundred pieces — he passed far beyond the singleminded motivic character of the inherited tradition, creating music of abrupt changes and departures, a wholly new kind of expression on the keyboard. He

Coming Concerts . .

Sunday, February 18, 1990, at 3:00 with DAWN UPSHAW, soprano

Debussy Sonata No. 2, for flute, viola, and harp Stravinsky Three Japanese Lyrics Two Poems of Konstantin Balmont Ravel Three Poems of Stephane Mallarme Falla Psyche

Ravel Introduction and Allegro for harp, string quartet, flute, and clarinet

Sunday, March 25, 1990, at 3:00 Mozart Quartet in D for flute and strings, K.285 Lerdahl Waltzes, for violin, viola, cello, and double bass

Volkmann Trio in B-flat for violin, cello, and piano, Op. 6 Mozart Quintet in E-flat for piano and winds, K.452

Tickets at $15, $11.50, and $8.50 are available at the Symphony Hall box office, or by calling Symphony-Charge at (617) 266-1200.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, and o{ the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, a state agency. individual composed in the larger forms too — quantities of chamber music, concertos, and personalities a stimulating source of textural and coloristic possibilities. When symphonies, and many choral works. Charles Wadsworth, as part of a project to enlarge the repertory of unreasonably neglected chamber music ensembles, invited me to compose a work for wind quintet is one of a group of three written in 1788, the The quartet to be performed here plus piano, my secret, unspoken thought was that I would rather compose a fifth wind last year of Emanuel's life. They were not published at the time and were presumed quintet, without the piano. The piano is not a mere sixth instrument in such an ensem- lost until manuscript copies turned up in 1929. The manuscript score is laid out for ble. Phrase proportions are in no way limited by the pianist's breathing requirements; three instruments only — flute, viola, and keyboard — but it is clear that Bach assumed he can play twice as many notes at a time as all the other instruments combined, and the presence of a cello doubling the bottom line of the piano part. Early composi- his range exceeds their total compass by about an octave at either end. There is one instruments, keyboard, and cello would have been tions calling for two melody thing they can all do that he cannot, which is to increase the volume of a sustained filling in a called "trio sonatas," since the keyboard only improvised a harmonic note. How do you keep such an ensemble from turning into a quasi piano concerto, three-part texture dominated by the two melody instruments on top, and the cello with the five winds taking the place of the orchestra? However, Charles' enthusiasm for on the bottom. The piano in these last C.P.E. Bach quartets, though, has completely this project induced me to keep my reservations to myself, and — as always seems to

broken away from the continuo tradition of the Baroque and plays its own very indi- happen in such instances — once I began to work on it, my apprehensions and reserva-

vidual role. With these last works, Emanuel Bach marks the end of a long musical tions became a challenging source of ideas, and the composing of it turned out to be an career that took him from the high Baroque to the full Classical chamber music exceptionally enjoyable experience.

style. Whether or not the phrases themselves are "classically proportioned," the four move- ments seem to be. The outer movements are in the same tempo, allegro, and intimately

