The Clarinet Trio of John Ireland by Stephen Fox
Brahms’ Horn Trio:  Background and Analysis for Performers by Joshua Garrett 
Mühlfeld's Clarinet by Stephen Fox 

"Tanchaz", May 27th, 2012
"Kaleidoscope", October 21st, 2006
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!", April 2nd, 2006
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!", April 1st, 2006
"Sextet and the City", August 10th, 2005
"Rhapsody", November 13th, 2004
"Kaleidoscope", October 16th, 2004
"Trios from the Attic", October 23rd, 2003
"Voices from the Earth", September 12th, 2003
"Sunset of Empire", June 7th, 2003
"Last Night of the Brahms", November 16th, 2002
"Dream Tracks", October 19th, 2002
 

Programme notes for concerts before summer 2002:

Main Series Concert, May 11th, 2002
Hamilton Concert, May 4th, 2002
Main Series Concert, November 17th, 2001
Main Series Concert, June 9th, 2001
Main Series Concert, March 17th, 2001
Main Series Concert, November 25th, 2000
Main Series Concert, September 16th, 2000

“River of Dreams”
 

Though the waters of the Danube are neither blue nor (mostly) beautiful, arguably more great music has been written within sight of its banks than in any other comparable area in the world; and not all of it is Strauss waltzes.  The Viennese romantic tradition, the awakening of Hungarian nationalism and the concentration of artistic life in the twin capitals of the Austro-Hungarian empire brought this creativity to a peak around the turn of the twentieth century.  In this concert we present four rare, delicious products of this musical hothouse.

Rezsö Kókai (1906-1962) was born into the tradition of Liszt and Brahms, was educated in the shadow of Bartók and Kodály, and worked in the atmosphere of government-fostered nationalism and populism in art in Hungary.

Born and spending his bulk of his life in Budapest, he attended the Academy of Music there, where his composition teacher was János Koessler, with whom Bartók, Kodály and others of their generation also studied; his graduate studies were undertaken in Germany.  As a condition of winning a composition prize, he was required to spend a period collecting folksongs in the Hungarian countryside; Hungarian folk materials were subsequently incorporated into his work, though he disagreed with the orthodox interpretation of such music as presented by Bartók and Kodály, reverting instead to 19th century models.  From 1945 to 1948 he was director of music for Hungarian radio, and he taught at the Academy of Music until 1962.  He was untouched by the radical change in Hungarian "serious" music in the late 1950s, which opened up the field to broader western influences and thoroughly repudiated the previous, nationalistic, easily accessible approach of which Kókai is an example.

Along with his violin concerto which likewise dates from 1952, the Quartettino for clarinet and strings is one of Kókai’s best known works, relatively speaking.  There is no disguising the country of origin; folk-like melodies, modes and rhythms are heard throughout the four movements- Sonatina, Scherzino, Canzonetta and Finaletto- of this concentrated and highly entertaining romp.

If ever a composer deserved to be called inexplicably neglected, it would have to be Hans Gál (1890-1987).  The composer of a large body of music in many genres (around 120 published works, plus many unpublished), finely crafted, intellectually satisfying and completely accessible to traditional ears, he is little known to the listening public.

Born into a Hungarian-Jewish family living in Vienna, Gál studied there under Eusebius Mandyczewski and became established as a teacher and opera composer (his best known opera is entitled Die heilige Ente, "The Holy Duck"), first in Vienna and later in Mainz.  The coming of the Nazis led to his dismissal, the banning of his music and subsequently his exile.  After a period in England which included a stint in an alien internment camp, he eventually settled in Edinburgh and lived there for the rest of his life, working as a lecturer, conductor and composer; he was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Festival.

Gál’s music is so firmly grounded in the classical Germanic tradition that it might seem familiar even when it is not; however, although affinities with other composers can be detected in his work, it would not be correct to say that he imitated anyone.  He remained true to a musical language established in the 1920s, while the musical world around him underwent several generations of upheaval.  This anachronistic attitude possibly accounts in part for the public neglect of his work. 

Any information that one might wish for concerning the life and works of Hans Gál is available on a website maintained by his daughter Eva Fox-Gál and grandson Simon Fox. 

The Serenade Op. 93, for the uncommon but welcome combination of clarinet, violin and cello, was composed in Vienna in 1935, though not published until 1970.  The four movements- Cantabile, Burletta, Intermezzo and Giocoso- show the same masterful handling of compositional technique, lyricism and wit as Gál’s Trio Op. 97.  Family resemblances between the two works are clear, though the flavour is slightly different, the capriccioso element being stronger in the Serenade, along with a distinct whiff of Richard Strauss.

Unlike most of the composers whose works the Riverdale Ensemble performs, Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) could not be called neglected; the particular work we are presenting, however, probably could be.

Considering the lavish total of his compositions, Kodály wrote relatively little instrumental chamber music.  Most of it is for string instruments, with or without piano; the culmination of this part of his output came with the monumental Duo for violin and cello (1914) and Sonata for cello solo (1915).  The Intermezzo for string trio, however, though from only a decade earlier (1905), is a lifetime away in terms of the composer’s development.  It was written immediately after Kodály graduated from the Budapest Academy of Music with degrees in music and education, and just before he embarked on his first of many tours to collect the folksongs of Hungary and elsewhere.  His mature musical language had thus not yet developed; the Intermezzo sounds rather like Dvorak with a slight Hungarian accent.

