A chamber music festival takes a break from chamber music this week, as musicians from Marlboro band together under two legendary artists.

Paul Hindemith was evidently feeling his oats when he launched into his series of Kammermusiken, 20th century analogues to the Bach Brandenburg Concertos, only with a little more vinegar. Hindemith was about 26 when he wrote his exuberant Kammermusik No. 1 in 1922, the piece sounding like a post-modern mash-up of “Petrushka,” the Rondo-Burleske from Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, and hot jazz. Watch out for that siren! The performance, from 2016, will feature an ensemble of 12 Marlboro musicians under the direction of a figure better known as a pianist, Leon Fleisher.

Then Pablo Casals will preside over a makeshift orchestra at the 1969 Marlboro Music Festival for a spiritually potent performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Casals’ loving, humanistic interpretations of the orchestral works of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and of course Bach form a remarkable capstone to an enviable career. The legendary cellist was affiliated with Marlboro for the last 13 years of his life, from 1960 to 1973.

Wagner characterized Beethoven’s Seventh as “the apotheosis of the dance,” but not even he could have foreseen Hindemith’s foxtrot. We’ll be dancing up a storm on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page