Gem
ütlichkeit: 1. cosiness (etc.). 2. cosy (or relaxed) atmosphere. 3. Leisure(liness).
Langenscheidt’s Standard German Dictionary 1993
Our second program at the Fitzgerald Theatre this season features three works in the key of G major, from three masters of Viennese style whose work embodies Gemütlichkeit– its relaxed way of life, social interaction, and the very essence of how and why we play chamber music. Haydn’s String Trio, Op. 53, No. 1 (1767), Schubert’s String Quartet, D. 887 (1826), and Brahms’s Second String Sextet (1866) teach us to do more than “just get along.” Through them we are invited to enjoy “playing well with others.”
Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), widely credited as the father of chamber music and the inventor of the string quartet, probably wrote more chamber pieces than anyone before or since. His Trio is very likely an arrangement of one of his earlier keyboard works. In his catalog it joins a number of works for two violins and cello as well as 175 trio divertimentos that included Baryton, a stringed instrument on which his Hungarian patron excelled. The work is in two movements that capture contrasting moods—genial and excited. It pre-dates by decades the works of two of his prodigious students: Divertimento for Violin, Viola and Cello by Mozart (K. 563 from 1788) and the six string trios of Beethoven (Op 3, 8 and 9 from 1792–96).
Of the three works on the program, the quartet of Franz Schubert (1797–1828) has the greatest dramatic contrast, i.e., emotional conflict and resolution in concept and ensemble writing. Schubert’s Fifteenth String Quartet, the last of his four mature quartets, displays every one of his many virtues, melodic and harmonic, at the height of his powers. He goes beyond those into truly inventive writing. From the beginning are the many ways in which he divides and unifies the quartet—one high voice against one low, a trio of highs against a trio of lows—in the same way he divides, antiphonally speaking, the ensemble in his later string quintet with two cellos, three against three. In marked contrast to the divisions are the many ways in which all parts often move lockstep in rhythmic unison. In energy, daring, and emotional range, this quartet is a direct descendant of Beethoven’s late Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 for string quartet.
Johannes Brahms’s (1833–1897) Second String Sextet doubles the size of the forces with which this concert begins. The addition of more players presents Brahms the opportunity to show how a mastery of part writing can achieve luminous transparency and grace from a crowd.
Brahms writes the opening theme against a restless undulating figure in the first viola part that opens the work. That two-note figure, heard as a distinctive pedal tone throughout much of the first movement, is also the source of many other tonal and structural relationships upon which Brahms constructs themes, sections and movements. The work is known to help Brahms work out some of his own relationship issues with an earlier neglected love, Agathe von Siebold. Her first name is spelled out in a closing theme of the first movement against the two-note figure, enlarged to a sigh, in a technique employed extensively during his time by his mentor, Robert Schumann.
The Brahms Second Sextet has the distinction of being the first of his works to be premiered in the United States, here in the Boston area in November of 1866. It has been and remains a cosy gathering point for many seasons since for BCMS’s Brahms lovers.
Enjoy!
Marcus Thompson
