Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival: Haydn, Blow, Purcell, Ravel, & Brahms

Franz Joseph Haydn – String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 76 No. 4 "Sunrise"
Alexander Kerr, violin / Benjamin Bowman, violin / Beth Guterman Chu, viola / Ani Aznavoorian, cello

John Blow – "O Turn Not Those Fine Eyes Away"
John Blow – "Of All the Torments"
Henry Purcell – "Sweeter than Roses"
Henry Purcell – "She Loves and She Confesses"
Henry Purcell – "Evening Hymn"
Nicholas Phan, tenor / Stephen Stubbs, lute / Julie Albers, cello / Alexander Kerr, violin / Benjamin Bowman, violin

Maurice Ravel – Ma mère l'Oye ("Mother Goose") Suite for Piano Four Hands
Inon Barnatan, piano / Angela Drăghicescu, piano

Johannes Brahms – Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101
James Ehnes, violin / Paul Watkins, cello / Alessio Bax, piano

Program Notes
The slow, rising theme that opens Haydn's String Quartet in B-flat major gave the piece its nickname “Sunrise.” The melody comes back throughout the piece, played by the different instruments.

Blow and Purcell were near contemporaries and wrote a number of songs, five of which are brought together here in a “pastiche song-cycle” to tell a story of love won and lost.

Ravel's joyous Mother Goose Suite includes five short movements each based on a different fairy tale. They include Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, and Beauty and the Beast.

The Third Piano Trio is one of Brahms’ most dramatic works. It starts dramatically and the intensity hardly diminishes through the remainder of the piece, finishing with a flourish, much like it starts.

About Seattle Chamber Music Society

http://www.seattlechambermusic.org/