It's a good thing there's such a word as "autumnal." Otherwise, writers would have a harder time describing the late chamber works of Johannes Brahms.
And it's a good thing that Brahms met a clarinetist named Richard Muhlfeld in 1891. Otherwise, we wouldn't get to savor the autumnal music Brahms wrote with Muhlfeld's sublime playing in mind.
On Saturday, appropriately in the midst of autumn, the Shriver Hall Concert Series will offer a symposium on Brahms' final chamber pieces and, in particular, the two sonatas directly inspired by Muhlfeld. It's an exceptional opportunity -- for pros, students and just plain music lovers alike -- to dig deeply into the creative process.
Those sonatas have always enjoyed quite a hold on chamber music fans. As it turns out, the scores were composed in the summer of 1894 and contain passages of considerable sunniness. But that doesn't stop people from thinking of the sonatas as at least metaphorically bathed in the colors and shadows of autumn.
It's hard not to hear a bittersweet or melancholy tinge in this music of twilit beauty. The second movement of the F minor Sonata, Op. 120, No. 1, offers an especially indelible example of that beauty, spun from a theme that seems made up of gentle sighs.
Both sonatas capture a composer at the peak of his powers, yet uninterested in anything showy. He seems to be looking inward and summing up a life spent in the service of musical romanticism. It's much the same with the other works triggered by his encounter with Muhlfeld, principal clarinetist of the top-notch court orchestra of Meiningen in Germany.
By the time he met Muhlfeld, Brahms had decided he was finished with composing. He was only 57. The year before, he went so far as to toss some unfinished manuscripts into a river, determined to put an end to his career. But then he heard Muhlfeld play some works by Mozart and Weber.
Something in the musician's sound and style triggered a response. Within weeks of that 1891 meeting, Brahms wrote the great Clarinet Trio and the ethereal (and very autumnal) Clarinet Quintet.
In 1894, this flash of renewed inspiration continued with the two sonatas for clarinet and piano, the last instrumental pieces from the composer's pen. An arrangement for viola and piano was also made, adding immeasurably to the relatively limited viola repertoire.
To this day, some folks like to argue whether the sonatas sound best on clarinet or viola, but it really doesn't matter. It's just great stuff, period. And you can get a taste of both versions at the Shriver Hall symposium.
The event starts at 11 a.m. with a panel discussion about the Brahms clarinet/viola sonatas, headed by Harvard professor Robert Levin, an incisive musicologist and keyboard artist. (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra audiences at this year's Summer MusicFest heard his engaging account of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24).
Joining Levin will be Reinhold Brinkmann, another Harvard professor with an expertise in Brahms; Walter Frisch, a Columbia University professor and author of several books on Brahms; and Michael Musgrave, an emeritus professor of the University of London who has also written studies on the composer's music.
After the panel (and a lunch break), top-drawer clarinetist Charles Neidich will give a master class at 1 p.m., addressing the sonatas. And at 4 p.m., Kim Kashkashian, one of the best violists around, will play both of the sonatas with Levin at the piano.
Tickets for Saturday's symposium at Shriver Hall, the Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., are $49, $39 for students. There are discounts for Shriver Hall Concert Series subscribers. Call 410-516-7164.
And don't forget the next Shriver Hall Concert Series subscription event at 7:30 p.m. Sunday -- the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin from Russia, with founding music director Misha Rachlevsky. The ensemble, which has been winning fans around the world since 1992, will play music for strings by Richard Strauss, Bartok and Tchaikovsky. Tickets are $27, $14 for students. Call 410-516-7164.
World premiere
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, already noteworthy for spicing up the local music scene with a wide variety of presentations, added to its credits by commissioning a new chamber work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici. The world premiere was given Saturday night by the score's dedicatees, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.
With a title like Grand Trio, the new piece had a lot to live up to from the start. And it had quite an intriguing start, at that -- surging flourishes that recalled the most heated, pre-climactic passages in the Love Duet and Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
For about 30 minutes, the three instruments addressed a number of backward-glancing themes of a character the composer himself described as "extravagant neo-romanticism."
All of this was occasionally given a "modern" twist of harmony, but nothing too severe. One of the four movements was devoted to a mighty fugue, based on a strikingly busy tune and brilliantly worked out. By the end of the trio, the style suggested the nostalgic sound world of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier or Ariadne auf Naxos; the effect couldn't have been more charming.
The only thing missing amid all of these lyrical ideas was Del Tredici. His voice, usually so distinctive in his music, seemed awfully muted here. The score seemed too much a pastiche or homage. It needed a stronger, more compelling profile.
It also needed a better acoustical space. As pleasing as the looks and ambience of the center's concert hall may be, the sonic results -- specifically for chamber music -- are terribly faint and rather mushy.
Still, pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson gave the trio a virtuosic, committed performance. They also produced some remarkably sensitive, polychromatic playing in Beethoven's early Op. 44.
Take note
Don't forget Towson University when you're looking around for musical activities. The school's Center for the Arts keeps up a steady stream of performances worth considering.
Pending examples include the Towson Fine Arts Woodwind Quintet with guest saxophonist David Stambler in a program that provides an opportunity to hear music by composers not encountered every day, including Paul Taffanel, Irving Fine, Henri Tomasi and Alvin Etler. This concert is at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Center, Osler and Cross Campus drives.
And for her recital at 3 p.m. Nov. 24, mezzo Leneida Crawford has programmed William Bolcom's I Will Breathe a Mountain, a song based on texts by women poets. Bolcom, one of America's most vibrant contemporary composers, will also be represented by a collection of his Cabaret Songs.
Tickets for each of these events are $10, $5 for students and seniors. Call 410-704-2787.