We open our program with a nod to the liturgical season of Lent. Venetian Baroque composer Antonio Lotti’s setting of the Crucifixus text utilizes thick eight-part choral writing, chromaticism, and suspensions depicting the death of Christ. Johann Sebastian Bach was aware of Lotti’s work, and the Venetian writing for multi-part choirs influenced his own writing. Despite composing over 300 liturgical cantatas, Bach wrote only a handful of motets; although motets were a regular part of the 18th century Lutheran church service, Bach frequently prepared and presented works by other composers. The details surrounding the composition of his Komm, Jesu, komm are unknown, but it was most assuredly composed for a funeral. Like the Lotti, the texture of the choir is in eight parts, but here it is separated into two choirs, with significant antiphonal writing.
The British choral tradition is central to the history of choral repertoire. The rich heritage can be traced back to Elizabethan composers such as William Byrd and Thomas Tallis. Tonight, we explore three of the greatest hits of the repertory from the 19th and early 20th centuries from very different composers. Robert Lucas Pearsall’s profession was that of a barrister—composition was merely an avocation. His Lay a Garland is a jewel of part writing, not unlike the Lotti in its use of eight-part choral writing and suspensions, and funeral imagery. Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villers Stanford was an academic composer of the highest regard, and his Beati quorum via is a study in construction and Romantic sonority. Charles Hubert Hastings Parry was a rival of Stanford’s and both are largely responsible for the 19th century British choral renaissance. Parry’s “My Soul There is a Country” is the first movement of his Songs of Farewell, written in 1916 near the end of his life.
With Critters, Viva soprano and Shepherdstown resident Georgiann Toole set out to write music about the animals “no one ever sings about”. With references to newt, frog, lizard, snake, and snail these inventive new works are an important addition to the repertoire and we are pleased to be making their world premiere performance!
The basic vocabulary of the jazz world is the “standard” song, also referred to as the American musical songbook. In our final set we pose the question, “When and how does a song become a part of this songbook?” No one would dispute the place of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” and Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow”in that category. We suggest that more contemporary classics such as “Crazy,” made famous by Winchester’s own Patsy Cline, and “Moonshadow,” by Yusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), deserve consideration for entry into the canon.
A preliminary observation. The works featured in this concert share the same inspiration: Beethoven’s ever-popular Septet, Op. 20.
Beethoven premiered this septet in 1800, shortly after he arrived in Vienna. Not yet known as a composer of large-scale works, Beethoven began “working up” to writing a symphony by expanding his instrumental palette. His first effort at expansion was this septet, which he scored, essentially, for a small orchestra: clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.
Brimming with light, energy, and the devil-may-care attitude of a young, genius, Beethoven’s Septet Op.20 is arguably his sunniest work. It was instantly loved at its premiere and has remained so ever since. For many years, its mastery and ebullience, and its ubiquity in concert halls, cast their influence over composers who followed, encouraging additional masterpieces.
One of these masterpieces is Franz Schubert’s Octet in F major. Premiered in Vienna 24 years after Beethoven’s septet, the octet very specifically evokes that work.
Another masterpiece prompted by Beethoven’s septet is Carl Nielsen’s Serenata in vano, which was written more than a century after the septet, in 1914. It acknowledges the septet like a revered ancestor.
The program notes that follow more fully explain the relation of Beethoven’s septet to both these works.
Carl Nielsen
(Born in Sortelung, on Funen, Denmark in 1865; died in Copenhagen in 1931)
Serenata in vano, FS 68
Allegro non troppo
Un poco adagio
Tempo di marcia
Nielsen was born on the island of Funen, Denmark, the birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson and a place so lovely it is rightfully called the Garden of Denmark. Along with the island’s natural wonders, Nielsen’s early years were filled with music. His mother was a fine singer, and his father was the leader of the town band. Nielsen was soon playing the violin, singing at every opportunity, and playing trombone in his father’s band. And there was often a fair amount of hilarity — Nielsen’s father was an exceptional impressionist, pranking his pals with friendly buffoonery.
Nielsen’s early immersion in this musical world of folksong and joyful hometown music-making, along with a keen sense of the comical, deeply informed his compositional career. That career would span nearly five decades, from studying at the Copenhagen Conservatory to eventually becoming its director and, arguably, Denmark’s greatest composer.
Nielsen also spent many years as a professional violinist, playing for, and eventually serving as the assistant conductor of the Copenhagen Royal Theater Orchestra. In 1914, several of Nielsen’s Royal Theater colleagues created a chamber group to tour Denmark performing Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20. They asked Nielsen to provide a short, lighthearted piece to round out their program. He obliged. Scoring for several of the same instruments that were already used in Beethoven’s work — clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello and double bass — he penned his delightfully fun Serenata in vano in only a few weeks.