Undiscovered or unappreciated gems of music and little known composers are not hard to find when one cares to search for them.  To come across a major musical work of the highest standard by a composer of whom not a word of mention is found in reference books, however, is a rare treat.  Such is the case with the clarinet trio of Carl Frühling (1868-1937).

Born in Lemburg (now L’vov in the Ukraine), Frühling worked in Vienna as a teacher and as a chamber music pianist; among his partners as a performer was Pablo de Sarasate.  His composing output runs to some 100 works, the majority of which were never published and which are largely lost today.  Among the more fascinating titles are Gesang Buddhas for baritone and wind orchestra, and the melodrama Der Tod des Pharoa, for Sprechstimme, women’s chorus and orchestra.  Never a household name, he died in poverty.

The Trio in A minor Op. 40 dates from 1925, but harkens back to an earlier age.  Written firmly in the Viennese late Romantic idiom, it owes the expected heavy debt to Brahms; but the blending of other influences- operetta, Viennese waltz (of which the second movement is about the most luscious example one could find), Spanish dance rhythms and a hint of La Folia, a Russian-style chant (stemming from Frühling’s childhood in the Ukraine?), and Rimsky-Korsakov-esqe “oriental” passages- produces an intoxicating cocktail.  The overall geniality and lyrical warmth produce a sunny listening experience, perfect (stylistically as well as linguistically!) for the start of spring.

Music libraries would be considerably smaller if Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) had followed his father into the almond importing business.  Born into an ancient Provençal Jewish family, he remained rooted in France but also travelled, worked and picked up musical ideas in other countries, particularly in the New World.  His spontaneous fluency of composition led to a vast output that defies classification into any one style.  In the early 1920s Milhaud was lumped with five other young French composers (Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Georges Auric and Louis Durey) into “Les Six”, with Eric Satie and Jean Cocteau as their aesthetic models; this grouping was largely a journalistic fabrication, though, and they shared little musically other than a dislike of the pervasive influence of “impressionism” and a desire to experiment with new ideas.

The Suite exhibits a light, melodious style that one might consider the most familiar face of Milhaud:  the samba rhythm of the first movement (acquired during his stay in Brazil in 1917-20); the poignant song in the second; French country fiddling in the third; and a tip of the hat to jazz (along with perhaps Milhaud’s most stereotypical “lick” in the piano part) in the fourth.  The Suite was extracted by Milhaud from his incidental music, composed in 1935, to the play Le voyageur sans bagages by the French playwright Jean Anouilh.  The play deals with a man who has lost his memory in the Great War and has spent the last 20 years in a mental institution; a helpful patron attempts to reunite him with his family and his own past, but several families claim him as their son.  Rather than face the reality of his youth, in which he was brutal and sadistic, he chooses a fictitious but more palatable version.  While one would never guess any of this from hearing the music of the Suite, at least the fourth movement reflects the protagonist’s anguished crisis of identity and subsequent ironic lightheartedness.

If ever a composer deserved to be called inexplicably neglected, it would have to be Hans Gál (1890-1987).  The composer of a large body of music in many genres (around 120 published works, plus many unpublished), finely crafted, intellectually satisfying and completely accessible to traditional ears, he is little known to the listening public.

Born into a Hungarian-Jewish family living in Vienna, Gál studied there under Eusebius Mandyczewski and became established as a teacher and opera composer (his best known opera is entitled Die heilige Ente, "The Holy Duck"), first in Vienna and later in Mainz.  The coming of the Nazis led to his dismissal, the banning of his music and subsequently his exile.  After a period in England which included a stint in an alien internment camp, he eventually settled in Edinburgh and lived there for the rest of his life, working as a lecturer, conductor and composer; he was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Festival.

Gál’s music is so firmly grounded in the classical Germanic tradition that it might seem familiar even when it is not; however, although affinities with other composers can be detected in his work, it would not be correct to say that he imitated anyone.  He remained true to a musical language established in the 1920s, while the musical world around him underwent several generations of upheaval.  This anachronistic attitude possibly accounts in part for the public neglect of his work. 

Any information that one might wish for concerning the life and works of Hans Gál is available on a website maintained by his daughter Eva Fox-Gál and grandson Simon Fox. 

The Trio Op. 97 was composed in 1950, though not published until 1971.  The three movements- the first in sonata form, the second a caprice with lyrical interludes, and the third a theme and variations- are firmly classical in architecture, showing a fine balance between traditional technique and innovation in detail.  Gál’s mastery of complex but transparent polyphonic textures, melodic inventiveness and accessibility, extended chromatic harmony and formal structures, accompanied by restrained lyricism, is displayed to the full.  The Trio is featured on the Riverdale Ensemble’s debut recording, Foliage.

Peter Sculthorpe (born 1929) is universally dubbed Australia’s best-known composer.  Born in Tasmania, he studied in Melbourne and Oxford, and has spent the bulk of his life in his native country, apart from teaching stints in Britain and the U.S.A.  His biography reads like a catalogue of awards from academia and the music industry, attesting both to the quality of his music and to its compatibilitywith public tastes.

The aesthetic and much of the material of Sculthorpe’s music is rooted in the people and geography of Australia, with the culture and music of Asia- particularly Japan and Indonesia- also having an influence.  Of Dream Tracks (composed in 1992), Sculthorpe writes:

“Since 1988 I have written a series of works inspired by Kakadu National Park, in the north of Australia.  Some of these works have melodic material in common, the contours of each line usually being transformed in some way, both within pieces and in successive pieces.  I have come to regard these melodies as ‘songlines’ or ‘dreaming tracks’.  These are names used to describe the labyrinth of invisible pathways that, according to Aboriginal belief, are created by the totemic ancestors of all species as they sing the world into existence.

