The French Connection (Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and Gershwin)
Mozart, Mostly (His view of the Bachs and M. Haydn; Schnittke’s view of him!)
In this season of “change” we began the fall with three concerts at Sanders Theater that focused on “Various Variations” in chamber music by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms among others.
As winter settles upon us we are moving from evenings at Sanders Theatre to two afternoons in January and February at the Fitzgerald Theater of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, which offers free pakring in its underground garage. We hope the changes in time and place will encourage more listeners during the colder, darker months, allow us to introduce our music making to the students and families of Cambridge Rindge and Latin, and to those of other schools throughout the city.
On January 25 our concert, entitled The French Connection, juxtaposes Piano Trios of Fauré and Ravel against piano four-hand arrangements of two great orchestral works by Debussy and Gershwin. The connections among them are many. Ravel is counted among Fauré’s greatest students, yet his great Piano Trio was written ten years earlier than that of his teacher. Gershwin wanted to study with Ravel, but was wisely turned down by the older master in order to preserve the originality of the potential student. Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel were each determined to promote an aesthetic path and outcome for French classical music different from that of many of the dominant Germanic composers of the same era from Schumann, Brahms and Wagner to Schoenberg and Mahler. Ravel’s “rejection” of Gershwin, thereby preserving the national/musical identity and integrity of an American original who admired him, seems true to these composers’ shared artistic ideals.
On February 22 we focus on Mozart, Mostly. In works written just for strings, we present music of the great Mozart that reveals his identity in various ways. Through his arrangements of Bach Preludes and Fugues, his G major Duo for violin and viola—which he tried to pass off as the work of Michael Haydn—we see and hear him as he saw and heard others. In Schnittke’s Moz–ART we hear someone else’s comical take on his music. And finally, all together we perform the great D major Quintet K.593 for two violins, two violas, and cello, one of six for that combination, in which we will hear what he really wrote and what scholars have saved from well-meaning editors who changed the notes of Mozart’s original theme because they thought them too strange for the ears of his time.
Enjoy!
