Good Shepherd Church: Jupiter Symphony Players Perform Mozart, Liszt, Haydn and Schumann

Yesterday afternoon the Jupiter Symphony Players began their 2014-2015 season at Good Shepherd Church with a matinee performance of well known pieces by Mozart, Liszt, Haydn and Schumann.  The house was packed - extra seats had to brought in - and the audience, as is always the case for this ensemble, was extremely enthusiastic.

The program opened with Mozart's Flute Quartet No. 1 in D major, K. 285 (1777), one of three quartets for that instrument commissioned of Mozart during his stay in Mannheim - he was at the time traveling through Europe with his mother in search of employment - by an amateur flautist  named Ferdinand Dejean (in some sources, Willem Britten DeJong).  The three-movement piece is very light and without much substance, a fact that may be attributed as much to Mozart's young age as to his stated antipathy towards the flute.  Nevertheless, it is also an enjoyable early work so filled with high spirits that it is always a pleasure to hear it.  Its second movement, a brief adagio in B minor, is particularly beguiling.

The next work consisted of two selections for solo piano from Liszt's Tre sonetti del Petrarca (1839-1846).  This work was later revised by the composer and eventually incorporated (as Nos. 4 to 6) into the second suite, Deuxième année: Italie, of his Années de pèlerinage.  These compositions were in fact early tone poems in which Liszt described in musical form the impressions he had received while traveling through Italy from 1837 to 1839 in the company of Marie d’Agoult.  The selections at hand drew their inspiration from Petrarch sonnets Nos. 47 and 104.  It is interesting to consider how intensely the legendary poet's verses must have fired the imagination of the Romantic composer when he first read them, most especially the 47th in which Petrarch "blesses all the circumstances of his passion."  The two short pieces were expertly played at this recital by Canadian pianist André Laplante.

The first half ended with Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante in B flat major, H. 1/105 (1792), a piece written in London at the request of impresario Johann Peter Salomon, the same who affixed the title "Jupiter" to Mozart's 41st symphony.  A sinfonia concertante is basically a classical concerto in which the orchestra accompanies more than one solo instrument.  The present work was originally scored for four solo instruments - violin, cello, oboe and bassoon.  It is not clear why these particular four instruments should have been chosen other than that similar compositions by Haydn's former student Ignaz Pleyel had recently proved successful.  At yesterday's recital, the work was performed in an arrangement by Mordechai Rechtman for string sextet that was thoroughly satisfying and preserved all the genius of Haydn's music.

After intermission, the program concluded with a performance of Schumann's Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44 (1842), one of the composer's best known works from his "Year of Chamber Music."  It was also one of the earliest examples of the piano quintet as we now know it, that is, the pairing of piano with string quartet.  Although the work was dedicated to Schumann's wife Clara, it was actually Felix Mendelssohn who gave the first private performance and who afterwards suggested various revisions to it.  The Jupiter Players gave a strong interpretation and pianist Laplante once again displayed a great affinity for the Romantic repertoire.