September 17 Beauty & Seduction
Michael Brown piano
Mark Kaplan violin
Lisa Shihoten violin
Luosha Fang viola
Lisa Sung viola
Coleman Itzkoff cello
Oliver Herbert cello
Rita Mitsel oboe
Vadim Lando clarinet
Karl Kramer horn
Gina Cuffari bassoon
MOZART Piano Quintet in Eb Major K. 452 • 1784
• performed by Mozart himself on April Fool’s Day, and in a letter to his father, he declared enthusiastically, “the best thing I have so far written in my life”
SCHUBERT Adagio and Rondo Concertante in F Major D. 487 • 1816
• in love with Therese Grob at the age of 19, Schubert wrote the piano quartet for her brother Heinrich ~ stylistically, the piece is more of a concerto movement for piano and strings, and the Rondo, a sonata movement with Mozart-like themes
Peteris VASKS The Fruit of Silence • 2013
• the Latvian composer’s sublime, spellbinding meditation ~ for piano quintet Vasks described the quintet as a muted contemplation on a path: “This path has five signposts—prayer, faith, love, service and peace. I want this composition to serve as a reminder that such a path exists.” The music, originally for choir a cappella, was set to a text by Mother Teresa: “The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace.” It was commissioned by the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Arnold SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht “Transfigured Night” Op. 4 • 1899
• dense, voluptuous, gut-wrenching late-Romanticism from the Modernist composer before he abandoned tonality
Based on a mystical poem of Richard Dehmel, the programmatic music for string sextet captures the despair, angst, love, nobility, and radiance of the story of a couple in love walking through the woods on a moonlit night, the woman’s confession that she is bearing the child of another man she never loved, and the man’s acceptance of both the woman and unborn child as his own, transforming all from darkness to light. Schoenberg, however, wanted the music to be appreciated as his expression of nature and human emotion.
In 1949, Schoenberg said, “I can really contend that I owe very, very much to Mozart.... And I am proud of it!” In background notes on Mozart’s influence on Schoenberg at the Schönberg Center in Vienna, Therese Muxeneder wrote, “The special exhibition addresses Arnold Schönberg’s stylistic career in the footsteps of Viennese Classicism as well as his artistically and theoretically diverse reflection on the Viennese fathers. The importance of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven for his own work and teaching can be impressively demonstrated in numerous documents from the estate. They also provide insights into Schönberg’s compositional style, which is juxtaposed with that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”