Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Concert 1 program notes

Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 13 in A Major, op. 120, D.664: 

Schubert composed this sonata in the summer of 1819 at the age of 22, while on a walking tour of Upper Austria with his older friend and mentor, the singer Johann Michael Vogl.  It is the earliest Schubert work that Brightmusic will perform at the Festival.  Biographer Christopher Gibbs called this sonata “one of his sunniest works,” and another biographer, Brian Newbould, characterized it as reflecting the composer’s “wide-eyed youthful contentment.”  Schubert wrote it during a period of relaxation and happiness, about the same time that he composed the “Trout Quintet” (which Brightmusic performed at the “Die Forelle” concert in November 2010).  In a letter to his brother, Schubert described the Austrian countryside of that summer as “unimaginably lovely.”  He also described the young woman to whom he dedicated the sonata, Josephine von Koller, as “a good pianist” and “very pretty.”  The sonata is divided into three movements:  (1) Allegro moderato, (2) Andante and (3) Allegro.  It lacks a typical classical scherzo movement.  The cantabile (singing) style of this sonata evidences Schubert’s comfortable transition from the classicism of his idol Beethoven into early German Romanticism.  Like so many of his instrumental works, this sonata was never published during his lifetime.  It first appeared in the posthumous opus 120, published the year after his death.  With good reason, this is one of Schubert’s most popular piano sonatas today.   

Franz Schubert, Octet in F Major for Strings and Winds, op. 166, D.803:

This is Schubert’s largest-scale chamber music work.  It is roughly contemporaneous with his “Rosamunde” and “Death and the Maiden” string quartets.  Count Ferdinand Troyer commissioned a work similar to Beethoven’s popular Septet, op. 20, of 1800.  Schubert wrote the Octet in February 1824.  (“Schubert, like Mozart, was one of the fastest writers in musical history: a composer who could conceive a whole work in his head and immediately write it down” [Harold Schonberg].)  He enlarged Beethoven’s ensemble by adding a violin.  Like Beethoven, he structured the piece as a six-movement work.  As Beethoven had written his Septet in preparation for his First Symphony, Schubert viewed the Octet as “pav[ing] the way towards a grand symphony” –what ultimately became his Symphony No. 9 of 1828.  The movements of the Octet are: (1) Adagio – Allegro – Più allegro (the theme derives from Schubert’s song Der Wanderer); (2) Adagio; (3) Allegro vivace – Trio – Allegro vivace; (4) Andante – variations.  Un poco più mosso – Più lento (the variations derives from a theme in Schubert’s early opera Die Freunde von Salamanka); (5) Menuetto.  Allegretto – Trio – Menuetto – Coda; and (6) Andante molto – Allegro – Andante molto – Allegro molto.  The Octet was privately performed in the spring of 1824 at the home of the commissioner’s employer, Archduke Rudolph (to whom Beethoven dedicated his “Archduke” Trio of 1811).  The Octet received its public premiere in Schubert’s last subscription concert in 1827, but it was not published until 1889.

Concert 2 program notes

Franz Schubert, “Arpeggione” Sonata in A Minor for Viola and Piano, D.821:

Schubert’s friend Johann Georg Stauffer, a Viennese guitar-maker, invented the guitarre d’amour or arpeggione in 1823 or 1824.  It was a six-stringed instrument, fretted and tuned like a guitar but bowed like a cello.  Another friend of Schubert, Vincenz Schuster, commissioned him to write a sonata for the new instrument, which Schubert did in November 1824, after returning from his second summer in Zseliz, where he taught music to two daughters of Count Esterházy.  Although the instrument did not survive very long, Schubert’s sonata has survived, generally in transcriptions for viola-piano or cello-piano.   The work consists of three movements: (1) Allegro moderato; (2) Adagio; and (3) Allegretto.  Like so many of Schubert’s instrumental works, this sonata was not published until long after his death in 1871. 

