Noteworthy Piano Quartets 

April 23/24, 2023 

ESPRESSIVO! PIANO QUARTET
Jaime Laredo, violin
Milena Pájaro -van de Stadt, viola
Sharon Robinson, cello
Anna Polonsky, piano

The newly formed Espressivo! Piano Quartet makes their Linton Chamber Music debut. Fauré and Brahms wrote noteworthy piano quartets during times of personal exploration and growth. Experience these remarkable works and also discover a work that is a musical journey through a dream world by Rebecca Clarke.  

Program Notes

Rebecca Clarke (1886 – 1979)
Morpheus for Viola & Piano

Rebecca Clarke was a true pioneer for female musicians. She was one of the first women to study at London’s Royal College of Music. After graduation she built a successful career as a soloist and orchestral musician and performed in three of the earliest women’s chamber music ensembles. On top of her breakthroughs as a performer, by 1909 Clarke had developed an interest in composition and began writing music for anyone who would listen. At the time, the idea of a female composer was novel enough that her publisher encouraged her to compose under a male pseudonym in order to achieve any kind of commercial success. Thus it was that “Anthony Trent” composed a number of works at the turn of the 20^th century, including Morpheus, which Clarke premiered at New York’s Aeolian Hall during her US tour in 1918.

Named for the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus showcases Clarke’s impressionistic style modelled after Claude Debussy and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The work is perhaps most defined by its perfect balance of dreaminess and intensity. Clarke uses the full range of both instruments to create a truly dreamlike atmosphere, while the virtuosic demands of the viola part propel the melody from moments of deathly quiet to intense climax. Listeners can’t help but feel transported through the dreamscape of the work’s namesake until the final moments as both instruments slowly fade away into silence.

Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924)
Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 15

Fauré had a distinct musical personality, butt his music is unmistakably French with a strong kinship to both the suave Romanticism of Franck and the cool sensuality of Debussy. It is particularly compelling to realize that Fauré’s first piano quartet predates Debussy and Ravel’s first mature works by ten and twenty years respectively. Along with the traditional clarity, poetry and restraint of the French tradition preceding it, Fauré’s music sounds refreshingly and presciently modern.

Fauré’s strongly rhythmic opening theme is announced immediately by the strings, seconded by sweeping syncopated chords from the piano. The second subject is in short graceful phrases, but is rather overwhelmed by the powerful first theme. The passion of this movement is balanced by the very French elegance of the Scherzo. The sophisticated banter of the piano is set up against stylish pizzicato strings, leading to razor-sharp exchanges of melodic exclamations.

The Scherzo presents with the dual personality of a march and a waltz with a steady perpetual motion gently animating the entire construction. A steady “groove” emerges from a combination of an obstinate bass pattern and a scurrying melodic figure. Over time, the strings introduce a much more languid melody that stretches with a certain wryness. The trio is surprisingly similar to the Scherzo musically, but it begins on the dominant and seems to invert aspects of the bass, melody and texture for an “inside-out” and “upside-down” effect.

The majestic Adagio opens with an elegiac theme that is reflective and somewhat grave. It gathers momentum, reaching with a more emphatic yearning that relaxes again into a seeming café song whose languorous melancholy savors its own sorrow fondly. As the piano spins into wide ranging arpeggios the elegy returns and sinks deeply into the lower strings. Fauré concludes with a rhythmic tour de force that begins with a storm in a minor key and sweeps through a kaleidoscope of key changes before driving to a sparkling finish awash in color and grand cadences.

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26

Brahms’s 24 chamber works represent 40 years of his compositional output. Collectively, these works demonstrate the full range of the composer’s development from the 1854 Op.8 piano trio to the Op. 120 Clarinet Sonata in 1894.The Op. 26 quartet was composed in 1861, during a period dominated by the composition of chamber works, including the two string sextets, the piano quintet, the horn trio, the first cello sonata, and two piano quartets. Though comparatively early in the composer’s catalogue, the Op. 26 quartet demonstrates the technical skill Brahms already commanded both as a pianist and composer and provides early hints at the expansive influence he would later have on traditional genres.

The extensive opening Allegro non troppo begins with a noble melody which Brahms spins into two distinct motifs – one based around a triplet rhythm and the other a duple. This dichotomy plays out through a broad sonata form as Brahms explores the possibilities of each idea. This opening theme returns throughout the ensuing Poco adagio movement. The rondo form is dominated by a poignant and muted atmosphere whose tranquility is interrupted by a darker turn in the movement’s central episode before ultimately returning to a more pronounced statement of the opening section.

The Scherzo and Trio seems to return to the relaxed composure of the opening movement as it initially provides a restrained contrast to the slow movement. Brahms increases the intensity in the trio with a fiery folk-like melody. In perhaps the most ironic moment of the quartet, this rustic melody is then rigorously worked out through a canon at the octave. The finale reflects that grand scale of the entire work as Brahms eschews the traditional rondo for another full-fledged sonata movement. Here, he begins with another dance-like syncopated opening theme before continually increasing the intensity throughout to ultimately drive to a spirited conclusion.