56712 LPO Wigmore 6pp 18 Nov_5 May 06.qxd 05/11/2010 11:48 Page 4
PROGRAMME NOTES
of a spirit of mellow reflection, tinged with autumnal melancholy’. The work is also remarkable for its fine balance between unity and contrast. The 6/8-time first movement, for example, has a consistency of mood which grows out of its consistency of thematic material: virtually all its ideas are derived from the two distinct figures in the strings’ opening bars – the first turning on the spot, the second curving downwards. In the second movement, however, there is a sharp contrast between the serene B major outer sections, their melodic line spun over a gently pulsing accompaniment, and the B minor central section, with its free, florid clarinet arabesques over throbbing tremolandos – an episode which recalls Brahms’s lifelong knowledge and love of Hungarian gypsy music. There is further contrast in the D major third movement, in which the gentle opening Andantino turns out to be an extended introduction to a nimble Presto. But there is unity here as well, because the first theme of the Presto is a transformation of the melody of the Andantino. Then
It is a work of retrospection, a farewell. Pictures of the past, pleasures and sorrows, longing and hope, pass before the elderly master, who expresses them once again in delicately restrained and melancholy tones. KARL GEIRINGER, FROM BRAHMS: HIS LIFE AND WORK
the finale is in the form which most completely combines unity and diversity, that of variations. And Brahms has a last unifying master-stroke in store for the end of the piece. After a quiet, intimate variation in B major, the key of the slow movement, the time-signature changes from 2/4 to 3/8, and the final variation hints at ideas from the first movement. And in the coda the opening theme of the first movement returns in something like its original form, so that the Quintet comes to a close in a mood of tender and melancholy nostalgia. Programme notes by Anthony Burton © 2010
FUTURE CONCERTS BY SOLOISTS OF THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA AT WIGMORE HALL Monday 20 December 2010 | 7.30pm Julian Rowlands bandoneón Debussy Sonata for flute, viola and harp Bax Elegiac Trio Vaughan Williams Phantasy Quintet Puccini Crisantemi Piazzolla Five Tango Sensations Saturday 30 April 2011 | 7.30pm John Ryan horn Mozart Horn Quintet in E flat, K407 Strauss Sextet from ‘Capriccio’ Schubert String Quintet in C, D956 Monday 20 June 2011 | 7.30pm Katya Apekisheva piano John Ryan horn Nicholas Carpenter clarinet Brahms Horn Trio in E flat, Op. 40 Martinů Sextet for piano and wind
Beethoven Wind Sextet in E flat, Op. 71 Brahms Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114
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