Carl Maria von Weber, Grand Duo Concertant in E-Flat Major for Clarinet and Piano, op. 48:

“A good case can be made” that Weber (1786-1826) “was the first of the true Romantics....  To the Romantics, Weber was the one who unleashed the storm” [Harold Schonberg].  He was one of the greatest pianists and conductors of his era.  He virtually invented the role of a conductor as the overall director of an opera.  His compositions included virtuosic piano music, chamber music and songs, all of which were enormously popular in the 19^th Century.  Weber – a first cousin of Mozart’s wife Constanze – had a huge influence on Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner.  He was an “aristocratic, intelligent, forceful man: an authentic genius whose greatest tragedy was that he was born about thirty years ahead of his time” [Schonberg].  Weber was captivated by the clarinet, and wrote several important works for that instrument, including his Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major, which Brightmusic performed at  its “Bright Virtuosi” concert last month.  He composed the Grand Duo Concertant in 1815-16, writing the third movement first, the second movement second and the first movement third.  The movements are: (1) Allegro con fuoco; (2) Andante con moto; and (3) Rondo: Allegro.  Clarinetist Johann Hermstedt premiered the work with Weber at the keyboard.  It is a virtuosic piece for both instrumentalists, and it can be downright physically demanding for a pianist: “Weber had an enormous pair of hands, and some of the stretches he wrote cannot be played by normal human beings” [Schonberg].

Franz Schubert, Piano Trio No. 1 in B-Flat Major, op. 99, D.898:

Beethoven’s death in March 1827 profoundly affected Schubert.  Little did he know that he had only 20 months to live.  In the wake of Beethoven’s death, Schubert turned to piano trios – a genre in which he had not composed since he was a 15-year-old student under Antonio Salieri, and one in which few significant works had been written since Beethoven’s 1811 “Archduke” Trio.  The two piano trios Schubert wrote in 1827-28 are “perfect examples of balance between the piano, the violin, and the cello” [David Dubal].  Trio No. 1 is “a blissfully happy work, rich in cheerful melody” [William Mann], even though this was a period of melancholy and even despair in Schubert’s life.  Its four movements are marked: (1) Allegro moderato; (2) Andante un poco mosso; (3) Scherzo. Allegro; and (4) Rondo. Allegro vivace (its principal theme resembles Schubert’s song “Skolie”).  The trio was not published until 1836, eight years after his death.

Concert 3 program notes

Bernard Henrik Crusell, Quartet for Clarinet and Strings in E-Flat Major, op. 2:  Crusell (1775-1838) was the most outstanding Finnish composer before Sibelius.  He was born in Finland and, although he lived most of his life in Sweden, always considered himself Finnish.  He was educated in Sveaborg, a Swedish fortress just off the coast of Helsinki, where he excelled in music and languages.  He moved to Sweden in 1791 and returned to Finland only once thereafter.  Crusell was known as a virtuoso clarinetist, and played in the Royal Court Orchestra of Sweden most of his life.  As a composer, he wrote concertos, chamber works and songs, and was a conductor of military bands.  He used his linguistic skills to translate Italian, French and German operas for performance in Stockholm.  He is thought to have composed his Clarinet Quartet in 1807; it was published in Leipzig in 1811.  Its four movements are: (1) Poco adagio – allegro; (2) Romanze, cantabile; (3) Menuetto, allegro; and (4) Rondo, allegro vivace.   

