With Midsummer’s Music retaking the stage for eight more performances leading up to Labor Day, I have been surveying the three programs that will be heard very soon. What strikes me, that I didn’t realize when developing those programs, is that each program features a main work that has a kind of hidden agenda. A background story of sorts.
This Sunday, August 25th, we return with a concert at Hope Church in Sturgeon Bay that features Ernest Chausson’s Concerto for Violin, Piano, and String Quartet—a truly remarkable and impressive work. The clue here to the backstory couldn’t be more obvious. It is right in the title. How can you have a work on a chamber music concert called “Concerto”? Isn’t that something only orchestras perform with a soloist?
Well, yes, that is the convention today where the word “Concerto” usually implies a Classical or Romantic period work that features a solo instrument and an orchestra of some size.
However, Chausson was reaching back further into musical history to the Baroque period (1600–1750). Like many of his French compatriots in the later part of the 19th century, he was chaffing at the undue influence of German music in French culture. Chausson, along with Franck, Fauré, and Saint-Saëns, was seeking various ways to individualize French music so that it had its own flavor. One of the ways that many of them did this was to incorporate elements of older music as an awareness of their distant past became more significant to them. Older French dance movements became especially esteemed—the Gigue, Courante, Passepied, etc. However, Chausson also turned to that mainstay of the Baroque, the Concerto.
Chausson liked the idea of two competing elements: in the case of his Concerto, two soloists versus the string quartet. That competition is at the heart of much of Baroque music, and it is what differentiates it from the previous period, the Renaissance (1450–1600) where music was much more homophonic (sounding together). The strange thing is that “concerto” really means “working together”. We might say, the Democrats and Republicans worked in concert to produce an important bill in Congress. However, when you think about it a little deeper, to work in concert implies two opposing parts (at least) that have to come together. Therefore, the word Concerto in music has, at its heart, the opposition of two disparate groups where this opposition is exploited before ultimately coming together in concert.
So as the Baroque period started, all kinds of works appeared that featured this competition of two groups. It was an obvious attempt to change the uniform textures of Renaissance music. But the early concertos had little in common with one another other than this element of competition. The idea of a solo concerto with orchestra, as we know it from the late 18th and 19th centuries, was a long way off. First of all, most of these early works were for a small group of players – chamber music or chamber orchestra music – nothing like the larger orchestras to come. The solo group could be anywhere from one player to as many as four, and the opposing group, often called the tutti (all) or ripieno (full), might not be much larger than the solo group. The difference was that the tutti group played pretty much as a unit, whereas the soloists were more independent. The tutti group was usually strings with an added harpsichord and maybe a bassoon (especially if there were winds among the soloists). Eventually, in the later Baroque, concertos came to be grouped either as solo concerti or as concerto grossi (large concertos). Solo concertos featured one or more solo instruments competing with a small orchestra. Concerti grossi usually had a larger solo group that was a part of, but functioned separately from, the full orchestra (quite small in those days). But besides the large concerto type, there was an infinite variety of smaller, chamber concertos, and that is what Chausson turned to for his inspiration.
However, Chausson’s Concerto is aesthetically a far cry from the Baroque prototype. It is one of the most romantically conceived works in the repertoire. In fact, if asked to name the most impressively romantic work of the chamber music genre, this work would be on a very short list. And, with David Perry as our violin soloist and Jeannie Yu playing piano, the impact will be stunning. I know this for a fact because the two of them performed this work for us several years ago—they left the audiences breathless. However, there are only two chances to hear them in this abbreviated late summer coda season—Sunday, August 25th at Hope Church at 5:00 pm and on Labor Day itself for our end-of-season Gala at Björklunden at 3:00 pm. The work is paired with another French work loaded with color and flare by Théodore Dubois, his Quintet for Oboe, Strings, and Piano.
