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Maurice Ravel 1875-1937 ‘Le Tombeau de Couperin’ for Piano (1918)
Arranged for wind Quintet by Mason Jones (1919-2009)

Prélude. Vif
Fugue. Allegro moderato
Menuet. Allegro moderato
Rigaudon. Assez vif

Musically, ‘Un Tombeau’ is a piece written in memory of someone. Ravel’s original six movement piece for piano is patriotically titled as being in memory of François Couperin (1668-1733), who established a distinctively French keyboard style of composition; but each of the movements is also dedicated to the memory of a different close friend killed in the first world war. When war broke out Ravel was working on his piano trio, the symphonic poem La Valse and a few other projects including Le Tombeau. He completed the piano trio in five weeks and then volunteered for service. His several attempts to enlist as an aircraft pilot were turned down on health grounds, but he finally became a driver in the motor transport corps. Despite the death in January 1917 of his mother, who was perhaps the only person to whom he was emotionally attached, Ravel finished the six pieces of Le Tombeau and planned to perform them. When bombing postponed the initial performance, Ravel used the time to create an orchestral version of four of the original six movements.

Notes by Chris Darwin.

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Sally Beamish b1956

Adagio and Variations after Mozart, for Flute, Cor Anglais, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon (2011)

Sally Beamish studied Viola and Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music where her composition tutors were Anthony Gilbert and Lennox Berkeley. She has written chamber music, symphonies and concertos. In 2020 she was awarded the OBE for services to music. Sally Beamish now lives in Sussex.

The New London Chamber Orchestra asked Sally Beamish for an arrangement of Mozart’s Adagio for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola and cello (K617). She wrote “I wanted to try to capture some of the strange beauty of the instrument. I used cor anglais…to give a warm, dark quality to the quintet – when I’d finished I had the impulse to launch into a set of variations and here I cast each of the five instruments in turn as a soloist, sometimes with a duo partner. The Adagio theme returns at the end with each player adding a fragment from its own version”.

Notes by Helen Simpson

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Grażyna Bacewicz (1909 – 1969)

Wind Quintet (1932)
Allegro
Air. Andante
Allegretto
Vivo

Grażyna Bacewicz was born in Poland. Her father was Polish and her mother Lithuanian. Her musical tuition began at home and continued at the Warsaw Conservatory with violin and composition studies. Her composition tutor was Nadia Boulanger. During the occupation of Poland Bacewicz and her family were in Warsaw where she wrote to her brother “the situation is spiritually dire”. Nevertheless she continued to compose and perform with friends. Later, in 1956 the Warsaw Autumn Festival featured three of Bacewicz’s compositions.

The quintet to be played today won the First Prize in the Concours de la Société “Aide aux femmes de professions libres” Paris 1933.

Allegro. This is cheerful, light and athletic. All five parts are equally important and they pass the motifs around freely.

Air. Andante. A more reflective mood is shown here and as in the first movement this is moving towards atonality.

Allegretto. A bright folk-like melody is worked over here. It is a controlled rendition and not overly rustic.

Vivo. This, like the opening movement, shows her witty light touch and the elegant instrumental lines now draw the piece to a close.

Notes by Helen Simpson

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Krzysztof Penderecki (1933 – 2020)

Prelude for Solo Clarinet (1987)

Penderecki was Polish and he studied at the Academy of Music in Kraków, graduating in 1958. He subsequently taught there and it was then that his well known piece Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima was written. In the 1970s Penderecki moved to Yale School of Music in the USA. During his lifetime he won many awards and he is one of Poland’s best known composers. His influence is wide and much of his music can be heard as film soundtracks.

The Prelude for Solo Clarinet was given to the British composer Paul Patterson on his 40th birthday. The first performance was given in Manchester in 1987. It is improvisatory in character and is written with no bar lines. However one can discern the A B A structure with the middle section’s chromatic runs and trill – like thirds which contrast with the sparseness of the opening and closing sections.

Notes by Helen Simpson​​

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Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)

Quintet for Flute, Oboe / Cor Anglais, Clarinet, Horn & Bassoon Op 43 (1922)
Allegro ben moderato
Menuetto
Praeludium: Adagio. Tema con variazioni: Un poco andantino

Carl Nielsen was the seventh of house painter and amateur musician Niels Jørgensen’s 12 children. Why Nielsen rather than Jørgensen? Although the Danish aristocracy had long used hereditary surnames, many ordinary Danes stuck with the old patronymic system until the late 19^th century. Carl followed his father in playing the violin and cornet, and composed from the age of 8. But his family did not encourage him to study music, apprenticing him aged 14 to a shopkeeper, who fortunately went broke almost immediately. Carl then became an army bugler and trombonist, and composed some works for brass ensemble. He was introduced to the composer Niels Gade, Professor at the Copenhagen Conservatoire, who took to the young man, and at 19, Nielsen began studying with him. After graduation, Nielsen taught violin and also played violin in the Royal Danish Orchestra.

Although he is now best known for his concertos and his six symphonies, in which brass instruments figure prominently, he also wrote some chamber music, most notably four string quartets and today’s wind quintet.

The quintet is a relatively late work and was inspired by a phone call to a pianist friend who happened to be rehearsing the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with four wind players. The piece was written very much with those overheard individuals in mind; it reveals the personalities both of the instruments and of the players, sometimes alone, more often in conversation or argument. The work is genial and entertaining, often with a Poulenc-like playfulness.

