Clarinet Sonata
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

As a rising star in the Classical music world of the 1930s and 40s, the multi-talented Leonard Bernstein was buffeted from all sides by the musical luminaries of the period. Composers like Aaron Copland and Marc Blitzstein urged him to devote himself to composition, while conductors, and especially Serge Koussevitzky, urged him to devote himself to conducting. Bernstein listened, took under advisement, but marched to his own drum.

Written during Bernstein’s student days at Tanglewood in 1941-42, the Clarinet Sonata was his first published composition and received its premiere in Boston in April 1942, with David Glazer on the clarinet and the composer at the piano.

This short two-movement work is very much a student composition. The opening movement, somewhat stiff and overly correct, was influenced by a temporary admiration for Paul Hindemith, then composer-in-residence at Tanglewood. However, Bernstein’s natural vitality and love for popular music keeps peeking through and does not agree with Hindemith’s somewhat rigid and stolid style. The second movement foretells Bernstein's later sound, especially West Sid Story. This has helped keep this sonata in the repertoire ever since.

Still a student, Bernstein was nevertheless acknowledged as a rising star, and two publishers – one large, one small – vied in 1943 for the (commercial) honor of publishing and recording the Sonata.

Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano, Op. 1
Walter Rabl (1873-1940)

Austrian composer, conductor and writer Walter Rabl was one of the last proponents of the Viennese Late-Romantic gemütlichkeit style. Originally studying law, he switched to music and studied musicology with Guido Adler, a pioneer in the field. Most of Rabl's works are in chamber music, but at age 30, in 1903, he wrote one opera, Liane, and stopped composing. He spent the rest of his career as conductor, accompanist and voice coach.

Rabl composed the Quartet in 1896. It won a unanimous first prize in a competition for young composers, sponsored by Vienna's Tonkünstlerverein (Musicians' Society). The Society's president was Johannes Brahms, who recommended the Quartet to his own publisher, Simrock (He did the same to Dvořák some 20 years earlier). Vienna's famed critic, Eduard Hanslick, noted that during the submission review, "Brahms was very interested in an anonymous quartet whose author he was quite unable to identify. Impatiently, he waited for the opening of the sealed notice. On it was written the heretofore entirely unknown name: Walter Rabl."

It is, apparently, the first work for this combination of instruments, a combination not used again until 1941 in Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) – under very different circumstances.

Brahms' chamber works for clarinet date just a few years earlier, but it is clear from the opening allegro moderato that Rabl was no imitator. There is no elder statesman gravitas in the opening, but rather a relaxed mood slowly building to a joyous climax.

The second movement is a funereal theme and five relatively straightforward variations, that constantly change the mood. The short andantino third movement is the most Brahmsian, while the Allegro con brio finale recalls the finales of Schumann's chamber works.

At the insistence of Simrock, in order to increase sales, Rabl also made a version for violin, viola, cello and piano.

Piano Quartet in A major, Op. 26
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

All three of Brahms’s piano quartets originate from the period 1857-1861 when he was just starting on the artistic career path that would eventually see him as the standard bearer for the proponents of musical classicism. He was in his turbulent twenties, overwhelmed by his infatuations with Clara Schumann and, later, Agathe von Siebold. Although Robert Schumann, Brahms’s idol at the time, had hailed him as a “young eagle,” his instrumental works, especially the D minor Piano Concerto, were not always received with enthusiasm by the public.

Brahms finished the Quartet in A major just after the Op. 25 in G minor. It was an example of his penchant for composing works in pairs, often in contrasting moods. It is Brahms' longest chamber works, and he considered trimming it, especially the slow movement. Clara Schumann preferred this quartet over the Op. 25, but Vienna's curmudgeon music critic, Eduard Hanslick, usually an ardent supporter of Brahms, considered it dry and insignificant. During Brahms' lifetime, it was the more popular of the two, but by the 20th century the more fiery G minor became the favorite.

In contrast to the G minor quartet, intense and quite melancholy in its first three movements, this Quartet is more lyrical, and recalls Franz Schubert, especially in the opening movement. The slow second movement, its gentle mood often referred to as "night music", has the strings punctuated by ominous swirls on the piano. Brahms' friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim, called it "A wonderous Poco adagio with its ambiguous passion."

The third movement scherzo is gentler than the usual Brahms scherzo, only in the Trio does it pick up fire. The finale, while keeping some of the "Gypsy" tone, is more Viennese gemütlichkeit than the fiery alla Zingarese of its G minor predecessor.

In 1872 Brahms made a two-piano arrangement of the Quartet.

Program notes by:
Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn
Wordpros@mindspring.com
www.wordprosmusic.com

Mainstage Chamber Concert • Thursday, July 13, 2023 • 7:30pm • Arkell Pavilion, SVAC