Christopher Theofanidis, “Quasi una Fantasia,” The World Premiere of a New Work for Two Clarinets and String Quartet, commissioned by Brightmusic Society of Oklahoma and Chamber Music Northwest, Portland, Oregon (David Shifrin, Artistic Director):  Christopher Theofanidis (b. 1967) is one of America’s most versatile contemporary composers.  He composed his Symphony for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, “Rainbow Body” for the Houston Symphony and an orchestral/brass work for the opening of Bass Hall on commission from the Fort Worth Symphony.  He composed the ballet “Artemis” for the American Ballet Theatre; several concertos, including a cello concerto for the Dallas Symphony, a violin concerto for the Pittsburgh Symphony and Sarah Chang; as well as concertos for piano, viola, bassoon and organ with chamber orchestras.  He has composed several operas and other large-scale choral/orchestral works: “The Here and Now” for the Atlanta Symphony, “Heart of a Soldier” for the San Francisco Opera, “The Refuge” for the Houston Grand Opera and “The Invention of Music” for the Brooklyn Philharmonic.  He will premiere “Siddhartha,” commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, in 2013-14.  He has composed chamber music for many instrumental ensembles, as well as solo instrumental works, most recently the official competition piece for the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth next month.  “Quasi una Fantasia” was jointly commissioned by Brightmusic Society of Oklahoma and Chamber Music Northwest.  An arrangement for two clarinets and chamber orchestra was also commissioned by The Conservatory at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A Major, K.581:  Mozart (1756-1791) learned to play the keyboard at age 3, started composing at age 5, and learned the violin at age 6 on a tour during which he and his child-prodigy sister performed all over Europe.  He 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].  Mozart composed this quintet in 1789 for his friend Anton Stadler, a clarinetist with the court orchestra in Vienna.  It is a work of the mature Mozart, “perhaps Mozart’s most influential chamber work” [Julian Rushton].  It is a piece of music “in which form, expression, technique and taste are raised to unprecedented heights” [Harold Schonberg].  Its lyrical melodies make it one of Mozart’s most popular chamber works.  Mozart composed it about the same time he was writing his opera Cosi fan tutte.  Brian Robins has said that the quintet “bask[s] in that same golden warmth and mellowness that characterizes much of Cosi.”  The Quintet’s four movements are: (1) Allegro, (2) Larghetto, (3) Minuetto and (4) Allegro con Variazioni.  Alfred Einstein – a musician as well as a physicist – thought this work was a “chamber music work of the finest kind.”

Concert 4 program notes

The Mae Ruth Swanson Memorial Concert

Franz Schubert, Rondo (“Rondeau Brillant”) in B Minor for Violin and Piano, op. 70, D.895:  This was one of two show pieces that Schubert wrote for, and dedicated to, the young Bohemian violinist Josef Slawjk.  He composed the work in October 1826, and Slawjk premiered the work in 1827.  It was one of only three chamber music works Schubert wrote that were published in his lifetime.  Despite the publisher’s title, “Rondeau Brillant,” the public reception to the work was lukewarm, because it was obviously meant for virtuosi, not amateur musicians.  Its reception by music critics was warm, one of whom wrote that “the whole piece is brilliant ....  [It did] not owe its existence to mere figuration such as grin at us in a thousand different contortions from so many compositions.  [Instead, it reflected the] “spirit of invention [that has] beaten its wings mightily indeed and has borne us aloft with it.”  The work begins with a short movement marked Andante, followed by the Rondo proper, marked Allegro. 

Franz Schubert, Selections of Lieder for Tenor and Piano:  “In eighteen years, from 1810 to 1828, Schubert wrote roughly 630 Lieder that set the words of more than one hundred different poets” [Christopher Gibbs].  Of these, fewer than 190 were published during his lifetime.  “Schubert ‘invented’ the Romantic Lied” and “elevated these once lowly genres [lieder and part songs] to more prominent artistic stature” [Gibbs]. What is perhaps most remarkable is the true partnering Schubert achieves between voice and piano.

