Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Robert Schumann, Adagio and Allegro in A-Flat Major, op. 70:  Schumann (1810-1856) was not accepted as a great composer until after his death.  “Few major composers have been so disliked in their own time, and even fewer have been as little performed” [Harold Schonberg].  What a complex man Schumann was: a man of literature as well as music.  He was a music critic (the “discoverer” of Brahms and an enthusiastic proponent of Chopin – an enthusiasm that was not reciprocated, as well as a composer and conductor.  No match at the keyboard for his virtuoso wife Clara, he commanded her love and devotion in a relationship that reflects as much storybook romanticism as tragedy.  Today, Schumann would probably be diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder.  A final breakdown and suicide attempt in 1854 sent him to an asylum near Bonn, where he died two years later, at age 46.  Schumann composed the Adagio and Allegro – one of his most popular chamber works – in a four-day whirlwind in February 1849.  Although he originally scored the piece for the relatively new valve horn and piano, he indicated that a cello or violin could be substituted for the horn.  This two-movement work reflects Schumann’s own two-sided emotional nature: the Adagio is pensive, wistful and melodic, while the Allegro is tempestuous and exuberant, with alternating poetic passages that evoke the Adagio.  Clara declared this work to be “a magnificent piece, fresh and passionate; just what I like.”

Felix Mendelssohn, Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor, op. 66:  Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a German Romantic musician of many talents.  He sang; played the violin, piano and organ; conducted; and composed.  He came from a wealthy German family and was educated privately.  By age 12, he was an experienced composer.  From 1833-35, he was the music director in Dusseldorf.  In 1835 he became the music director in Leipzig where he conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.  His compositional style was conservative by Romantic standards, employing classical forms and emphasizing balance, proportionality and craftsmanship.  Mendelssohn composed this Trio in 1845, dedicating it to the violinist and composer, Louis Spohr.  Brahms admired this Trio, quoting the opening theme of the Allegro movement in the finale of his third piano quartet, and the opening theme of the Finale in the Scherzo of his third piano sonata.  However, the most recognizable part of this Trio to modern audiences is Mendelssohn’s use of the “Doxology,” or “The Old Hundredth,” in the Finale.  This melody derived from a Lutheran hymn in the 1551 Genevan Psalter, the melody of which is usually attributed to French Renaissance composer Loys Bourgeois.  Johann Sebastian Bach later used this hymn as the basis for his chorale prelude, “Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit,” BWV 668.  Overall, this multi-faceted Trio demonstrates Mendelssohn’s “elegance and flair” [Orrin Howard].

Franz Schubert, String Quintet in C Major, op. post., D.956:  Schubert (1797-1828) lived a “tragically short life” in Vienna.  Thus, Robert Dubal began his characterization of this unlikely fount of Romantic music.  Schubert stood only 4’11” tall, was chubby, had poor eyesight and was painfully shy.  He contracted syphilis at age 26 and lived only five more years.  Outside a circle of Bohemian friends, Schubert was little-known during his lifetime.  Beethoven’s nephew Karl once noted, “they greatly praise Schubert, but it is said that he hides himself.”  Schubert idolized Beethoven, who read some of Schubert’s works and asked to meet the young Schubert.  Schubert finally met Beethoven on his idol’s deathbed.  A week later, he served as a torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral, unaware that he had only 20 months to live.  Harold Schonberg said that it took 40 years after Schubert’s death before “the world woke up to the fact that Schubert was one of the colossal creative figures of music.”  The String Quintet was his final chamber music work.  Finished in 1828, two months before his death, it was not performed until 1850 and was not published until 1853.  Writing a quintet in the key of C Major was not a random choice, for Mozart and Beethoven wrote quintets in that key.  Unlike Mozart and Beethoven, Schubert scored his quintet for two cellos, rather than two violas.  The second cello “creates dense and varied textures” [James Liu] and gives richness to the lower register.  The result is an “incomparable” work that “synthesizes many of Schubert’s stylistic features” [Christopher Gibbs].  It constitutes “one of the pinnacles of the chamber music canon” [Liu].