Yesterday afternoon, the indefatigable Jupiter Players gave another recital at St. Stephens Church, under the title German Romanticism, this one featuring the music of Friedrich Dotzauer, Ferdinand Thieriot and Johannes Brahms. As I had never before even heard the names of Dotzauer and Thierot and was unfamiliar with the Brahms in its present arrangement, I had an opportunity to hear an entire program of music that was new to me.
The afternoon began with Dotzauer's Bassoon Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 36 (1816). Other than the brief Wikipedia biography, I could find nothing online regarding this composer or his work. A German cellist active in the first half of the nineteenth century and best remembered today for the pedagogical exercises he composed, he was first a member of the Meiningen Orchestra, then the Leipzig Gewandhaus (where he was also a member of the Leipzig Professors' Quartet) and finally the Dresden Court Orchestra. His works with opus number exceed 175, so he must have been exceptionally prolific as a composer. As a teacher, according to the Jupiter Players' website, he founded the Dresden School at a time when "the Dresden Court had become an important center for the study of the cello in Europe."
The next work on the program was Thieriot's Clarinet Quintet in E-flat major (c. 1880). There is almost as little information on this composer as there is on Dotzauer. He spent most of his life in Hamburg and was highly regarded as a composer until his death in 1919 at which point his music disappeared from the repertoire. His greatest claim to fame is that he was once a friend of Brahms. The clarinetist at today's performance, Vadim Lando, speculated that one reason Thieriot is so little known is because the bulk of his unpublished scores somehow ended up in Russia and so were unavailable to Western musicians during the Soviet period.
No matter how obscure the two opening works, they were actually much more accomplished compositions than I had anticipated and were both enjoyable to hear. I found the opening of the Dotzauer quartet somewhat reminiscent of Mozart's compositions for winds.
After intermission, the program closed with Brahms's Piano Trio in G major. If the title of the work is unfamiliar, it is because the piece was not originally composed as a piano trio by Brahms (he wrote only three that are definitely attributed to him - the B major, Op. 8; the C major, Op. 87; and the C minor, Op. 101 - although he may also have authored a trio in A major that was only discovered in 1924), but is instead a transcription of his String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36 (1864-1865). The arrangement for piano, violin and cello was completed by Theodor Kirchner with Brahms's approval. This was not their only collaboration; Kirchner also completed the vocal score of Brahms's German Requiem and arranged the third and fourth sets of Hungarian Dances for solo piano. It is not clear why Brahms worked so often with Kirchner, though the latter was recognized as a talented composer in his own right; these commissions may have been acts of generosity on Brahms's part to a fellow musician who was almost always in need. As the Jupiter Players' website tactfully puts it:
"Although essentially forgotten, Kirchner was Brahms's friend, Schumann's protégé, Mendelssohn's pupil, Wagner's accompanist, Dvorák's arranger, dedicatee of Reger's second Violin Sonata, Clara Schumann's lover (a brief, discreet, unhappy liaison in the early 1860s), and would-be lover of the poet and writer Mathilde Wesendonck (she was immortalized by Wagner's "Wesendonck Songs"). Kirchner was universally admired as a marvelous musician, but he could not maintain a job or marriage, and his gambling and extravagance led to destitution in his later years, so much so that his publisher and friends, including Brahms, bailed him out of debt."
In any event, hearing Brahms's chamber piece in this arrangement provided a novel listening experience. Although I still prefer the composer's original scoring for strings, the use of the piano was quite effective, particularly in the third movement poco adagio. It also helped a great deal that the pianist, Max Levinson, was such an able musician. His playing showed wonderful sensitivity and a thorough understanding of Brahms's music.
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