“Dream Tracks, then, sets out to summon up the spirit of a northern Australian landscape.  The work is in four sections:  Lontano, Molto sostenuto, Lontano, Estatico.  The first section takes as its point of departure the contours of a Torres Strait island children’s song.  This serves as an introduction to the second section, which is based upon an Arnhem Land chant, ‘Djilile’, or ‘whistling duck on a billabong’.  The third section is an extension of the first, its melodic contours also appearing in the fourth section.  In this final section, however, Djilile is ever-present, both in a much-transformed guise and in its original form.”

Undiscovered or unappreciated gems of music and little known composers are not hard to find when one cares to search for them.  To come across a major musical work of the highest standard by a composer of whom not a word of mention is found in reference books, however, is a rare treat.  Such is the case with the clarinet trio of Carl Frühling (1868-1937).

Born in Lemburg (now L’vov in the Ukraine), Frühling worked in Vienna as a teacher and as a chamber music pianist; among his partners as a performer was Pablo de Sarasate.  His composing output runs to some 100 works, the majority of which were never published and which are largely lost today.  Among the more fascinating titles are Gesang Buddhas for baritone and wind orchestra, and the melodrama Der Tod des Pharoa, for Sprechstimme, women’s chorus and orchestra.  Never a household name, he died in poverty.

The Trio in A minor Op. 40 dates from 1925, but harkens back to an earlier age.  Written firmly in the Viennese late Romantic idiom, it owes the expected heavy debt to Brahms; but the blending of other influences- operetta, Viennese waltz (of which the second movement is about the most luscious example one could find), Spanish dance rhythms and a hint of La Folia, a Russian-style chant (stemming from Frühling’s childhood in the Ukraine?), and Rimsky-Korsakov-esqe “oriental” passages- produces an intoxicating cocktail.  The overall geniality and lyrical warmth produce a sunny listening experience, perfect (stylistically as well as linguistically!) for the start of spring.

Given that Max Bruch (1838-1920) belonged to the same generation as Brahms, Dvorak, Tschaikovsky and Bizet, the firmly conservative Romantic tone of his music is not surprising; like Saint-Saëns, he remained musically in the mid-19th century to the end of his life.  The work of his which we are performing here dates from the same year as, for example, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire; the two pieces might as well be from different planets for all the common ground they share. 

Born in Cologne, Bruch studied with Reinecke at the Conservatory in that city.  For most of his career he was more esteemed as a conductor than as a composer, holding a number of music directorships, mostly in Germany but including a stint in Liverpool.  His stature as a composer and the attractiveness of this style are affirmed by the enormous and continuing popularity of his violin concerti, the Scottish Fantasy and the Kol Nidrei.  In the 1890s he settled permanently in Berlin as a professor of composition. 

Bruch's son, also named Max, was a professional clarinetist, and for him Bruch composed both the Acht Stücke Op. 83 for clarinet, viola and piano (1908-9) and the Double Concerto Op. 88 for clarinet, viola and orchestra (1911).  Intermezzo is our own admittedly bogus title for the middle movement of the Double Concerto (actually marked only Allegro moderato, a rather uninspiring handle!), here presented with piano instead of orchestra.  In the form of a slow waltz, this unassuming movement shows the Romantic master at his warm, gentle and lyrical best. 

"A compelling, distinctive Nordic character emerges for the first time in his music; however, Gade himself would certainly be the last to deny just how much he owes to German masters.  They repaid the enormous diligence with which he devoted himself to their works (he knows virtually everything everyone ever wrote), with the gift they offer to all who are faithful to them, namely the blessing of mastery."  So wrote Robert Schumann about the young Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817-1890) when the latter emerged onto the German musical scene in the 1840s. 

Born and raised in Copenhagen, Gade was first an orchestral violinist, but soon turned his hand to composing.  His overture Efterklang af Ossian made his reputation in Denmark; his Symphony No. 1 so impressed Mendelssohn that Gade was invited to Leipzig where he became conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, as a substitute for Mendelssohn and later as his successor.  Gade’s career in Germany, however, was cut short by the outbreak of war between Prussia and Denmark, and he returned to Copenhagen, to be based there for the rest of his life.  He became the teacher of an entire generation of Danish and Norwegian composers- Edvard Grieg, Carl Nielsen, Johan Svendsen and Christian Sinding, among others- and in fact the leading figure in Danish music in the 19th century. 

Gade’s music takes as its models first Mozart and Beethoven, later Schumann and Mendelssohn, finally Wagner.  The inclusion of typically Scandinavian elements- strongest in his earlier, pre-Leipzig works, but present throughout his career, though not to the same extent as in the music of his successors- gives it distinctiveness and charm.  For the violin, Gade composed his only concerto and a number of pieces with piano accompaniment, including three sonatas.  The Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 21, dates from 1848, shortly after his return to Denmark.  Full of imagination and bravura, the sonata was very popular until the end of the century, before falling into neglect along with the rest of Gade’s music until recently. 

Both Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) were born in or around Hamburg, and were born and died within a few years of each other.  Both were keystones of the German musical world of the late 19th century; both were guardians of musical tradition and ignored or scorned the waves of new music crashing around them at the ends of their careers.  Each left a prodigious output of compositions for piano, chamber ensembles and orchestra.  In other respects, though, they could scarcely be more different. 

