Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Gioachino Rossini, Duo in D Major for Cello and Double Bass:  Rossini (1792-1868) was one of the world’s best-known opera composers.  He entered the Bologna Conservatory as a teenager and, by the age of 21 had written ten staged operas.  During the following 16 years, he composed 29 more.  By the time he retired from opera composition in 1829, shortly after the premiere of William Tell, he was the most famous composer in the world.  Less known than Rossini’s operas are his 150 piano pieces, two major religious choral works and assorted chamber music, including six string quartets.  Rossini composed his charming Duo for Cello and Double Bass in 1824, when he was in high operatic gear.  He wrote it on commission from a wealthy Londoner while touring England.  After its premiere at a party, the commissioner filed the score away in his private papers, not to be found until 1968, when his descendants prepared their ancestor’s papers for auction.  Published in 1969, its three movements offer an easygoing Allegro, a melodic Andante, and a merry second Allegro.  “The whole work brims with bright colors and optimism” [Robert Cummings].

Alexander Glazunov, Rêverie Orientale, op. 14:  Glazunov (1865-1936) composed in a polished blend of German Classicism and Russian nationalistic Romanticism.  A student of Rimsky-Korsakov, he was a teacher and later the director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he taught Shostakovich and Prokofiev.  His musical memory was prodigious;  once he heard a work, he could sit down at the piano and play it virtually note for note.  Although Glazunov was a splendid teacher, he was often intolerant of his students’ 20^th Century compositional styles.  He called Stravinsky “unmusical,” and he even walked out of the premiere of Prokofiev’s First Symphony.  After the Russian Revolution, he tried to adapt but eventually exiled himself to Paris in 1928.  Glazunov wrote his Oriental Reverie in 1886 at the age of 21, on commission from his St. Petersburg patron.  That same year, he adapted it for piano and orchestra.  Both versions of this work illustrate the Russian fascination with Middle Eastern exoticism. 

Svante Henryson, “Backcountry Skiing:”  Henryson (b. 1963) is a Swedish composer, cellist, bass guitarist and double bassist.  His musicianship spans classical music, jazz and hard rock.  He was inspired to a career in music by hearing the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and by falling in love-at-a-distance with a female bassist at another concert.  He studied at the Ingesund College of Music in Sweden and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.  He has performed with the Oslo Philharmonic, the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and numerous chamber music duos and trios.  His “Electric Bass Concerto” of 2007 introduced the bass guitar as a classical solo instrument.  This duo for clarinet and cello alludes to the European practice of skiing outside of the usual boundaries of prepared ski trails.  More broadly, it speaks to deviating from the conventional.    

Sean Osborne, Selections from “The Beatles Quintet:”  The Beatles ... classical music?  Yes, indeed.  Classical music is music of lasting value.  It is not too early to say that the Beatles are already becoming part of “the canon” of classical music, or to predict that 100 years from now, lovers of serious music will be listening to the Beatles, as well as to Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.   As Gary Ewer put it, “Beethoven’s music, particularly the compositions of the latter half of his career, were mind-boggling to composers of his day.  For us, what sounds today like ‘pretty good stuff,’ went far beyond what had been written previously.  In short, he blew people’s minds.”  Ewer continued, “You could read [those three sentences] again, and insert ‘The Beatles’ where you see ‘Beethoven.’”  Sean Osborn (b. 1966) is a former clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, as well as a regular performer with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.  In 2004 he penned a quintet for clarinet and string quartet titled “The Beatles,” which incorporated 19 of their songs in a four-movement work.  This evening, Brightmusic will perform the first two of those movements.

Ludwig van Beethoven, Septet in E-flat Major, op. 20:  Beethoven (1770-1827) composed this work in 1799, at a time that he had achieved fame as a pianist and was gaining renown as a serious composer in Vienna.  It was privately performed in December 1799 and received its public premiere at a benefit concert that Beethoven gave in April 1800, which included his Symphony No. 1 and one of his first two piano concertos (nobody knows which).  Originally, Beethoven was very fond of this work: “This septet has truly delighted me,” he wrote.  The more popular the work became, however, the less Beethoven liked it: “I wish it could be burned,” he later fumed.  Beethoven took the theme of Movement III of the Septet from his Piano Sonata No. 20, op. 49, no. 2, which he had composed in 1795-96.  And he later recycled the Septet as his opus 38 piano trio.  According to James Keller, the Septet is “a conservative work that provides delight without breaking new ground.”  New ground or not, “charm is the Septet’s strong suit.”