On this week’s “Music from Marlboro, we’ll hear Beethoven, early and late (maybe), performed by Marlboro artistic directors, past and present.

It is clear from the Quintet for Piano and Winds, Op. 16, that Beethoven was an admirer of Mozart. The work, written when the composer was in his mid-20s, is evidently modeled on Mozart’s K. 452, scored for the same instrumental combination. It’s even written in the same key (E-flat).

Beethoven’s Quintet will be performed at the 2012 Marlboro Music Festival by pianist Jonathan Biss, oboist Mary Lynch, clarinetist Tibi Cziger, hornist Wei-Ping Chou, and bassoonist Natalya Rose Vrbsky. Biss was appointed co-artistic director of the school and festival, joining Mitsuko Uchida, in 2018.

When exactly did Beethoven composer his “Kakadu Variations?” The last of his piano trios was published in 1824. However, the first full manuscript dates from 1816. It’s possible its genesis lay even a good deal earlier than that. Was it a slip when Beethoven wrote to his brother and described the piece as having been composed in 1803? Or on another occasion, when he described it as “among my early works?”

In any case, it’s thought that the piece underwent substantial revisions. In 1824, Beethoven was churning out masterpiece after masterpiece, including the “Diabelli Variations,” the “Missa solemnis,” and the Ninth Symphony.

It is curious that the trio opens with such protracted air of solemnity, given its source material. The work’s Papageno-like theme is borrowed from the song “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu” (“I am Kakadu the tailor”), from Wenzel Müller’s 1794 singspiel “Die Schwestern von Prag” (“The Sisters from Prague”). Müller’s opera had been revived in Vienna in 1814.

The trunk of Beethoven’s trio is full of whimsy, a series of variations on Müller’s theme. Toward the end, however, the work slips back into a minor key and begins to take on renewed gravitas. The final variation exhibits on an unexpected depth, rigor and maturity, as Müller’s ditty is subjected to an incongruous display of chromatic and contrapuntal complexity.

We’ll hear the “Kakadu Variations” performed by pianist Rudolf Serkin, violinist Yuzuko Horigome, and cellist Peter Wiley, who played the work at Marlboro in 1983. Serkin, of course, was Marlboro’s founding artistic director, from 1951.

You can’t beat Beethoven. The composer takes wing, 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