Brahms was the archetype of the single-minded composer, eccentric and solitary, holding few official posts and based for the bulk of his adult life in Vienna, the centre of his musical universe.  Reinecke’s career was spent largely in Leipzig (the other primary centre of music in the Germanic world), as a teacher (such diverse figures Edvard Grieg, Arthur Sullivan and Isaac Albéniz passed through his hands there), Director of the Conservatory and conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra as well as a composer.  Rather ironically, though, while Brahms had an almost stifling influence on other composers, the unique qualities of Reinecke’s style disappeared with him. 

While music for the stage is conspicuously absent in Brahms’ output, Reinecke wrote a number of operas, operettas and Singspiele, and he was well known for his musical settings of fairy tales aimed at children, the texts for some of which he wrote himself.  In direct contrast with Brahms, it may perhaps be fairly said that Reinecke was most at home when writing programmatic, as opposed to absolute, music. 

The music of Reinecke, at its best, contains some of the most sublime moments in all Romantic music.  That of his middle period, in particular, displays a magical delicacy and airiness which is equalled by few composers other than Mendelssohn.  In his more mature compositions some of this was sacrificed in favour of Brahmsian weightiness.  To the end, though, he showed an affinity for lyrical, frequently unabashedly tearjerking melodies which are far more songlike and accessible than most of Brahms'.  His own instrument was the piano, for which he wrote four concerti, sonatas and other solo pieces, instructional materials and cadenzas for concerti of other composers; his piano writing displays the pervasive influence of Schumann, though with harmonies and idioms all his own. 

Reinecke composed a number of chamber works involving wind instruments, including the clarinet (several of which have been presented previously by the Riverdale Ensemble).  The Trio in A, Op. 264, for clarinet, viola and piano, dates from close to the end of his life, around 1903.  Similar in scope and style to the companion clarinet, horn and piano trio, it is lavish, exuberant music and deserves to be recognised as a pre-eminent work for its instrumental combination, at least the equal of Mozart’s Kegelstatt Trio and Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen.  The second movement in particular stands as an example of Reinecke’s Schubertian gift for melody (notwithstanding a certain resemblance between the viola solo in this movement and Jeannie with the light brown hair!). 

In 1891, at the age of 58, the still-vigorous Brahms had made his will and announced his intention to retire from composing.  The story goes that a meeting with and a command performance by Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinetist with the orchestra of the Duke of Meiningen, inspired Brahms to a new burst of creative activity, leading to the Clarinet Trio, the Clarinet Quintet and the later the Sonatas.  While this account is perhaps somewhat simplified and romanticized, it is quite certain that without the stimulus of Mühlfeld, even if Brahms had composed such significant chamber music at that point in his career, he would never have considered using the clarinet as the central instrument.  It is equally probable that without the example of these works of Brahms, much of the rich 20th century repertoire of solo and chamber music for the clarinet might not have been written. 

The sonatas for clarinet and piano were almost the last works Brahms completed.  As was his habit when he wrote pairs of companion pieces, the first is the more extroverted and spontaneous, the second the more restrained and considered.  The two sonatas together form a kind of summary of Brahms’ composing repertoire.  The Sonata in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1, opens with a passionate, rhapsodic, quasi-improvisatory first movement; the second brings to mind a cradle song; the third movement is a waltz- always a favourite musical form of Brahms- in turns elegant and folksy; and in the very orchestral-sounding fourth movement one hears a rousing call to arms, akin to the finale of the First Symphony. 

In keeping with the Riverdale Ensemble's practice of presenting music with an original slant, boxwood Baermann system clarinets, as were standard in Germany in the late 19th century, will be used in this concert.  Besides the pursuit of historical authenticity, this is done in preparation for a recording project being undertaken to present the music of Brahms and Reinecke on period instruments, also using the mid-19th century Streicher piano at Wilfred Laurier University. 

Clifford Crawley (b. 1929) was born in England and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Durham University.  His teachers included Lennox Berkeley and Humphrey Searle.  He is a Fellow of Trinity College, London, and an Associate of the Royal College of Music.  Since his immigration to Canada in 1973, he has been a Professor of composition and music education at Queen's University and has been active as an examiner and adjudicator and in the planning of music programmes in schools in Ontario.

Tenapenny Pieces for clarinet and piano, composed in 1984, is a lighthearted, melodic suite of ten short, evocative character pieces:  Prelude, Cavatina, Capriccietto, Tango (complete with Brazilian and apparently Hungarian references!), Pezzatrena, Alla Polka (in 5/8 time, naturally),  Intermezzo, Waltz, Foxtrot, and Finale- Theme and Variations.

We sincerely hope that the title is not a reference to the overpopulation of unemployed clarinetists.

Sir Arnold Bax (1883-1953) belonged to that generation of English composers who were fascinated with all things Celtic, Irish in particular.  Bax went so far as to publish several novels under an Irish pseudonym.  After an undistinguished and incomplete period of study at the Royal Conservatory of Music, he embarked on a prolific composing career which culminated in his appointment as Master of the King's Music in the 1940's.

Like that of his contemporaries, Bax's music is rooted in the Romantic style and paints on a large canvas, and consequently fell out of fashion in the 1930's, though Bax has fared better in the public memory than some of his classmates.  His music is characterised by its highly individual and original use of harmony and often by an underlying angst which reflects his fiery, intense personality.

Bax composed a number of works for violin and piano, including three sonatas, the Legend, Four Pieces and the present Ballad, which dates from 1915.

John Jacobsson (1835-1909) achieves the distinction of being a prolific composer, at one time well known in his native country, who rates not at single mention in English language books on music history.

