Friday, July 5 • At Home And Away

At Home And Away Norfolk Chamber Music Festival | Friday, July 5, 8:00 pm

Piano Trio No. 39 in G Major, HOB XV/25, “Gypsy”

Andante Poco adagio Finale: Rondo a l’Ongarese — Presto Hilda Huang* piano — In-Ae Lee* violin — Tomsen Su* cello

Franz Josef Haydn (1732 – 1809)

Mládí Suite Leoš Janáček (1854 – 1928) Allegro Andante sostenuto Vivace Allegro animato Amir Farsi* flute — Stephen Taylor oboe — Ziqi Yue* clarinet — Zhenwei Li* bass clarinet Andrew Sledge* bassoon — Scott Leger* horn

INTERMISSION

Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) for Piano Four Hands

Pavane de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Pavane of Sleeping Beauty) Petite Poucet (Tom Thumb) Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes (Little Plain Girl, Empress of the Pagodas) Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête (Conversations of Beauty and the Beast) Le Jardin Féerique (Fairy Garden) Robert Blocker, Wei-Yi Yang piano

Five Folksongs in Counterpoint

Calvary Clementine Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes Shortnin’ Bread Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Thalea String Quartet*

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937)

Florence Price (1887 – 1953)

* Norfolk Festival Fellow

MOZART: Piano Trio in B-flat Major, K 502

24 MINUTES

By 1786, Mozart relished a rare period of professional security; having just completed his six “Haydn” quartets the previous year, he premiered his miraculous The Marriage of Figaro in May, and still penned three of his greatest piano concertos and three mature trios. In the trios, Mozart achieved an unprecedented independence of voices that was far ahead of the “accompanied sonata” style of piano trios of his time, elevating the role of the string instruments and laying the groundwork for Beethoven’s work in the genre. But in Mozart’s mystifying, paradoxical fashion, he somehow marries the newfound importance of the strings with brilliant, concerto-style piano writing and still preserves his crystalline melodic clarity. In the B-flat major Trio’s effervescent Allegro, Mozart mimics Haydn by recycling his first theme in place of a would-be second theme, creating space for the surprise of an entirely new theme in the development — a reminder of the flexibility of sonata form in the right hands. A spellbinding, pleading Larghetto follows, often voiced by the piano alone and again revealing Mozart’s concerto proclivities. The concluding Allegretto frequently dips into a “learned” contrapuntal style, but is leavened in all voices by Mozart’s inimitable grace and wit. — Graeme Steele Johnson

BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in f minor, Op 95, “Serioso”

22 MINUTES

“The Quartet is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be performed in public.” These are Beethoven’s own words, in reference to his eleventh string quartet — the only one of his works in the genre that the composer gave a subtitle. He called the work “Serioso.” It was written when the composer, at the age of forty, was in the depths of despair. Napoleon, once beloved by Beethoven before the composer’s disillusionment with the imperialism of his regime, had recently conquered Vienna. He was in financial difficulty, poor health, and was losing his hearing more each day. What’s more, he had endured yet another failed attempt at courting a lover, his rejection driving him further into depression, leading him to write even of the appeal of suicide. The darkness of the quartet’s origins is immediately obvious. There is great intensity in this music, with eruptions of rage and manic, sudden shifts of mood. The most famous of these is in the finale, in which the anxious minor key music is suddenly lifted into the relative major, bringing this otherwise forceful and solemn work to an unexpectedly exuberant close. It is not unlike the end to the composer’s popular Egmont overture — perhaps not coincidentally sharing the quartet’s f minor key — which celebrates the triumphal spirit of man over adversity. Perhaps when Beethoven expressed that few people would understand this music, he was admitting that only those who knew him intimately could understand its message. Beethoven believed that composing music was his life’s moral purpose, and through the medium could lift mankind to a higher state of being. Though he may have often wanted to die, he had a reason to go on living. — Patrick Jankowski

BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op 127

37 MINUTES

The first of the three late quartets commissioned by the Russian Prince Nikolai Galitzin (along with Opus 130 and 132), the Opus 127 quartet had a rocky genesis: It was premiered March 6, 1825 by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in what was, by all accounts, a disastrous performance. The combination of minimal rehearsal time and an exceedingly difficult score led to it being poorly presented and therefore poorly received. Furious, Beethoven went to the violinist Joseph Böhm who recounts, “Beethoven could have no peace until the disgrace was wiped off… he has said to me, ‘you must play my quartet.’” Böhm also described the rehearsals: “It was studied industriously and rehearsed frequently under Beethoven’s own eyes: I said ‘eyes’ intentionally for the unhappy man was so deaf that he could no longer hear the heavenly sound of his compositions… rehearsing in his presence was not easy. With close attention, his eyes followed the bows and therefore he was able to judge the smallest fluctuations in tempo or rhythm and correct them immediately.” Under Böhm and with Beethoven’s watchful eye, the subsequent performances of the quartet met with great success. Musically, Opus 127 continues a Beethovenian tradition of assigning the key of E-flat a heroic, affirmative character. The bold power of the work’s “maestoso” returns twice more in unexpected keys and at unexpected moments. Of the freely composed theme and variations Robert Schumann said, “One seems to have lingered not fifteen minutes but an eternity.” The scherzo features a tiny rhythmic cell that develops and propels forward into a whirling, magical trio section. The finale has a classical, Haydnesque quality and ends the quartet on a joyous note. — Jacob Adams