May 4, 2012
Friday-8:00pm | University of North Carolina School of Music Recital Hall
Program
Johann Sebastian Bach
Trio Sonata from Das Musikalische Opfer (The Musical Offering), BWV 1079
Largo
Allegro
Andante
Allegro
Johannes Brahms
String Sextet No. 1 in B flat Major, Op.18
Allegro ma non troppo
Andante, ma moderato
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Rondo: Poco Allegretto
Sponsor
Program Notes
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Trio Sonata from Das Musikalische Opfer (The Musical Offering), BWV 1079
In May 1747, Frederick II of Prussia (“Frederick the Great”) and Johann Sebastian Bach met at the King’s residence in Potsdam. Frederick had written a long, chromatic theme, and then challenged the great composer to improvise a six-voice fugue on it. Bach’s response was to write such a fugue and send it to Frederick. Two months later, the master Baroque composer published a set of pieces based on this theme, entitled The Musical Offering. These works included a number of fugues and canons, and the four-movement trio sonata performed tonight.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op.18
Brahms’s first string sextet was written between 1858 and 1860 and was finished during a summer vacation where the composer was staying on the Elbe River. It is an early work – Brahms was 27 at the time of its premiere in Hanover – and comes from the same period as his two orchestral serenades and first piano concerto.
Noteworthy in the sextet is the instrumentation of pairs of violins, violas, and cellos. This allowed Brahms the ability to create sounds from a string chamber ensemble that could not be found in the more traditional string quartet (two violins, viola, cello). An example of this is the opening melody, which is scored for viola and two cellos. And in the slow movement, Brahms gives us music that is weighted towards the lower sounds possible with two violas and two cellos.
Brahms also pays homage to another German-born composer who, like Brahms was to do later in his life, moved to Vienna: Beethoven. The scherzo of the sextet is almost directly modeled after the parallel movement in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
After Hours with Dima!
Immediately following the Chamber concerts, join us at the Green Valley Grill Bar with Dmitry Sitkovetsky and the Chamber Concert Musicians.
Complimentary appetizers provided by the Green Valley Grill.
Sponsored by the O. Henry Hotel | 622 Green Valley Road
