WQXR Broadcast: Jonathan Biss and the Brentano String Quartet

Yesterday evening WQXR, New York City's classical music station, broadcast a live concert from Carnegie Hall that featured pianist Jonathan Biss and the Brentano String Quartet - Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin, violins; Misha Amory, viola; and Nina Lee, cello - alternating in performance of works that spanned the interval from the Renaissance through the Classical to the close of the Romantic period.  The theme that held them together was that all are late works composed near the end of the respective artists' lives.  Solo works for piano were played side by side with chamber pieces in an unusual recital format.  

The program opened with Schumann's Fünf Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133 (1853) for solo piano.  Translated as "Songs of Dawn," this five-movement work was composed long after Schumann's great outpouring of solo piano pieces in the 1830's and was in fact one of his final compositions in any genre.  As with all Schumann's late works, the question arises as to how deeply influenced were these short pieces by the composer's rapidly declining mental health.  They are definitely more difficult to appreciate than his earlier piano works - they twist and turn as Schumann struggles to cogently express his thoughts and feelings.  His wife Clara described them as "very original as always but hard to understand, their tone is so very strange."  One can sense the trepidation in her voice as she thus considers them.  But I think it would be entirely unfair to dismiss these pieces simply as the products of a disordered mind.  Their intricacy can just as well be seen as the work of a highly developed artistic sensibility seeking new forms of expression.  In an on-air interview, Jonathan Biss suggested that one reason these pieces are so seldom performed is that they are static and show no signs of progression and thus are unsettling to the audience.  Be that as it may, they are well composed and follow traditional forms and possess a haunting beauty that remains with the listener long after the last notes have died away.

The Brentano Quartet then took the stage.  For their first piece, they reached back to the sixteenth century to perform several pieces by the aristocratic Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo.  All five were taken from the sixth and final book of the composer's  collection of madrigals and were titled as follows: "Deh, come invan sospiro"; "Beltà poi che t'assenti"; "Resta di darmi noia"; "Già piansi nel dolore"; and "Moro, lasso, al mio duolo."  Listening to these works, one is first struck by their modernity.  Gesualdo was well aware of this himself and, fearing that audiences of his time would be unable to understand them, actually withheld them from publication for fifteen years.  Only the prospect of unauthorized editions eventually led him to make them public.  Strangely enough, as with Schumann, one must again ponder whether the advanced aspects of these works, including unresolved dissonances and sudden tonal shifts, were at least partially due to their composer's mental instability.  For whatever his ability as a composer, Gesualdo was a thoroughly twisted human being who indulged in sickeningly violent behavior and was guilty of murdering his own wife along with her paramour and then mutilating their corpses. It's most likely that only Gesualdo's standing as a member of the nobility saved him from punishment for this gruesome crime of passion.  None of this, though, should detract from the listener's appreciation of the madrigals which anticipate by centuries some of the hallmarks of what we consider modern music.  Originally written for five voices, they lent themselves very well to this transcription by Bruce Adolphe for four strings.

Brahms's Klavierstücke, Op. 118 (1893), consisting of six miniatures for solo piano, closed the first half of the program.  The Op. 118 is, of course, another late work and one can hear in it a certain nostalgia and wistfulness; it's as if the composer were pausing to take a look back before attempting to distill within it all that he had learned of music.  This is a quiet and reflective work with no virtuoso turns afforded the pianist, and that may be one reason it is not that often performed in recital.  The brief pieces are organized according to their own internal logic.  After the first intermezzo in A minor, the pieces follow a ternary (ABA) form as well as a set key sequence.  The titles are somewhat arbitrary and seem to have been chosen more for their suggestive power than anything else.  Brahms was above all a Romantic and this autumnal work is suffused with the spirit of a wanderer who has at last reached the end of his journey,  The Op. 118 is a subdued masterpiece by a great composer at the height of his powers who wishes to offer his audience one last testament before fading into silence.

After intermission Brentano Quartet, now joined by violist Hsin-Yun Huang, returned to close the program with a performance of Mozart's String Quintet No. 6 in E-flat Major, K. 614 (1791).  Any late work by Mozart is to be treasured, but most especially this final viola quintet completed only months before the composer's untimely death and representing his last major chamber work.  Paradoxically, the quintet is, on the surface at least, one of Mozart's most lighthearted and carefree pieces.  It was written at approximately the same time as Die Zauberflöte and Mozart was likely much too busy with work to be mindful of his own mortality.  Even if he were experiencing some problems with his health he was, after all, only 35 years old.  As it was, the work was only published posthumously along with his previous quintet, the K. 593 in D major.  Filled with virtuoso flourishes such as the set of variations in the andante and the brilliant contrapuntal writing in the final movement, the K. 614 leaves the listener lost in admiration for Mozart's genius and wondering what he might have accomplished had he lived longer.

This was a well thought out program with fine performances by all involved.  I was particularly impressed by the level of pianist Biss's musicianship on the solo pieces.

The archived broadcast is now available for listening on WQXR's website.