BOSTON CHAMBER PLAYERS Sunday, January 12, 1992, at 3 p.m. at Jordan Hall

BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS Malcolm Lowe, Harold Wright, Burton Fine, Richard Svoboda, Jules Eskin, Charles Kavalovski, horn Edwin Barker, Charles Schlueter, Leone Buyse, flute Ronald Barron, Alfred Genovese, Everett Firth, percussion with GILBERT KALISH, piano LAURA PARK, vioiin ROBERT BARNES, viola MARTHA BABCOCK, cello

BEETHOVEN Quintet in E-flat for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn. Opus 16 Grave—Allegro, ma non troppo Andante cantabile Rondo. Allegro ma non troppo

Messrs. KALISH, GENOVESE, WRIGHT, SVOBODA, and KAVALOVSKI

KLUGHARDT Schilflieder ("Songs of the Reeds"), Five Fantasy Pieces for piano, oboe, and viola, Opus 28 Slow, dreamy Passionately excited Tender, with calm movement Fiery Very calm

Messrs. KALISH, GENOVESE, and FINE

INTERMISSION

BRAHMS Sextet in G for two , two , and two , Opus 36 Allegro non troppo Scherzo: Allegro non troppo;

Presto giocoso; Tempo I Poco Adagio Poco Allegro

Mr. LOWE and Ms. PARK, Messrs. FINE and BARNES, Mr. ESKIN and Ms. BABCOCK

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

This concert is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. —

Ludwig van Beethoven Quintet in E-flat for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, Opus 16

During Beethoven's first years in Vienna he wrote several chamber works involving wind instruments, not all of which have survived complete. After about 1800 his output was restricted to ensembles of stringed instruments, with or without piano.

One of the most successful of his early chamber pieces is the Opus 16 quintet for piano and winds, in which the choice of instruments, key, and arrangement of movements all point to Beethoven's inspiration in Mozart's masterful quintet for the same forces (K.452). Certain elements of Mozart's ground plan may be discerned, but with a composer of

Beethoven's imagination the influence of an older composer always takes the form of a call to new creation, not plagiarism.

The quintet seems to have been composed in late 1796 or early 1797 and achieved its first performance as one of two Beethoven works included in a concert presented by the violinist Schuppanzigh on April 6, 1797. (A special performance of the quintet took place some years after its composition, apparently in the of Prince Lobkowitz the home on same j evening that the newly composed Eroica Symphony had its first semi-public hearing.) The piano part, no doubt created for Beethoven's own use, is brilliant and elaborate, even to including concerto-like cadenzas; the fact that the clarinet tends to lead the winds virtually throughout has prompted the suggestion that Beethoven may have planned the work for Joseph Beer, the earliest important clarinet virtuoso, for whom it is believed that

Beethoven also wrote his trio, Opus 1 1, for piano, clarinet, and cello the following year.

August Klughardt

Schilflieder ("Songs of the Reeds"), Five Fantasy Pieces for piano, oboe, and viola, Opus 28

August Klughardt (1847-1902) is one of many now nearly forgotten masters of the nineteenth century whose lives provide the anonymous background for the careers of Liszt,

Brahms, or any of the other masters whose music still fills our concerts. Klughardt studied in Dresden and spent most of his life as a musical director in one theater or another

Posen, Neustrelitz, Liibeck, and then to , where he was friendly with Liszt. After a few years in Weimar he returned to Neustrelitz; finally, in 1882, he became the Court

Kapellmeister in Dessau. As a theater conductor, it is only natural that Klughardt would write ; these were attempts to bring Wagnerian techniques into a traditional number (Klughardt had met Wagner at the premiere of Liszt's oratorio Christus in 1873 and later dedicated his symphony Lenore to him). He enjoyed greater success with his concertos for cello (1894) and violin (1895). His oratorios, including Judith and The Destruction ofJerusalem, were regarded at the turn of the century as classics. The Joachim Quartet played some of his chamber works. But there are few people alive who have heard any of this music.

It is ironic that this worthy but long-forgotten composer should be remembered today largely on the strength of a single chamber work, and even that has perhaps been remembered more for its unusual scoring—oboe, viola, and piano—than for any other reason. Between Mozart's time and today there are few works for this combination—small examples by Schumann, Bruch, and Hindemith come to mind, as well as the Two Rhapsodies of the Bostonian (and former associate concertmaster of the BSO) Charles

Martin Loeffler. Klughardt's Schilflieder ("Songs of the Reeds") was composed during his stay in Weimar and was published in 1873.

Klughardt's piece fascinates not only for its special sonority and for the elaborate piano part (possibly a reflection of the work's dedication to Liszt), but especially for its poetic conception. The composition is based on a series of poems by Nikolaus Lenau, the poet of poignant expressions of autumnal despair best-known to music lovers for having written the dramatic fragment that inspired 's Don Juan. But the Schilflieder are neither songs with chamber accompaniment nor generalized "tone-poems" inspired by the essential mood of each text. Rather they are "settings" of the poems for instruments alone— literally "songs without words." One of the poems in particular, "Auf geheimen Waldespfade" (No. 3), has attracted the attention of such composers as (in his Seven Early Songs) and the American Charles Tomlinson Griffes. Klughardt has written

Lenau's texts into the score, but simply, it appears, to draw the performers' attention to the evocative source of his inspiration. For that reason, although they are not actually heard in the performance, the texts are given here (in English translation) to help trace the affective arch of the work, from the weary calm of the opening through a mournful sadness to a frenzied outburst, finally sinking back to a welcome repose.

