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Mozart, Morlock, & Brahms
This concert is sold out. Please contact Lori Hopkinson at lori@bowdoinfestival.org or 207-373-1400 to be placed on a waiting list. Concert also livestreamed at bowdoinfestival.org/festivalive.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Rondo. Allegro moderato
Mikhail Kopelman, violin • Phillip Ying, viola • Keiko Ying, cello • Jeewon Park, piano
JOCELYN MORLOCK
Three Meditations on Light
I. The birds breathe the morning light
II. Bioluminescence (wine-dark sea)
III. Absence of light — gradual reawakening
Denise Djokic, cello • June Han, harp
JOHANNES BRAHMS
String Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36, “Agathe”
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Scherzo. Allegro non troppo — Presto giocoso
III. Poco adagio
IV. Poco allegro
Nelson Lee, Meg Freivogel, violin • Liz Freivogel, Phillip Ying, viola
Daniel McDonough, Ahrim Kim, cello
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478 (1785)
It was long thought that Mozart’s two piano quartets — the first of which was performed earlier this week — were part of a commission for three such quartets by Franz Anton Hoffmeister, one of Vienna’s most successful publishers. Mozart, it was said, sent Hoffmeister the first quartet, K. 478, only for the publisher to complain that it was far too difficult for the general public to perform. Unwilling to dumb himself down, Mozart kept his advance, sent the second quartet to another publisher, and never composed the third.
While Mozart’s refusal to capitulate to marketplace considerations might appear noble, there is one snag: the story appears to be untrue. While the tall tale circulated widely for nearly two centuries, it was definitively snuffed out in 2010 by Rupert Ridgewell, whose 70-page journal article — complete with examinations of printers’ plate numbers, penmanship, and glyphs — reads more like a forensic case file than music history. The story appears to have been little more than a game of telephone based on a dim recollection, perhaps calculated to bolster Mozart’s reputation for artistic integrity. In reality, the available evidence suggests that Mozart’s K. 478 quartet was received rather warmly by publisher and public alike. To be sure, the quartet was not to be performed by casual amateurs: it is something like a cross between a piano concerto and a string quartet, with moments of teamwork interspersed with soloistic virtuosity.
Mozart’s unfailing wit shines through in a detail of the first movement that I particularly enjoy — seldom noticed even by seasoned performers of this work. After the presentation of the first theme, with its distinct rhythmic profile, and an extensive transition in which the first theme’s rhythm is passed around the players, we arrive at the second theme, in the relative major key, introduced first by the piano alone and then joined by the strings. Listen for the unusual accent on the fifth note of this theme, marked, counterintuitively, on the fourth beat of the measure. This idiosyncratic stress is not arbitrary: it encodes that distinct rhythm of the first theme into the second half of the second theme, displaced by a beat.
JOCELYN MORLOCK
Three Meditations on Light (2011)
Jocelyn Morlock has provided the following note to accompany Three Meditations on Light:
Three Meditations on Light was inspired by various conceptions of light and sun, in particular Sol Invictus, the unconquerable sun. In ancient Egyptian culture (ca. 3000–2000 BC) it was believed that each night, the sun god, Ra, made a heroic journey, and fought a nocturnal battle in order to rise again in the morning. I love the idea that the sunrise is not a given, that each new day is miraculous.
Three Meditations on Light was commissioned by and dedicated to Couloir — harpist Heidi Krutzen and cellist Ariel Barnes — and premiered on October 1, 2012 at Music on Main’s Modulus Festival in Vancouver, BC. Many thanks to the British Columbia Arts Council for their support of this project.
JOHANNES BRAHMS
String Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36, “Agathe” (1864–1865)
It can be risky and futile to derive a link between the events in an artist’s life and the interpretation of a work. In his second String Sextet, however, Brahms leaves little room for doubt as to his preoccupations. The second theme of the first movement, introduced by the cello, builds into a climactic inscription declaimed by the first violin and viola on the notes A-G-A-H-E: that is, Brahms’ way of invoking the name of his formerly betrothed, Agathe von Siebold (with “H” representing B-natural in German).
Brahms’ intense romance with von Siebold had begun in 1858, but was terminated abruptly after the dismal premiere of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1. Brahms had grown fearful at the prospect of forming a family amidst a potential career of artistic failures, and broke off the engagement acrimoniously. He later ruminated, perhaps unfairly: “If, in such moments, I had had to meet the anxious, questioning eyes of a wife with the words ‘another failure’ — I could not have borne that!” Clearly, however, despite his ill will, Brahms did not overcome his feelings for von Siebold as easily as he dismissed her. She remained on his mind throughout the ensuing years; and when Brahms was wrapping up work on the Sextet in 1864, he wrote to his friend Josef Gänsbacher, “By this work I have freed myself of my last love.”
The Sextet weaves its way into New England music history as well: it received its world premiere in Boston by the Mendelssohn Quintette Club on October 11, 1866. The musicians and founders of the Mendelssohn Quintette Club were largely German emigrants who had arrived to the United States in the late 1840s, and who had been playing together in various professional orchestras across Boston and Cambridge. They began to present chamber music to American audiences in the salons of Bostonian businesspeople, beginning with the jeweler John Bigelow. In the 1850s, the Club expanded their reach, regularly performing in Providence and elsewhere in the region. They became one of the most acclaimed chamber music societies in the United States, and eventually embarked on tours across the country and even to Australia and New Zealand.
Program Notes by Peter Asimov