2025 Concert Set 2: Music for Strings & Oboe
- loonlakelive
- May 13
- 6 min read
Updated: Aug 16
July 17 7:30pm Loon Lake Jewish Center
July 18 7:30p Historic Saranac Lake Laboratory
July 19 10:30am Saranac Lake Free Library
PROGRAM
Quartet K 370 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Allegro
Adagio
Rondo Allegro
Eduardo Sepulveda, oboe
Asher Wulfman, violin
Catherine Beeson, viola
Adam Willson, cello
Duo Sonata by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Allegro
Trés vif
Lent
Vif
Asher Wulfman, violin
Adam Willson, cello
Trio Op 6 by Ethel Smyth (1858-1944)
Allegro
Allegretto grazioso
Andante cantabile
Allegro molto
Asher Wulfman, violin
Catherine Beeson, viola
Adam Willson, cello
MUSICIANS
Catherine Beeson, viola
Eduardo Sepulveda, oboe
Adam Willson, cello
Asher Wulfman, violin
(Shown above in alphabetical order)
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Click on the name of the piece below to skip right to it!
Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, AKA Wolfgang Amadeus, AKA Wolfie (1756-1791) was an Austrian composer, keyboardist, violinist, and puzzle enthusiast. He was just 35 years old when he died, but he got a pretty strong head start as a nepo baby having famous composer violinist Leopold Mozart for a father, who also managed to open doors for him and get him situated as a child prodigy. Wolfie was writing some of his first symphonic works by the age of 10 and became one of the most prolific and influential composers of the Classical era, writing more than 800 works for all types of ensembles. His music, according to historian Cliff Eisen, is known for “its melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture”. Mozart, along with Franz Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven, were the absolute rock star composers of the Classical era - roughly 1750 to 1820 - and all worked in Vienna overlapping their work and relationship to one another during the same period of time. These three, led by Haydn, pushed on by Mozart, and blasted into the future by Beethoven, formed what is now referred to as the First Viennese School of composition, basically templating the characteristics of the Classical era, laying the groundwork for innovations that would lead us into the Romantic era of the 1800s, and ultimately into the diverse and wondrous array of experimentation of the 1900s so that we can be here today celebrating the amazing variety of beauty and power in composed long form acoustic (mostly anyway) music.
Quartet, K 370 is a composition in three movements, or musical chapters, for oboe, violin, viola, and cello. The first movement, Allegro, is an up tempo delight for the ears. The second movement, Adagio, is a slow paced expansive expression showcasing long languid melodies in the oboe against a backdrop of string textures. The third movement, Rondo Allegro, is another up tempo delight - this time in Rondo form which is a chorus/verse type of structure allowing for loads of playful surprises.
A typical performance lasts about 15 minutes.
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a French composer, conductor, and pianist of the early 1900s Modernist period. His music is generally considered to be "Impressionist" although though he strongly rejected that definition. He was a bit of a maverick, coloring outside the lines and generally not doing well at school because of it, but ultimately became highly revered as a composer and orchestrator and is now one of the most well known and beloved composers in history. Ravel composed operas, symphonic works, concertos, and chamber music. His splashy long crescendo Boléro is his most recorded and performed orchestral work.
Duo Sonata is a 4 movement work for violin and cello which Ravel began composing in 1920 and finished in 1922. About this time Ravel wrote “In my own work of composition I find a long period of conscious gestation, in general, necessary. During this interval I come gradually to see, and with growing precision, the form and evolution which the subsequent work should have as a whole. The music is stripped to the bone. Harmonic charm is renounced, and there is an increasing return of emphasis on melody.” The duo is dedicated it to fellow Modernist/Impressionist composer colleague Claude Debussy who had died in 1918. The first movement, Allegro, introduces ideas from both the violin and the cello which return here and there throughout each of the subsequent movements as a sort of unifying thread. It sings sweetly in a haunting fashion. The second movement, Trés via, begins with both instruments plucking back and forth to create a composite texture. This music is muscular, surprising, and dialogue filled. The third movement, Lent, begins with the cello alone and develops into a somewhat intense slow tempo expression between the two instruments with long continuously developing melodic lines. The fourth movement, Vif, begins with a martial sounding rhythm to set up a lively game of chase which is punctuated by moments of surprising textural and attitude changes.
A typical performance lasts about 22 minutes.
Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was an English composer, author, and a member of the women’s suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, choral works and operas. Smyth was a true firebrand. She absolutely defied societal expectations of women, showing a strong will and commitment to independence and personal expression. She had the support of her family from a young age to study music and design her own personal path. She eventually studied composition with Carl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory, went on to a prolific career in music composition and writing, and was hugely influential in securing women's right to vote. In addition to her numerous music compositions, her output included several books. In 1912 she spent two months in Holloway Prison for engaging in suffragette movement protest actions. In 1922 she became the first female composer to be awarded the DBE - Dame of the British Empire - for her contributions to the arts and civic culture. Her feminist activities dovetailed with her music in the form of March of the Women, a song she composed in 1910 that today has become emblematic of all she stood for. During the time she and 100 other women were imprisoned for protesting for the right to vote, she was visited by a friend who observed all the suffragettes marching in the quadrangle and singing, as Smyth leaned out of a window conducting the song with a toothbrush! Overall, critical reaction to her work was mixed. She was alternately praised and panned for writing music that was considered too masculine for a "lady composer", as critics called her. About this, Music Historian Eugene Gates wrote: “Smyth's music was seldom evaluated as simply the work of a composer among composers, but as that of a "woman composer". This worked to keep her on the margins of the profession, and, coupled with the double standard of sexual aesthetics, also placed her in a double bind. On the one hand, when she composed powerful, rhythmically vital music, it was said that her work lacked feminine charm; on the other, when she produced delicate, melodious compositions, she was accused of not measuring up to the artistic standards of her male colleagues.” Which… maybe… just a suggestion… doesn’t need to be a thing??
Ethel Smyth’s life and career was marked with a seemingly endless energy and commitment to music composition and social justice. It is impossible to overstate her contributions to society and culture. Most fittingly, there is a place setting for Ethel Smyth in artist Judy Chicago's monumental feminist artwork The Dinner Party.
String Trio, Op 6 is a substantial and thoroughly enjoyable 4 movement work for violin, viola, and cello composed by Ethel Smyth in 1887 when she was just 28 years old. The general expression in this trio is based in the harmonic and melodic world of the Romantic era. It has rhythmic vitality, searching long melodies, and plenty of emotional heft and range. For all its dense textures it still manages to deliver joyous playful moments that suggest Smyth was already adept at manipulating her compositional skills to meet the current style and push forward into new territory. The Romantic era is primarily characterized by fairly heavy German compositional techniques, so the somewhat jolly English expression of the last movement here is quite refreshing!
A typical performance lasts about 28 minutes.
Comments