The son of a Jewish textile merchant in Stockholm, Jacobsson showed musical talent in early childhood.  In order to combine his musical aspirations with a solid career, he worked in and later owned a music shop and piano dealership, which remained his principal employment for most of his life.  In addition, he was organist and choir director at the synagogue in Stockholm.  His training in composition and organ playing was by means of private lessons with various teachers, including occasional study abroad. 

His compositions, many of which appeared in print and on concert programmes during his lifetime, covered orchestral, choral and chamber music, ballet, operetta and music for Royal occasions.  He is perhaps best known for his songs - some 130 in number - for solo voice and piano.  Most of his music is still preserved in the Library of the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm.

Tre Stycken for clarinet, viola and piano seems to be the only work of Jacobsson's which is currently published.  The three movements - Phantasiestück, Lyrisches Intermezzo and Humoreske - display his basic orientation towards the German Romantic style, and in particular the strong influence of Schumann in the piano writing as well as in the instrumentation.  Echoes of Grieg and other Nordic composers can also be detected, along with an engaging quirkiness which adds to the genial appeal of the music.

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) billed herself as "viola player and composer", and was greatly esteemed by her chamber music colleagues, who included Casals, Schnabel, Thibaud, Percy Grainger, Myra Hess, and Rubenstein, who called her "the glorious Rebecca Clarke". 

Born in England, she studied violin and composition, switching to viola at the urging of Sir Charles Stanford.  He was at the heart of the English musical renaissance, a fine composer and great teacher whose students included Vaughan Williams, Holst, Ireland and Bridge; Clarke was his first woman student.  She went on to earn her living as an orchestral and chamber music player, and as a soloist, playing throughout Britain and making regular visits to the United States.  A world tour (1923) and a Wigmore Hall concert of her own works were highlights of her concert career.  In the 1930s she divided her time between the U.S.A. and England.  When war broke out she was encouraged to stay in New York by British authorities who assured her that musicians were "unproductive mouths". After her 1944 marriage to James Friskin (another unrecognized composer) she retired from performing and composing. 

Following an early derivative period, during which she was heavily influenced by Brahms, Joachim and her teacher Stanford, Clarke found her own language after working with Ralph Vaughan Williams.  He encouraged her to learn from English modalities while reinforcing her admiration of Debussy and Ravel.  In her best works Clarke displays virtuosic command of rhythmic and harmonic effects with brilliant use of instrumental colours and sonorities.  Her 1919 Sonata is rapidly becoming a staple of the modern viola repertoire. The Passacaglia for viola and piano is based on an old English hymn tune, originally composed by Thomas Tallis.

Peter Schickele (b. 1935), the (relatively) serious alter ego of P. D. Q. Bach and well known as a populiser of musicology, has composed music in every conceivable style, from Baroque to serial. 

Serenade for Three was commisioned in 1992 by the Verdehr Trio.  In three movements - Dances, Songs and Variations - it exemplifies the tuneful, lighthearted though still complex and subtle quality of much of Schickele's instrumental music.  While not quite as overtly "off the wall" as the works of the infamous Mr. Bach, the Serenade cannot be accused of being overly serious.  The first movement contains jazz-like rhythms and blues scales; the second is a gentle song; the last movement combines a bluegrass violin licks and a piano solo à la Jerry Lee Lewis with a main theme taken from the P. D. Q. Bach opera Oedipus Tex.

General Sir Maurice Grove Taylor KCB, CMG, DSO (1881-1961) was a self-taught musician, despite being the son of Franklin Taylor, a long-time professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music.  His middle name comes from Sir Charles Grove, a friend of his father though better known as the original author of Grove's Dictionary of Music.  His father strongly discouraged him from a career in music and refused to teach him.  He entered the military, and served with distinction in the First World War; when he retired on reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60, he was Commanding Officer of the Royal Engineers. 

Taylor composed music as an avocation for most of his life; by his own choice, none of it was ever published.  The earliest surviving piece for which a reliable date is known is a movement for piano, violin and cello (1905).  In 1912 he wrote the music for a successful operetta called An Island Princess in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, which was performed at the Theatre Royal, Valetta, Malta, where he was stationed.  Piano reductions of the songs and dances, a printed programme, and some photographs of the large cast survive. 

Most of Taylor's music was written for family performance, his wife being a good violinist.  However, some orchestral works were publicly performed, including a Piano Concerto (1927), a Violin Concerto (1928), and two orchestral suites called Llyn Maelog (1932) and Sea Music (1938), which exist also in the form of duets for violin and piano.  After the early 1930's almost all the music (about 25 titles) is for violin and piano, but there also exist some songs, an unfinished and undated Cello Sonata, and some pieces for two violins and piano (1939 and 1952). 

After his wife's death in 1954, the music was set aside.  Until 1986, when Daniel Kushner and Ellen Meyer gave a concert of several of the pieces for an invited audience, perhaps only a handful of people now alive had heard much of it.  Because it was written for family performance, there are few dynamic or expression markings in most of the pieces, leaving the interpretation up to the performers. 

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) billed herself as "viola player and composer", and was greatly esteemed by her chamber music colleagues who included Casals, Schnabel, Thibaud, Percy Grainger, Myra Hess, and Rubenstein, who called her "the glorious Rebecca Clarke".

