Program:
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Clarinet Quintet (1906)
Johannes Brahms, Clarinet Quintet (1891)
Artists:
Sangwon Lee, clarinet
Grant Houston and Yoonhee Lee, violins,
Anna Griffis, viola
Joseph Gotoff, cello
Concert at 2:00/doors at 1:30
Join us for our first concert of the 2026 season on June 21! Advance adult tickets are discounted until a week before the concert. Student, child and other reduced price tickets can be purchased at the door.
About the Program:
This afternoon’s program pairs two masterworks of the clarinet quintet repertoire: Brahms's autumnal Op. 115, composed in 1891 after a long retreat from public composition and inspired by clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Op. 10, written just four years later by a young composer steeped in late-Victorian elegance but possessed of a uniquely warm, folk-inflected lyricism. Where Brahms distills German Romanticism to its reflective essence — hushed yearning themes, tender slow movements, and a quietly resolved finale — Coleridge-Taylor answers with ardent, songlike writing that is formally assured yet emotionally generous, blossoming from poised opening themes to a hopeful, affirmative close. Though separated by nationality and experience, both composers treat the clarinet as a human narrator in intimate dialogue with the string quartet, and together these two quintets chart a shared chamber ideal: music that speaks close and true.
This performance will feature a conversation with the Cape Cod-based artist Jackie Reeves, where we will explore connections between the repertoire and her large-scale works, now on display at PAAM.