Program Notes

Jean Francaix was born into a highly musical family, and displayed facility for composition at an early age. His String Trio was written in 1933, and shows that he had a confident and integrated musical personality even at the age of 21. His works preserve past forms, and often show a preoccupation with charming and memorable melodies that break into chatty and humorous dialogue. One critic of a work from 1932 wrote: “After so much problematic and labored music, this was like fresh water rushing from a spring with gracious spontaneity.”

The first movement presents an exposition marked by skittish running notes, developmental material, then a shortened restatement. The second movement is a scherzo and trio marked by light passages with heavy, jocular interjections. The third movement temporarily halts the sunny mood of the work: the violin, ‘cello, and viola take turns playing an introspective melody in the relative minor between contrasting sections. The final movement breaks back into a cheerful mood, and contains several strokes of humor. For example, the retransition to the original theme is delayed by a slow off-kilter melody in minor, and the coda begins in a mock-serious mood before evaporating into a light and ironic conclusion.

In 1723 Bach took on the most demanding job of his career: that of Kantor at the city of Leipzig. He was required to take responsibility for music in four churches in the city, to teach Latin at the local Thomasschule and act as its musical director, and to contribute to the general musical life of the town as needed. In addition, in 1729 he took over directorship of the Collegium Musicuum, a voluntary ensemble of students and professionals that gave regular public concerts.

After throwing himself into duties and performing an incalculable (and most likely under-appreciated) service to the musical life of Leipzig, Bach began to take a greater interest in publishing his pieces. It is as if after performing all the service he was able for the city, he desired to leave his testament to the wider musical world. Beginning in 1731, Bach began to collect and publish series of works that formed both a perfection and encyclopedic summary of the genres and styles of his age. He wrote The Art of the Fugue around 1740–1745 and prepared it for publication from 1748–1750. As one of his last works, it became, like Brahms’ chamber pieces, his statement of farewell.

The word fugue has a complex and variegated history, and even in Bach’s time there was not complete agreement as to its definition. It comes from a word meaning “flight,” and originally simply designated a canon. By 1700, it had evolved in the hands of German instrumental composers into a complex contrapuntal form. In its essentials, a fugue opens with successive presentations of a subject in each voice at different transpositions in such a way that reinforces the mode. After episodes, or sections of contrasting material, one or more voices clearly present the initial subject again in new contrapuntal treatment. The subject also usually appears prominently right before the final cadence. Bach learned to write the fugue by studying and absorbing the music of his contemporaries, and in his hands it reached a peak of sophistication and variety of technique.

The Art of the Fugue 14 fugues and 4 canons all based on the same d minor theme. As the work progresses, successive groups of movements cumulatively introduce new techniques of fugal writing, resulting in a continual increase in complexity and richness of counterpoint. Marcel Bitsch remarks that though each movement can stand alone, the listener will best appreciate the work when she hears the work in entirety. From the first movement to the last there is a “long crescendo of dramatic intensity. It is no longer a matter of separate lyric poems, but of the continual rolling of a vast epic.” This performance will include the first, fourth, and final two movements.

The first movement begins by plainly stating the subject and its answer, which will become the principal theme of the entire work. The fourth movement is a fugue on the inversion of the subject and answer. As the movement approaches its final cadence in D major, the second violin presents the subject that had opened the movement, and in response the viola plays a brief syncopated theme based on the notes B (flat) - A - C - H (that is, b natural), a motive based on the letters in Bach’s name.

The penultimate movement acts as a review of the techniques used throughout the work. It is a triple fugue; that is, the voices open with a fugue on one subject, later present a fugue on two new subjects, and eventually present all subjects simultaneously. The first subject is a slower rhythmic variant of the principal subject with a new ending. It is first presented gravely in the violoncello, and successively taken up by the upper strings. After episodic material, the subject is presented in stretto. That is, the time between presentations is compressed so that the subjects overlap. After further episodic material the subject and its inversion are presented in stretto.

As soon as the voices reach a cadence in d minor, the second violin presents a new subject characterized by running eighth notes. The other three voices take up this subject and after episodic material the new subject is combined with the first subject. The texture breaks off again, and the viola clearly states a new subject based on the letters of Bach’s name. After fugal treatment, this subject is also combined with the first two subjects. The movement then cuts off in the middle of a phrase; it was left unfinished at Bach’s death in 1750. Many have speculated that he planned to combine the three subjects with the principal subject that opened the work.

After Bach’s death the task of printing The Art of the Fugue was left to his sons. To provide a more satisfying conclusion, they added a Chorale prelude; it was originally entitled Wenn wir in höchsten nöthen sein (When in the hour of utmost need), but Bach added the subtitle Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit (Before Your throne, my God, I stand). The revision of this work was Bach’s last compositional task; by this point he was blind so he dictated the music to his son-in-law. The prelude treats each phrase of the chorale in a fugue-like manner: the voices open with a rhythmic transformation of fragments of the phrase or its inversion, and after free counterpoint the highest voice sings out the phrase of the original chorale tune above the activity of the lower voices. Like the previous fugue subject, the chorale tune also represents Bach’s name. Bach was interested in numerology, and noted that if each letter of the alphabet were assigned a number, the letters in "Bach" would add up to 14, and the letters in "J. S. Bach" would add up to 41. By the same token, the first line of the tune contains 14 notes, and the entire tune contains 41. The perfection of counterpoint and the integrity of motives within each voice give a sense of utter peace.

Although Bach printed each voice of The Art of the Fugue on a separate unmarked staff, it is most likely that he primarily intended the work to be played at the keyboard. However, he often rearranged his own compositions for other instruments, and the strength of his counterpoint is such that different instrumentation usually illuminates a new aspect of the work. It is presented here by string quartet.

In 1891 Brahms became closely acquainted with the clarinetist Richard Mühfeld at the Meningen orchestra, a privately funded ensemble considered one of the finest in Germany. Brahms was so captivated by Mühfeld’s playing that he wrote four new chamber pieces that employ clarinet, including the Clarinet Quintet. Brahms’ final chamber pieces are often regarded as his swansong, and in the quintet there is indeed often a sense of gentle, autumnal nostalgia. The key of b minor pervades all four movements (even the second movement in B major has a long central section in the parallel minor), and all four movements close at a soft dynamic.

The first movement maintains presents a lyrical, melancholy mood that is occasionally contrasted by impassioned outbursts. It opens with a 4-bar introduction played by the strings that hovers ambiguously between b minor and D major. Two long-breathed phrases in the first theme proper expounded upon the two motives presented in the introduction: a turn figure and a half-step neighbor. The strings initiate a resolute bridge section marked by a hemiola rhythm, and lead to a subdued second theme marked by a syncopated melody over a dominant pedal. In the development section all five players break into an agitated imitative texture and exchange fragments of the turn figure. A hushed and long-breathed melody follows, based on the rhythm from the bridge section. The development ends with the clarinet and violoncello playing fragments from the opening to lead back to original key. The movement ends with a brief coda that further develops the opening figure and gives a subdued conclusion.

The much beloved second movement opens with a tender and slow melody in B major, introduced by the clarinet. In an extended central section in b minor, the clarinet plays free rhapsodic figures against a vivid string accompaniment. When Brahms was a young man he toured Northern Germany with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, who played in the style hongrois, a dazzling style of playing that combined Hungarian and gypsy elements such as syncopation and fantastic, freely conceived ornamentation. In the middle section of his quintet he gives free rein to his imagination to evoke the style of playing that he absorbed as a young man. The movement concludes with a brief coda that plays a gentle and slower transformation of the main figure from the middle section.

The third movement, a pithy Interlude, opens with a brief cheerful melody in D major that introduces the main motives and acts as a frame to the following b minor scherzo (Presto non assai, ma con sentimento), which is a miniature sonata form. The scherzo section concludes with a brief coda that leads back to a shortened restatement of the original melody in D major.

The final movement presents a theme in b minor and 5 variations. After a variation in B major, the final variation changes to triple meter. As the variation reaches its conclusion the turn figure from the first movement emerges in the upper strings, and it becomes apparent that the whole movement had in many ways been subtly pointing to the very beginning of the quintet. The movement concludes with a coda that puts the themes from the first and last movement in dialogue, and provides a serene conclusion to the work.