Sandwiched in between these two dates are two other programs, also with hidden agendas. On August 29th, 30th, and September 1st, we will be performing Beethoven’s Septet for Winds and Strings, Opus 20. The first thing you should know about this piece is that it was his most popular work in his lifetime – not the Fifth Symphony, or any of his Piano Concertos – but his Septet, a relatively early work. In fact, it was so well liked that it overshadowed his later works, and he came to resent it for impeding the acceptance of his newer compositions. Beethoven was even quoted as saying, “That damned work! I wish it were burned.” But what was behind this work? It is basically a divertimento, a popular type of entertainment piece in late 18th century Vienna. All the Classical Period composers wrote them including Mozart and Haydn. They were usually quite upbeat in spirit and contained five or more movements, usually including two dance movements. Some of these pieces were essentially party pieces, maybe even intended to be played outdoors. But Haydn, Mozart, and now Beethoven, took these works to a new level.
In Beethoven’s case, he was on the verge of writing his First Symphony, which would be his Opus 21, and he was feeling more than a little squeamish, because he would be going head-to-head with Mozart’s 41 symphonies (Mozart had died a few years earlier) and Haydn, who was still alive but had completed all of his 108 symphonies. The works of these two masters frankly intimidated him. So, he decided to write a prototype. It would get his feet wet, and he could introduce it unobtrusively. The Septet, made up of three winds and four strings, would be his miniature orchestra allowing him to workshop his attempt at a symphony incognito. He workshopped it so well it became an audience favorite! It has some very virtuoso writing, particularly in the violin part as you will hear in David Perry’s rendition. It also has a splendid part for the clarinet. These two instruments act as leaders for their respective sections. However, the bassoon, horn, and three remaining strings (including double bass) all have prominent roles in this work.
To help in obscuring his main purpose, Beethoven turns to a type of composition that had been very popular in Vienna but was now almost an anachronism. Yet Beethoven infuses this sizable work with such energy, buoyancy, and beauty that it not only served its purpose, but boosted his fame significantly. It has great variety including two dance movements, a melancholy adagio with a beautiful clarinet melody, a theme with variations where everyone gets in on the fun, and two outer movements of great energy and verve. I have had the pleasure of performing this work a number of times with our violinist, David Perry, and if you haven’t heard him play this work, you owe it to yourself. He owns this piece.
Finally, our third program this week contains three works, each with its own varied and fascinating background. But for the sake of brevity, let’s focus on Mélanie Bonis, the author of the Piano Quartet in D Major, Opus 124, the second of two such quartets that she wrote. Mélanie’s story is one of difficulties yet somewhat typical for historical women composers only even more complicated and extraordinary. I can’t retell it here for lack of space, but I hope you will go to our website and find the program notes on her in our program book section. Her story really should be made into a PBS Masterpiece Theater mini-series. It certainly deserves it. It is riveting and heartbreaking, yet, somehow, she persevered. One small indication of her difficulties is her shortening of Mélanie to Mel in her published music so that her gender would not be apparent. The colorful and endearing Sextet by Ernst von Dohnányi on the same program also has a compelling backdrop in that it was written during the Nazi era in Germany. Dohnányi, a Hungarian born piano virtuoso, resisted the Nazis in Hungary and supported his Jewish friends and colleagues. He eventually emigrated to the United States where he spent his final years teaching at Florida State University. Meanwhile, his son, Hans, a high-ranking city official in Berlin, was eventually tortured and killed for his involvement in a plot to kill Hitler. Ernst’s grandson and Hans’ son, Christof von Dohnányi, would become a world-famous conductor with a vacation home in Southern Door County. Clarinetist J.J. Koh and French hornist Fritz Foss join Jeannie Yu, our pianist, and our string quartet for this rewardingly consequential program.
Please check out our intense nine days of concerts full of impactful music of great historical significance and musical wonderment. Now that you know so much background information, make sure you come to hear the music! For tickets or more information, please call (920) 854-7088 or visit www.midsummersmusic.com. Don’t forget the splendid Labor Day Gala, a terrific way to enjoy and celebrate the final days of summer. I look forward to seeing you soon and thanks for making this such a successful “Midsummer!”
Jim Berkenstock
Artistic Director