Kammergild Chamber Orchestra ... Monday, October 10, 1983
Abstract
"If one had to choose two composers to represent the music of the eighteenth century, it seems certain that few people today--including the most erudite scholar and the most casual dilettante-would quibble with the selection of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). To accept these two men and the world of music each created as emblems for their art and for their age does not minimize the contributions of any other figure. Both worked masterfully in the genres available to them (Bach wrote no operas, but one can argue that his Mass and Passions approximate opera in scope and method). Both operated in the spheres of sacred and secular music-making. Both were able to rise above national practice, to synthesize regional mannerisms into universal art. And both possessed a seemingly endless reserve of musical genius presented with a sense of inevitability that defies understanding. ... Tonight's selections provide an opportunity to sample the elegance and the general optimism of courtly entertainment music from the eighteenth century. It is worth noting that the rather dramatic change in style from the Baroque to the Classic Era did not substantially affect the elegance or the optimism. Three of the four works on the program are concertos, that is, compositions in which the manipulation of contrasting blocks of sound is a particularly prominent feature. The fourth is an excerpt from a composer's tribute to a musician-King, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and is an example of music of the most learned kind."--Program notes.
Table of Contents
Program: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BMV 1048 / J.S. Bach ; Concerto No. 14 in E Flat Major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 449 / W.A. Mozart ; Trio Sonata from the Musical Offering, BMV 1079 / J.S. Bach ; Concerto in C Minor for Oboe and Violin, BMV 1060 / J.S. Bach : Includes: Lazar Gosman and the Kammergild Chamber Orchestra: Biographies and Roster ; Eugene Istomin: Biography ; Program Notes by Michael Budds