Sunday, Nov 6, 2016, 3:30 pm
Music of CPE Bach
Robert Mealy, violin,
Kathryn Roth, traverso
Peter Sykes, harpsichord
J. S. Bach was descended from seven generations of musicians,
and four of his sons made musical careers as well.
The second eldest, Carl Phillip Emmanuel, was enormously prolific, and possibly the quirkiest. He spent some 25 years as harpsichordist for the flute-playing monarch Frederick the Great. This program explores his solo sonatas, keyboard works, and trio sonatas. Today’s players were part of the Museum Concerts family in the 1990s as members of the Benefit Street Chamber Players, and are now active performers and renowned teachers at Yale, Juilliard, and Boston University.
Peter Sykes' playing was “bold, imaginative, and amazingly accurate.” – Boston Globe
Robert Mealy has been praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” – Boston Globe
Sunday, March 5, 2017, 3:30 pm
Kleine Kammermusik
Music of Bach and Zelenka
Geoffrey Burgess & Meg Owens, oboes; Stephanie Corwin, bassoon; Rebecca Humphrey cello;
Leon Schelhase, harpsichord
Bach spent some 27 years in service in Leipzig as cantor-teacher, composer, and conductor, and in 1736 was awarded the great honor to be Court Composer in nearby Dresden. The other resident Court Composer in Dresden was the virtuoso double-bass player, Jan Dismas Zelenka. Born and educated near Prague, Zelenka's highly individualistic style combines traces of Bohemian folk music with a love of chromatic harmony and a devotion to counterpoint. Bach knew and admired Zelenka, who is sometimes considered as the Catholic counterpart to Bach, producing some 20 Masses and a large body of church works. This program features several of his Trio Sonatas and Quartets for two oboes.
Geoffrey Burgess displays “mastery of one of the most beautiful instruments the early music movement has rescued from obscurity” – Broad Street Review
Stephanie Corwin plays with “seemingly effortless control, and beautiful, mellow sound” – the East Hampton Press
Sunday, April 2, 2017, 3:30 pm
Music of Mozart
Piano Quartets
Christina Day Martinson, violin; Sarah Darling, viola; Reinmar Seidler, cello; Michael Bahmann, fortepiano
Special guest – Mary Sadovnikoff
The famous G-minor Quartet was commissioned in 1785 by the publisher Hoffmeister, who decided that the work was too difficult for amateurs, and released Mozart from his contract. A review from Weimar in 1788 concurred: “Everybody yawned with boredom over the incomprehensible tintamarre of 4 instruments which did not keep together for four bars on end, and whose senseless concentus never allowed any unity of feeling; ... what a difference when this much-advertised work of art is performed with the highest degree of accuracy by four skilled musicians who have studied it carefully.” Mozart’s E-flat Quartet is less known and no less excellent. We expect great things from our four players, some of the finest Boston performers on historic instruments. The concert will also include a Mozart piano duet with Mary Sadovnikoff, one of the Founders of Museum Concerts.
Christina Day Martinson is ”one of the brightest next-generation talents on the city’s bustling early music scene. – Boston Globe