SERENADE IN C MAJOR FOR STRING TRIO, OP. 10Erno [Ernst] Dohnányi (1877-1960)

Marcia: AllegroRomanza: Adagio non troppo, quasi andanteScherzo: VivaceTema con variazioni: Andante con motoFinale: Rondo: Allegro vivace

:: intermission ::

PIANO QUARTET NO. 2 IN A MAJOR, OP. 26Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Allegro non troppoPoco adagioScherzo: Poco allegro and TrioFinale: Allegro

26june

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5 PM

the program

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 61

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GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY PHIL AND EVE CUTTER

Andrés Cárdenes, violin

Yinzi Kong, viola

Anne Martindale Williams, cello

David Deveau, piano

Erno [Ernst] von Dohnányiwas one of Europe’s mostoutstanding concert pianists.

As a young man, the eminentconductor Christoph vonDohnányi studied with hisfamous grandfather in theUnited States. In 1949,permanently exiled from his native Hungary, Erno[Ernst] von Dohnányi joinedthe faculty of Florida StateUniversity at Tallahassee ascomposer- and pianist-in-residence. There he taughtand lived, as a naturalizedAmerican citizen, until hispassing in 1960.

SERENADE IN C MAJOR FOR STRING TRIO, OP. 10Erno [Ernst] von Dohnányi (b. Bratislava, Slovakia, July 27, 1877; d. New York City, February 9, 1960)Composed 1902; 22 minutes

The temptation to mention the harrowing later life and exile of the composer Erno vonDohnányi is possible to resist, in this case, only because when he composed his well-knownSerenade for String Trio, he was still a young man in the first flush of an extraordinary careerin his native Hungary.

Dohnányi had completed his education at the Budapest Academy in only three years, withdistinction, and an early composition, the Piano Quintet (1895), had caught the attention ofJohannes Brahms, who offered valuable support to the young Hungarian composer andpianist. Several of his earliest compositions had been issued to excellent reviews, and in1899 his Piano Concerto No. 5 won the Bösendorfer Prize.

After his sensational London debut in 1898 as the soloist in the Beethoven Piano ConcertoNo. 4, Dohnányi became known as one of Europe’s most brilliant pianists, often cited as aworthy successor to Liszt’s position at the top of the concert world. In addition to his renownas a concert soloist, he became a committed and avid performer of chamber music.

At the same time, Erno von Dohnányi was beginning to transform Hungarian musical cultureas a conductor, teacher, and administrator. He supported and assisted not only youngcontemporary composers, like his childhood friend Béla Bartók, but he also re-introducedthe works of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann into Hungarian music life afteryears of neglect.

The five-movement Serenade, an agile and mirthful work, is a turn-of-the-twentieth-centuryversion of the multi-movement entertainments that Haydn and Mozart offered for so manyevening amusements. Dohnányi’s Serenade follows those models with his own, idiosyncraticbent. The first movement begins and ends with an assertive and joyful March. Nothing militaryhere, just lively entrance music to set the tone, which is jaunty.

In classical terms, no Serenade would be complete without a singer and a guitar. Dohnányíchose the violin as his singer, with the lower strings plunking guitar-like pizzicati to thesweet melodies of the Romanza. After a brief outburst of passion by the lower strings, theviolin finishes its serenade, and the three instruments drift into the night on an unresolveddominant chord.

To begin the third movement—Scherzo—Dohnányi resolves the question left hanging at theend of the serenade with an assertive, brisk D minor. The fugal material has the instrumentsscampering in a (frequently humorous) chase that becomes more intense with thecomplications of a double fugue. A lyrical center section briefly calms the flight. The Scherzoends with a resounding D-major cadence.

The fourth movement’s main theme emerges in G minor, voiced in a tender mood by theviolin. The beautiful theme and its imaginative variations constitute the most serious, lyricalportion of the entire composition. The élan of Allegro vivace infuses the final movement,which concludes with a reprise of the saucy Marcia from the work’s opening. Just as theirfeet have carried the marchers into the quiet distance, Dohnányi allows them one last shoutof farewell.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

62 :: NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

PIANO QUARTET NO. 2 IN A MAJOR, OP. 26Johannes Brahms (b. Hamburg, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, April 3, 1897)Composed 1861; 50 minutes

The Schumanns (the composer Robert and the pianist Clara) and Johannes Brahms had been friends for only a few months when Robert Schumann endureda precipitous decline in mental health. After two years in an institution, he died in 1857.During the trauma surrounding Schumann’s final illness, Brahms provided Clara and herseven children with profound emotional support. Fourteen years Brahms’s senior, she returned his attentions with care and appreciation.

At that time their devotion to each other was at once mutual and lopsided. Brahms confessedto Joseph Joachim in a letter, 1857: “ …I believe that I do not respect and admire her somuch as I love her and am under her spell.” Clara Schumann to her diary in 1858: “…forindeed, I love him like a son.”

Early on in their friendship, Brahms began to submit to Clara the drafts of his manuscripts,soliciting her reactions. Although he was not a flashy virtuoso of the Franz Liszt variety,Johannes Brahms was an impressive pianist. His turning to the brilliant concert pianistClara Schumann for advice and approval was in the nature of colleague-to-colleague, aswell as Creator-to-Muse.

During the summers of 1860 and 1861, Brahms rented rooms in a Hamburg suburb, in thehome of Frau Dr. Elisabeth Rösing. Although his beloved mother and father lived nearby,Brahms needed more space and quiet than their modest home provided. In the village ofHamm, among other compositions, he completed a remarkable pair of piano quartets thathe had begun in 1857. Brahms found the final forms of No. 1 in G minor, and No. 2 in Amajor—the one serious and dramatic, the second a sunny, lyrical work—in Frau Dr. Rösing’shome, and in gratitude he dedicated the A-major Quartet to her.

Both Op. 25 and Op. 26 are large-scale works. The piano parts demand superior technicaland musical equipment—just imagine Johannes or Clara at the keyboard with their fine stringcolleagues—in order to fulfill the requirements of the wide-ranging compositions. In spiteof his increasing stage fright, which finally kept him off the concert stage altogether, Brahmshimself was at the keyboard, with three string players of the renowned HellmesbergerQuartet, at the work’s premiere in Vienna on November 29, 1862.

Brahms awarded the opening phrase of the Allegro non troppo to the piano. It is a bold andmemorable theme, which the strings echo. Its triplet rhythmic figure is one of the unifyingdevices of the quartet. The movement abounds in dramatic lyricism. The slow movement,Poco adagio, is cast in rondo form. Again, the triplet rhythmic figure appears immediately,in the main theme, as Brahms sets up a web of passionate, lyrical melodies. The waves ofexpressive diminished-seventh arpeggios from the piano contribute significantly to theatmosphere.

After the unison opening melody, the Scherzo is propelled largely by polyphonic material.The Trio itself features a canon between piano and strings. The Finale opens with a fullycharged peasant dance, enlivened by syncopated rhythm and folk-like tunes. Moments of repose contribute a sense of peace and satisfaction. Finally, Brahms unleashes the dancersto bring the quartet to a romping conclusion.

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 63

A German Federal Republicpostage stamp honoring Johannes Brahms (1983,the 150th anniversary of hisbirth), and the photographfrom which it was drawn

Clara Wieck Schumann(1819-1896) was one of the outstanding concertpianists of the nineteenthcentury. She enjoyed a 61-year career. The friendshipbetween Johannes Brahms,Robert Schumann, and ClaraSchumann began with theirfirst meeting, in spring 1853.Brahms sought out Clara’sopinion of all his works-in-progress, particularly if theyinvolved the piano.