On this All Saints’ Day, we’ll have music by Saint-Saëns, to open this week’s “Music from Marlboro.” In fact, works by two former prodigies will frame tonight’s program.
Saint-Saëns demonstrated perfect pitch at the age of two and gave his first public concert at the age of five. He was 72, at the other end of a very long career, when he composed his Fantaisie, Op. 124. We’ll hear it performed by violinist Thomas Zehetmair and harpist Alice Giles, from the 1982 Marlboro Music Festival.
Mozart, of course, was composing from the age of five; he wrote his first symphony at the age of eight. He lived less than half as long at Saint-Saëns (who died at 86), but in his comparatively brief span managed to hit greater heights. We’ll conclude with Mozart’s Piano Trio in B-flat major, K. 502, written in 1786, when he was about 30 years-old and at the peak of his powers. We’ll hear a recording made at Marlboro in 1968, with pianist (and Marlboro co-founder) Rudolf Serkin, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Madeline Foley.
In between, we’ll have “Ainsi la nuit” (Thus the Night) by Henri Dutilleux. The seven-movement string quartet was meticulously crafted by the composer between 1973 and 1976, after intensive study of the works of Beethoven, Bartok, and Webern, and a series of preliminary sketches he called “Nights.” Nevermind the prodigy status; Dutilleux was about 60 at the time he completed the piece. All the hard work certainly paid off – the quartet was embraced as a modern masterpiece. We’ll hear it performed at Marlboro in 2001 by violinists Joseph Lin and Harumi Rhodes, violist Richard O’Neill, and cellist Marcy Rosen.
I hope you’ll join me for music by Saint-Saëns, Dutilleux, and Mozart, on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page
Caricature of Saint-Saëns playing the harp, by his pupil, Gabriel Fauré
