KARENIN’S SMILE

There is a moment in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being when the couple Tomas and Tereza attempt to distract their dying dog, Karenin, from his discomfort. (Named after the husband in Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, the pet nevertheless is female.) They play a favorite game involving rolls, from a nearby bakery, that seem to provide temporary relief, if not for the dog, then for Tomas and Tereza. “Standing there watching him,” writes Kundera, “they thought once more that he was smiling and that as long as he kept smiling he had a motive to keep living despite his death sentence.”

Smiling or otherwise, animals make an enchanting contribution to this program in Leoš Janáček’s Concertino, as they will to an even greater extent later in the festival in Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals. It isn’t necessary, of course, for creatures great and small to be on the premises for the works at this concert to prompt smiles. Mozart is at his fetching best in the String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K. 515, while Saint-Saëns goes to extremes of emotion in his Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 92, that can’t fail to keep ears riveted.

But back to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was a very busy writer of masterpieces in 1787. Along with the C major quintet this year, he composed the String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, Ein musikalischer Spaß (A Musical Joke), Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music, for two violins, viola, cello, bass), and the opera Don Giovanni. He scored all six of the string quintets he wrote from 1773 to 1791 for string quartet and an additional viola, causing these works to be referred to, somewhat confusingly, as “viola quintets.” All of the pieces are in different keys. The String Quintet No. 3 in C major has the distinction of being the work that inspired another Austrian composer, Schubert, to write his sublime quintet in the same key, but with a second cello joining a string quartet. (His “Trout” Quintet has an even more unusual instrumentation: piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.) The presence of the second viola in Mozart’s quintets, it must be said, adds richness to the overall textures, and it provides another voice in the profusion of exchanges throughout the four movements.

The cello and first violin introduce the principal material at the start of the remarkable first movement — the former outlining the key of C major and the latter setting up the lyrical side of the narrative. They reverse places, in C minor, before all of the instruments share and pass phrases to one another. The development section continues the cello-first violin argument while thickening the conversation and finally entering into a sunny recapitulation, with violins and then violas moving in genial thirds leading to a serene conclusion. The Menuetto that follows finds instruments paired in novel fashion and leads to a trio section of mysterious, lilting elegance.

Mozart the master dramatist comes to the fore in the slow movement, one of his peerless instrumental operatic scenes, in which first violin and first viola engage in heartfelt discussion. It is not far in mood, and transcendence, to the reconciliation scene at the end of The Marriage of Figaro, composed the previous year, with violin as Countess Almaviva and viola as her contrite husband. Everyone is in a mirthful frame of mind in the finale, especially the first violin, which skitters about and sings merrily along with friends. Mozart modifies and disperses the opening theme in all sorts of newfangled ways — at once impish and tender, as only he can be.

Our first encounters with animals at ChamberFest this season happen in Leoš Janáček’s Concertino, which the Czech composer initially envisioned as a piano concerto but turned into a chamber work — or small concerto, as the title indicates — featuring piano, violin, viola, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. Janáček (1854-1928) had already shown his affection for beasts in his 1924 opera The Cunning Little Vixen, which explores the cycle of life with a cast including foxes, hens, and all sorts of other creatures. When he came up with the idea of the Concertino for pianist Jan Heřman, he initially gave no indication that the four movements had any programmatic implications. Only in 1927, a year after the work’s premiere, did Janáček provide specifics about the figures that inhabit this captivating score.

The composer’s individual style, blending elements of Moravian speech and folk music, pervades the Concertino’s quirky activity. The piano begins the opening movement with a galumphing theme that is answered with three morose notes from the horn — a theme Janáček said depicts a “grumpy hedgehog.” Egged on by the piano, the mammal moves higher and becomes more energetic. But the piano dominates, and all the poor hedgehog can do is return to the land of stupor. A trilling and pecking E-flat clarinet portrays a “fidgety squirrel” in the second movement, with the piano brandishing chords and swirling figures that suggest a thwarted attempt to find common ground with the rodent. The seven instruments finally join forces in the shimmering third movement, full of “night owls and other night animals.” A hearty piano cadenza leads to a brilliant close. Janáček described the fourth movement as “a scene from a fairy-tale, where everybody is arguing.” It is part temperamental Czech dance and part piano display piece that winds up with ensemble glee.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) as both virtuoso pianist and composer can be discerned in the enormous Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor that ends this program. Cast in five movements, the 1892 work is an eruption of Gallic Romanticism, with the piano exploring every nook of the keyboard while trading fervent and nimble ideas with violin and cello. The first movement abounds in moody interplay, while the second is charming and suspenseful as set in patterns of five. Saint-Saëns marks the central slow movement “appassionato,” which is conveyed in the long poetic lines the three instruments unfold and intertwine. The players waltz joyfully in the fourth movement, a striking contrast to the sweeping urgency of the finale. Fugal elements add interest and intrigue as the music progresses through transformations of the principal material and into a heavenly realm leading to a dynamic conclusion.

© Donald Rosenberg