It’s a quirky work, brimming with humor and good spirit. Nielsen provided this description of it:
Serenata in vano is a humorous trifle. First the gentlemen play in a somewhat chivalric and showy manner to lure the fair one out onto the balcony, but she does not appear. Then they play in a slightly languorous strain (Poco adagio), but that hasn’t any effect either. Since they have played in vain (in vano), they don’t care a straw and shuffle off home to the strains of the little final march, which they play for their own amusement.
The first movement begins with a waltz feel, awash with energy and high hopes. The clarinet, cello and horn each have their solo moment, with very different approaches: the clarinet displays sultry Arabic influences; the cello’s approach is extremely romantic; the horn offers a full-throated love song. But primarily the serenade is a beguiling ensemble production, punctuated with many soloistic flourishes. Notice, however, that as the movement progresses, the double bass has been essentially excluded from the spotlight. This is surely a good-natured jab at Nielsen’s long-time friend Ludwig Hegner, who was the Royal Theater’s double bassist, the head of the chamber group, the organizer of the tour, and commissioner of the Serenata.
When the double bass finally does get its moment, its role is to begin the second movement (with no pause after the first movement) with just a few, simple, repeated notes — Nielsen was apparently mercilessly “good natured.” As it proceeds, though, the second movement is ripe with beautiful songs and sounds. Nielsen’s instrumental combinations and wandering, lush harmonies are touchingly tender and poetic. Listen especially for the emergence of the clarinet near this movement’s end, as it increasingly, but most delicately, takes several flights of musical fancy as though lost in other thoughts since the fair one hasn’t appeared on her balcony.
A moment of silence prepares for the last, third movement. This movement is a ridiculous and wonderful march depicting the trio turning to go back home or perhaps to drown their sorrows elsewhere (as Nielsen described it, “playing a march for their own amusement.”) The march is comical indeed. While the clarinet, bassoon and horn reminisce on their failed serenades, the bass and cello interrupt with absurdly exaggerated episodes of swagger. The winds then join in with their own raucousness before the work comes to a tidy close.
Franz Schubert
(Born in Vienna, Austria in 1797; died in Vienna in 1828)
Octet in F major, Op. 166, D. 803
Adagio — Allegro
Adagio
Allegro vivace
Andante con variazioni
Menuetto. Allegretto
Andante molto — Allegro
While Schubert was at work in 1824 on his String Quartet No. 14, Death and the Maiden, one of his friends commissioned him to write what would become his Octet in F major. The scope of the commission offered Schubert a great opportunity. The friend, the very talented clarinettist Count Ferdinand von Troyer, was the chief administrator for the Archduke Rudolph, the Viennese patron and occasional piano pupil of Beethoven. Troyen was preparing a performance of Beethoven’s beloved Septet, Op. 20, and asked Schubert to write a companion piece to that work for the performance. It was a chance for Schubert to impress an important musical benefactor. According to accounts from his friends, Schubert couldn’t be distracted from this composing and finished the octet within several weeks.
The Octet in F major is indeed a companionable piece. It uses the same instruments as Beethoven’s septet — clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass — with an additional violin. Also, the mood of this nearly hour-long work is, like Beethoven’s, one of the composer’s sunniest expressions, consistently hedging towards cheerfulness. Schubert even used the same number of movements and, broadly, the same formal structure that Beethoven did for the septet.
But, as always, Schubert shines in his own way. And regardless of how sunny this octet seems, it flirts often with pathos. And amidst so many cheerful melodies, we find hints of yearning, sadness, sometimes even fear and distress. Such mixed emotions are not surprising considering that he was writing his Death and the Maiden at the same time and also in the throes of his worsening health crisis with syphilis. As Schubert said of his compositional muses, “When I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain. And when I tried to sing of sorrow, it turned to love.”
Schubert obligingly wrote a virtuosic part for Troyer’s clarinet, and another for the first violin (which was also played by a great musician, Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who knew Beethoven well). You will hear these two instruments both as soloists as well as singing together many times. But the octet is much more than a double concerto.Schubert captures an uncanny balance between chamber music and symphonic grandeur throughout the work, and virtuosity extends to each of the members of the octet.
Here are a few moments of sheer delight and genius in this masterpiece:
1. Adagio — Allegro
From the beginning you can hear that Schubert’s simple addition of one violin to the Septet ensemble makes for a big, orchestral sound. After the brief opening, the winds then play a motive that will inform the rest of the work in various ways, and which contain a clipped, or dotted, skipping rhythm that will pervade almost every bar of the rest of the movement. In the quick-stepping Allegro, listen for the spectacular and near-dizzying sequences of the main theme as it passes between the instruments.
2. Adagio
The opening theme by the solo clarinet is one of Schubert’s most gentle-natured and vulnerable melodies. It rises and falls over an accompaniment that reminds us of his beautiful Ave Maria. It is only surpassed here by the addition of the violin to the clarinet as they play a love duet to the heavens.
