Program Notes

Mozart wrote the so-called “Kegelstatt” Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, for Franziska von Jacquin, his favorite piano student, and Anton Stadler, friend and one of history’s first clarinet virtuosi. For its premiere, Mozart himself played viola. Stadler’s playing inspired Mozart to compose this trio, then the quintet, and later the clarinet concerto. The trio’s nickname originated in stories that Mozart composed music while playing an outdoor bowling game the Germans called “Kegeln” and “statt”, the place where it was played. “Composed while bowling” is inscribed on some of Mozart’s works for horn, but likely not this particular trio, which exemplifies Mozart’s often quoted remark that his music was sure to please “beginners and connoisseurs” alike.

Born into a middle-class family that owned a printing workshop, Louis Durey did not attend the Paris Conservatory, and instead earned a degree in engineering in 1908. He was inspired to teach himself composition after attending a performance of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. In the 1910s, Durey began to make a name for himself among young Parisian composers for his refined style. He was part of the French military for sixteen months during the First World War, barely composing during that time, though the war helped shape the socialist and communist political convictions he would champion throughout his life. In 1920 in Montparnasse, he joined the group of modernist composers that would be known as “Les Six” with Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, and George Auric. Although they would remain friends, Durey chose to leave in 1922 because he did not share their taste for irony and levity, nor for the influence of music hall or jazz. In the 1930s, he joined the French Communist Party, and during the Second World War joined the Resistance, setting resistance and anti-fascist texts to music. After the war, Durey composed some film music, but mostly focused on works with political meanings, remaining outside the major currents of post-war contemporary music in his rejection of atonality, serialism or electronic experimentation. Divertissement, op.107, was written in 1966-1967 while he was living in Saint-Tropez. One of Durey’s last compositions, this work was never performed publicly during his lifetime, and not premiered until 1986.

In 1891, Johannes Brahms traveled to an arts festival in Meiningen where he was tremendously impressed by performances of the Weber Clarinet Concerto and Mozart Clarinet Quintet given by the orchestra’s principal clarinetist, Richard Mühlfeld. Compiling a truly remarkable professional resumé by today’s standards, Mühlfeld came to Meiningen in 1873 as a violinist, then in three years taught himself clarinet to a level of proficiency that he was engaged as principal, and in addition served as the orchestra’s assistant conductor. Their friendship led Brahms to compose the Clarinet Trio in A Minor and the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings during the summer of 1891, and the two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120, during July of 1894. In a letter to Clara Schumann, Brahms wrote of the Sonatas, “At 60, it would be high time to leave off…if you were to improvise a bit in F minor and E-flat major – you’d probably happen upon the sonatas.” With a few modifications of the clarinet part, Brahms arranged them for viola. These autumnal works have long been regarded among Brahms’ most deeply introspective music.

Prominent Bohemian composer Josef Fiala was born to a schoolmaster and a serf belonging to the estate of Countess Lobkowitz. He taught himself the oboe, but as a serf was compelled to menial labor, and eventually fled the estate in secret. He was recaptured, and out of spite the Countess notoriously ordered that Fiala’s front teeth be pulled out so he could never play the oboe again. Some of the nobility of Prague interceded for him with the Emperor, who commanded that he be set free, which allowed him to move to Germany and Austria where he became a close friend of Mozart. In Austria, Fiala held various positions performing oboe, violin, cello and even horn, and in 1786 he moved to Russia to work in the court of Catherine the Great. After returning from Russia, he toured Europe and performed viola da gamba for King Friedrich Wilhelm II. In 1792 he became Kapellmeister in Donaueschingen, where he spent the rest of his life.

Robert Schumann composed the Op. 73 Fantasiestücke swiftly over just a few days in 1849, a year in which he completed nearly 40 works, several with fanciful titles inspired by German folklore and literature. Originally for clarinet, it is often heard in cello, viola or violin versions. When Schumann and wife Clara traveled to Hamburg in 1850, the young Brahms sent a package of his compositions to their hotel. It was returned unopened, but after an introduction in 1853 in which Brahms played several of his compositions, Schumann wrote in his diary, “Visit from Brahms (a genius).” Within months of this meeting Schumann was overtaken by mental illness and entered an asylum where he remained until his death. Brahms and Clara Schumann remained close friends for the rest of Brahms’ life.

Michael White studied composition with Peter Mennin and Vincent Persichetti. He later taught at Oberlin, Philadelphia Musical Academy and Juilliard. This work, composed in 2015, concentrates on the differences and contrasting colors between the three instruments, with a slow, lyrical “Introduction” followed immediately by the fast, rhythmically exciting “Dance”, with constantly shifting meters, jazz inflections, and imitative counterpoint between all three instruments.