47Th SEASON PROGRAM NOTES Week 6 August 18 & 19, 2019
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th SEASON PROGRAM NOTES 47 Week 6 August 18 & 19, 2019 Sunday, August 18, 6 p.m. marked Lamentoso before the buzzing theme, in 8/8 time, “Basque in color.” A resumes and The Wasp zips out of sight. second idea, first heard in the violin, is BENJAMIN BRITTEN (1913–76) —Eric Bromberger taken up by the other instruments, but the Two Insect Pieces for Oboe & Piano (1935) development section of this sonata-form MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937) movement is relatively brief. The movement We don’t automatically associate the Piano Trio in A Minor (1914) comes to a close as a fragment of the first oboe with Benjamin Britten, but he felt a theme dissolves to the point where the piano lifelong affection for the instrument (one, In February 1914, Ravel went to Saint- is left quietly tapping out the rhythm in its by the way, that he didn’t play) and wrote Jean-de-Luz, a small village on the French lowest register. for it across his career. His Phantasy for coast near the Spanish border, to work on Ravel called the second movement Oboe & String Trio, composed when he two projects he’d planned for some time: a Pantoum, and exactly what he meant by was 19, helped establish his international piano concerto using Basque themes and that is an open question. (A pantoum is a reputation when it was performed at the a piano trio. He soon abandoned plans for form of Malay poetry in which the second 1934 International Society for Contemporary the concerto, but the first movement of the and fourth lines of one stanza become the Music (ISCM) festival in Florence, and in trio went much better, and he completed first and third of the next.) Whatever Ravel 1951 he wrote an extended work for solo it by the end of March. He struggled with meant, this movement is colorful—full of oboe, the Six Metamorphoses after Ovid. the rest of the work, though. It took until racing rhythms, harmonics, and left-handed In his youth, he composed two works for mid-summer to get the middle movements pizzicatos. The center section is particularly oboe and piano— the Temporal Variations of done, and by the time he began the last dazzling; the strings stay in a racing 3/4 1936 and the charming Two Insect Pieces of movement, he had something else to worry while the piano’s chorale-like chords are 1935—but chose not to publish them: about: World War I had broken out. in 4/2. At the close, the opening material Britten was only 21 when he wrote Anxious to serve in the military (he would returns. the Two Insect Pieces for English oboist later drive an ambulance for the French The third movement is a passacaglia with Sylvia Spencer. She was a member of an army), Ravel was nevertheless extremely 10 statements of the eight-bar theme. These enterprising London-based chamber group agitated, particularly about the prospect of begin quietly, become freer and louder, and that played Britten’s Phantasy quartet, and leaving his aged mother behind. To a friend, then gradually resume their original form it was perhaps as a gesture of gratitude he wrote: as the movement comes to its quiet close. that he wrote these brief pieces for her. The third statement of the theme—for violin Presumably, Britten and Spencer performed If you only knew how I am suffering. accompanied by simple chords from the this music together, but a note in the score From morning to night I am obsessed piano—is ravishing. says that the first public performance didn’t with one idea that tortures me. If I The Finale, marked Animé, is agitated. take place until March 1979, during a leave my poor old mother, it will surely Whether this reflects Ravel’s own agitation memorial service for Spencer in Manchester. kill her. But so as not to think of all at the time of its composition remains an (Britten had died a little more than two years this, I am working—yes, working with unanswerable question, of course, but what’s earlier.) the sureness and lucidity of a madman. clear is that this movement has an energy Written just for fun, these pieces require At the same time I get terrible fits of and sweep unknown to the first three. It little comment. The Grasshopper proceeds depression and suddenly find myself opens with swirling harmonic arpeggios along staccato pulses chirped out by both sobbing over the sharps and flats! from the violin, and this sensation of instruments. The marking is Allegretto constant motion is felt throughout. The main leggiero (“Quick and light”), and Britten Pushed on by this furious work, the Piano theme, first heard in the piano, bears some offers the oboist a tiny quasi-cadenza Trio in A Minor was complete by the end of rhythmic resemblance to