Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Heinrich Joseph Baermann, Quintet No. 3 in E-flat Major for Clarinet and String Quartet, op. 23:  Heinrich Joseph Baermann (also spelled Bärmann) was a German Romantic clarinetist and composer who lived from 1784-1847.  In parallel to Baermann’s career, the clarinet was evolving into the modern instrument we know today.  Baermann was a virtuoso performer who concertized throughout Europe, and for whom Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn, among others, composed works.  Baermann’s own Quintet No. 3, composed in 1821, pairs the clarinet with a string quartet of two violins, viola and cello.  The Adagio from this Quintet was misattributed to Richard Wagner for more than a century.  It was finally republished under Baermann’s name in 1971.

Quincy Porter, Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet:  Quincy Porter (1897-1966) was a 20^th Century American teacher, composer and performer of violin and viola.  During his more than 40-year career, he taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Vassar, the New England Conservatory of Music, and finally his own alma mater, the Yale Music School.  This Quintet, composed in 1929 during a three-year Guggenheim Fellowship in Paris, features the clarinet with a string quartet of two violins, viola and cello.

Alan Shulman, Rendezvous for Clarinet and String Quartet:  Alan Shulman (1915-2002) was a 20^th Century American composer, arranger, teacher and cello virtuoso.  He studied at the Peabody Conservatory and the Julliard School.  He was a founding member of Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra, the New Friends of Rhythm and (with his violinist brother Sylvan) the Stuyvesant String Quartet.  In 1946, the legendary clarinetist Benny Goodman asked the Stuyvesant Quartet to join him on his weekly radio program to play a movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet.  Alan Shulman suggested instead that Goodman commission him to write a short original work for clarinet and string quartet, and Goodman agreed.  This work, sometimes called “Rendezvous with Benny,” was the result.  It premiered over WEAF in August 1946.

Antonín Dvořák, Quintet for Strings in G Major, op. 77:  Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) was a 19^th Century Romantic and Czech nationalist composer.  Although he is best known for his symphonies and his cello concerto, he displayed considerable skill in writing for chamber ensemble.  Shortly before Dvořák first composed this work in 1875 (he revised it in 1883 and 1888), he met Johannes Brahms, who became a powerful ally and champion of Dvořák’s music.  This work premiered in Prague in March 1876, and is dedicated “To my Nation.”  The Quintet is written in four movements (originally in five) for two violins, viola, cello and double bass.  It is a wonderful example of Dvořák’s maturity as a composer.  Although the Quintet is cast in a classic Viennese form, like Mozart and Schubert, each movement reflects Bohemian melodies, harmonies and rhythms.  James Leonard has said that this Quintet is “as worthy of attention as the string quintets of Brahms.”