The event is free and not ticketed. Donations may be made at the door. Donations benefit the ATL Symphony Musicians Foundation Scholarship Fund. This program is sponsored genereously by the Music Performance Trust Fund in association with the American Federation of Musicians. 

THE PROGRAM

George Enescu (1881-1955)

Decet for Winds in D Major, Opus 14 (1906)

I. Doucement mouvementé

II. Modérément

III. Allègrement, mais pas trop vif

Todd Skitch, flute; Kimberly Bateman, flute; Jonathan Gentry, english horn; Benjamin Lee, oboe; Jesse McCandless, clarinet; Jiho Jun, clarinet; Anthony Georgeson, bassoon; Andrew Tang, bassoon; Ryan Little, horn; Irene Tang, horn

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

String Quintet in B-flat Major, Opus 87 (1845)

I. Allegro vivace

II. Andante scherzando

III. Adagio e lento

IV. Allegro molto vivace

Justin Bruns, violin; Andrew Lee, violin; Madeline Sharp, viola; Arnika Alikhani, viola; Christian Phanhthourath, cello

Notes on the Program by Ken Meltzer

Decet for Winds in D Major, Opus 14 (1906)

George Enescu was born in Liveni Vîrnav (now George Enescu), Romania, on August 19, 1881, and died in Paris, France, on May 3/4, 1955. Approximate performance time is twenty-five minutes.

George Enescu remains the most prominent of Romanian musicians. He was born in the province of Moldavia. At the age of only seven, Enescu attended the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied violin, chamber music, harmony, and composition. Enescu then traveled to Paris, and studied at the National Conservatory, where his teachers included the distinguished French composers Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. Enescu also studied counterpoint with André Gedalge. Enescu soon established himself as a composer and virtuoso violinist of the first order, as well as a highly accomplished pianist and conductor.

Most of Enescu’s artistic life was centered in Paris. Enescu also made several visits to the United States, the earliest in 1923. Despite his busy international schedule, Enescu found time to return to his native country, where he contributed much to Romanian musical life. However, once the Communists took control of Romania after WWII, Enescu left his native country for the duration of his life.

Among Enescu’s pupils were several eminent violinists, including Arthur Grumiaux and Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin began studies with Enescu in Paris during the American-born prodigy’s second decade. Menuhin described his teacher, mentor, and friend as: “the Absolute by which I judge all others... the most extraordinary human being, the greatest musician and the most formative influence I have ever experienced.”

George Enescu was a versatile composer whose output includes several chamber pieces, shorter orchestral works (the Romanian Rhapsodies, Opus 11, being the best known), symphonies, and the lyric tragedy, Œdipe. In the first decade of the 20th century, Enescu composed two works for larger chamber ensembles. In 1900, the year following his graduation from the Paris Conservatoire, Enescu completed his Octet for Strings in C Major, Opus 7. In 1906, Enescu composed the Decet for Winds in D Major, Opus 14. The premiere took place in Paris on June 12, 1906, by the Société Moderne d’Instruments a Vent.

The Decet is scored for two flutes, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons. A genial lyricism, enhanced by glowing, autumnal instrumental sonorities, pervades throughout. The first movement (Doucement mouvementé) opens with the flute’s presentation of the initial principal theme that Enescu directs by played in a gentle (doux) fashion. Following a transitional episode, the English horn plays the movement’s minor-key second principal theme (très expressif). The second movement serves the functions of both the Decet’s slow-tempo and scherzo portions. In the opening section (Modérément), the oboe and English horn sing a mournful refrain, marked expressif et triste (“expressive and sad”). A quick-tempo (Vivement), playful section offers marked contrast. A varied return of the slower opening portion rounds out the movement. The finale (Allègrement, mais pas trop vif) brings the Decet to a cheerful close.

String Quintet in B-flat Major, Opus 87 (1845)

Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, Germany, on February 3, 1809, and died in Leipzig, Germany, on November 4, 1847. 

Approximate performance time is thirty-two minutes.

In the autumn of 1844, Felix Mendelssohn concluded his three years of service as composer and choirmaster in Berlin. For various reasons, Mendelssohn had found the experience far from rewarding.

That December, Mendelssohn and his wife Cécile settled with their family in Frankfurt. The English musician William Rockstro visited Mendelssohn there the following spring:

Reaching Frankfurt, at the beginning of the bright spring weather, we found him living out of doors, and welcoming the sunshine, and the flowers, with a delight as unaffected as that of the youngest of his children. On the evening of our arrival…he playfully proposed that we should go to an ‘open-air concert’, and led the way to a lonely little corner of the public gardens, where a nightingale was singing with all its heart.

‘He sings here every evening,’ said Mendelssohn, ‘and I often come to hear him. I sit here, sometimes, when I want to compose. Not that I am writing much, now; but, sometimes, I have a feeling like this’—and he twisted his hands rapidly and nervously, in front of his breast—'and when that comes, I know that I must write.’

In the summer of 1844, Mendelssohn vacationed with his family in Soden, a spa located in the foothills of the Taunus Mountains, near Frankfurt. Mendelssohn quipped that he felt “at home among cows and pigs: my equals!” In a letter to his sister, Rebecka, Mendelssohn described his happy existence in Soden:

After my crazy, absolutely crazy, life in England…I got through more music in two months than in all the rest of the year put together—this life at Soden, with its eating and sleeping, without morning coat, without piano, without visiting-cards, without carriage and horses, but with donkeys, with wild flowers, with music-paper and sketch-book, with Cécile and the children, is doubly refreshing.

It was during that 1844 stay in Soden that Mendelssohn completed one of his masterpieces, the Violin Concerto in E minor, Opus 64. When Mendelssohn and his family returned to Soden in the summer of 1845, he once again found the peaceful surroundings a source of musical inspiration. During that summer, Mendelssohn composed his Quintet for Strings (two violins, two violas, cello), Opus 87.

The first violin, over tremolo accompaniment, immediately presents the opening movement’s (Allegro vivace) bold and ascending first theme.  The restrained, lyrical second principal theme provides ample contrast. The extended, and often hushed, development leads to the buoyant start of the recapitulation, resolving to the movement’s joyous closing bars. The brief second movement (Andante scherzando) serves as the Quintet’s scherzo, though more delicate and in slower tempo than the norm. The slow-tempo third movement (Adagio e lento), remarkable for its sustained intensity and pathos, is the emotional centerpiece of the Quintet. The finale (Allegro molto vivace) revisits the ebullient spirit of the opening movement.