Chamber Music

Martinů’s Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola: Bohemian Renaissance

by

Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) was born in the tower of St. Jakub Church in the small Bohemian town of Polička. He was a notoriously bad student at the Prague Conservatory, where he studied violin but was more interested in composing. Briefly, he was a member of the second violin section of the Czech Philharmonic. In 1923, he moved to Paris, where he studied with Albert Roussel and began to compose extensively. Following the …

Read more

Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds: A Drama of Conversing Voices

by

In Mozart’s later piano concertos (Nos. 14-27), written for Vienna, the woodwinds step out from the shadows. Previously relegated to accompanying lines which often doubled the strings, the clarinet, flute, oboe, and bassoon now engaged in direct conversation with the solo piano. As with operatic characters, the persona of each voice came into focus. The same magic can be heard in Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, K. 452. …

Read more

Ives’ “Hallowe’en”: Mischief Around a Polytonal Bonfire

by

Composed in 1906, Charles Ives’ Hallowe’en evokes childhood memories of a growing bonfire and playful mischief. Ives wrote, It is a take-off of a Halloween party and bonfire – the elfishness of the little boys throwing wood on the fire, etc, etc… it is a joke even Herbert Hoover could get. Scored for “string quartet, piano and optional drum,” the work begins as a whisper, with only two voices, the second violin and …

Read more

Hindemith’s Harp Sonata: Songs and Images

by

German composer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) had a deep fascination for the colors and technical capabilities of musical instruments. Principally a violinist and violist, Hindemith was proficient on numerous other instruments, including the piano, bassoon, clarinet, and cello. He composed more than forty sonatas which encompassed nearly every standard orchestral instrument. His orchestral music unfolds with a sonorous majesty. The composer considered many of the sonatas to be technical exercises, written concurrently with …

Read more

Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata: Zino Francescatti and Robert Casadesus

by

Beethoven composed ten sonatas for violin and piano. The giant of the set, in terms of technical demands and dramatic weight, is Sonata No. 9 in A Major, Op. 47, the “Kreutzer” Sonata. The work was dedicated to the French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer who called it “outrageously unintelligible” and never performed it. Beethoven and the Afro-European violinist George Bridgetower (1778-1860) premiered this convention-shattering music at Vienna’s Augarten Theatre. Beethoven was so late …

Read more

Chausson’s Concert for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet: A Glorious Hybrid

by

Completed in 1891, Ernest Chausson’s Concert for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet, Op. 21 is a glorious hybrid. With the violin and piano functioning as solo protagonists set against the larger ensemble of the quartet, its musical dialogue resembles the Baroque concerto grosso. Brimming with bold virtuosity, it takes us on a dramatic journey that is virtually unique in the chamber music repertoire. The unusual title, suggesting a “harmonious ensemble,” recalls the …

Read more

Poulenc’s Sextet: An Homage to Wind Instruments

by

The critic Claude Rostand famously observed, “In Poulenc there is something of the monk and something of the rascal.” We hear this in Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds, composed between 1931 and 1932, and revised in 1939. Scored for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn, it is music filled with impish humor. At times, its comic voices, with their distinct personas, take on a satirical tone. As the …

Read more