It’s easy to be seduced by a platitude of one’s own creation, especially when it also happens to double as a bon mot. Cassius must have been rather puffed up at his own cleverness when he observed, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Yet just because something sounds good or has the ring of truth doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s so.
When you join me for today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network, you will learn that the impetus for the creation of both Jean Sibelius’ Sonatina for Violin and Piano, Op. 80, and Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” Quartet, Op. 59, No. 2, lay at least in part in their composers’ fascination with the heavens.
Though Sibelius was enthralled by the violin from an early age – he even entertained thoughts for a time of becoming a concert virtuoso – he was 50 years-old by the time he composed his sonatina in 1915. According to an entry in his diary, his nights were filled with dreams of his childhood and his youthful ambitions to become a world-class violinist. He notes that these childhood memories were very much tied up with “the sky of my childhood and stars… lots of stars.”
If we’re to believe Beethoven pupil Carl Czerny, stars are also at the heart of Beethoven’s quartet of 1806. Allegedly, the composer was inspired to write the slow movement while contemplating the heavens.
If stars had any influence over neglected Czech composer Zdenek Fibich, it was in the form of star-crossed love, at least for a time. Fibich’s wife died in childbirth when he was in his early 20s. He then married her sister, and though the union lasted for 20 years, he ultimately found true happiness only with a former student, who became the inspiration for many of his mature works. Fibich’s Piano Quintet in D major, Op. 42, of 1893 actually dates from the waning years of his second marriage.
Fibich was also star-crossed in that he failed to embrace the Czech nationalism of his older contemporaries, especially Antonin Dvořák, and it is probably for this reason more than any other that his music tends not to be remembered. I think you’ll be very pleased to make the acquaintance of Fibich’s quintet. The work exists in two versions: the more frequently encountered instrumentation for piano and strings, and the version we’ll hear this afternoon for the striking combination of piano, violin, clarinet, horn, and cello.
The heavenly performances will be by superstars of the Lenape Chamber Ensemble: violinists Cyrus Beroukhim and Emily Daggett Smith, violist Catherine Beeson, cellist Arash Amini, clarinetist Alan R. Kay, hornist David Jolley, and pianist Marcantonio Barone. To learn more about this Bucks County-based institution (established by Mary Pitcairn in 1975), visit Lenape’s website, at lenapechamberensemble.org.
There will be plenty of time – and of course space – for more stellar music following today’s Noontime Concert broadcast. We’ll probe a galaxy of cosmic selections, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
IMAGE: Brutus sees stars
