Video on demand of our October 15 concert at Sanders Theatre
BEETHOVEN String Trio No. 3 in G major, Op. 9 No. 1 (1798)
Daniel GODFREY Ad Concordiam: Quintet Variations for Oboe, Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano (2018 BCMS commission)
BRAHMS Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 (1861)
Featured musicians
An exemplary work from Beethoven’s early period, the String Trio No. 3 in G major divides the musical responsibilities typically bestowed on four musicians (as in a string quartet) amongst just three, a challenge for composer and performers alike. The Trio’s four movements offer thematic richness, dazzling virtuosity, and abundant contrasts in tempo, texture, and character.
Daniel Godfrey’s Ad Concordiam (“toward harmony”) features, in the composer’s words, “contemplative melodic fragments introduced by the oboe at the outset [that] appear throughout the work, but combined, recombined, and expanded into longer themes.” The work’s four sections, performed attacca, are organized by tempo. Ad Concordiam was written in 2018 with the history and philosophical ethos of Concord, MA in mind.
Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 opens with an inventive and structurally vast Allegro built from a compact theme. Friend and critic Clara Schumann favored the Intermezzo, writing, “I find myself so tenderly transported to dreamland that it is as if my soul were rocked to sleep by the notes.” The quartet ends with a Rondo alla Zingarese, written in the “Hungarian style” that held an enduring fascination for Brahms.
