Twilight of Romanticism
Gustav Mahler, Quartet for Piano and Strings in A Minor
Alban Berg, Adagio from the Chamber Concerto
Carl Frühling, Trio in A Minor, op. 40
Ernst von Dohnányi, Piano Quintet No. 1 in C Minor, op. 1
This concert is made possible with the support of the Kirkpatrick Family Fund.
Gustav Mahler, Quartet for Piano and Strings in A Minor (violin, viola, cello and piano): Mahler (1860-1911) was born in the western, and raised in the eastern, part of what is now the Czech Republic. At 15, he was sent to Vienna to study at the Conservatory. That city was Mahler’s home for most of his life, where he held the prestigious position as Director of the Vienna Court Opera (although to hold that position required him to convert from Judaism to Catholicism). He lived in the United States for several years, directing the Metropolitan Opera and conducting the New York Philharmonic. “Mahler’s heroic and futile struggle to make sense out of life passes through his music to the listener.” [Schonberg] According to acquaintances from Tchaikovsky to Sigmund Freud, he was “a man of genius,” but his genius was tortured by doubt and anxiety which today makes him look prophetic of the Twentieth Century. The Piano Quartet in A Minor is Mahler’s only surviving chamber music work, which he wrote as a Conservatory student about 1876. It is a single-movement work written in three sections. It was one of the works featured in the sound track of Martin Scorsese’s 2010 film “Shutter Island.”
Alban Berg, Adagio from the Chamber Concerto (violin, clarinet and piano): Berg (1885-1935) and Anton Webern were the two most prominent disciples of Arnold Schoenberg. Together they constituted the “trinity” of the Second Viennese School. “Berg was the most Romantic of the three, the one most suggestive of Wagner, Mahler, and post-Romanticism,” [Schonberg], having been “incubated in the golden age of Mahler and Strauss” [Ross]. He was purely a composer; he never really mastered a musical instrument and emphatically answered “No!” when Mahler asked him if he conducted. Berg wrote his Chamber Concerto for Piano, Violin and 13 Wind Instruments in 1923-25. He completed the work on his 40th birthday and dedicated it to Schoenberg on his 50th. The Adagio movement is the heart of the work. Shortly before his death in 1935, Berg arranged that movement for piano, violin and clarinet. In that form, it has achieved an enduring place in the chamber repertory.
Carl Frühling, Trio in A Minor, op. 40 (clarinet, cello and piano): Frühling (1868-1937) was an Austrian pianist and composer. He was born in what was then part of the Austrian Hapsburg empire, and is today part of Ukraine. Frühling studied piano and composition in Vienna. Prior to World War I he was a prominent pianist there. He accompanied instrumental and vocal soloists, and he performed with the Rosé Quartet, Vienna’s premiere string quartet. Frühling never recovered from the devastation that World War I inflicted on his career. He died in poverty, and both he and his music largely have been forgotten. Cellist Steven Isserlis has become a champion of his music, rediscovering some that had been lost, and enthusiastically performing it as reflective of the late-Romantic era. Frühling composed his Opus 40 Trio about 1900. It is a four-movement work, stylistically reminiscent of Brahms and Wagner.
Ernst von Dohnányi, Piano Quintet No. 1 in C Minor, op. 1 (2 violins, viola, cello and piano): Dohnányi (1877-1960) was born in Bratislava (now the capital of Slovakia). He was a dominant figure in Hungarian music during the first half of the 20th Century. As a pianist, Dohnányi was versatile, performing as a recitalist, a concerto soloist and a chamber musician. As a music educator, he taught at the Hochschule in Berlin and for a short time at the Budapest Academy. As a conductor, he was the music director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. As a composer, Dohnányi was not a nationalist like his fellow countrymen Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Instead, he composed in the broader Romantic European tradition of Liszt and Brahms, once even having been labeled “the Hungarian Brahms.” Dohnányi remained in Hungary during World War II, using his influence and fortune to protect Jewish musicians. After losing both of his sons in the war (one in combat, the other executed for his role in a plot to kill Hitler), he moved to the United States, composing and teaching at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He composed the four-movement Piano Quintet No. 1 in 1895, while still a student at the Budapest Music Academy. After looking at the score, Brahms – never known for dispensing gratuitous compliments – remarked, “I could not have written it better myself.” Soon thereafter, Brahms arranged for its performance in Vienna and played the piano part himself.
