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BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS Sunday, October 26, 1997, at 3 p.m. at Jordan Hall

BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS Malcolm Lowe, violin William R. Hudgins, clarinet Steven Ansell, viola Richard Svoboda, bassoon Jules Eskin, cello Charles Schlueter, trumpet Edwin Barker, double bass Ronald Barron, trombone Jacques Zoon, flute Everett Firth, percussion Alfred Genovese, oboe with GILBERT KALISH, piano MARYLOU SPEAKER CHURCHILL, violin RICHARD SEBRING, horn

HAYDN Trio in A for piano, violin, and cello, Hob. XV: 18

Allegro moderato Andante Allegro

BRITTEN Phantasy for oboe, violin, viola, and cello, Opus 2

Andante alia marcia—Allegro giusto Molto piu lento—Molto piu presto Tempo 1° Andante alia marcia

INTERMISSION

SCHUBERT Octet in F, D.803, for clarinet, horn, bassoon, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass

Adagio—Allegro Adagio Allegro vivace; Trio Andante Menuetto: Allegretto; Trio Andante molto—Allegro

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

Joseph Haydn Trio in A for piano, violin, and cello, Hob. XV: 18

This trio is the first in a group of three that were published in England while Haydn was there on his second visit in 1794. All three of the works show that Haydn (not himself a virtuoso keyboard performer and never drawn to keyboard display for its own sake) had been learning from the keyboard technique of Mozart and from the new virtuosity of Dussek and Clementi. Here as nowhere before, Haydn exploited the most up-to-date keyboard possibilities.

In the opening of the present trio, for example, Haydn particularly cultivates a smooth legato technique which the improved pianos made possible. Three strong chords estab- lish the key and set up the context of what sounds like a sweetly bland opening; but Haydn uses this as a springboard for a daring and wide-ranging development with a strongly contrapuntal cast to it. The 6/8 Andante alternates material in A minor for the beginning and ending (richly elaborated at ) with a lyrical contrast in the major for the middle section. The movement seems poised at its end for another set of elaborate thematic figurations when it jumps straight into the finale. (Haydn did this rather often in his chamber music, though never in his symphonies, for audiences in his day liked to applaud between movements.) The theme has Hungarian (or "gypsy") elements that no doubt sounded wonderfully exotic to the London audience that first heard the piece. This movement was so popular that it quickly appeared in an arrange- ment for solo piano, and Haydn himself surpassed the trick with his even more successful "gypsy rondo" in the G minor trio, Hob. XV: 25.

Benjamin Britten Phantasy for oboe, violin, viola, and cello, Opus 2

Today we think of Britten primarily as a composer of vocal music—of operas, choral works, church parables, canticles, folksong arrangements, the War Requiem, and so on.

Even works with "instrumental" titles, like the Spring Symphony, are in fact primarily vocal compositions, however brilliant and colorful the instrumental part may be. But in the early years of his career, Britten was regarded primarily as an instrumental composer; eighteen of his first twenty-five large works are for instruments alone, and they were generally bigger and more noticeable pieces than the vocal works of the time. The Phan- tasy quartet began to make the young composer's name both in his and in wider musical circles as well. Composed in 1932, the same year as his Opus 1 Sinfonietta, it was performed in Florence at the 1934 festival of the International Society of Con- temporary Music. (Few composers are lucky enough to be heard at an international forum with only the second work they deem worthy of their craft. The single subdivided movement of the Phantasy aims to suggest flexibility within architectural constraint. The very term "fantasy," a common one in the English consort music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, implies imaginative freedom, but, like many composers of his time, Britten is also concerned to shape the work in a coherent way derived from the sonata principle. The work as a whole forms a large arch beginning and ending with a lyric melody in the oboe undercut by a more sharply rhythmic march figure in the strings; this frames a sonata design, with clearly perceptible sections of statement and recapitulation, though the expected development section turns unexpect- edly into a central "slow movement." Britten's musical language grows out of the modal scales of such composers as Vaughan Williams and Hoist, who recovered the heritage of English folk song and Elizabethan polyphonic song for twentieth-century musicians, but it moves beyond that in implying extended tonal centers to characterize the sections that shape his piece. Though it is relatively little-known in this country and far from prepossessing, the Phantasy reveals in an attractive early score the textural imagination and the richness of thematic artifice that were two of the composer's greatest strengths.