related in other ways as well. The second movement is a rather quiet and sober George Perle scherzo. The slow third movement is a set of variations on a theme from my recent Sextet for Piano and Winds (1988) Sinfonietta for chamber orchestra. The last movement begins with and makes much use of a striking figure in the piano that had made a single brief appearance in the closing George Perle (b.1915) is one of our most honored composers. Three times section of the first movement, and eventually that same figure brings back the same composer-in-residence at the Tanglewood Music Center, he received almost simulta- closing section, to which a few cadential bars are added to bring the work as a whole to neously in 1986 the Pulitzer Prize in composition and a MacArthur Fellowship. a conclusion. Without question he has arrived at the level of a senior master among American The Sextet for Piano and Winds is dedicated to and "Pick" Heller, in apprecia- composers. All his life he has confronted directly the basic problem of twentieth- "Red" tion for "your work," which I've always seen perhaps from a selfish point of view as century music: how to bring order out of the chaotic welter of harmonic possibilities — one who has benefitted from it so often — as bound up with the most creative aspects of available to a composer today, and how to use the expanded language to achieve the the musical community here in New York in a way that has enriched us all; as giving, kind of expressiveness that music has always aimed at. Perle has attacked the prob- for example, me and other composers your encouragement and support, not only lem both in his compositions and in some of the most illuminating analyses of through the financial assistance you regularly give to the organizations that perform and twentieth-century music ever written, analyses that have in turn opened up ideas to sponsor our work, but more importantly, by always being there, always being inter- be pursued in new compositions. A youthful chance encounter with the score of ested, always making us feel that what we are doing is important. This is something Alban Berg's Lyric Suite changed the young composer's life, for it revealed some that has been part of the scene for me throughout the twenty-seven years that I've been clues to a consistent treatment of chromatic harmony in a way that could be more living in New York, and I've never said "thank you" before, so I'll say it now. broadly applied than was recognized by either the disciples or the opponents of Berg's teacher Arnold Schoenberg. Perle demonstrated that Berg's music had an intellectual consistency of a very high order, even as it moved many listeners gener- Bela Bartok ally unsympathetic to twelve-tone techniques. Ideas learned from these studies clarinet, formed the basis of his own composition. Contrasts, for violin, and piano

In recent years, Perle's output of creative work has increased remarkably. It is as if With one exception, all of Bartok' s chamber music is for stringed instruments, with he has fully absorbed all the lessons of his lifelong study and composition into a new or without the addition of a piano. Only once did he turn to a wind instrument, and synthesis, with musical ideas flowing more freely than ever before. He is Professor that was occasioned by a commission from Benny Goodman and Joseph Szigeti, to Emeritus at the City University of New York (Queens College). Last year he was whom Contrasts is dedicated. Bartok completed the work in Budapest on September the Ernest Bloch Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley (the lectures 24, 1938, after having heard some records of the Benny Goodman band that Szigeti that he gave there, dealing with issues in the understanding and analysis of contem- sent him. Far from trying to blend the three very different types of instruments into

porary music, will be published by the University of California Press), and he is cur- a single complex sonority, Bartok exploits the difference in sound production as rently composer-in-residence of the San Francisco Symphony. much as possible (as the very title of the work suggests). He had long since become a past master of violin effects — multiple stops, bowed and pizzicato notes played The composer has provided the following commentary on his piece: simultaneously, glissandi, and so on; now he investigates the possibilities of the clari- According to the author of the liner notes to a recent recording of four wind my net as well, while keeping the piano part (conceived for himself) modestly in the quintets, "apparently, except for the German Tilo Medek, no one else has written so background. many of them since the early nineteenth century." Kyle Gann goes on to suggest that the to have a two-movement medium "seems well suited to Perle's language; the instruments' varied colors clar- The original plan, according to Goodman's wish, was that he ify his stratified harmonies, their staccato attacks nicely articulate his tempo structures, work that would fit on a single twelve-inch 78-rpm record, but Bartok found and their breathing requirements fit his classically proportioned phrases." Whatever the needed greater scope for the working out of his material, and the planned two move- reasons, I find the radically different timbres of the five instruments and their strikingly ments became three with the addition of the slow middle movement. The music is nally conceived — exercise in imitating the strongly nationalistic, possibly Bartok's musical response to the unchecked advance of the melody as a Sarabande for piano an Nazism. The Verbunkos, or recruiting dance, was a musical genre employed to Baroque style — in 1855, nearly thirty years before it found its final home in this encourage enlistments in the Hungarian army in the late eighteenth and early nine- quintet. A contrasting section, Allegretto vivace, 6/8 time, presents a full binary state- fully teenth centuries; thereafter it remained as a characteristically Hungarian musical ment in A major before it in turn dies away and returns to a more scored treat- genre featuring sharply dotted rhythms in a slow march tempo with ornamental ment of the C-sharp minor material. As it fades away again, the A major material turns, runs, and arpeggios decorating the melodic lines. In its fully developed histori- returns as a variation of itself, Presto. Again it dies away, but this time the original cal form, the Verbunkos began with a slow section (lassu) followed by or alternating material returns also in A major! An extended coda moves to C-sharp, but the with a wild fast one (friss), and, indeed, the original two-movement plan of Contrasts A major chord keeps interfering, reasserting itself through a D chord, which has a was designed to reflect this format. relationship to both. Finally, against all expectation, the mediating chord engineers a magical cadence to A major with the first violin floating aloft. The Verbunkos ends with a clarinet cadenza that leads on to the languid slow movement, in which piano and clarinet begin by mirroring one another, while the The surprising final chord of the middle movement has a unifying role to play: it piano contributes soft percussive tremolos inspired by Balinese gamelan music. The recalls the importance of the key of A major in the first movement and foreshadows fast dance, Sebes, begins with a short passage on a scordatura violin (with the E-string the major role the same key will play in the finale, which also brings in the secon- tuned to E-flat and the G-string to G-sharp), following which the violin is directed dary material in A and indulges in games of two-versus-three. The finale combines to return to a second, normally tuned instrument. This is the only example of fugal and sonata elements into a vigorous workout for all concerned. scordatura in Bartok's entire output. The outer sections of the dance are in a lively — Notes by Steven Ledbetter 2/4 meter, but the extended middle section uses what is often called "Bulgarian rhythm," which Bartok learned in his folk music studies: (8 + 5)/8, or more properly (3 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 3)/8. When the original 2/4 returns, the dance gets wilder and wilder (with just a few momentarily tranquil passages and a cadenza for the violin) before reaching its brilliant conclusion.