3. Allegro vivace
The emotional arc in this delightful little dance piece feels wonderfully backward.Beginning with great cheer, it subtly moves into more sentimental and darker territory and then returns to lightness.
4. Andante con variazioni
The opening melody here is borrowed from a happy duet in Act II of Schubert’s 1815 singspiel (opera) called Die Freunde von Salamanka (“The Friends from Salamanca”). (Schubert, having written several operas and finding no success with them, may have been doing a little self -promotion here.) But it’s a wonderfully carefree tune and ripe for variation, a skill at which Schubert excelled. Listen especially for his imaginative instrumental combinations, and how the variations spotlight specific instruments, such as the solo horn in Variation III and solo cello in Variation IV. Though this movement is particularly bright, Schubert can’t seem to help listing toward darker hues in Variation V. As Schubert said, “When I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain.”
5. Menuetto. Allegretto
Though traditionally a light dance movement, Schubert turns this minuet into almost a hymn, at least at the opening. Listen, too, for the symphonic richness of the sonorities and for the many birdlike solos. And notice a little Schubertian magic: that clipped, dotted rhythm introduced in the opening movement has by now appeared in nearly every bar of the work.
6. Andante molto — Allegro
The introduction here is some of Schubert’s most dramatic, almost frightening, instrumental music. With shivering (tremolo) strings and exclamatory winds, Schubert evokes an unsettling eeriness. But the Allegro delightfully zooms off in cheer and dignity, as if none of that ever happened. The music increases in good cheer, even rambunctiousness. Listen especially for the heralding horn moment that sets off two absolutely manic, jaw-dropping passages of virtuosic triplets, first heard in the violin and replied to by the clarinet. The rowdiness gets to a point of beer-hall bluster and then stops rather abruptly. The eerie introductory Andante music returns, as though Schubert has stumbled upon a memento mori. But the concluding bars quickly recapture the octet’s overall good cheer and the movement ends with some of Schubert’s most exhilarating writing.
Amy Beach (Born in Henniker, New Hampshire in 1867; died in New York City in 1944)
String Quartet, Op. 89 In one movement: Grave – Più animato – Allegro molto (Grave)
Amy Beach grew up in the Boston area in a well-to-do family. Like New York City, Boston was a cultural center for the United States at the time, and a great deal of excellent music was happening there. In that environment, Beach quickly became known as an astounding prodigy. At age four, for example, she began to compose small pieces in her head, without a piano, and to play them from memory whenever a piano became available. Around age seven she was giving piano recitals featuring works of Handel and Beethoven, as well as her own compositions. Soon, she was encouraged to go on an international tour. Her parents wisely declined that advice, but young Beach was reportedly tyrannical about deciding what music could be played in the house.
As Beach matured, she became a musician of many “firsts.” As the first American woman to write an acclaimed mass (Mass in E-flat, Op. 5, in 1892), she soon followed that success as the first American woman to write a successful symphony (her well-loved Gaelic Symphony in 1896). This led to her inclusion, again a first, in the “Boston Six” circle of composers, which boasted the likes of Horatio Parker (the original “dean of American composers” before Aaron Copland) and Edward MacDowell, who created the influential MacDowell Colony, a musicians’ retreat in New Hampshire.
MacDowell began his retreat (now known simply as “MacDowell”) so American musicians and artists could work in collaboration and in a “nest of ideas.” At Beach’s first summer there, in 1921, she came across the “Indianist” movement in American music that would inform our concert’s string quartet. The Indianists championed Native American songs, in part to capture the essence of American nationalist musical expression, and its proponents often gathered at MacDowell. Specifically, too, MacDowell himself had taught at Columbia University where he collaborated with the famous anthropologist/ethnomusicologist Franz Boas, who had collected Alaskan Inuit songs in his book, The Central Eskimo.
Beach used three songs from Boas’s book for our concert’s string quartet: Summer Song, Playing at Ball, and Ititaujang’s Song. She put the final touches on the quartet in 1929 and it found almost instant acclaim, being heralded as “uniquely beautiful.” What is especially wonderful about her use of these three songs is the way she integrated them, not only as straight-out melodies but using parts of them as countermelodies and harmonies. This was an imaginatively effective method of combining folk music with art music.
The opening is slow and filled with a wandering pensiveness that seems both austere and dignified. The music is mildly dissonant, and indeed, unresolved motives and melodies play a big role throughout the work. The reason for this, likely, is that the Inuit songs themselves don’t generally adhere to the same rules of harmony as Western European music — their scales are different and the endings of their musical phrases often feel unresolved.
