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NOTES Musicians from Marlboro III Thursday, May 7, 2015 – 8:00 PM Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center Program
Sextet in E‐flat Major, Op. 81b Ludwig van Beethoven Born: December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany Died: March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria Composed: 1795 First PCMS performance Duration: 17 minutes This composition is something of a chamber concerto for two horns with accompanying strings. The horn parts are quite taxing, full of hunting calls and fanfares. The first movement, Allegro con brio, is a sonata form built on conventional eighteenth‐century‐style themes. What's interesting here is the development, which allows the horns several lyrical passages as relief from their more intricate, percolating and burbling material. In the second movement, a pastoral image, possibly that of a tranquil forest scene is described by a warm extended theme uttered by the horns and repeated by the strings. This theme forms the movement's outer sections; in the middle is a sweet, slow duet for the horns with minimal accompaniment. The third and final movement is a rondo abounding in hunting calls and close harmony; the movement calls to mind the cheerful rondo‐finales of Mozart's horn concertos, although Beethoven's writing tends to be less exuberant than Mozart's. Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1 Johannes Brahms Born: May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany Died: April 3, 1897, in Vienna, Austria Composed: 1865‐73 Last PCMS performance: Artemis Quartet in 2014 Duration: 32 minutes Brahms’ first two quartets were completed just before he seriously embarked upon his almost exclusive engagement with orchestral works. Brahms' greatest accomplishment as a composer was his "developing variation" technique in which an entire work was generated from a single motive or group of motives. In the two quartets of Opus 51, Brahms gives no clearer nor more pervasive an example of this technique. In the opening Allegro, a rising arpeggio over a driving accompaniment sets the tone of the movement. It is in the strictest sonata form, with each subsequent theme developing and expanding logically and methodically out of the last. The second movement is composed of a complex and highly organized structure. Its themes are all derived from the opening motive of the first movement. The third movement’s Scherzo is in a duple rather than triple meter, and derived not from the opening of the quartet but from the middle section of the first theme. In the energetic Finale, Brahms brings together all the motives and structural elements of the quartet. Divertimento in D Major, K. 251 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Born: January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria Died: December 5, 1791 in Vienna, Austria Composed: 1776 First PCMS performance Duration: 24 minutes The work is scored for oboe, two horns, two violins, viola and "basso", which, as is customary with divertimentos, indicates double bass rather than cello. Although composed in a larger number of parts than was usual for divertimentos, the string parts would have been played solo rather than orchestrally. Beautifully crafted, elegant music, they form a group of relaxed and beguiling chamber works whose functional background has resulted in them being too frequently overlooked in favor of the more "profound" utterances of the composer.