BAE NEWS

 

BAE announces 2008-2009 season

The 2008-09 opening concert in September features the rarely played and profound Piano Trio no. 3 in G Minor, by Robert Schumann. Composed in 1851, the work is his final piano trio. The piece was composed primarily in Dusseldorf in a year in which he also wrote his first two violin sonatas. Also featured on this program is Dvorak’s Piano Quartet no. 2 in E-flat major; for this piece the ensemble will be joined by Beth Guterman, the exciting young viola star whose career highlights include top prize in the Juilliard Viola Competition and collaborations with Lynn Harrell, Masao Kawasaki, and Alexander Kerr.

Our January concert presents masterworks of the string quintet – the addition of an extra viola to a standard string quartet. This performance will open with Mozart’s String Quartet no. 2 in C Minor, K. 406, which is actually a transcription of an earlier piece for wind octet, written in 1787. The second piece on the program is Brahms’ masterful and mature G Major Quintet, opus 111.

Distinguished soprano Elizabeth Keusch and flutist Elizabeth Ostling return in February to join in a performance of Maurice Ravel’s Chansons Madecasses, or Madagascar Songs. This exotic work, composed by Ravel between 1925 and 1926 for voice, flute, cello, and piano on poems by Evariste Parny, was called by Ravel “a kind of quartet where the voice acts as the main instrument”. Stylistically it is reminiscent of his duo for violin and cello. Filling out the concert are Beethoven’s Opus 1 no. 1 Piano Trio, and the powerful Shostakovich Piano Trio no. 2 in E minor.

Mystery returns in the month of March with our annual BAE Mystery Piece contest. Guess the composer and win a free pair of tickets! While you’re there, also enjoy the rest of the program: Haydn’s piano trio in E-flat, Schubert’s Piano Trio D. 28, and the charming and passionately Gallic D’Indy Trio for clarinet, cello, and piano; for which we are joined by BSO assistant principal clarinetist Thomas Martin.

BAE to presents first American performance of CPE Bach Sonatina for Glass Harmonica and Strings

On Friday, April 24, 2009 and again on Sunday, April 26 2009, we will be bringing, directly from Paris, one of the world’s most illustrious players of the glass harmonica, Thomas Bloch. Both Mozart and C.P.E. Bach have written for this beautiful and exotic instrument, invented by Benjamin Franklin and popularized for a short time in the 1780s and 1790s. Mr. Bloch has informed us that this will be the United States Premiere of the first piece on our program, Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach’s Sonatina for glass harmonica and strings. The program will continue with Mozart’s Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica and strings, as well as Franck’s string quartet.

BAE to begin a four-year celebration of the quartets of Schubert

Our season will end with a new beginning: Schubert’s touching Quartettsatz will herald a four-year celebration of the composer’s quartet’s, both the well-known and the unjustly neglected.