The first song, Summer Song, appears as a viola solo at about 1:30 minutes into the work. Contrasting with the gravitas of the introduction, this first song is pleasant and glad sounding. Boas’s translated lyrics (the only one of the songs known to be translated) describe how lovely it is to be outside in the long hours of light in summer and when the reindeer return and food is plentiful. Beach deftly captures its lilting simplicity.
The second song, Playing at Ball, appears around 30 seconds later, when the rest of the quartet joins the viola. The tune is light-hearted and filled with repeated notes. Beach then presents the two songs in such a way as to complement each other, as though they were organically related — listen for bits of them as they appear and fade into the tapestry of Beach’s musical fabric.
The third song, Ititaujang’s Song, begins with a quick introduction of loud and short unison chords. The full tune is heard soon after in the second violin. After Beach presents this song, she carries all the songs together in some impressive counterpoint, leading up to a brief and frisky fugue.
The long, final bars of Beach’s String Quartet mimic the slow opening of the work. The energy winds down, and the strings creep increasingly higher into the stratosphere. The final chord brings to us, at last, a very solid harmonic resolution and then fades into the darkness of a cold Northern night.
Franz Schubert (Born in Vienna in 1797; died in Vienna in 1828)
String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, (Death and the Maiden), D. 810
Allegro
Andante con moto
Scherzo: Allegro molto — Trio
Presto — Prestissimo
In 1824, Franz Schubert was beginning to suffer deeply from the illness that would fell him a few years later: syphilis. He wrote an achingly depressed letter to a friend:
I find myself to be the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world. Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, … I might as well sing every day now, for upon retiring to bed each night I hope that I may not wake again, and each morning only recalls yesterday’s grief.
Death was clearly on Schubert’s mind. And yet, for the next four years until he died, Schubert had one of the most exceptionally creative periods of his life. As his letters and manuscripts from those last years show, his mind was aflame with musical inspiration. And in 1824, he wrote one of his great masterpieces, his String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, which has become a cherished cornerstone of the quartet genre.
This string quartet’s nickname, Death and the Maiden, came from the musical introduction that begins the quartet’s second movement. Schubert took those first 24 bars from the opening to a song he had written in 1817, based on a poem by the German poet Matthias Claudius (1740–1815) also titled Death and the Maiden. The poem and Schubert’s song portray the moment when a personified Death entreats a young woman (the “Maiden”) at a ball. The Maiden bids Death to leave her at peace in life, but he cajoles her with comforting words:
Give me your hand, you fair and tender form!
I am a friend and do not come to punish.
Be of good cheer! I am not fierce,
You shall sleep softly in my arms!
Scholars debate whether Schubert intended String Quartet No. 14 as a rumination on his own death, but inspiration from this earlier song clearly informs the work. The quartet is, indeed, filled with gravitas and poignancy. The first movement begins with one of Schubert’s most memorable moments, emotionally charged, angry and pained. All four instruments begin at fortissimo, scored in double-stops (two notes played simultaneously on one instrument), with a short declamatory motive ending with a triplet figure. This immediately grabs our attention and grips us with pathos. Aurally, it approaches the sound of an entire orchestra of strings. The triplet motive will permeate almost every bar of the movement, as well as each of the quartet’s other movements. Listen especially, just after the declamatory introduction, as the instrumentalists pass the triplet around to each other like a foursome juggling flaming torches.
The second movement begins with a searching and solemn progression of chords, a funeral march that Schubert borrowed from the opening of his Death and the Maiden song. From this statement of 24 bars (or longer, if Schubert’s section repeats are observed) spring five exceptional variations, each increasingly charged with emotion. The fifth and last variation — beginning with the cello playing octave triplets, followed by the first violin playing quick and repeated notes — especially evokes a sense of time running short; of something frightening looming.
The third movement is a scherzo, and here, too, Schubert again borrowed from himself for the first theme: a ländler (a rustic Austrian waltz), from the sixth dance of his 12 German Dances, D. 790, of 1823. This cascading theme crackles with a clear sense of urgency. Balance comes in its contrasting middle section (Trio) with a bittersweet tenderness; listen for the rhapsodic singing of the first violin here. But the “borrowed” theme returns to push the quartet toward its final movement.
The finale’s structure is a tarantella — an old Italian dance whose frenetic pace was claimed to be a folk remedy to ward off madness and death caused by a poisonous spider bite. Schubert surely captures freneticism here. Pure quicksilver, the finale begins in a hush but hurls along with fervor. True virtuosic playing is demanded in this section. Listen for the ways Schubert plays with big contrasts: loud and soft, silence and sound, pulse and stutters, and all the while, the first movement’s triplet figure is almost constantly in the musical fabric, propelling the music manically forward. And the final section of this masterful work does not disappoint — marked prestissimo (very fast), it is spectacularly exciting.