The first five songs on this program come from Schubert’s song cycle “Die schöne Müllerin” (“The Lovely Miller-Maid”), op. 25, D.795.  These selections weave between personifications of nature: the all-important brook (“Bächlein”), stars (“Sternen”), and flowers (“Blumen” and “Blümlein”), and the unstable emotions of a spurned lover who ultimately succumbs to his despair, as he unites with the only one who is steady and true ... the bubbling brook!  Schubert composed these songs in 1823, setting the 1820 poems of William Müller to music:  (1) “Der Neugierige” (“The Eager Questioner”);(2) “Ungeduld” (“Impatience”);  (3) “Des Müllers Blumen” (“The Miller’s Flowers”);(4) “Tränenregen” (“Shower of Tears”); and (5) “Trokne Blumen” (“Withered Flowers”).  This cycle of 20 songs, including the five on this program, was published in 1824. 

(6)  Schubert wrote“Heidenröslein” (“Rose on the Heath”), D.257, in 1815 based upon a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This time, the personified flower is in pitched battle to defend itself and sting the one by whom he is to be plucked.

(7) “Romanze aus Rosamunde” (“The Romance from Rosamunde”),  D.797,was composed in 1823 as incidental music to “Rosamunde, Fürstin von Cypern” (“Rosamunde, Princess of Cypress”) by Helmina von Chézy.  This is a bittersweet singular expression of both the temporal and eternal natures of true love. 

(8) “Du bist die Ruh” (“You Are Repose”), D.776, also dates from 1823, based upon poetry of Friedrich Rückert.  “Du bist die Ruh has such inner poise that it suggests a transcendental religious experience unfolding in the solemn, meditative time-scale that one associates with the rituals of the east.  [It is reminiscent of] a chant or mantra, a litany of patience and humility which hymns long-lasting love and the steady-breathed span of an enduring relationship….  In this heavenly music we glimpse the extent of the composer’s own longing for emotional security, for the rapture and safety of a committed relationship” [Graham Johnson].

(9)  Schubert wrote“An die Laute” (“To the Lute”), D.905, in 1827, the year before he died, based on a poem by Johann Friedrich Rochlitz.  It is “a simple song in two short, charming strophes that are addressed directly to the lute, asking it to ‘whisper softly’ up to the window of the singer's mistress, to gently tell the secrets of his heart so quietly that none of the jealous neighbors can overhear his serenade” [Blair Johnston]. 

(10)  Schubert wrote“An die Musik” (“To Music”), D.547, one of his most famous Lieder, relatively early in his career, setting to music the poetry of his closest friend, Franz von Schober.  This song “may well be the most beautiful thank-you note anyone has ever written, but it’s also something else.  It’s a credo, a statement of faith in the wondrous powers of music, and by its very nature an affirmation of those powers” [Miles Hoffman]

As much as anything he wrote, Schubert’s Lieder show why Harold Schonberg said, “He was the first lyric poet of music.”   

Franz Schubert, Piano Trio No. 2 in E-Flat Major, op. 100, D.929:  Beethoven’s death in March 1827 profoundly affected Schubert.  Little did he know that he had only 20 months to live.  In the wake of Beethoven’s death, Schubert turned to piano trios – a genre in which he had not composed since he was a student, and one in which few significant works had been written since Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio of 1811.  The two piano trios Schubert wrote in 1827-28 are “perfect examples of balance between the piano, the violin, and the cello” [David Dubal].  Trio No. 2 is “darker, less melodious, and less loveable” than Trio No. 1 [Dubal].  Robert Schumann characterized the second trio as “more active, masculine, and dramatic” than the first.  Its four movements are marked: (1) Allegro; (2) Andante con moto (the main theme of this movement, supposedly based on a Swedish folk melody, has been used in many film scores, including Barry Lyndon, The Piano Teacher and the HBO miniseries John Adams); (3) Scherzando. Allegro moderato; and (4) Allegro moderato.  Biographer Christopher Gibbs and other scholars have noted similarities between the second movement  of this trio and Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, an honor Schubert was paying to his professional hero.  Trio No. 2 was first performed at a private party in January 1828, after which it formed the centerpiece of an all-Schubert concert given on March 26, 1828, the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death.  The trio was published in November 1828, the month that Schubert died.