Mozart, Bottesini and Prokofiev

Mozart: The Kegelstatt Trio, K. 498 for Clarinet, Viola and Piano
I. Andante
II. Menuetto
III. Rondeaux: Allegretto

Bottesini: Gran duo concertante for Violin, Double Bass, and Piano

Prokofiev: Quintet in G minor, Op.39
I. Tema con variazioni
II. Andante energico
III. Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio
IV. Adagio pesante
V. Allegro precipitato, ma non troppo presto
VI. Andantino

Date: June 5th, 2023.
​Time: 7:30pm
Location: Concert Hall of the Community Music School of Webster University.(East of the Loretto-Hilton Center)
Address: 535 Garden Ave, St. Louis, MO 63119
Admission: Free

Concert Artists

Biran Woods / Piano

Alejandro Valdepenas / Viola

Aleck Belcher / Bass

Erik Harris / Bass

Hannah Ji / Violin

Cally Banham / Oboe

Robert Walker / Clarinet

Mozart: The Kegelstatt Trio, K. 498 for Clarinet, Viola and Piano
​Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in January of 1756. Although he lived a short life of only 35 years he composed a huge library of over 800 works! Mozart was a well known prodigy during his lifetime and is still recognized as such today. However, Mozart’s Trio for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano was written towards the end of Mozart’s life in 1786.

Mozart did not give the trio the nickname of Kegelstatt himself. It was assigned to the piece by Ludwig von Kochel in 1862 when he created a thematic catalog of Mozart’s music. The German word Kegelstatt loosely translates to bowling alley in English. Mozart often played a game called skittles which was the predecessor of nine pin bowling, popular in Europe today. When Mozart composed his Duos for Two Horns, shortly before he composed the Kegelstatt Trio, he wrote in the manuscript that he had composed them while playing skittles! Ironically, no such note in the manuscript of the trio exists.

Mozart was the first to write a trio for the instrumentation of clarinet, viola, and piano. The original manuscript has been kept in the National Library of France’s Department of Music since 1912.

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Bottesini: Gran duo concertante for Violin, Double Bass, and Piano
Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) was born in Cremona, Italy into a musical family. His father was a clarinetist and composer and started Bottesini on music and violin lessons from early childhood. As a young teenager Bottesini had an opportunity to attend the Milan Conservatory. However, his family could not afford to send him without a scholarship, and these were only available for bass and bassoon students. After a mere month of bass lessons, Bottesini won the bass scholarship and started at the Milan Conservatory in 1835. Upon completion of four years of studies he left the conservatory to spend more time composing and
performing.

By the mid-1840’s Bottesini had established himself as a bass soloist around the world. His abilities were compared to his predecessor, Niccolò Paganini, the Italian violin virtuoso. Bottesini developed new techniques on the bass that allowed him to play a huge repertoire of solo pieces including those written for other instruments. He became famous for his bass technique and for being among the first players to use a French style bow grip. In 1872, Bottesini published one of the first complete collections of technical studies for double bass including Contre Basse in the Orchestra and Contre Bass as a Solo Instrument. He also composed several operas, symphonies and other orchestral works, duos for bass and piano, bass concertos, string quartets and quintets, piano solo works, vocal works, and duos such as the Gran Duo Concertante for violin and double bass with orchestra or piano.

Bottesini wrote the original version of Gran Duo Concertante for two double basses in 1880. He premiered the work himself alongside his friend Luigi Negri. However, the challenge of finding bassists with the incredible technical ability required to play the Gran Duo made performing the piece impractical. Camillo Sivori, a student of Niccolò Paganini, arranged the work for violin and double bass soon after its premiere. This version is still one of the most frequently performed works by Bottesini today.

Prokofiev: Quintet in G minor, Op.39
Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian composer who lived from 1891 until 1953. He was part of the Russian Empire that is now Sontsivka, a village in Pokrovsk Raion of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. From a young age, Prokofiev showed a talent for composing and playing the piano. He spent most of his young life at the St. Petersburg Conservatory studying, composing, and performing. Although Prokofiev completed his official studies in 1914, he returned to the conservatory during World War I to take lessons on the organ and avoid the draft.

From 1918 until 1936, Prokofiev lived abroad. First he immigrated to the United States, but after a short time moved to Paris. In 1922 he moved to the Bavarian Alps and then back to Paris in 1923. During these years he was also traveling extensively in the Soviet Union and the United States for various compositional projects including productions of ballets, operas, and symphony performances. While Prokofiev was living in Paris in the 1920’s, he was commissioned by a traveling dance troupe to write a ballet. The troupe only traveled with five musicians, so it gave Prokofiev a unique opportunity to compose a chamber ballet which he originally called Trapeze. However the work was too difficult for the trapeze artists! Prokofiev divided the music into two pieces: Quintet in G minor for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass and Divertissement for small orchestra.

In 1936 Prokofiev settled in Moscow, but in 1941 when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union he evacuated to the town of Nalchik of Kabardino - Balkaria, 900 miles south of Moscow. Once there, Prokofiev met the Minister of Culture who encouraged him to incorporate the local folk music of the Kabardian people into his compositions. Prokofiev’s second string quartet was the result.

Prokofiev returned to Russia after the war. It was a troubled time for Prokofiev who had been denounced along with Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and three other famous composers by the Zhdanov Decree, a Soviet cultural doctrine. The artists were accused of formalism and of ignoring the standard practices of classical music in favor of jarring, cacophonous sounds and harmonies.

Many of Prokofievs’s works were banned and Prokofiev was in a large amount of debt by 1948. He attempted to redeem himself in the eyes of Russian authorities with a new opera, The Story of a Real Man, but was unsuccessful. Prokofiev’s career troubles were combined with declining health and he withdrew further and further from society. He wrote his last work, Symphony No. 7 in 1952. Prokofiev died on March 5, 1953 the same day as Joseph Stalin.