Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season FINAL_BSO_Overture_May_June | Page 24

ANDRÉ WATTS PERFORMS BEETHOVEN'S EMPEROR
of 10) and he is also the recipient of the
1988 Avery Fisher Prize.
Watts was appointed to the Jack I.
and Dora B. Hamlin Endowed Chair in
Music at the Jacobs School of Music at
Indiana University in 2004.
André Watts last appeared with the
BSO in November 2017 performing
Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto,
Robert Spano, conductor.
About the Concert
PIANO QUARTET IN G MINOR
Johannes Brahms
(arr. Arnold Schoenberg)
Born May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany;
died April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria
If you were to choose the most unlikely
composer pairings in musical history,
you’d probably nominate Johannes
Brahms and Arnold Schoenberg.
Brahms is usually considered to be
the most conservative of the late-
Romantic composers, while Schoenberg,
the icon-smashing inventor of the
twelve-tone system that radicalized
20 th -century music, would seem to be
his nemesis. But Schoenberg certainly
did not see himself that way, and
he revered—even adored—Brahms.
He did not even consider Brahms
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to be a conservative —“Brahms the
Progressive” he named him in a famous
article written in the 1940s. And he
believed himself to be Brahms’ heir in a
continuous, unbroken musical tradition.
Thus, it is really not so strange
that in 1937 Schoenberg — having
recently fled Nazi Germany for
Southern California —should pause
from composing twelve-tone works
to orchestrate one of Brahms’ greatest
chamber works: the superb, irresistibly
melodious Piano Quartet in G Minor.
It was premiered by the Los Angeles
Philharmonic on May 7, 1938 (Brahms’
105 th birthday) and has almost been
absorbed into the orchestral repertoire
as Brahms’ “Fifth Symphony,” as
Schoenberg jokingly called it.
Though he did indeed stick faithfully
to Brahms’ own notes, Schoenberg was
much more creative in his work than he
admitted. Over the years, many have
observed that the original chamber
work—like so many Brahms wrote—
is so full-bodied in sound and so large-
scaled in conception that it virtually
demands an orchestra. Schoenberg
chose to score it for a very large orchestra
with plenty of woodwinds and brass
and a very well-stocked percussion
battery, including a very un-Brahmsian
instrument, the xylophone. His most
radical choice was to do away with the
piano, the dominant partner in the
original chamber score. Generally, he
selected orchestral sounds Brahms would
have very likely used, but as the work
progresses he gave himself more creative
latitude, culminating in a suitably bold,
brash treatment of the finale.
The original piano quartet was the
work that brought Brahms his first
fame in Vienna. Possibly begun as
early as 1855 and definitely completed
in the fall of 1861, it represents the
twenty-something Brahms in the first
bloom of his genius. When he brought
it to the Viennese home of pianist and
impresario Julius Epstein the next year,
Epstein and his violinist friend Joseph
Hellmesberger (leader of a famous
Viennese string quartet) were ecstatic
in their praise. “This is Beethoven’s
heir!” cried the violinist. A Brahms
concert was swiftly arranged, featuring
the composer playing the Quartet’s
formidable piano part along with
members of the Hellmesberger Quartet.
Christopher H. Gibbs describes the
quartet’s first movement as combining
“austerity—such as the spare beginning
and evaporating conclusion—with
Brahmsian lushness.” Brahms lavishly
rewards us with marvelous melodies
here (as he will throughout this work),
but his opening theme is strangely
remote and enigmatic. Stark and
angular, it opens with a four-note
pattern that Brahms immediately flips
upside down. The strings contribute
an energetic whirling motive that will
also be important in driving the music
forward. The rising second theme,
introduced by the cellos, is a real warm-
hearted, caressing melody. There is even
a lush third theme, rolling and rippling
upward from low strings to violins.
But with all these marvelous
melodies to choose from, Brahms sticks
with the angular first theme and the
whirling motive for his development
section. The recapitulation section
sneaks back in without our noticing.
Here Schoenberg provides an
enchanting scoring for the third
rippling theme—all airy woodwinds
and pizzicato strings.