Born in England, she studied violin and composition, switching to viola at the urging of Sir Charles Stanford.  He was at the heart of the English musical renaissance, a fine composer and great teacher whose students included Vaughan Williams, Holst, Ireland and Bridge; Clarke was his first woman student.  She went on to earn her living as an orchestral and chamber music player, and as a soloist, playing throughout Britain and making regular visits to the United States.  A world tour (1923) and a Wigmore Hall concert of her own works were highlights of her concert career.  In the 1930s she divided her time between the U.S.A. and England.  When war broke out she was encouraged to stay in New York by British authorities who assured her that musicians were "unproductive mouths". After her 1944 marriage to James Friskin (another unrecognized composer) she retired from performing and composing. 

Following an early derivative period, during which she was heavily influenced by Brahms, Joachim and her teacher Stanford, Clarke found her own language after working with Ralph Vaughan Williams.  He encouraged her to learn from English modalities while reinforcing her admiration of Debussy and Ravel.  In her best works- the Viola Sonata, the Piano Trio and the 1941 Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale for clarinet and viola, dating from 1941- Clarke displays virtuosic command of rhythmic and harmonic effects with brilliant use of instrumental colours and sonorities.  The Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale is one of her most beautiful pieces; it was one of her last works, and is still unpublished.  Norman Lebrecht calls it "deliciously poignant". 

The ancestors of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) were Sephardic Jews from Spain ("Castelnuovo" refers to Castilla la Nueva, not the place to which it is redundant to carry coal!) who settled in Italy.  Though his father wanted him to follow a substantial profession such as banking or medicine, his interest in music and composing began in childhood and never wavered.  Forced to flee Italy in 1939, he settled in Los Angeles and found work composing and arranging music for the film industry, work which he despised (not least because it was rarely credited) but which no doubt reinforced his natural tendencies to write accessible music and to borrow liberally from other composers. 

Perhaps best known for his large body of guitar music (the Concerto in D for guitar and orchestra is particularly popular) and his songs, his output was extensive and largely still unpublished, including opera and ballet scores, concerti, chamber works and piano music.  His music is for the most part traditional and restrained in style, very often genial and tuneful, harmonically inventive while almost always remaining resolutely tonal.  The Sonata for clarinet and piano, composed in 1945, is a substantial work displaying several faces of his composing style. In the sombre and meditative first movement one might detect a bit of a Blues flavour; the second is based on a direct quotation of a Chopin waltz; the third is a gentle lullaby and the fourth a tarantella, two of his favourite musical forms.

Given that Max Bruch (1838-1920) belonged to the same generation as Brahms, Dvorak, Tschaikovsky and Bizet, the firmly conservative Romantic tone of his music is not surprising; like Saint-Saëns, he remained musically in the mid-19th century to the end of his career.  His Acht Stücke Op. 83 for clarinet, viola and piano were composed in 1908-9, only a couple of years before, for example, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire; the two works might well be from different planets for all the common ground they share. 

The Acht Stücke, along with the Double Concerto for clarinet and viola, were written for Bruch's son, a professional clarinetist.  The overall tone is melancholy (the cliché "autumnal" will be studiously avoided here!); only two of the eight are at fast tempi, and minor keys prevail.  The collective title of simply "Eight Pieces", the lack of any thematic or tonal unity, and Bruch's original plan of using harp instead of piano in some of the pieces, all imply that they were intended to be performed separately or in various combinations rather than as a complete suite.  We have chosen to perform Nos. 1 (a meditative prelude), 2 (with a slow waltz flavour), 6 (Nachtgesang, one of the two pieces to have a title) and 7 (a sprightly scherzo, reminiscent of Mendelssohn with a touch of Schubert thrown in). 

Both Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) were born in or around Hamburg, and were born and died within a few years of each other.  Both were keystones of the German musical world of the late 19th century; both were guardians of musical tradition and ignored or scorned the waves of new music crashing around them at the ends of their careers.  Each left a prodigious output of compositions for piano, chamber ensembles and orchestra.  In other respects, though, they could scarcely be more different. 

While Brahms spent the bulk of his adult life in Vienna, doing little other than composing music, Reinecke’s career was spent largely in Leipzig, as a teacher, Director of the Conservatory and conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra as well as a composer.  And while Brahms had an almost stifling influence on other composers, the unique qualities of Reinecke’s style disappeared with him. 
 

Brahms’ Trio in Eb, Op. 40 for violin, Waldhorn and piano was written in 1865, and was the last work he composed before the German Requiem catapulted him to international recognition.  It could be seen as a tribute to both of his parents.  He wrote it in the midst of mourning over his mother’s death, which is reflected in the intensely sorrowful Adagio mesto third movement.  And, a central fact in appreciating the texture and construction of the Trio is that Brahms was insistent on intending the horn part to be played on the natural horn, which was one of the instruments played professionally by his father, who was a bandmaster, and on which Johannes himself received instruction as a child. 

The natural horn, or hand horn, or Waldhorn, was the horn used in orchestras and chamber ensembles through the Classical period.  It achieved a full chromatic scale by means of interchangeable crooks and the complex, difficult technique of hand stopping, which gave it a veiled and highly varied tone quality.  The invention of valves in the early 19th century was controversial; while some players and composers welcomed the much easier technique, greater freedom of modulation and louder, brassier, more homogeneous tone of the new valve horn, others decried the loss of the distinctive sound and character of the natural horn.  Brahms was one of the latter, though he realized that by the 1860s, competent hand horn players were becoming difficult to find. 
 

