Our March concert provides a rare opportunity to invoke the Spiritus Hungaricus–that pungent ethnic spice that enlivened and informed so much of the formal classical music from Haydn to Brahms by occasionally allowing the rowdies into the salon.
We, however, allow the tables to be turned by presenting works by two recent and leading Hungarian classical composers, György Kurtág and György Ligeti, who have written pieces for two of the same well-known piano trio combinations as have Schumann and Brahms. Their trios honor the spirit and literary figures that informed Schumann and Brahms, but also to extend in their own ways that classical tradition of making sounds and creating forms that touch us at our deepest places.
Our program concludes with the Sextet by Ernst von Dohnányî, an Hungarian master from the early twentieth century, whose work not only incorporates players of all the trios, but stirs deep memories of Brahms with explicit references to his use of variation in the Piano Trio in C Major and B minor Clarinet Quintet. This piece is beloved for its high drama, virtuosity, and for a crude joke he tries to play on the audience at the end! Of course, our audience would not allow themselves to be taken in by that. Or, will they?
