Good Shepherd Church: Jupiter Symphony Players Perform Fuchs, Beethoven, Bartók and Dvořák

The theme of yesterday afternoon's recital by the Jupiter Symphony Players was "Contrasts" and featured little known works by four very different composers - Johann Fuchs, Ludwig van Beethoven, Béla Bartók and Antonin Dvořák.

The program opened with Beethoven's Duo in E-flat major for viola and cello mit zwei obligaten Augengläsern ("with two obbligato eyeglasses"), WoO.  Though written in 1796, when the composer was 26 and already established in Vienna, the piece was not published until 1912.  Beethoven had originally composed it to be played informally by himself and a friend, Baron Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanowecz, who was an amateur cellist and who, like Beethoven himself, suffered from poor eyesight.  Hence the private joke regarding the eyeglasses.  The piece was brief, about ten minutes in length, and consisted of only two movements, an Allegro and Menuetto, performed without pause  This was a slight work, of course, but still delightful to hear.  It also offered some insight into the lighter side of the composer's character toward the end of his early period when he was only beginning to experience the first symptoms of his deafness.  

The next work was Fuchs's Trio in D major for clarinet, viola and cello (1808).  Fuchs is not particularly well remembered today.  He was one of those, together with Hummel and Tomasini, who oversaw the running of the Esterházy Court after Haydn's retirement; in 1809 he was appointed to Haydn's former position as kapellmeister. The trio consisted of four carefully composed movements - Allegro non molto, Romanze, Menuetto and Finale - and was a pleasant enough piece if not particularly inventive.

This was followed by what was for me the highlight of the afternoon, Bartók's Contrasts (1938), a wonderful chamber work I had never before heard performed.  Arranged for clarinet, violin and piano, the work was commissioned by, of all people, Benny Goodman, though it was actually the violinist Joseph Szigeti (for whom Bartók had already written in 1929 his Rhapsody No. 1) who initially approached the composer.  As first written, the piece consisted of only two movements, Verbunkos ("Recruiting Dance") and Sebes ("Fast Dance").  After the work - initially entitled Rhapsody - had had its premiere, Bartók added the middle movement, Pihenő ("Relaxation").  The complete work was then performed at Carnegie Hall in 1940 by Goodman, Szigeti and Bartók himself.  It was a lively exciting work derived, like much of Bartók's output, from elements of Hungarian and Romanian folk music but at the same time possessing a unique jazz flavor.

After intermission, the program closed with Dvořák's Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 87 (1889).  This work, composed several years before Dvořák's New York sojourn, is one of those pieces that most clearly show the influence of Brahms even though it also contains a number of references to the Czech folk music that so heavily influenced Dvořák's oeuvre.  For my taste, the work was somewhat overdone.  It seemed at times, especially in the final movement, that Dvořák was writing music more suitable for an orchestra than for a simple chamber arrangement.  The Jupiter website referred to it as "big, bold and beautiful," and perhaps for me that was the problem - it was too much so.

The level of performance on all the pieces was excellent and each of the five musicians - Max Levinson, piano; Mark Kaplan, violin; Cynthia Phelps, viola; Austin Huntington, cello; and Vadim Lando, clarinet - deserved a great deal of credit for being able to work so well with one another as an ensemble.