Music@Menlo’s twelfth season, Around Dvořák, celebrated the timeless work of the Czech Romantic master Antonín Dvořák, one of the most universally beloved musical voices of his generation. This season not only offered audiences the opportunity to absorb the vibrant musical culture of Dvořák’s homeland and its neighboring regions but also delved into the far-reaching effects of his music, whose influence was felt as far afield as America, as well as throughout subsequent generations of composers. Each disc of the 2014 edition of Music@Menlo LIVE captures the vibrant spirit of the season.

Disc I begins on a festive note, with Mozart’s delightful Serenata notturna prefacing Schubert’s virtuosic Rondo brillant for Piano and Violin. Following these two masters of Viennese Classicism, Bedřich Smetana’s Bohemian fantasie offers listeners a piquant taste of Central European nationalism. These rich dual traditions come together in the flowing lyricism, rhythmic flair, and singular accent of Antonín Dvořák, whose Bass Quintet represents the composer’s coming of age.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)
Serenade in D Major for String Orchestra, K. 239, Serenata notturna (1776)
Mozart’s delightful Serenata notturna belongs to a seemingly inconsequential literature. In the late eighteenth century, serenades—musical greetings cards, typically intended for outdoor celebrations—were penned quickly as the occasion arose and rarely with the expectation of a second performance. But while these pieces aspired neither to profundity nor to posterity, in the hands of such a creative genius as Mozart, even a genre approached so casually could be a vessel for exquisite music. On the surface, Mozart’s serenades all share an immediately affable demeanor—but on a more intent listen, each possesses its own particular brilliance. In the case of the Serenata notturna (“notturna” signaling that the work was composed for a nighttime fête), the music’s unique charm begins with its curious instrumentation of solo string quartet with string orchestra and timpani. The sonic contrast between the quartet and the mass of full strings creates a sense of space, amplified by the timpani’s booming sound. There is, moreover, a lively dynamism at play between the solo strings and the full ensemble, recalling the dramatic energy found in the Baroque concerti grossi of Bach and Vivaldi. —Patrick Castillo

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
Rondo brillant in b minor for Piano and Violin, D. 895 (1826)
Like its better-known sibling, the much beloved C Major Fantasy, Schubert’s Rondo brillant in b minor offers the trappings of a virtuoso showpiece—perhaps with a Viennese audience that was enthralled with Paganini’s Caprices in mind—but, beneath its explosive virtuosity, it contains finely wrought music of piercing expressive depth. The work begins with a stately introduction, marked by double-dotted chords in the piano and upward flourishes in the violin. More than merely a striking curtain raiser, this prologue, upon close listen, reveals Schubert’s thoughtful craftsmanship. The first violin flourish races to the top of the staff and then stresses the last two notes, B and C-sharp. After the lyrical introduction runs its course, it ends suspensefully on those same two pitches. The start of the rondo proper reveals that dyad of pitches—B and C-sharp—to be centrally important to the work’s large-scale architecture: they serve as the launching pad for the rondo’s refrain, and that tiny gesture turns out to be the glue that holds together the rondo’s refrain and series of episodes. The Rondo brillant illustrates an essential quality of Schubert’s genius—and, moreover, a quality that has particularly captivated composers for generations, from Schumann, Brahms, and Dvořák to the composers of our time. Whether on account of its melodic immediacy, its virtuosic flair, or any other such straightforward quality, Schubert’s music is unfailingly irresistible. But behind that beguiling immediacy is such emotional complexity and such subtle yet impeccable craftsmanship that what might seem, on first listen, to be nothing more or less than a virtuoso showpiece in fact belongs in the realm of Western music’s greatest accomplishments. —Patrick Castillo

Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884)
Andantino (Bohemian fantasie) from Z domoviny (From the Homeland), JB 1: 118 (1880)
Smetana composed only a few pieces of chamber music, but what chamber scores he did produce are deeply personal. Alongside the autobiographical From My Life Quartet, perhaps his best-known chamber work is his Piano Trio, with his chamber music catalog rounded out by an early Fantasy on a Bohemian Song for Violin and Piano, his Second String Quartet, and Z domoviny (From the Homeland). Z domoviny comprises two short pieces for violin and piano. The music is intimate and deeply felt. Smetana wrote of these pieces, “They are written in a simple style, with a view to being performed in the home rather than at concerts…They are genuinely national in character but with my own melodies.” The second piece, an Andantino in g minor, begins in dramatic fashion. Following a declamatory introduction, a rhapsodic Bohemian fantasy unfolds. The music turns lively, remedying the nostalgic mood with a boisterous peasant dance. —Patrick Castillo

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
String Quintet no. 2 in G Major, op. 77 (1875)
The Quintet in G Major, op. 77, marks an important point in Antonín Dvořák’s early career. It was with this work that the thirty-three-year-old composer cast off his youthful fascination with the iconoclastic music of Richard Wagner, instead turning wholeheartedly towards the Classical models of Mozart and Schubert. With these Viennese roots firmly planted, while likewise continuing to nurture the Czech folk element of his language, Dvořák found his voice with the Opus 77 Quintet. The quintet’s unconventional scoring of string quartet plus double bass lends it a particular sonority. In addition to grounding the ensemble with a deeper harmonic foundation, the bass moreover liberates the cello to join the violin and viola in the treble register. The piece begins with a slow, serene introduction, like the sun coming up on an idyllic scene. The scene suddenly comes to life, and with the first proper statement of the theme, Dvořák capitalizes on the expanded sonority of his ensemble, setting the melody in the tenor register of the cello, supported by the double bass. As with the first movement—a Classical sonata-form movement rife with fetching melodies and rich harmonies evocative of Bohemian folk music—the second movement combines that folk element with the trappings of Viennese Classicism. The movement is cast in the scherzo mold of Beethoven and Schubert, which Dvořák uses as a vehicle for a vigorous folk dance. The central trio section is emotionally enigmatic: beneath a flowing melody in the violin, the lower strings vacillate between major and minor. Dvořák probes this music’s subtle poignancy more deeply in the third movement, a heartfelt Poco andante marked by flowing lyricism and harmonic nuance. After asserting different facets of his compositional voice in the previous three movements, Dvořák rounds off the Bass Quintet with an unabashedly joyful finale, bursting with one inspired tune after another. Owing once again in no small part to the double bass, the finale possesses an expansive sonority, pegging Dvořák as a manifest Romantic in the tradition of Schubert and Brahms. But this final movement likewise reaffirms the Czech musikant’s brand of Romanticism as a deeply personal one, marked by that Bohemian accent that is unmistakably Dvořák. —Patrick Castillo

About Music@Menlo
Music@Menlo is an internationally acclaimed three-week summer festival and institute that combines world-class chamber music performances, extensive audience engagement with artists, intensive training for preprofessional musicians, and efforts to enhance and broaden the chamber music community of the San Francisco Bay Area. An immersive and engaging experience centered around a distinctive array of programming, Music@Menlo enriches its core concert programs with numerous opportunities for in-depth learning to intensify audiences’ enjoyment and understanding of the music and provide meaningful ways for aficionados and newcomers of all ages to explore classical chamber music.