Johannes Brahms String Quintet No. 1 in F, Opus

The earliest chamber music that Brahms wrote for stringed instruments — at least the earliest that he published — was a sextet for two each of violins, violas, and cellos. He seemed to revel in the luxury of six parts, and he apparently took special pleasure in the fact that for once he did not have to sense the footsteps of giants behind him — Beethoven never wrote a string sextet. He also attempted a string quintet — one with two cellos, on the model of Schubert's great C major essay in the medium — but the work proved refractory, and after repeatedly recasting it, he finally published it in two very different versions — as a piano quintet and as a two-piano work. Soon after that he composed his second (and last) string sextet. In between that Opus 36 sextet and the F major quintet of Opus 88, he had composed his three string quartets, Opus 51, works in which he seemed often to be struggling to contain the range and As a prelude to a BSO concert, or as an occasion in scope of his ideas within the more restricted medium of four instruments. itself, these suppers provide an opportunity to enjoy Brahms's early experience of larger-than-four string ensembles seems evident dinner with old triends or when hear meet new ones who share we the opening bars of the Opus 88 quintet (composed at Ischl during the your love ot music. summer of 1882), the first phrases of which hint at a new lyricism, as if the less constrained medium has allowed the composer to unbutton a bit. At the same time the quintet is extraordinarily terse for all its wealth of material. Now using two vio- SUPPER CONCERTS las rather than SUPPER TALKS the two cellos of his earlier abortive attempt, Brahms creates lavishly varied textures even The evening begins at 6:00 with between one phrase and the next (this is especially true in the pm Supper begins at 6:30 pm A major secondary of material of the first movement, where, in addition to indulging in members the BSO performing followed by a talk given by his predilection for two-versus-three in rhythmic patterns, he also changes the char- chamber music and concludes an orchestra member or a acter of the accompaniment every four bars). And what seemed, at the outset, charm- with supper immediately following. distinguished guest. ing and almost folklike, comes back at the recapitulation fiery and sonorous. For further information on the supper concerts The extraordinary and talks, please call the Volunteer middle movement - combining elements of the traditional slow Office, (617) 266-1492. Reservations may be placed, at least 48 hours prior to the event, movement and scherzo -is one of the composer's most daring achievements. using VISA, MasterCard, The or American Express. The price of a single supper is $21.00 opening section, Grave ed appassionato, is in C-sharp minor, a pensive strain (made more so by seeming to begin in the major) closing in bleak emptiness. Brahms origi-