https://www.friendswv.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/longing.jpg299506Jen Rolstonhttps://www.friendswv.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/FOM_logo_340x156-300x138.jpgJen Rolston2022-09-20 17:24:462022-09-20 17:33:47Longing for Song – September 25, 2022
March Musical Madness – March 25, 2023
Program NotesPROGRAM NOTES
We open our program with a nod to the liturgical season of Lent. Venetian Baroque composer Antonio Lotti’s setting of the Crucifixus text utilizes thick eight-part choral writing, chromaticism, and suspensions depicting the death of Christ. Johann Sebastian Bach was aware of Lotti’s work, and the Venetian writing for multi-part choirs influenced his own writing. Despite composing over 300 liturgical cantatas, Bach wrote only a handful of motets; although motets were a regular part of the 18th century Lutheran church service, Bach frequently prepared and presented works by other composers. The details surrounding the composition of his Komm, Jesu, komm are unknown, but it was most assuredly composed for a funeral. Like the Lotti, the texture of the choir is in eight parts, but here it is separated into two choirs, with significant antiphonal writing.
The British choral tradition is central to the history of choral repertoire. The rich heritage can be traced back to Elizabethan composers such as William Byrd and Thomas Tallis. Tonight, we explore three of the greatest hits of the repertory from the 19th and early 20th centuries from very different composers. Robert Lucas Pearsall’s profession was that of a barrister—composition was merely an avocation. His Lay a Garland is a jewel of part writing, not unlike the Lotti in its use of eight-part choral writing and suspensions, and funeral imagery. Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villers Stanford was an academic composer of the highest regard, and his Beati quorum via is a study in construction and Romantic sonority. Charles Hubert Hastings Parry was a rival of Stanford’s and both are largely responsible for the 19th century British choral renaissance. Parry’s “My Soul There is a Country” is the first movement of his Songs of Farewell, written in 1916 near the end of his life.
With Critters, Viva soprano and Shepherdstown resident Georgiann Toole set out to write music about the animals “no one ever sings about”. With references to newt, frog, lizard, snake, and snail these inventive new works are an important addition to the repertoire and we are pleased to be making their world premiere performance!
The basic vocabulary of the jazz world is the “standard” song, also referred to as the American musical songbook. In our final set we pose the question, “When and how does a song become a part of this songbook?” No one would dispute the place of Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm” and Harold Arlen’s “Over the Rainbow” in that category. We suggest that more contemporary classics such as “Crazy,” made famous by Winchester’s own Patsy Cline, and “Moonshadow,” by Yusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), deserve consideration for entry into the canon.
Program notes by W. Bryce Hayes
Highlands & Low – November 19 & 20, 2022
Program NotesA preliminary observation. The works featured in this concert share the same inspiration: Beethoven’s ever-popular Septet, Op. 20.
Beethoven premiered this septet in 1800, shortly after he arrived in Vienna. Not yet known as a composer of large-scale works, Beethoven began “working up” to writing a symphony by expanding his instrumental palette. His first effort at expansion was this septet, which he scored, essentially, for a small orchestra: clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.
Brimming with light, energy, and the devil-may-care attitude of a young, genius, Beethoven’s Septet Op.20 is arguably his sunniest work. It was instantly loved at its premiere and has remained so ever since. For many years, its mastery and ebullience, and its ubiquity in concert halls, cast their influence over composers who followed, encouraging additional masterpieces.
One of these masterpieces is Franz Schubert’s Octet in F major. Premiered in Vienna 24 years after Beethoven’s septet, the octet very specifically evokes that work.
Another masterpiece prompted by Beethoven’s septet is Carl Nielsen’s Serenata in vano, which was written more than a century after the septet, in 1914. It acknowledges the septet like a revered ancestor.
The program notes that follow more fully explain the relation of Beethoven’s septet to both these works.
Carl Nielsen
(Born in Sortelung, on Funen, Denmark in 1865; died in Copenhagen in 1931)
Serenata in vano, FS 68
Allegro non troppo
Un poco adagio
Tempo di marcia
Nielsen was born on the island of Funen, Denmark, the birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson and a place so lovely it is rightfully called the Garden of Denmark. Along with the island’s natural wonders, Nielsen’s early years were filled with music. His mother was a fine singer, and his father was the leader of the town band. Nielsen was soon playing the violin, singing at every opportunity, and playing trombone in his father’s band. And there was often a fair amount of hilarity — Nielsen’s father was an exceptional impressionist, pranking his pals with friendly buffoonery.
Nielsen’s early immersion in this musical world of folksong and joyful hometown music-making, along with a keen sense of the comical, deeply informed his compositional career. That career would span nearly five decades, from studying at the Copenhagen Conservatory to eventually becoming its director and, arguably, Denmark’s greatest composer.
