Tuesday September 22, 2009

Friends of Chamber Music
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Inon Barnaton, piano; Stephen Taylor, oboe; David Shiffrin, clarinet; Peter Kolkay, bassoon; Stewart Rose, horn
Francis Poulenc: Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano
Wolfgang Mozart: Piano Quintet in E flat major, K. 452 (3/5/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the new season of the Friends of Chamber Music.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Excerpts from English Suite No. 5 in E minor, BWV 810
Murray Perahia, piano
Sony 60277 16-21 15:16


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Quintet in E flat major, K.452
Largo--Allegro moderato
[Larghetto]
Rondo: Allegretto

Mozart finished the Piano Quintet on March 30, 1784. In April, he wrote a letter to his father: "Please don't be vexed that I haven't written to you for so long. Surely you realise how much I have had to do in the meantime! I have done myself great credit with my three subscription concerts, and the concert I gave in the theater was most successful. I composed two grand concertos (K.450 and 451) and then a quintet (K.452), which called forth the very greatest applause; I myself consider it to be the best work I have ever composed….How I wish you could have heard it! And how beautifully it was performed! Well, to tell the truth I was really worn out in the end after playing so mucy--and it is greatly to my credit that my listeners never got tired."
Mozart's view that the quintet was "the best work I havge ever composed" is not to be taken lightly. The editor of the third edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works, Alfred Einstein, remarks that "there must have been some grounds for such an opinion. Beethoven, at any rate, considered it worth while to try to surpass this work in his Piano Quintet, Op.16, although he did not succeed in doing so. For the delicacy of feeling with which Mozart touches the boundaries of the concertante field without overstepping them can only be admired, not surprassed; and the particular charm of this work consists in its feeling for the tonal character of each of the four wind instruments, of which none is disproportionatley prominent--not even the clarinet…and in the fact that none of the instruments is subordinated--not even the horn."
Instrumentation: piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn.