On Monday evening at Christ & St. Stephen's Church, the Jupiter Players performed the second of their summertime recitals with a program spanning the hundred year period between 1773 and 1873 that overlapped both the Classical and Romantic eras. The works featured were all by prominent composers - Mozart, Michael Haydn and Brahms.
The program opened with Michael Haydn's Divertimento in E-flat major, P. 111 (1790), a quintet in eight movements for clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin and viola. The younger Haydn's work was greatly admired by Mozart, and the two shared a close friendship. It's interesting to compare their respective experiences in Salzburg. While Mozart was never able to conform to the strictures imposed by his patron, Archbishop Colloredo, Haydn fit right in and enjoyed a successful career. In 1762 he was appointed kapellmeister, a position he held for 43 years until shortly before his death in 1806. It would seem then that it may have been Mozart's temperament more than anything else that caused him to chafe at his own position in the Salzburg court and that led him to constantly travel in search of a new sinecure until he finally relocated permanently to Vienna in 1781. (In fairness to Mozart, however, it should be noted that his annual salary in Salzburg was very low, only 150 florins, and that his desire to compose operas was hampered by the closure of the court theater in 1775.) At any rate, there was clearly an exchange of ideas between the two composers. Mozart's influence can clearly be heard in this piece and there is strong resemblance to his own divertimenti.
The next work was Mozart's String Quintet No. 1 in B-flat major, K. 174 (1773). This was the first of Mozart's "viola quintets," so named because they added an extra viola to the standard string quartet ensemble. Up until this point, string quintets had usually, following the lead of Boccherini, added an extra cello to the quartet form when seeking to better utilize the strings' lower registers. Mozart, though, had always displayed an affinity for the viola and had in fact chosen that instrument when playing quartets with Haydn. There weren't many antecedents for such an arrangement, but the composer may have been influenced to an extent by the notturni of Michael Haydn, scored for the same instruments, though these were usually of a lighter character that more closely resembled a serenade. It's certain that Mozart found in this combination opportunities to explore his musical ideas in greater depth as he was to return to this form several times throughout his career. His final major chamber work was in fact the Quintet in E-flat major, K. 614, composed in 1791, the year of his death. Though the K. 174 does not attain the same heights as the late quintets, it is nonetheless an impressive show of skill for so young a composer. This is especially evident in the contrapuntal writing in the final movement which Mozart extensively revised that same year after having heard Haydn's Op. 17 and 20 quartets performed in Vienna.
After intermission, the program concluded with Brahms's String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 (1873). In composing his string quartets, Brahms encountered the same problem as in writing his symphonies - he was haunted by the greatness of Beethoven's achievement in both these genres. It's difficult for us to imagine today how daunting it must have been for any nineteenth century composer, especially one residing in Vienna, to follow in the footsteps of the master. Any musical work that was produced would necessarily be compared to Beethoven's and would inevitably come up short. The Op. 51 pieces were not Brahms's first attempt at the quartet form; he was rumored to have written and then destroyed at least twenty before allowing these two to be published. And even then he worked on these for almost a decade before he was satisfied. He is known to have scheduled a private performance, after which he made substantial revisions, before releasing them to the public. Perhaps all this hand wringing did not work to the benefit of these works. They sometimes strike the listener has having been too deliberately planned and thought out to be truly enjoyable. This particular work, however, does possess a more Romantic and lyrical quality than many other Brahms chamber works, especially in the second movement andante moderato in which he did not seem to be trying as hard to outdo Beethoven and instead let his own gentle melancholy come to the fore.
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