Bax Fantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp (1927)
Harbison String Trio (2013)
Brahms Viola Quintet in F Major, Op. 88, (1883)
“As the greatest expert and judge of harmony, he liked best to play the viola, with appropriate loudness and softness.”
C.P.E Bach about his father, J.S. Bach
In our April concert BCMS joins the chorus of well-wishers observing the 80th birth year of composer John Harbison. In the last 300 years of classical musical history more than a few revered for having fingers on the pulse and ears to the heart of humanity have also been viola players. Among them, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Dvořák come easily to mind; but also Monteverdi, Stamitz, Paganini, Vieuxtemps, Enescu, Britten, York Bowen, Hindemith, Brett Dean, Kenji Bunch, and, John Harbison.
Our program opens with the rarely performed four-movement Celtic-flavored Fantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp by Sir Arnold Bax (1883–1953). Evocative of the rich poetic, literary, and musical history of Ireland and Scotland, it is the second of two sonatas featuring viola by Bax to be performed on our series. The earlier sonata of 1922, with piano, was part of our concert at the Fitzgerald Theatre in January 2017 featuring music from the British Isles by Sirs Edward Elgar and Arthur Bliss.
Claiming the middle position in our program is John Harbison’s String Trio (2013), written for Camerata Pacifica, and given its Boston Premiere by BCMS in May 2016. In my notes for that concert I wrote:
Harbison has identified his new String Trio (2013) with the great Mozart Divertimento in E-flat major, K.563, a six-movement work that also inspired Beethoven’s E-flat major String Trio. Harbison calls the earlier work “the once and future king” of the genre, acknowledging its “stretches of great learnedness and patches of casual geniality” and how it “exults in the sufficiency of two or three voices.” Where it departs most from the Mozart example is in its abundance of duos and expansive solo cadenzas for each of the instruments pairings, as well as sections where all three move in perfect rhythmic unison or staggered unison, i.e., in canon. In doing so he seems to exult in the ‘game’ of chamber music—unity through imitation and agreement—while exploring the freedoms of being left alone, or of recalling that sometimes ‘three’s a crowd!’
Our program closes with the first of two viola quintets by Johannes Brahms, Op. 88 in F major, written the same year Arnold Bax was born, 1883! Although having only three rather than the standard four movements, it owes its origin to the same composer generally credited with inventing both the string trio and the viola quintet: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Somehow both formulations make the point that more viola is better.
Forza Viola!*
(*Viola Power! Or, if you are a soccer fan, the cheer for Viola Fiorentina, the Florentine team whose color is violet!!!)
Enjoy.
Marcus
