Trio, Quartet, Quintet…  The Virtuosi explored the lush melodic possibilities and rich sonorities at the heart of chamber music with Haydn’s pathbreaking trio, Arensky’s superb ‘Cello Quartet’, and Mozart’s C Major Quintet - arguably one of the supreme achievements in the repertoire.

The Caramoor Virtuosi program is generously funded, in part, byThe Maximilian E. & Marion O. Hoffman Foundation.

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

Joseph Haydn
1732-1809
Piano Trio in A Major, Hob. XV: 18

Little by little Haydn's trios have become familiar in chamber music performances, and gradually music-lovers are coming to recognize that his contribution to the genre of the piano trio is of a richness and imaginative variety that ranks with his contributions to the string quartet and the symphony. In Haydn's day, the trio was regarded primarily as a piano solo with the added "accompaniment" of two stringed instruments. Considering the sonorities of the late eighteenth-century piano, this is perhaps a more normal point of view than we are likely to grant at first sight. The bass line of those pianos was light and faded quickly; the addition of a cello reinforced the sound wonderfully. In addition, the violin could sing all the truly legato, songlike melodies that pianists must try to project on an instrument whose tone begins to die away the moment it is sounded.

This trio is the first in a group of three that were published in England while Haydn was there on his second visit in 1794. All three of the works show that Haydn (not himself a virtuoso keyboard performer and never given to display for its own sake) had been learning from the keyboard technique of Mozart and from the new virtuosity of Dussek and Clementi. Here as nowhere before, Haydn exploited the most up-to-date keyboard possibilities.

In the opening of the present trio, for example, Haydn particularly cultivates a smooth legato technique which the improved pianos made possible. Three strong chords establish the key and set up the context of what sounds like a sweetly bland opening; but Haydn uses this as a springboard for a daring and wide-ranging development with a strongly contrapuntal cast to it. The 6/8 Andante alternates material in A minor for the beginning and ending (richly elaborated at the return) with a lyrical contrast in the major for the middle section. The movement seems poised at its end for another set of elaborate thematic figurations when it jumps straight into the finale (Haydn did this rather often in his chamber music, though never in his symphonies, for audiences in his day liked to applaud between movements). The theme has Hungarian (or "gypsy") elements that no doubt sounded wonderfully exotic to the London audience that first heard the piece. This movement was so popular that it quickly appeared in an arrangement for solo piano, and Haydn, knowing a sure-fire hit when he saw one, surpassed the trick himself with his even more successful "Gypsy Rondo" (in the G-minor trio, Hob. XV:25).

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Anton Arensky
1861-1906
Quartet in A minor for Violin, Viola and Two Cellos, Op. 35

Arensky's unusual string quartet (unusual at the outset in calling for two cellos instead of two violins) resembles Samuel Barber's First String Quartet in that the most famous part of the work was later adapted for string orchestra and is almost always heard in that guise. Like Barber's Adagio for Strings, Arensky's Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky is one of the composer's best-known pieces. Still, outside of Russia we hear little of this late romantic composer, whose talent Tchaikovsky admired enormously.

Anton Arensky showed himself to be so gifted during his student years at the St. Petersburg Conservatory that, upon graduation, the competing Moscow Conservatory hired him at once as professor of harmony and counterpoint. A highly eclectic composer, whose music shows the strong influence of Chopin and Mendelssohn, as well as that of his Russian contemporaries, Arensky had an attractive gift for melody and the ability to turn out effective keyboard miniatures, though he was not always so successful with larger forms.

At the age of thirty four he resigned his professorship to return to St. Petersburg and become director there of the imperial chapel. In just six years he left that position with a pension that allowed him to devote himself to composition and to his very successful appearances as pianist and conductor. Unfortunately, he also devoted himself to gambling and drinking, both habits pursued from his youth. His health failed, and he succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of forty four. In his short lifetime, Arensky produced three operas, two symphonies, a piano concerto, incidental music to Shakespeare's Tempest, choral works, and chamber music, including two piano trios, two string quartets, and a piano quintet.

Arensky had dedicated earlier compositions to Tchaikovsky, whose encouragement and support played an important role in his career. The second quartet, though, is more than that; it is an original and deeply felt tribute to Tchaikovsky, who had died in November 1893. Composed in the months following his mentor's death, the work strikes an immediate dark note from the sonority of the two cellos in the ensemble, intoning a theme that identifies the piece instantly as Russian, with the somber intonation of an Orthodox psalm in the traditional church harmonies. As the movement covers a wide range of expressive states, this simple repetitive chant theme underlies almost everything, whether of a dramatic or lyrical cast. The original chant material brings the movement to its close in a spirit of religious lamentation.

The homage to Tchaikovsky becomes explicit in the second movement, where Arensky borrows a theme from the older composer's "Legend" from Children's Songs, Opus 54, as the basis of a superb set of variations, a genre in which Arensky was clearly at home, embellishing and changing the theme in reconsiderations that are by turns brilliant and poignant. (Recognizing the particularly effectiveness of this music, he published the movement for string orchestra as his Opus 35a, with the title Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky.)