the opening theme before the quiet close. As might be expected, August. of the first movement, but the mood of this The Wasp brings more forceful music (the The Piano Trio is one of Ravel’s finest movement is far different. The Finale is big marking here is Allegro molto e con fuoco). chamber works, featuring brilliant writing music—not big in the sense of straining to Over murmuring piano accompaniment, for all three performers and a range of be orchestral, but big in scope and color. Full the oboe sings the falling main idea, built instrumental color rare in a piano trio. The of swirling arpeggios, trills, and tremolos, the on the dotted rhythms that run virtually first movement,Modéré , opens with the movement flies to its searing conclusion on nonstop through this piece. These give piano alone playing a theme of delicate a stinging, high A-major chord. way momentarily to a brief central episode rhythmic suspension. Ravel called this —Eric Bromberger Program notes for Music at Noon concerts are sponsored by Barbara & Ronald Balser with thanks to the gifted Festival musicians who inspire us all. two bars is heard over fierce swirls in the Monday, August 19, 6 p.m. JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–97) clarinet, and the movement dies away to Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115 (1891) conclude with the quiet of the beginning. GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL (1685–1759)/ The Adagio is in A-B-A form, beginning JOHANN HALVORSEN (1864–1935) Brahms intended his Second Viola Quintet with a simple clarinet theme over complex Passacaglia in G Minor for Violin & Viola of 1890 to be his last work. He was 57 accompaniment in the strings. The unusual (1894) and felt he was done composing, and in middle section brings a sound that is, by December of that year he sent his publisher Brahmsian standards, exotic. Brahms was This pleasing music is a joint composition some corrections to the quintet with a brief very fond of Hungarian Gypsy music, and by two composers who were born almost message: “With this note you can take leave this section, marked Più lento, shows that 200 years apart. One of those composers is of my music, because it is high time to stop.” influence. The clarinet leaps and swirls while world-famous, the other almost unknown. But it was not to be. A few weeks later, at the accompanying strings whirl beneath Handel we know. Johann Halvorsen began Christmas, he went to Meiningen to hear the it—perhaps in imitation of the Hungarian his career as a violinist. He studied with clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld (1856–1907), cimbalom—before the opening material Adolph Brodsky in Berlin and César Thomson and the course of music was changed. returns. in Belgium and then returned to his native Brahms was so captivated by Mühlfeld’s The principal themes of the final two Norway, where he became concertmaster of playing and by the possibilities of the movements are closely related, giving the the Bergen orchestra. A friend and disciple clarinet that he broke his own retirement quintet an even greater feeling of unity. The of Grieg, Halvorsen married Grieg’s niece. He and wrote four works that have become the Andantino opens with a smooth little tune wrote three symphonies, a violin concerto, heart of the clarinet literature. for clarinet, but at the center section—Presto and chamber music, but only two of his Mühlfeld joined the Meiningen Court non assai, ma con sentimento—the music works have achieved popularity outside Orchestra as a violinist but taught himself rushes ahead and never returns fully to Norway. One is the Entry March of the to play clarinet and became the orchestra’s the opening material. The finale, marked Boyars, a stirring orchestral piece that was principal clarinet at age 23. (Later, he Con moto—Un poco meno mosso, is a set quite popular a generation or two ago. The served as principal clarinet of the Bayreuth of five variations on the opening theme, other is the Passacaglia in G Minor for orchestra.) So impressed was Brahms by first stated by the violins and clarinet. Of Violin & Violin, composed in 1893. his playing that he nicknamed Mühlfeld particular interest is the very end, where the Halvorsen described this work as being “Fräulein Klarinette” and sat for hours final variation gives way to the theme that “after Handel,” and its fundamental thematic listening to him practice. In the summer opened the first movement. material is derived from the last movement of 1891, six months after announcing his —Eric Bromberger of Handel’s Suite No. 7 in G Minor, originally retirement, Brahms retreated to his favorite composed for harpsichord in London around summer spot—Bad Ischl, high in the Alpine 1720.