1

Yonder the sun departs and the weary day falls to slumber; here the willows hang down into the pond, so silent, so deep.

And I must shun my beloved: well forth, o tear! Sadly the willows murmur here and the reed trembles in the wind. In my silent, deep sorrow you shine, o far places! Bright and mild, as here,

through the rushes and the willows, shines the image of the evening star.

It becomes overcast, the clouds drive on and the rain breaks forth and the

loud winds moan: "Pond, where is your starry light?" They seek the extinguished gleam deep in the troubled lake. Your love never smiles down on my deep woe!

By a secret forest path I like to steal at dusk to the deserted bank of reeds, maiden, and think of you.

When the bushes grow dark, the reeds rustle mysteriously, and there is such

lamenting and whispering that I have to weep, weep.

And I think I hear, softly blowing, the sound of your voice, and your sweet song sinking in the pond.

Sunset; black clouds pass by, o, how oppressively and fearfully all the winds flee! Through the wild sky pale lightning bolts hunt; their transitory image wanders through the pond.

How weather-clear I think I see you and your long hair blowing free in the storm!

On the pond, motionless, the moon's fair splendor rests, weaving her pale roses amid the reeds' green garland.

Deer wander there on the hill, look up into the night; often the waterfowl

stir dreamily deep in the reeds.

Weeping, I must drop my gaze; through my inmost soul goes a sweet thought of you, like a silent nocturnal prayer!

—English translations by S.L. ' : •' § . a ,: fmmsSMBamH

Johannes Brahms Sextet in G for two violins, two violas, and two cellos, Opus 36

The favorable reception given his B-flat sextet, Opus 18, emboldened Brahms to compose

another work for the same medium. He composed it in 1864 and 1865, apparently in the

strictest privacy; no surviving letters to friends or confidantes discuss its progress. But

there is one musical reference to Agathe von Siebold, a Gottingen professor's daughter with whom Brahms fell in love in the summer of 1858. Agathe inspired a number of deeply felt compositions, including three sets of Lieder in folksong style. Their relationship

had ended by the time he composed the G major sextet but it is recalled in the first

movement, where Brahms "writes" Agathe's name in musical pitches (omitting the "t" and

using B-natural for "h," according to German terminology); it was by no means the first time that Brahms had turned her name to musical notation—a trick he surely learned from Schumann. The melodic figure A-G-A-H-E appears three times in a row in the first violin

in the second theme group o{ the first movement. Its prominent position and its urgent

repetition might suggest all sorts of interpretations to romantic listeners (sigh of despair? an abrupt farewell? a plea to return?), but we have no evidence that Brahms intended this or any other message. The earlier sextet was relatively dense in texture; in between the two Brahms had composed, among other things, the F minor quintet originally planned for strings, then

rewritten for two pianos, and finally put into its definitive form for piano and string

quartet. This had been positively symphonic in its aspirations and seriousness of purpose.

The G major sextet is, by comparison, a lyrical reaction. Though no less elaborate in its

thematic working-out, it has an ethereally songful character that makes it one of the most

lovable works of a composer to whom that adjective is rarely applied.

Over a murmur in the first viola and sustained notes in the other upper strings, the first

violin offers a broad melody whose first four notes consist of a rising fifth, a semitone step

outward, and another rising fifth. Much of the thematic material in all four movements can be traced from this figure: pairs of fifths (or their inversion, fourths) separated by a

step. The second thematic group begins with a leisurely, songful waltz melody, but it builds

passionately to its climax in the A-G-A-H-E motif. The development is a contrapuntal

tour de force, with the opening theme (violin 1, later cello 1) imitated in inversion (viola

1, later cello 2). Eventually Brahms reaches the distant key of C-sharp minor, where the bulk of the development takes place before an extended series of elaborate sequences drives the material around to the tonic and the recapitulation.

The second movement is a scherzo, not in the standard triple meter, but in a moderately

paced 2/4, lightly scored (Donald Francis Tovey regards its character as "elfin"). The Trio

is strikingly contrasted, with 3/4 meter and a Presto giocoso tempo marking. Following the

slow movement (a set of variations in E minor), the finale is turbulent in motion, blending elements of rondo and sonata form, and providing a rare example in Brahms of a beginning

that is not firmly in the home key but, rather, is on the way there from somewhere else.

—Notes by Steven Ledbetter

Coming Concert..,

Sunday, March 1, 1992, at 3:00 HAYDN Trio in G for flute, violin, and cello, Opus 100, No. 4 MOZART Quartet in E-flat for piano, violin, viola, and cello, K.493 KIRCHNER Trio for violin, cello, and piano STRAVINSKY L'Histoire du soldat, concert suite