Nielsen also spent many years as a professional violinist, playing for, and eventually serving as the assistant conductor of the Copenhagen Royal Theater Orchestra. In 1914, several of Nielsen’s Royal Theater colleagues created a chamber group to tour Denmark performing Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20. They asked Nielsen to provide a short, lighthearted piece to round out their program. He obliged. Scoring for several of the same instruments that were already used in Beethoven’s work — clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello and double bass — he penned his delightfully fun Serenata in vano in only a few weeks.
It’s a quirky work, brimming with humor and good spirit. Nielsen provided this description of it:
Serenata in vano is a humorous trifle. First the gentlemen play in a somewhat chivalric and showy manner to lure the fair one out onto the balcony, but she does not appear. Then they play in a slightly languorous strain (Poco adagio), but that hasn’t any effect either. Since they have played in vain (in vano), they don’t care a straw and shuffle off home to the strains of the little final march, which they play for their own amusement.
The first movement begins with a waltz feel, awash with energy and high hopes. The clarinet, cello and horn each have their solo moment, with very different approaches: the clarinet displays sultry Arabic influences; the cello’s approach is extremely romantic; the horn offers a full-throated love song. But primarily the serenade is a beguiling ensemble production, punctuated with many soloistic flourishes. Notice, however, that as the movement progresses, the double bass has been essentially excluded from the spotlight. This is surely a good-natured jab at Nielsen’s long-time friend Ludwig Hegner, who was the Royal Theater’s double bassist, the head of the chamber group, the organizer of the tour, and commissioner of the Serenata.
When the double bass finally does get its moment, its role is to begin the second movement (with no pause after the first movement) with just a few, simple, repeated notes — Nielsen was apparently mercilessly “good natured.” As it proceeds, though, the second movement is ripe with beautiful songs and sounds. Nielsen’s instrumental combinations and wandering, lush harmonies are touchingly tender and poetic. Listen especially for the emergence of the clarinet near this movement’s end, as it increasingly, but most delicately, takes several flights of musical fancy as though lost in other thoughts since the fair one hasn’t appeared on her balcony.
A moment of silence prepares for the last, third movement. This movement is a ridiculous and wonderful march depicting the trio turning to go back home or perhaps to drown their sorrows elsewhere (as Nielsen described it, “playing a march for their own amusement.”) The march is comical indeed. While the clarinet, bassoon and horn reminisce on their failed serenades, the bass and cello interrupt with absurdly exaggerated episodes of swagger. The winds then join in with their own raucousness before the work comes to a tidy close.
Franz Schubert
(Born in Vienna, Austria in 1797; died in Vienna in 1828)
Octet in F major, Op. 166, D. 803
While Schubert was at work in 1824 on his String Quartet No. 14, Death and the Maiden, one of his friends commissioned him to write what would become his Octet in F major. The scope of the commission offered Schubert a great opportunity. The friend, the very talented clarinettist Count Ferdinand von Troyer, was the chief administrator for the Archduke Rudolph, the Viennese patron and occasional piano pupil of Beethoven. Troyen was preparing a performance of Beethoven’s beloved Septet, Op. 20, and asked Schubert to write a companion piece to that work for the performance. It was a chance for Schubert to impress an important musical benefactor. According to accounts from his friends, Schubert couldn’t be distracted from this composing and finished the octet within several weeks.
The Octet in F major is indeed a companionable piece. It uses the same instruments as Beethoven’s septet — clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass — with an additional violin. Also, the mood of this nearly hour-long work is, like Beethoven’s, one of the composer’s sunniest expressions, consistently hedging towards cheerfulness. Schubert even used the same number of movements and, broadly, the same formal structure that Beethoven did for the septet.
But, as always, Schubert shines in his own way. And regardless of how sunny this octet seems, it flirts often with pathos. And amidst so many cheerful melodies, we find hints of yearning, sadness, sometimes even fear and distress. Such mixed emotions are not surprising considering that he was writing his Death and the Maiden at the same time and also in the throes of his worsening health crisis with syphilis. As Schubert said of his compositional muses, “When I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain. And when I tried to sing of sorrow, it turned to love.”
Schubert obligingly wrote a virtuosic part for Troyer’s clarinet, and another for the first violin (which was also played by a great musician, Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who knew Beethoven well). You will hear these two instruments both as soloists as well as singing together many times. But the octet is much more than a double concerto. Schubert captures an uncanny balance between chamber music and symphonic grandeur throughout the work, and virtuosity extends to each of the members of the octet.
Here are a few moments of sheer delight and genius in this masterpiece:
1. Adagio — Allegro
From the beginning you can hear that Schubert’s simple addition of one violin to the Septet ensemble makes for a big, orchestral sound. After the brief opening, the winds then play a motive that will inform the rest of the work in various ways, and which contain a clipped, or dotted, skipping rhythm that will pervade almost every bar of the rest of the movement. In the quick-stepping Allegro, listen for the spectacular and near-dizzying sequences of the main theme as it passes between the instruments.
