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BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS Sunday, January 12, 1992, at 3 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 Leone Buyse, flute Ronald Barron, trombone Alfred Genovese, oboe 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 violins, two violas, and two cellos, 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 chamber music 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 Weimar, 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 operas; these were attempts to bring Wagnerian techniques into a traditional number opera (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 Richard Strauss'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 Alban Berg (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.

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