The music of Reinecke, at its best, contains some of the most sublime moments in all Romantic music. The work dating from the middle of his life, especially, shows a magical delicacy and airiness which is equalled by few other composers.  In his more mature compositions some of this was sacrificed in favour of Brahmsian weightiness.  To the end, though, he showed an affinity for lyrical melodies which are far more songlike and accessible than those typical of Brahms.  His own instrument was the piano (for which he wrote four concerti, sonatas and other solo pieces, instructional materials and cadenzas for concerti of other composers); his piano writing displays the pervasive influence of Schumann, though with harmonies and idioms all his own. 

He composed a number of chamber works involving wind instruments, including the clarinet (several of which have been presented previously by the Riverdale Ensemble).  One of his last works is the Trio in Bb, Op. 274 for clarinet, horn and piano, which dates from ca. 1905.  (Reinecke thus belongs to a group of illustrious composers- also including Mozart, Brahms, Reger and Poulenc- who died shortly after composing clarinet music!)  By this time the natural horn had long been superseded by the valve horn, so in this performance a modern instrument is used.  The clarinet employed, however, is a boxwood Baermann system clarinet, which was standard in Germany in the late 19th century. 
 

Brahms’ Horn Trio:  Background and Analysis for Performers by Joshua Garrett 
Mühlfeld's Clarinet by Stephen Fox 
 

We welcome as guest artist for this concert hornist Derek Conrod.  Derek is a member of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Toronto), Apollo's Fire (Cleveland), the Aeolian Winds, the National Ballet Orchestra, and the Stratford Festival Orchestra, and teaches at the University of Western Ontario.  A frequent recitalist and lecturer on historical horns, Derek has performed on more than 20 discs with Tafelmusik and the American Bach Soloists (San Francisco), and has appeared as a soloist at the Mostly Mozart Festival at New York's Lincoln Center and at Orchestra Hall in Chicago.  In 1995 he served as music consultant for the Stratford Festival's acclaimed production of Amadeus.

York Bowen (1884-1961) was born in London as Edwin Yorke Bowen, the son of  the founder of a whiskey distillery.  He showed talent early on as a pianist, making his concerto debut at the age of eight, and developed into one of the most brilliant performers of his day.  He also played the viola and horn at a professional level, performing on the latter in the Band of the Scots Guards during the First World War.

Bowen entered the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 14, and on graduating was dubbed "the most remarkable of the young British composers" by Saint-Saëns.  His compositions include two symphonies, four piano concerti, orchestral tone poems and a large number of chamber and piano works.  Bowen’s music is written in a rich Romantic language that fell out of fashion early in his career; as a consequence his work languished in obscurity for much of the century, and his later life brought little public acclaim.  Much of his output has remained unpublished and hence unheard until very recently.

The viola was Bowen’s favourite instrument, through both his own playing and his collaboration with the celebrated violist Lionel Tertis.  His works featuring the viola include the Concerto, two Sonatas and the Rhapsody with piano, the Fantasia with organ, the Quartet for four violas, several duos and trios with various instruments, and the present Phantasy Op. 54 for viola and piano, dating from 1918.

Much of what has been said about York Bowen could be applied equally to Josef Holbrooke (1878-1958).  Christened Joseph Holbrooke, in common with Bowen he later chose to change the spelling of his name.  He also embarked on a career as a pianist at an early age, and became noted in addition as both a conductor and a composer of orchestral music.  Though he achieved a prominent reputation, his star faded rapidly in the 1920s, a result of his anachronistically Romantic musical style, the uneven quality of some of his music, the resources needed for his orchestral works which made them uneconomical to produce, and perhaps political reasons (his outspoken and acerbic writing as a music critic cannot have failed to make enemies).

Even more than that of Bowen, Holbrooke’s extensive chamber music output is at present largely unpublished or out of print and seldom performed.  The Nocturne Op. 57 No. 1, for viola, clarinet and piano, displays a characteristic use of songlike melody combined with Impressionistic texture and harmony that create a nebulous, “creepy” atmosphere.  Holbrooke was fascinated by the work of Edgar Allan Poe, whose poem Fairyland provides the inspiration and subtitle for the Nocturne:
 

Dim vales and shadowy floods –
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can’t discover
For the tears that drip all over!
Huge moons there wax and wane –
Again – again – again –
Every moment of the night
For ever changing places –
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down – still down – and down –
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain’s eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls.
Wherever they may be –
O’er the strange woods – o’er the sea –
Over every drowsy thing –
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light –
And then, how deep! – O, deep!
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like – almost any thing –
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use the same end as before –
Videlicet a tent –
Which I think extravagant;
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissover,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
             - Edgar Allan Poe

Gordon Jacob (1895-1984), in common with the generation of British composers that includes Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Howells, Bax and so on, studied with Charles Villiers Stanford; however, any resemblance between his music and that of those composers ends there.  Far from the lush, overt Romanticism of his elders, his writing is more simple and sparse, inspired partly by Baroque and Classical models (some of the works under his name are in fact arrangements of Baroque music), sometimes angular and dissonant but never inaccessible.  He summed up his ethos of composing in this statement:  “I think the question of communication is important, because one never wants to write down to an audience, but at the same time I personally feel repelled by the intellectual snobbery of some progressive artists… the day that melody is discarded altogether, you may as well pack up music…” 

Jacob had a special affinity for wind instruments, for which he composed a large body of concerti and chamber music, including the Trio for clarinet, viola and piano, written in 1969.  These works demonstrate deep knowledge of instrumental technique, also evident in his authoritative textbooks on composing and orchestral writing.