2. Adagio
The opening theme by the solo clarinet is one of Schubert’s most gentle-natured and vulnerable melodies. It rises and falls over an accompaniment that reminds us of his beautiful Ave Maria. It is only surpassed here by the addition of the violin to the clarinet as they play a love duet to the heavens.
3. Allegro vivace
The emotional arc in this delightful little dance piece feels wonderfully backward. Beginning with great cheer, it subtly moves into more sentimental and darker territory and then returns to lightness.
4. Andante con variazioni
The opening melody here is borrowed from a happy duet in Act II of Schubert’s 1815 singspiel (opera) called Die Freunde von Salamanka (“The Friends from Salamanca”). (Schubert, having written several operas and finding no success with them, may have been doing a little self -promotion here.) But it’s a wonderfully carefree tune and ripe for variation, a skill at which Schubert excelled. Listen especially for his imaginative instrumental combinations, and how the variations spotlight specific instruments, such as the solo horn in Variation III and solo cello in Variation IV. Though this movement is particularly bright, Schubert can’t seem to help listing toward darker hues in Variation V. As Schubert said, “When I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain.”
5. Menuetto. Allegretto
Though traditionally a light dance movement, Schubert turns this minuet into almost a hymn, at least at the opening. Listen, too, for the symphonic richness of the sonorities and for the many birdlike solos. And notice a little Schubertian magic: that clipped, dotted rhythm introduced in the opening movement has by now appeared in nearly every bar of the work.
6. Andante molto — Allegro
The introduction here is some of Schubert’s most dramatic, almost frightening, instrumental music. With shivering (tremolo) strings and exclamatory winds, Schubert evokes an unsettling eeriness. But the Allegro delightfully zooms off in cheer and dignity, as if none of that ever happened. The music increases in good cheer, even rambunctiousness. Listen especially for the heralding horn moment that sets off two absolutely manic, jaw-dropping passages of virtuosic triplets, first heard in the violin and replied to by the clarinet. The rowdiness gets to a point of beer-hall bluster and then stops rather abruptly. The eerie introductory Andante music returns, as though Schubert has stumbled upon a memento mori. But the concluding bars quickly recapture the octet’s overall good cheer and the movement ends with some of Schubert’s most exhilarating writing.
© Max Derrickson
Longing for Song – September 25, 2022
Program NotesAmy Beach
(Born in Henniker, New Hampshire in 1867; died in New York City in 1944)
String Quartet, Op. 89
In one movement: Grave – Più animato – Allegro molto (Grave)
Amy Beach grew up in the Boston area in a well-to-do family. Like New York City, Boston was a cultural center for the United States at the time, and a great deal of excellent music was happening there. In that environment, Beach quickly became known as an astounding prodigy. At age four, for example, she began to compose small pieces in her head, without a piano, and to play them from memory whenever a piano became available. Around age seven she was giving piano recitals featuring works of Handel and Beethoven, as well as her own compositions. Soon, she was encouraged to go on an international tour. Her parents wisely declined that advice, but young Beach was reportedly tyrannical about deciding what music could be played in the house.
As Beach matured, she became a musician of many “firsts.” As the first American woman to write an acclaimed mass (Mass in E-flat, Op. 5, in 1892), she soon followed that success as the first American woman to write a successful symphony (her well-loved Gaelic Symphony in 1896). This led to her inclusion, again a first, in the “Boston Six” circle of composers, which boasted the likes of Horatio Parker (the original “dean of American composers” before Aaron Copland) and Edward MacDowell, who created the influential MacDowell Colony, a musicians’ retreat in New Hampshire.
MacDowell began his retreat (now known simply as “MacDowell”) so American musicians and artists could work in collaboration and in a “nest of ideas.” At Beach’s first summer there, in 1921, she came across the “Indianist” movement in American music that would inform our concert’s string quartet. The Indianists championed Native American songs, in part to capture the essence of American nationalist musical expression, and its proponents often gathered at MacDowell. Specifically, too, MacDowell himself had taught at Columbia University where he collaborated with the famous anthropologist/ethnomusicologist Franz Boas, who had collected Alaskan Inuit songs in his book, The Central Eskimo.
Beach used three songs from Boas’s book for our concert’s string quartet: Summer Song, Playing at Ball, and Ititaujang’s Song. She put the final touches on the quartet in 1929 and it found almost instant acclaim, being heralded as “uniquely beautiful.” What is especially wonderful about her use of these three songs is the way she integrated them, not only as straight-out melodies but using parts of them as countermelodies and harmonies. This was an imaginatively effective method of combining folk music with art music.
The opening is slow and filled with a wandering pensiveness that seems both austere and dignified. The music is mildly dissonant, and indeed, unresolved motives and melodies play a big role throughout the work. The reason for this, likely, is that the Inuit songs themselves don’t generally adhere to the same rules of harmony as Western European music — their scales are different and the endings of their musical phrases often feel unresolved.
