Concert at 6:30/doors 6pm
Program:
Samuel-Coleridge Taylor, Clarinet Quintet (1906)
Brahms Clarinet Quintet (1891)
Artists:
Sangwon Lee, clarinet
Grant Houston and Yoonhee Lee, violins,
Anna Griffis, viola
Joseph Gotoff, cello
About the Program:
Tonight'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.