Chamber Mozart Hovland Bliss

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) has been hailed as both the “father of the symphony” and the “father of the string quartet”. In 1781 he published his Opus 33 with six string quartets, and the collection inspired his younger colleague and admirer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) to compose a corresponding set. Mozart worked on the quartets from 1782 to 1785, and in the process became firm friends with Haydn.

Mozart put a lot of work into the quartets, and dedicated the collection to Haydn, who was presented all six in the winter of 1785. Haydn was very impressed and is said to have remarked to Mozart’s father Leopold that his son was the greatest composer he knew of. The six quartets became central classics in the quartet repertoire, and at this concert you will hear the second, Quartet No. 15 in D-minor.

Egil Hovland (1924-2013) was one of Norway’s most productive and multifaceted composers, and had an important role in renewing church music. He started his composing career in a neoclassical style, but at the end of the 1950s started to employ twelve tone technique, which remained a strong characteristic of his work in the next decade.

In the 1970s he started to move in a Neo-Romantic direction, after deciding that he wanted to make his music more easily accessible to the public. Cantus VIII, Op.126 for oboe and string quartet was produced in 1985 and demonstrates this attitude with its catchy themes. The work belongs to a series of chamber music for different instrument groups which starts with Cantus I for flute and harpsichord from 1964, and ends with Cantus IX for organ and percussion from 1986.

Arthur Bliss’ (1891-1975) musical education was interrupted by the First World War, but after the war was over, he made a breakthrough as a young and radical voice inspired by Ravel and Stravinsky. In the course of the 1920s he returned stylistically to his Romantic roots, and by the 1930s his music was considered old-fashioned compared with younger composers such as William Walton and Benjamin Britten. From 1953 until his death, Bliss was the Master of the Queen’s Music.

The British oboist Léon Goossens (1897-1988) was a legend of his instrument, and inspired a number of composers to write for oboe, among them Elgar, Britten and Vaughn-Williams. Arthur Bliss and Arnold Bax, Bliss’ predecessor as the Queens’s house composer, both wrote oboe quintets for Goossens, and these are amongst the most frequently played in their genre. Arthur Bliss’ Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet was written in 1927 and can be said to be a kind of transitional work which bears traces of inspiration from Stravinsky as well as signs of his his return towards Romanticism.