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A Note from the Artistic Director
From the first moment I heard the Brahms Liebeslieder Walzer
(Lovesong Waltzes), I loved them. I don't know anyone who feels differently. Combining folksy, doggerel verse with a form not known for its profundity (the waltz), one might expect results of an insubstantial and mediocre nature. And from a lesser hand, this almost certainly would have been the case. But from the assured pen of Brahms, they spring off the page and into the voices with grace and ease, and are at once approachable and brilliant. Like fine champagne, they sparkle with effervescence, yet do not become cloying with extended samplings, thus signifying an inner depth and quality.
Not surprisingly, the Liebeslieder are what brought Brahms to prominence in his career. Although plucked from obscurity in Hamburg by Robert Schumann by way of several glowing articles in the latter's musical journal, Brahms had not yet produced anything in the public eye to warrant such adulation -- not even the
German Requiem of the previous year had caused much of a stir (witness George Bernard Shaw's harsh invective about it). Hence, the "jury was still out" on the matter of Schumann's predictions. But it was the
Liebeslieder that first convinced the public that Schumann had been right, and which immediately won wide acclaim through their undeniable and solid appeal, and paved the way for public acceptance of Brahms' greater and weightier masterpieces.
What the Liebeslieder are to the 19th century waltz, Mozart's Sei Notturni (Six Nocturnes) are to the 18th century nocturne (or vocal divertimento). The programming of the
Liebeslieder, coupled with the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth this year, occasions the programming of similarly light and effervescent works from this celebrated master. Scored simply for three voices and three basset horns, Mozart does not specify whether he intended the voices to be solo or choral. We will do a little of both this evening, to give them a variety of texture. And, given the rarity of basset horns, they are now usually performed with string trio or piano.
The late-Renaissance composer Melchior Franck is largely known in relation to his almost exact contemporary Heinrich Schütz, and usually compared very negatively to the latter. Franck is usually described as harmonically conservative in relation to Schütz, and therefore dismissed. His vast and prolific output is still in want of a thorough study and analysis due to this prejudice; yet the few works of his that are occasionally rendered (which include the sensuous
Drei Gesänge heard his evening, with their rich word-painting and delicate voice-leading) reveal a craftsman of assurance and taste, and I predict he will someday emerge from the shadow of his more famous contemporary.
Filling out the program with the moonlit grandeur of Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music
(my predilection for RVW is no secret to St. Martin's audiences anymore!), and the charming
Esti Dal of Kodály, I hope that this concert proves to be an evening of lighter enjoyment, much like a twilight stroll through a garden of delight, and only just slightly out of the mold of our usual fare.
© 2006 Timothy J. Krueger |