Franz Schubert

Octet in F, D.803, for clarinet, horn, bassoon, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass

Schubert composed his Octet for winds and strings in February 1824 on a commission from Ferdinand, Count Troyer, who was a clarinetist in the musical establishment of Beethoven's friend and pupil Archduke Rudolph. Troyer evidently requested that Schubert model the work on Beethoven's famous Septet, which at that time was still the most popular of all of Beethoven's instrumental works, far outdistancing the symphonies and concertos. Schubert followed instructions, mimicking the older master's work so closely in scoring, layout of movements, and musical character that this must have been obvious to everyone who heard the piece—and they would have enjoyed it all the more for that very reason. Schubert began with the same instrumental ensemble as Beethoven, augmented only by the addition of a second violin. He planned his Octet in six movements, fashioned like the old classical divertimento, just as Beethoven had done. He wrote an Adagio (a tempo mark he rarely used) following Beethoven, and an Andante theme-and-variation set. He imitates Beethoven, too, in preparing the finale with a slow introduction in the minor mode. And the harmonic relationship between successive movements in the two works is absolutely identical. Yet no work shows more clearly the truth of the notion that the originality of a genius becomes most apparent precisely when he is copying someone else, especially a great

older master: though the spirit of the classical divertimento remains, Schubert's music is nonetheless absolutely his own in color, harmony, and melodic character. The character-

istic classical gestures of the martial and the pastoral, which were still very much alive

when Beethoven wrote his Septet, are here subsumed into a new spirit. The Andante

theme that serves as the basis of the variation set is from a love duet, "Gelagert unter'm hellen Dach der Baume," in his Singspiel Die Freunde von Salamanka. Despite the obvious "symphonic" possibilities of the large chamber ensemble, the Octet remains utterly and deliciously a work of chamber music throughout.

—Notes by Steven Ledbetter

Coming Concerts.*.

Sunday, January 18, 1998, at 3 p.m. DVORAK Terzetto in C for two violins and viola, Op. 74 VILLA-LOBOS 'Quinteto em forma de choros,' for winds MOZART Quartet in E-flat for piano and strings, K.493

Sunday, April 26, 1998, at 3 p.m.

PISTON Trio for flute, oboe, and bassoon KAGEL Trio for piano and strings SCHUBERT Quintet in A for piano and strings, D.667, Trout

Single tickets at $26, $19, and $15 may be purchased at the Symphony Hall box office, or through SymphonyCharge at (617) 266-1200. f CHAMBER MUSIC TEAS 2:30PM IN THE CABOT-CAHNERS ROQi Tickets: $12

Chamber Music Teas offer tea and coffee, baked refreshments, and an hour-long chamber music performance by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 FRIDAY, HAYDN Piano Trio in C MARCH 6 MENDELSSOHN FRIDAY, APRIL 24 Piano Trio No. I D minor, Op. 49 Progp0 to be announced RAVEL Piano Trio

Poors open at 1 :30pm; Lucia Lin, violin; Andrew Pearce, cello; the music starts Hengjin Park Ellsworth, piano at 2:30pm.

PRELUDE CONCERT 6PM IN THE C^BOTC|hNERS ROOM Tickets: ^0^^%^,,

Enjoy an hour-long chamber music performance by members of the Boston Symphpiny Orchestri

Unlike the Supper Concerts of past years, supper is not -included, though patrons are encoura|p to dine at the|new|ymphony Cafe in the Cohen Wing.

THURSDAg NOVEMBER 20

HAYDN Piano Trip in C

MENDELSSOHN Piano Trio Nip, I in D minor; Op. 49 RAVEL Piano Trio

Lucia Lin* 0ptin; Andrew Pearce, cello

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: :;;!P Heng Park , : ; Jin Ellsworth, piano . . , : : :

TO ORDER TICKETS: BY TELEPHONE: Call SymphpnyCharge at (6 17) 266- 1 200, Mppay through Saturday from 1 0am to 6pm There is aj$3.00 handling fee for each ticket ordered by phone. To purchase a subscription the Friday-afternoon Chamber :Music |p ; Teas, please call (617) 266-7575.

>:; IN PERSON: , : , : Visit the Symphony Hall Box Office, Monday through Saturday from 1 0am to 6pm and through intermission on concert evenings.

Programs subject to change.