The brief finale begins with another somber chantlike theme briefly developed. But then comes a surprise: Arensky climaxes his homage to Tchaikovsky by quoting the Russian melody familiar to music lovers from its use by two earlier masters: Beethoven in the second of the "Razumovsky" quartets and Mussorgsky in the coronation scene of his opera Boris Godunov. In this context, Arensky seems to be hailing his late friend and colleague as the heir of both Beethoven's symphonic tradition and Mussorgsky's Russianness, and crowning him the "Tsar" of Russian music. Yet the fact remains that this musical tsar has just died-and Arensky briefly recalls the mood of mourning before closing with the "coronation" theme in its most brilliant rendering of all.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1756-1791
String Quintet in C Major, K. 515

Mozart was not the first composer to write string quintets, but the genre was still a new one, without established conventions, when he turned to it in 1787 for two masterpieces in C major and G minor (K.515 and 516 respectively), both works of extraordinary scope and expressive power. The addition of a second viola to the well established medium of string quartet gives new opportunity for richness of sound in the middle of the texture, since violas can serve simultaneously as melody and accompanying instruments, and, when used in the lower register, they can also free the cello from its function as bass instrument. It is not clear why Mozart turned to quintet composition at this time, and almost completely away from the creation of symphonies and concertos, which had dominated his output in the years immediately preceding. Einstein's suggestion that he may have been angling for a position with the chamber-music-loving King of Prussia is unconvincing, since Mozart made no evident attempt for several years to communicate these works to that monarch. Most likely he simply wanted to work in relatively uncharted territory, employing a genre that could be intensely personal (unlike the more "public" symphony or piano concerto) while at the same time offering greater fullness of sound than the string quartet.

Mozart entered the C-major quintet in his catalogue of works on April 19, 1787; the G-minor work followed less than a month later, on May 16. The closeness of dates suggests that he conceived them as a contrasting pair, and what a contrast! The first is expansive and brilliant, the later work inner-directed and plaintive. Each, in its own way, is a peerless masterpiece of chamber music technique and personal expression.

In the spring of 1787 Mozart seems to have been morbidly obsessed with death. On April 4 Wolfgang wrote a letter to his father Leopold (who was himself in the early stages of his final illness), lamenting the death of his friend Count August von Hatzfeld, a gifted musician of Wolfgang’s age:

I have now made a habit of being prepared in all the affairs of life for the worst. As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed, during the last few years, such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling.

If we are inclined to read a composer’s biography into his music, it would be easy to connect this letter to the G-minor quintet—but how, then to explain that, between the writing of the letter and the composition of that darkly expressive work, Mozart wrote the energetic and ebullient C-major quintet? Simple answers are elusive and misleading. In any case, Mozart frequently wrote works of strongly contrasting character in direct succession, as did Beethoven in the next generation.

The C-major quintet is the largest of all of Mozart’s four-movement instrumental compositions (it exceeds the average length of the other string quintets by some 400 measures). The opening bars of the Allegro hint at the work’s expansiveness with a boldly simple theme: the cello rises through two octaves of crisp arpeggio answered by a turn figure in the first violin on the tonic chord, whereupon the entire gesture repeats on the dominant chord. A songful cadence seems about to close off the opening phrase when it suddenly breaks off into silence, and the process repeats, strikingly, in C minor, with the violin and cello reversing their original roles. Already this introduces an almost Schubertian, romantic quality (though, of course, Schubert was not even to be born for another decade) that Mozart exploits throughout the movement. The same sense of spaciousness applies to the extended modulation to the secondary key, which Mozart establishes in the listener’s ear several times before offering a little “sighing” tune—as simple and contained as the opening theme is expansive—and closes it with a turn figure that recalls the opening of the overture to The Marriage of Figaro. These contrasting ideas debate throughout the development section. Particularly wonderful is the harmonically rich passage in the recapitulation where Mozart balances the modulation in the exposition with a motion to opposite harmonic horizons that return happily to C major for the restatement of the secondary theme. And then Mozart expands the Figaro-like scales and turn figures into a witty coda that rustles away to silence.

The two middle movements of the quintet are smaller in size and more intimate in expression than the opening and closing pillars. The Menuetto is a much simpler movement, though quirky in its own way. The main section is unusual in phrasing, while the Trio is unusually spacious with touches of uneasy chromaticism, balanced off by the repetition of the Menuetto proper.

By contrast with the rather bland Menuetto, the expressive depth of the dialogue between the first violin and the first viola lends the Andante a character all its own. There are three principal musical ideas first stated with a modulation to the dominant, then restated with only enough change to end in the tonic. Yet the simplicity of the architecture only highlights the expressiveness of the conversation.

The finale is the longest of any of Mozart’s instrumental movements, but it unfolds with such verve and wit that the listener is simply carried along by the sheer exuberance of Mozart’s invention. Formally it combines the rondo (in which the bouncy main theme returns frequently after the appearance of some kind of contrast) and the sonata form (which plays contrasting themes in different keys against one another and works out an almost theatrical accommodation at the end. Part of the delight of the movement is that the main theme so often appears in different guises (such as upside down) and with different counterpoints, giving the heady impression that Mozart simply never runs out of fresh ideas for the delight of the listener and the performer.