The first song, Summer Song, appears as a viola solo at about 1:30 minutes into the work. Contrasting with the gravitas of the introduction, this first song is pleasant and glad sounding. Boas’s translated lyrics (the only one of the songs known to be translated) describe how lovely it is to be outside in the long hours of light in summer and when the reindeer return and food is plentiful. Beach deftly captures its lilting simplicity.
The second song, Playing at Ball, appears around 30 seconds later, when the rest of the quartet joins the viola. The tune is light-hearted and filled with repeated notes. Beach then presents the two songs in such a way as to complement each other, as though they were organically related — listen for bits of them as they appear and fade into the tapestry of Beach’s musical fabric.
The third song, Ititaujang’s Song, begins with a quick introduction of loud and short unison chords. The full tune is heard soon after in the second violin. After Beach presents this song, she carries all the songs together in some impressive counterpoint, leading up to a brief and frisky fugue.
The long, final bars of Beach’s String Quartet mimic the slow opening of the work. The energy winds down, and the strings creep increasingly higher into the stratosphere. The final chord brings to us, at last, a very solid harmonic resolution and then fades into the darkness of a cold Northern night.
Franz Schubert
(Born in Vienna in 1797; died in Vienna in 1828)
String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, (Death and the Maiden), D. 810
In 1824, Franz Schubert was beginning to suffer deeply from the illness that would fell him a few years later: syphilis. He wrote an achingly depressed letter to a friend:
I find myself to be the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world. Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, … I might as well sing every day now, for upon retiring to bed each night I hope that I may not wake again, and each morning only recalls yesterday’s grief.
Death was clearly on Schubert’s mind. And yet, for the next four years until he died, Schubert had one of the most exceptionally creative periods of his life. As his letters and manuscripts from those last years show, his mind was aflame with musical inspiration. And in 1824, he wrote one of his great masterpieces, his String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, which has become a cherished cornerstone of the quartet genre.
This string quartet’s nickname, Death and the Maiden, came from the musical introduction that begins the quartet’s second movement. Schubert took those first 24 bars from the opening to a song he had written in 1817, based on a poem by the German poet Matthias Claudius (1740–1815) also titled Death and the Maiden. The poem and Schubert’s song portray the moment when a personified Death entreats a young woman (the “Maiden”) at a ball. The Maiden bids Death to leave her at peace in life, but he cajoles her with comforting words:
Give me your hand, you fair and tender form!
I am a friend and do not come to punish.
Be of good cheer! I am not fierce,
You shall sleep softly in my arms!
Scholars debate whether Schubert intended String Quartet No. 14 as a rumination on his own death, but inspiration from this earlier song clearly informs the work. The quartet is, indeed, filled with gravitas and poignancy. The first movement begins with one of Schubert’s most memorable moments, emotionally charged, angry and pained. All four instruments begin at fortissimo, scored in double-stops (two notes played simultaneously on one instrument), with a short declamatory motive ending with a triplet figure. This immediately grabs our attention and grips us with pathos. Aurally, it approaches the sound of an entire orchestra of strings. The triplet motive will permeate almost every bar of the movement, as well as each of the quartet’s other movements. Listen especially, just after the declamatory introduction, as the instrumentalists pass the triplet around to each other like a foursome juggling flaming torches.
The second movement begins with a searching and solemn progression of chords, a funeral march that Schubert borrowed from the opening of his Death and the Maiden song. From this statement of 24 bars (or longer, if Schubert’s section repeats are observed) spring five exceptional variations, each increasingly charged with emotion. The fifth and last variation — beginning with the cello playing octave triplets, followed by the first violin playing quick and repeated notes — especially evokes a sense of time running short; of something frightening looming.
The third movement is a scherzo, and here, too, Schubert again borrowed from himself for the first theme: a ländler (a rustic Austrian waltz), from the sixth dance of his 12 German Dances, D. 790, of 1823. This cascading theme crackles with a clear sense of urgency. Balance comes in its contrasting middle section (Trio) with a bittersweet tenderness; listen for the rhapsodic singing of the first violin here. But the “borrowed” theme returns to push the quartet toward its final movement.
The finale’s structure is a tarantella — an old Italian dance whose frenetic pace was claimed to be a folk remedy to ward off madness and death caused by a poisonous spider bite. Schubert surely captures freneticism here. Pure quicksilver, the finale begins in a hush but hurls along with fervor. True virtuosic playing is demanded in this section. Listen for the ways Schubert plays with big contrasts: loud and soft, silence and sound, pulse and stutters, and all the while, the first movement’s triplet figure is almost constantly in the musical fabric, propelling the music manically forward. And the final section of this masterful work does not disappoint — marked prestissimo (very fast), it is spectacularly exciting.
© Max Derrickson