Carlos Guastavino (b. 1912) is little known outside his native Argentina, despite being regarded there as one of his country’s most representative and recognisable composers.  His music spans the gap between popular and classical styles; it is characterised by singable melodies, South American dance rhythms and harmonies which reflect both popular music and his national heritage.

Guastavino’s large musical output is dominated by vocal works (individual and choral), with music for piano also prominent.  The Sonata for clarinet and piano was composed in 1969, and (like the Tonada y Cueca which we performed a couple of seasons ago) was written for the Chilean clarinettist and clarinet maker Luis Rossi.

Riverdale Ensemble Repertoire List

(Works performed in public concerts or recorded up to June 2006) 
 

Clarinet, violin & piano

Darius Milhaud:  Suite
Peter Sculthorpe: Dream Tracks
Aram Khachaturian:  Trio 
Alexander Arutiunian: Suite
Hans Gál:  Trio Op. 97
Daniel Foley:  Hommage à Henri Rousseau
Patrick Cardy:  Tango! 
Kai Marshall:  Themantics
Phyllis Tate:  Air and Variations
Peter Schickele:  Serenade for Three

(arrangements)
Sergei Prokofiev/A. Galper:  Overture on Hebrew Themes
Louis Spohr:  Sechs Deutsche Lieder
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending 
Leo Delibes:  Flower Song from Lakmé 
Jay Ungar:  Ashokan Farewell 
 

Clarinet, viola & piano

Josef Holbrooke:  Nocturne
Gordon Jacob:  Trio
Carl Reinecke:  Trio in A 
John Jacobsson:  Tre Stycken 
Max Bruch:  Acht Stücke
 

Clarinet, cello & piano

Carl Frühling: Trio in A minor
Johannes Brahms:  Trio Op. 114
John Ireland:  Trio in D
Paul Juon:  Trio-Miniaturen

(arrangements)
Claude Debussy:  Rêverie
 

Violin & piano (sonatas)

John Ireland No. 1 
Arnold Bax Nos. 1 & 3
Herbert Howells No. 1 
Edward Elgar
Frederick Delius Nos. 1 & 3 & Op. posth. 
Edmund Rubbra No. 2 
E. J. Moeran 
Healy Willan Nos. 1 & 2 
Amy Beach 
Carl Nielsen Nos. 1 & 2 
Niels Gade No. 2 
Johannes Brahms Nos. 1 & 2
 

Violin & piano (other works)

Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Romance and Pastoral 
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Six Studies in English Folksong 
Arnold Bax:  Ballad
Ian Venables:  Three Pieces 
Frank Bridge:  Four Miniatures
Herbert Howells:  Pastorale and Chosen Tune
Havergal Brian:  Legend
Maurice Taylor:  Irish Suite 
Patricia Holt:  Suite 
Bohuslav Martinu:  Five Madrigal Stanzas 
Tor Aulin:  Four Aquarelles 
Christian Sinding: Suite 
Alfred Schnittke: Suite im Alten Stil 
Antonin Dvorak:  Sonatina 
 

Viola & piano

York Bowen:  Phantasy 
Rebecca Clarke:  Passacaglia 
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Ballad from Suite No. 2 
Thomas Dunhill:  Pastoral and The Willow Brook 
 

Clarinet & piano (sonatas)

Arnold Bax 
Herbert Howells 
John Ireland 
York Bowen 
Charles Villiers Stanford 
Johannes Brahms Op. 120 No. 1
Max Reger Op. 107 
Carl Reinecke “Undine” 
Paul Juon 
Carlos Guastavino 
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco 
Hans Gál
 

Clarinet & piano (other works)

Bohuslav Martinu:  Sonatina 
William Yeates Hurlstone: Four Characteristic Pieces 
C. V. Stanford:  Three Intermezzi 
Arthur Bliss:  Pastoral
Thomas Dunhill:  Phantasy Suite
Arthur Benjamin:  Le Tombeau de Ravel 
Carl Reinecke:  Fantasiestücke 
Carlos Guastavino: Tonada y Cueca
Clifford Crawley: Tenapenny Pieces 
 

Saxophone & piano

Paule Maurice:  Tableaux de Provence 
Pierre Lantier:  Sicilienne
 

Clarinet & strings

Rebecca Clarke:  Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale
Hans Gál:  Serenade Op. 93
Rezsö Kókai: Quartettino
Arthur Bliss:  Quintet
Arthur Somervell: Quintet 
 

Bass clarinet & strings

York Bowen:  Phantasy Quintet
 

Piano & strings

Edward Elgar:  Quintet 
E. J. Moeran:  Trio 
 

String ensembles

E. J. Moeran:  Sonata for two violins 
Zoltán Kodály: Intermezzo
Arnold Bax:  Quartet No. 1 
Edward Elgar:  Quartet 
Frank Bridge:  Four Small Pieces for string quartet
Carl Nielsen:  Quartet No. 1 
 

Trios with other wind instruments

Johannes Brahms:  Horn Trio Op. 40
Carl Reinecke:  Trio in Bb Op.274
 

Larger ensembles

Johannes Brahms:  Serenade in D (reconstruction of original nonet version)
Antonín Dvorák:  Serenade in D Minor
Erno Dohnányí:  Sextet
Hans Gál:  Divertimento for wind octet
John Ireland:  Sextet for clarinet, horn and strings
Leos Janácek:  Mládí
Sergei Prokofiev:  Overture on Hebrew Themes
Richard Strauss/F. Hasenöhrl: Till Eulenspiegel - einmal anders!
Richard Wagner:  Siegfried Idyll (original chamber version)