Show 115: Chamber Music

[Added on 2015/7/18:  This used to be called Show 15.  I've renumbered the shows, so that this one is Show115.  For instance, the July 4^th show for this year will be numbered numbered Show201, and so on.  If you didn't figure this out yet, my first show aired the week of July 4th, 2014.]

First of all, WXPI is going to present a radio play sometime soon.  Archie, Veronica, Betty and Jughead ride again in this silly little skit about the holiday season.  I got to play one of the most interesting roles in it; I'll tip you the wink when I find out when it airs.

Today's show has been uploaded already, and will hit the airwaves tonight at 8:00.  However, I'm trying something new, and it might get screwed up.  Basically, instead of preparing twenty or twenty-five independent files (I explained why that was desirable a couple of weeks ago), I prepared four half-hour (actually, 28-minute) segments.  This means that the station doesn't get to break in at random times between files.  But if for some reason the station does break in, it will screw up royally, because it will discard an enormous chunk of music.  I guess I am playing with fire.

Anyhoo, here are the links to the podcast.

Part A:  Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Dvorák

Mozart:  Clarinet Quintet in A
This is an amazing work, possibly one of Mozart's best known.  Every movement is a jewel of perfection; this is the opening movement.  I have played the slow movement before.

Brahms: Sextet in B Flat
A lovely piece by Brahms, for a string quartet (two violins, a viola and a cello) with one additional viola and cello each.


Dvorák: Bagatelles, Op. 47
This is a quartet for an unusual combination: two violins, a cello, and a harmonium.  Harmoniums are little pedal organs where the sound is from reeds.  Not the sort of reeds you get in clarinets and bassoons, but the sort you get in a harmonica, or a piano accordion: a tiny brass strip tuned to a particular note.  I'm breaking with my usual habit of playing just one movement, and playing four of these bagatelles, because they're so delightful.  Warning: the set is interrupted in the middle by the station break, so the last couple continues afterwards.

Part B: Schubert, Thomas Morley

Schubert: Octet for clarinet, horn, bassoon & strings in F major
I was obsessed with Octets for some time, and I saw this Schubert octet on the shelf, and I got all excited.  When it arrived, I just loved it.  Schubert was as much of a genius as Mozart, especially in the department of melodic invention.  This is the first movement of an octet that was written for a string quartet, augmented with an oboe, a clarinet, a horn and a bassoon.  It is Archibudelli (which means ancient strings, because they play either original seventeenth century instruments, or reproductions of such instruments), and Mozzafiato, a word whose meaning I do not know.  Mozzafiato is led by Charles Neidich, who performed at the Community Arts Center (in Williamsport, Our Fair City) in the nineties.

Thomas Morley: Now is the month of Maying
This is a madrigal, sung by the King's Singers, who are all alumni of the King's College Cambridge Choir School.

Part C: Schubert, Mendelssohn, Bach, Mozart

Schubert: Piano Quintet (The Trout) - IV
Schubert wrote a lot of songs, and one of the most popular was one about a trout.  He later wrote a Piano Quintet, called The Trout Quintet, in which one movement is an air and variations on the tune of the song The Trout.  This is that movement.  The performers include Alfred Brendl on the piano.

Mendelssohn: Octet for strings in E flat major-Scherzo
The Scherzo from Mendelssohn's Octet from String is a lovely piece that features the sort of fairy music that Mendelssohn was so brilliant at, and which you hear in his Midsummer Night's Dream overture.  This is Hausmusic, London led by Monica Huggett.

Bach: Trio Sonata 1 in E Flat, ii
I have played the first movement of this one already for you, in our very first broadcast.  Here is the slow movement, played on a pedal harpsichord by E. Power Biggs.  A pedal harpsichord is just a harpsichord with a pedalboard, which is a keyboard intended to be played with the feet.

Mozart: String Quartet No 17 in B flat major ('Hunt')
Haydn and Mozart sort of taught each other to write string quartets.  Haydn is generally credited with inventing the genre, and immediately afterwards, Mozart heard some of them, and was soon writing even more beautiful string quartets, which Haydn got to hear, after which Haydn wrote some more fabulous quartets, and so on.  This is the Hunt quartet by Mozart, no. 17 in B Flat.

Part D: Mozart, Camerata Brasil, Wagner, Ravel

Mozart: Serenade in E-flat major K375- Adagio
This is a Mozart Serenade.  These were written for a small ensemble of maybe seven or eight instruments, but it is not chamber music at all, in fact it is outdoor music.  Bands of amateur musicians formed themselves into little performing groups, and serenaded homes from the street, a little like Christmas Caroling.  This is a lovely slow movement from the E Flat major serenade.

Vou Vivendo - Camerata Brasil
Taken from an album titled Bach in Brasil, this highly rhythmic little movement is played by the string band Camerata Brasil.

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll
Now, Wagner was unhappily married, but around 1870, he fell in love with the daughter of Franz Liszt, Cosima, who happened to be married to the conductor Hans Von Bulow.  After a while, the respective spouses allowed the two of them to move in together, and they had a child, the famous Siegfried Wagner, who at one time controlled Wagner’s opera hall in Bavaria, called Bayreuth.  Anyway, either Siegfried’s or his mother’s birthday was Christmas Day, I believe, so Wagner wrote this lovely, lovely one instrument-per-part tone poem, called Siegfriend Idyll, and early morning on Christmas Day, arranged for thirteen players to play it on the stairs of his grand home in the hills of Munich, or wherever his home was.  Ironically, this piece written for a small group of thirteen or so instruments is better known and loved that many of Wagner’s larger-scaled works for an orchestra of more than 100 instruments.

Ravel: Introduction and Allegro
Here is a relatively infrequently played piece by Maurice Ravel for a string quartet, flute, clarinet and harp.  It runs for more than 10 minutes, but I’ll play about four minute of it.  This is James Galway, Richard Stoltzman, and Heidi Lehwalder on Flute, Clarinet and Harp, respectively.