The last movement is the most complex. Like the last movement of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, it is a set of variations. They are introduced by a short Prelude in which each instrument makes a cadenza-like statement – the oboe being replaced briefly by the cor anglais. The variations are based on Nielsen’s own chorale tune ‘My Jesus, make my heart to love thee’. He describes them as ‘… now gay and grotesque, now elegiac and solemn, ending with the theme itself, simply and gently expressed.’ The reprised theme, marked Andante festivo, is in the more choraley 4/4 time rather than the opening version’s 3/4 – a joyfully serious end to a warm-hearted piece.

Notes by Chris Darwin.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

La Ci Darem La Mano, Duettino from Don Giovanni, Act 1 (1787)
Arranged for Wind Quintet by Raj Bhaumik (b2004)

Raj Bhaumik the Clarinetist in this quintet has arranged the very well known seduction aria sung by Don Giovanni to Zerlina. Mozart sets the Don’s teasing words and Zerlina’s responses that offer little hesitation and which accelerate the departure of the pair off stage for further persuasion. Lorenzo Da Ponte’s text for the opera takes the well known archetype and in this duet he shows that Zerlina is fully in control and through her repetitions and extensions of the Don’s phrases she confidently tells him what he wants to hear. Today’s instrumental arrangement of the aria will demonstrate this personal interplay despite there being no words in the performance.

Notes by Helen Simpson

Dora Pejačević 1885-1923

Piano Quartet in D minor Op. 25

Dora was born in Budapest to an aristocratic family. Her father was a Croatian count and her mother a Hungarian singer and pianist. This maternal influence was to guide Dora away from an unfulfilling aristocratic life into a more challenging musical future. A pseudo-biographical film “Countess Dora” was made in 1993.

Her musical education came from Zagreb, Dresden and Munich and she developed a wide circle of friends such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Karl Kraus and the pianist Alice Ripper. Some of her earliest compositions are songs and solo piano pieces. The Piano Quartet Op 25 was the first such for this combination. Previously Dora had made an arrangement of a piano impromptu and set it for Piano Quartet. In 1908 her D minor Piano Quartet Op 25 set her on a new track combining strings and piano in her early romantic style. She was 23yrs old.

Allegro ma non troppo The first movement is immediately engaging with long sweeping lines from the strings underpinned by pianistic energy.

Andante con moto A sweet rich opening gives way to interplay between the cello and viola while the piano ripples the harmonic skeleton alongside them. There is a simplicity here that belies the complexity of the whole quartet, however it acts as a contrast to the other movements in the accepted manner of the time.

Menuetto This is more tart and rhythmic at its opening. Predictability in the menuetto is saved by the repeat of the more spikey opening. Harmonically this movement is straightforward and has no surprises.

Rondo This combines all the stylistic elements of the early movements. Strings pass the themes to each other while the piano for the most part provides a rich accompaniment with flashes of thematic material. The quartet closes with a suitably dramatic cadence.

 

Robin Holloway b.1943

Piano Quartet Op 143 This is dedicated to Tom Poster and today’s performance is the World Première.

Robin Holloway is a well known composer. He studied English and Music at Kings college Cambridge. Composition tuition was taken from Alexander Goehr and Bayan Northcott. His doctoral thesis was on Debussy and Wagner. Cambridge is still home and throughout his working life he has taught composers such as Thomas Adès, Huw Watkins, Peter Seabourne, George Benjamin, Judith Weir and Jonathan Dove. Holloway’s own music has been summed up by David Matthews as being “formed by a productive conflict between Romanticism and modernism”. In addition Holloway has written numerous articles and book reviews.

 

Johannes Brahms 1833-1897

Piano Quartet No.1 in G minor

Brahms was born in Hamburg and was familiar with Beethoven and Bach’s musical sound-world. As a young man he made a name as a pianist where he made more money than as a composer with published scores. His repertoire was mainly Bach and Beethoven. Brahms is now known for having imposed classical order on his compositions which marked him out in the period of otherwise Romantic music. In 1861 the year of the composition of his G minor piano quartet Brahms was struggling for recognition as a composer. Now in Hamburg, Clara Schumann, 14yrs his senior, was sympathetic and performed the piece in Hamburg in 1861, the year of its composition.

Brahms had written violin sonatas for Joseph Joachim and trios and string quartets but the piano was so important that it was simply embedded into the string ensemble of violin, viola and cello. Brahms performed the piece himself in Vienna in 1862.

Allegro This is homophonic with regular phrase lengths. The piano is thoroughly integrated with the strings. The D major contrasting section gives way to a reprise of the G minor opening. The pianist composer is obvious here.

Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo Strings open this lilting dance-like movement. The piano swiftly joins in and the melody is shared. There is the beginning of Brahms’ use of 2/3 rhythm common to many later pieces. This movement is also in ABA structure and as such conforms to expectations. Brahms spells Clara’s name in the melody with C & A kept, but B & G substituting L & R. A short coda rounds off.

Andante con moto A broad balanced opening theme sets this up in E♭ major, a rich sounding key. Animato marks a shift to C major and a change of texture and mood which is martial and decisive in nature. The reprise is prepared then realised in E♭ with a fuller and more flowing texture. It closes with a measured relaxing phrase.

 

Rondo alla Zingarese Here is a real dance with plenty of rustic charm and virtuosic playing for his audience. Meno presto Now a bold slower tempo here as directed, but still it’s a dance. The mood relaxes briefly and then through a series of short sections teases the listener as false climaxes are reached and immediately dissolved. The pianistic dominance brings the whole quartet to a triumphant finish.

 

Helen Simpson