JULY 14, 2015 @ 7:30 PM

Boston Symphony Chamber Players

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791), Quartet in F for oboe, violin, viola, and cello, K.370 (1781)

I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Rondeau. Allegro
Players: Ferrillo, Lowe, Ansell, Eskin

CARL A. NIELSEN (1865-1931), Quintet for Winds, Op. 43 (1922)

I. Allegro ben moderato
II. Menuet
III. Praeludium (Adagio)—Tema con variazioni
Players: Rowe, Ferrillo, Hudgins, Svoboda, Sommerville

INTERMISSION

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897), Serenade No. 1 in D, Op. 11 (1857-58), arranged for chamber ensemble by Alan Boustead

I. Allegro molto
II. Scherzo: Allegro non troppo; Trio: Poco più mosso
III. Adagio non troppo
IV. Menuetto I; Menuetto II
V. Scherzo: Allegro
VI. Rondo: Allegro
Players: Rowe, Hudgins, Wayne, Svoboda, Sommerville, Lowe, Ansell, Eskin, Barker

WQXR HOST: Terrance McKnight

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

MUSICAL NOTES

BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS
will perform in the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts for the first time this summer.  The BOSTON SYMPHONY CHAMBER PLAYERS celebrated their 50th Anniversary Season in 2013-14. To mark that milestone anniversary, the Boston Symphony Orchestra commissioned new works for the Chamber Players from Gunther Schuller, Yehudi Wyner, Sebastian Currier, Kati Agócs, and Hannah Lash, and reissued as downloads on BSO Classics (in association with Sony Music, current copyright owners of the recordings) the historic recordings made by the ensemble’s original membership for RCA between 1964 and 1968, including works central to the chamber music repertoire, as well as music by some of the leading composers of that time.

One of the world’s most distinguished chamber ensembles sponsored by a major symphony orchestra and made up of principal players from that orchestra, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players include first-chair string and wind players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Founded in 1964 during Erich Leinsdorf’s tenure as BSO music director, the Chamber Players can perform virtually any work within the vast chamber music literature, expanding their range of repertoire by calling upon other BSO members or enlisting the services of such distinguished artists as pianists Leif Ove Andsnes, Emanuel Ax, André Previn, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The Chamber Players’ activities include an annual four-concert series in Boston’s Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory, regular appearances at Tanglewood, and a busy touring schedule. In addition to their appearances throughout the United States, they have performed in Europe, Japan, South America, and the former Soviet Union. In September 2008, sponsored by Cunard® Line, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players performed on the Queen Mary 2’s transatlantic crossing from New York to Southampton, England.

Among the ensemble’s many recordings are the Brahms string quintets and works by John Harbison, Aaron Copland, and Leon Kirchner, all on Nonesuch; and the quintets for clarinet and strings by Mozart and Brahms with former BSO principal clarinet, the late Harold Wright, on Philips. Their most recent recordings, on BSO Classics, include an album of Mozart chamber music for winds and strings; an album of chamber music by American composers William Bolcom, Lukas Foss, Michael Gandolfi, and Osvaldo Golijov; and “Profanes et Sacrées,” a disc of 20th-century French chamber music by Ravel, Debussy, Tomasi, Françaix, and Dutilleux nominated for a Grammy Award in the category “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.”

In tonight’s program, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players perform three contrasting works by three great masters. Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F (1781), the archetype of its genre, is one of his masterpieces of chamber music. Particularly worth noting is its aria-like middle movement, which displays the extraordinary communicative depth for which oboist Friedrich Ramm, for whom Mozart wrote it, was famed. Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet (1922) is an amiable serenade geared by the composer to its original players, whom Nielsen knew well, thus enabling him to provide a charming series of character portraits in his writing for the nervously sensitive flutist, charmingly ingratiating oboist, irascible clarinetist, easygoing bassoonist, and bluff horn player. Brahms’s seldom-heard Orchestral Serenade No. 1 (1857-58) was his first completed orchestral score; its predecessor was a chamber work that no longer survives, but which numerous commentators believe to have been a nonet for winds and strings. Alan Boustead’s deft chamber-ensemble arrangement provides a welcome opportunity to hear this music of Brahms that is filled with youth and vitality, but rarely played in the definitive form ultimately published by the composer.

The Boston Symphony Chamber Players can be heard on BSO Classics, Nonesuch, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, RCA, New World, Arabesque, and Sony recordings.