Don’t expect anything too drowsy on this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” when the focus will be on Johannes Brahms’ unusually intense Piano Quintet in F minor.
This is not music of wistful reflection. The quintet is often tempestuous and even tragic, fueled by all the passion and earnestness of an excitable young man. Brahms began his quintet in 1862. He was 29 years-old.
That’s not to say the composer ever teeters over into sentiment or excess of a kind common to his fin-de-siècle successors. Even in his 20s, Brahms was too much himself ever to allow that to happen.
Instead he takes the prototype of the piano quintet – established by his friend and mentor, Robert Schumann – and fashions it into something unsettled and at times downright sublime. We are in the presence of something great, but also perhaps a little terrifying.
This masterpiece of Brahms’ early maturity began life as a string quintet, written under the spell of Schubert’s famous Quintet in C. Brahms showed the work in this form to Clara Schumann and his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. Both were full of praise, at least at first, but gradually their compliments became outpaced by their suggestions. Joachim, in particular, admired the work’s power, but confessed he found little in it to charm.
Undaunted, Brahms took the piece and arranged it for two pianos in 1863-64, consigning the original version, for strings alone, to flames of woe. This two-piano reworking was more politely than enthusiastically received, and Clara, thinking it sounded more like a transcription now than an original composition, begged him to recast it once more.
The third time proved to be a charm. The resulting quintet, which achieved its final state in the summer of 1864, was met with resounding acclaim. At last, the piece had arrived at a perfect marriage of expression and form.
While Brahms retains the classical poise for which is so well known, he stiffens the sinews and conjures the blood, so to speak. In fact, there are times when he ratchets up the tension so effectively it seems the music might just fly off the rails.
We’ll hear an exciting performance from the 2007 Marlboro Music Festival, featuring pianist Richard Goode, violinists Augustin Hadelich and Benjamin Beilman, violist Samuel Rhodes, and cellist Amir Eldan.
Proceed at your own risk. Safety gear will not be provided, on this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page
