Highlands & Low - November 19 & 20, 2022

A preliminary observation. The works featured in this concert share the same inspiration: Beethoven’s ever-popular Septet, Op. 20.

Beethoven premiered this septet in 1800, shortly after he arrived in Vienna. Not yet known as a composer of large-scale works, Beethoven began “working up” to writing a symphony by expanding his instrumental palette. His first effort at expansion was this septet, which he scored, essentially, for a small orchestra: clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.

Brimming with light, energy, and the devil-may-care attitude of a young, genius, Beethoven’s Septet Op.20 is arguably his sunniest work. It was instantly loved at its premiere and has remained so ever since. For many years, its mastery and ebullience, and its ubiquity in concert halls, cast their influence over composers who followed, encouraging additional masterpieces.

One of these masterpieces is Franz Schubert’s Octet in F major. Premiered in Vienna 24 years after Beethoven’s septet, the octet very specifically evokes that work.

Another masterpiece prompted by Beethoven’s septet is Carl Nielsen’s Serenata in vano, which was written more than a century after the septet, in 1914. It acknowledges the septet like a revered ancestor.

The program notes that follow more fully explain the relation of Beethoven’s septet to both these works.

Carl Nielsen

(Born in Sortelung, on Funen, Denmark in 1865; died in Copenhagen in 1931)

Serenata in vano, FS 68

Allegro non troppo

Un poco adagio

Tempo di marcia

Nielsen was born on the island of Funen, Denmark, the birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson and a place so lovely it is rightfully called the Garden of Denmark. Along with the island’s natural wonders, Nielsen’s early years were filled with music. His mother was a fine singer, and his father was the leader of the town band. Nielsen was soon playing the violin, singing at every opportunity, and playing trombone in his father’s band. And there was often a fair amount of hilarity — Nielsen’s father was an exceptional impressionist, pranking his pals with friendly buffoonery.

Nielsen’s early immersion in this musical world of folksong and joyful hometown music-making, along with a keen sense of the comical, deeply informed his compositional career. That career would span nearly five decades, from studying at the Copenhagen Conservatory to eventually becoming its director and, arguably, Denmark’s greatest composer.

Nielsen also spent many years as a professional violinist, playing for, and eventually serving as the assistant conductor of the Copenhagen Royal Theater Orchestra. In 1914, several of Nielsen’s Royal Theater colleagues created a chamber group to tour Denmark performing Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20. They asked Nielsen to provide a short, lighthearted piece to round out their program. He obliged. Scoring for several of the same instruments that were already used in Beethoven’s work — clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello and double bass — he penned his delightfully fun Serenata in vano in only a few weeks.

It’s a quirky work, brimming with humor and good spirit. Nielsen provided this description of it:

Serenata in vano is a humorous trifle. First the gentlemen play in a somewhat chivalric and showy manner to lure the fair one out onto the balcony, but she does not appear. Then they play in a slightly languorous strain (Poco adagio), but that hasn’t any effect either. Since they have played in vain (in vano), they don’t care a straw and shuffle off home to the strains of the little final march, which they play for their own amusement.

The first movement begins with a waltz feel, awash with energy and high hopes. The clarinet, cello and horn each have their solo moment, with very different approaches: the clarinet displays sultry Arabic influences; the cello’s approach is extremely romantic; the horn offers a full-throated love song. But primarily the serenade is a beguiling ensemble production, punctuated with many soloistic flourishes. Notice, however, that as the movement progresses, the double bass has been essentially excluded from the spotlight. This is surely a good-natured jab at Nielsen’s long-time friend Ludwig Hegner, who was the Royal Theater’s double bassist, the head of the chamber group, the organizer of the tour, and commissioner of the Serenata.

When the double bass finally does get its moment, its role is to begin the second movement (with no pause after the first movement) with just a few, simple, repeated notes — Nielsen was apparently mercilessly “good natured.” As it proceeds, though, the second movement is ripe with beautiful songs and sounds. Nielsen’s instrumental combinations and wandering, lush harmonies are touchingly tender and poetic. Listen especially for the emergence of the clarinet near this movement’s end, as it increasingly, but most delicately, takes several flights of musical fancy as though lost in other thoughts since the fair one hasn’t appeared on her balcony.

A moment of silence prepares for the last, third movement. This movement is a ridiculous and wonderful march depicting the trio turning to go back home or perhaps to drown their sorrows elsewhere (as Nielsen described it, “playing a march for their own amusement.”) The march is comical indeed. While the clarinet, bassoon and horn reminisce on their failed serenades, the bass and cello interrupt with absurdly exaggerated episodes of swagger. The winds then join in with their own raucousness before the work comes to a tidy close.

Franz Schubert

(Born in Vienna, Austria in 1797; died in Vienna in 1828)

Octet in F major, Op. 166, D. 803

Adagio — Allegro
Adagio
Allegro vivace
Andante con variazioni
Menuetto. Allegretto
Andante molto — Allegro

While Schubert was at work in 1824 on his String Quartet No. 14, Death and the Maiden, one of his friends commissioned him to write what would become his Octet in F major. The scope of the commission offered Schubert a great opportunity. The friend, the very talented clarinettist Count Ferdinand von Troyer, was the chief administrator for the Archduke Rudolph, the Viennese patron and occasional piano pupil of Beethoven. Troyen was preparing a performance of Beethoven’s beloved Septet, Op. 20, and asked Schubert to write a companion piece to that work for the performance. It was a chance for Schubert to impress an important musical benefactor. According to accounts from his friends, Schubert couldn’t be distracted from this composing and finished the octet within several weeks.

The Octet in F major is indeed a companionable piece. It uses the same instruments as Beethoven’s septet — clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass — with an additional violin. Also, the mood of this nearly hour-long work is, like Beethoven’s, one of the composer’s sunniest expressions, consistently hedging towards cheerfulness. Schubert even used the same number of movements and, broadly, the same formal structure that Beethoven did for the septet.

But, as always, Schubert shines in his own way. And regardless of how sunny this octet seems, it flirts often with pathos. And amidst so many cheerful melodies, we find hints of yearning, sadness, sometimes even fear and distress. Such mixed emotions are not surprising considering that he was writing his Death and the Maiden at the same time and also in the throes of his worsening health crisis with syphilis. As Schubert said of his compositional muses, “When I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain. And when I tried to sing of sorrow, it turned to love.”

Schubert obligingly wrote a virtuosic part for Troyer’s clarinet, and another for the first violin (which was also played by a great musician, Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who knew Beethoven well). You will hear these two instruments both as soloists as well as singing together many times. But the octet is much more than a double concerto. Schubert captures an uncanny balance between chamber music and symphonic grandeur throughout the work, and virtuosity extends to each of the members of the octet.

Here are a few moments of sheer delight and genius in this masterpiece:

1. Adagio — Allegro

From the beginning you can hear that Schubert’s simple addition of one violin to the Septet ensemble makes for a big, orchestral sound. After the brief opening, the winds then play a motive that will inform the rest of the work in various ways, and which contain a clipped, or dotted, skipping rhythm that will pervade almost every bar of the rest of the movement. In the quick-stepping Allegro, listen for the spectacular and near-dizzying sequences of the main theme as it passes between the instruments.

2. Adagio

The opening theme by the solo clarinet is one of Schubert’s most gentle-natured and vulnerable melodies. It rises and falls over an accompaniment that reminds us of his beautiful Ave Maria. It is only surpassed here by the addition of the violin to the clarinet as they play a love duet to the heavens.

3. Allegro vivace

The emotional arc in this delightful little dance piece feels wonderfully backward. Beginning with great cheer, it subtly moves into more sentimental and darker territory and then returns to lightness.

4. Andante con variazioni

The opening melody here is borrowed from a happy duet in Act II of Schubert’s 1815 singspiel (opera) called Die Freunde von Salamanka (“The Friends from Salamanca”). (Schubert, having written several operas and finding no success with them, may have been doing a little self -promotion here.) But it’s a wonderfully carefree tune and ripe for variation, a skill at which Schubert excelled. Listen especially for his imaginative instrumental combinations, and how the variations spotlight specific instruments, such as the solo horn in Variation III and solo cello in Variation IV. Though this movement is particularly bright, Schubert can’t seem to help listing toward darker hues in Variation V. As Schubert said, “When I attempted to sing of love, it turned to pain.”

5. Menuetto. Allegretto

Though traditionally a light dance movement, Schubert turns this minuet into almost a hymn, at least at the opening. Listen, too, for the symphonic richness of the sonorities and for the many birdlike solos. And notice a little Schubertian magic: that clipped, dotted rhythm introduced in the opening movement has by now appeared in nearly every bar of the work.

6. Andante molto — Allegro

The introduction here is some of Schubert’s most dramatic, almost frightening, instrumental music. With shivering (tremolo) strings and exclamatory winds, Schubert evokes an unsettling eeriness. But the Allegro delightfully zooms off in cheer and dignity, as if none of that ever happened. The music increases in good cheer, even rambunctiousness. Listen especially for the heralding horn moment that sets off two absolutely manic, jaw-dropping passages of virtuosic triplets, first heard in the violin and replied to by the clarinet. The rowdiness gets to a point of beer-hall bluster and then stops rather abruptly. The eerie introductory Andante music returns, as though Schubert has stumbled upon a memento mori. But the concluding bars quickly recapture the octet’s overall good cheer and the movement ends with some of Schubert’s most exhilarating writing.