                                                                                         © Steven Ledbetter  (www.stevenledbetter.com)

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The 2007-08 season marks Mr. Arron’s fifth season as the Artistic Coordinator of the Metropolitan Museum Artists in Concert, a chamber ensemble created in 2003 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Museum’s prestigious Concerts and Lectures series. Each performance of the MMAinC is broadcast live on New York’s classical radio station, WQXR. Mr. Arron is also the Artistic Director of the Caramoor Virtuosi and of the Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival in Summit County, Colorado. For four seasons, he was the artistic administrator and resident performer for WQXR’s On A-I-R series, a weekly radio program dedicated to chamber music.

Mr. Arron has performed numerous times at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel Halls, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and Avery Fisher Halls, New York’s Town Hall, and the 92nd Street Y, and is a frequent performer at Bargemusic. Past summer festival appearances include Ravinia, Salzburg, Mostly Mozart, BRAVO! Colorado, Tanglewood, Bridgehampton, Spoleto USA, Santa Fe, the North Country Chamber Players, the Chamber Music Conference of the East, and Isaac Stern’s Jerusalem Chamber Music Encounters. Mr. Arron has participated in the Silk Road Project and is currently a member of MOSAIC, an ensemble dedicated to contemporary music.

Edward Arron began his studies on the cello at the age of seven in Cincinnati and, at ten, moved to New York, where he continued his studies with Peter Wiley. In 1998, he graduated from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Harvey Shapiro.

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Jennifer Frautschi, violin ~ Winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, violinist Jennifer Frautschi has appeared as soloist in recent seasons with Pierre Boulez and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Christoph Eschenbach and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, and Peter Oundjian and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at opening night of the Caramoor International Festival. Selected by Carnegie Hall for its Distinctive Debuts series, she gave her first New York recital at Weill Hall in April 2004. She also gave debut recitals in ten of Europe’s foremost concert venues, including London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, La Cite de la Musique in Paris, and the Salzburg Mozarteum.

Ms. Frautschi’s 2008-09 season highlights include a three week tour of the US with the Czech Symphony Orchestra performing the Mendelssohn and Bruch Concerti, a concert at Miller Theater in New York celebrating cellist Fred Sherry’s 60th birthday with Schoenberg and Wuorinen, and chamber music festivals in Cyprus and the Czech Republic. Last season included engagements at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw playing the Beethoven Concerto; as soloist with orchestras in Germany and Russia, and with the Florida Orchestra and Madison, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Syracuse symphonies; as chamber musician at the 92nd Street Y, New York’s Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums, Chamber Music Northwest, Moab Music Festival , Newport Music Festival, and Rome Chamber Music Festival; and a recital of all Stravinsky works for violin and piano at Miller Theater’s Stravinsky Festival.

She regularly performs at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Caramoor, where she has performed annually since André Previn first invited her there as a “Rising Star” in 1992. She has also performed at such chamber music festivals as La Musica (FL), Music@Menlo (CA), Santa Fe, Seattle, Spoleto (Italy), Summerfest La Jolla, and St. Barth’s (French West Indies).

Her orchestral debut recording for Artek, of the Prokofiev concerti with Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony, follows two highly-acclaimed Artek discs of music of Ravel and Stravinsky, and of 20th -century works for solo violin. She has also recorded several discs for Naxos, including a Grammy®-nominated recording of Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, and the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, both conducted by the legendary Robert Craft, and forthcoming releases of the Schoenberg Third String Quartet and Stravinsky Duo Concertant.

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Laura Frautschi, violin ~ Violinist Laura Frautschi has established a reputation as a versatile musician with a strong commitment to contemporary as well as classical repertoire. She regularly performs as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States and Asia, and collaborates frequently with living composers. She has given world premieres of violin concerti by leading American composers Lee Hyla and Augusta Read Thomas, and commissioned trio works by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kenji Bunch and Patrick Zimmerli. Her recent chamber music activities include appearances at the Caramoor International Festival (first as a Rising Star, and subsequently as a member of the Caramoor Virtuosi), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wellesley Composer Conference, Moab and St. Bart’s Music Festivals, and yearly tours throughout Japan with cellist Kristina Cooper and pianist John Novacek. In addition, she is a concertmaster of the New York City Opera Orchestra, and she became a member of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra beginning in 2008.

Ms. Frautschi’s extensive discography ranges from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the Festival Strings Lucerne and Lee Hyla’s Violin Concerto with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, to twentieth-century chamber works by Bernard Rands, Chen Yi, and Margaret Brouwer. She has a long-standing relationship with the Japanese record label Pony Canyon, for whom she has recorded six CDs of varied short pieces running the gamut from Kreisler and Elgar to Astor Piazzolla and Arvo Part.

Laura Frautschi studied applied mathematics at Harvard College, and violin performance with Robert Mann at The Juilliard School.

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