Camerata Pacifica's 'Why Beethoven' Series Continues With Mozart, Schubert & Brahms

Camerata Pacifica continues its "Why Beethoven?" project with four pieces by Vienna's most beloved residents, traversing the Austrian capital's musical landscape from 1785 - 1886. The program opens with Beethoven's String Trio in G Major, Op. 9, No. 1, followed by Mozart's Piano Quartet in G Minor, K. 478 and Schubert's String Trio in B-flat Major, D. 471, ending with Brahms' Sonata in A Major for Violin & Piano, Op. 100.

By the time Beethoven wrote the three string trios that comprise his Op. 9, in 1797-98, he had already been in Vienna for several years, having left his hometown of Bonn in 1792. The Op. 9 trios are among the most important early chamber works by Beethoven. Each of the three works consists of four movements, like the then-recent Haydn symphonies. Beethoven referred to the three string trios as "the finest of his works," and had reason to believe that they were his strongest compositions up to that point. He appeared to treat the genre of the string trio as the testing ground for his later work in the string quartet. As a result, these last trios have much in common with his first set of string quartets, long considered staples of chamber music repertoire.

Mozart's G Minor Piano Quartet, K. 478 follows the string trio, contrasting a fully mature Mozart against a youthful Beethoven. Both works were not so well received by the amateur market for which they were composed, each being technically and musically challenging. With Beethoven's string trio, a young composer tests his writing; Mozart's Piano Quartet, suggested to be the first for this instrumental combination, is the work of a master composer at the height of his powers.

The second half of the program opens with Schubert's String Trio in B-flat Major, D. 471, which survives only as one complete movement, (to be performed), and a fragment of the second. This gentle movement draws its character from that of Mozart and Haydn, we don't hear any of the dramatic fire that was consuming the Beethoven of that time, and the emergent Romantic movement.

With the program's concluding work however, Brahms' Violin Sonata in A Major, Op. 100, that Romanticism is fully embraced. Lyrically and expressively rich, this glorious work reveals the introspective and contemplative side of the composer's personality. Brahms wrote this work in the summer of 1886, which he spent in Thun, Switzerland. It was a period of intense productivity. Motivated by the recent Vienna performance of his first Sonata for Piano and Cello, Brahms found inspiration and composed five other chamber music works simultaneously-the second Sonata for Piano and Cello, the second and third sonatas for Piano and Violin, the third Piano Trio, and the Double Concerto for Violin and Cello. With this sonata we are at the height of German Romanticism, a style of writing soon to disappear with the ascendance of the music of Lizst and Wagner which would take us into the 20th century.

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