Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-Flat Major, K.493:  Mozart (1756-1791) was “history’s first important professional ‘freelance’ musician” [David Dubal].  “There was literally nothing in music he could not do better than anybody else” [Harold Schonberg].  He moved to Vienna in 1781 and lived for 10 more years.  During that time, he wrote more than 200 works, including two piano quartets, which were then “a relatively rare genre during the Viennese Classical era” [Brian Robins].  Mozart entered the second piano quartet in his catalogue in June 1786, immediately following his opera, “The Marriage of Figaro.”  His piano quartets “are considered the first in the genre not because they are historically the first, but because they are historically the first great ones” [Ear Sense].  The first movement of this quartet “fully integrates the galant with the learned style of counterpoint” [Julian Rushton].  The second movement is “one of Mozart’s most eloquent slow movements,” and the third movement is a rondo that is “practically on the verge of a piano concerto” [James Keller].  Mozart’s piano quartets “far transcend the few models Mozart had available,” and together they constitute one of “the peaks of Mozart’s chamber music” [Robins]. 

Joaquin Turína, Piano Quartet in A Minor, op. 67: Born in Seville, Turína (1882-1949) studied piano at the Madrid Conservatory.  After the deaths of his parents in 1903-04, he moved to Paris for nine years.  There, he studied with Vincent d’Indy, developed professional friendships with many French musicians (including Debussy and Ravel), and developed professional and personal friendships with Manuel de Falla and Isaac Albéniz, who persuaded him to compose in a more consciously Spanish style.  At the outbreak of World War I, Turína returned to Spain, where he became a prominent pianist, composer, music critic and composition teacher.  Today, his overall reputation is that of “a delightful composer of picturesque music, offering authentic Spanish rhythms and colors” [Dubal].  In 1931, one year after he was appointed professor of composition at the Madrid Conservatory, Turína composed his Piano Quartet, a work that one critic has called a “rhythmically charged Scherzo flanked by two Andantes” [Phillip Scott].  This quartet “is infused with the characteristic grace of Spanish folk music,” contains “fiery rhythms and beautiful lyricism,” as well as “numerous Gypsy and Andalusian references” [Bill Bynum].  The first movement features “melodic passages [that] are constrained and mysterious, but distinctly Andalusian,” which are “building blocks” for the other two movements [William Krause].   As for Turina, “singlehandedly, [this quartet] can sustain his reputation” [Martin Anderson].

Johannes Brahms, Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, op. 60:  Brahms (1833-1897) was born and raised in Hamburg in near poverty.  In his adolescence, he was forced to earn money for his family as, literally, a piano player in the port city’s bawdyhouses.  Thankfully, two of his music teachers recognized and fostered his talent for composition.  As a young virtuoso pianist and composer, Brahms made the acquaintance of several influential musicians – violinist Joseph Joachim, Franz Liszt, and especially Robert and Clara Schumann.  Brahms began his third piano quartet first but finished it last.  He started it in 1855-56.  During that time, Robert was confined to a mental institution, and the 22-year-old Brahms served as a liaison between Robert and Clara (who wasn’t allowed to visit her husband, in accordance with medical thinking of that era).  During this same time, Brahms and Clara began to forge a deep and complex love relationship.  Whether Platonic or otherwise, their relationship lasted until Clara’s death in 1896 (Brahms died one year later).  It took Brahms 20 years to complete this quartet because he was plagued by “vacillating self doubts” about it [Michael Jameson].  He worked on the quartet in 1855-56 and then put it down.  He dabbled with it in 1856-61, worked on it again in 1869, and then put it down again.  He finally returned to it in 1873-75.  Movement I is thought to date from 1855-56, Movement II from 1856-61, and Movements III and IV from 1873-75.  This quartet’s nickname – the “Werther” quartet – is an allusion to Brahms’ self-association with the protagonist of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther – the story of a young man who commits suicide because of his unrequited love for a friend’s wife.