This time the concert is only in the south but what an offering. Virtuosi Tasmania are delighted to bring you Tobias Chisnall (violin), Claudia Leggett (horn) and Karen Smithies (piano) with some works for violin and piano by Mozart and Boulanger with the fabulous Brahms horn trio to cap it off.

And here they are (L - R): Tobias Chisnall, Karen Smithies and Claudia Leggett.

Program Notes (Tobias Chisnall, 2025)

W.A. Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Sonata No 32 in B flat major for violin and piano K.454 (1784)

i) Largo - Allegro
ii) Andante
iii) Allegretto

Mozart’s Sonata for Piano and Violin No.32 in B-flat Major (4.454) was completed in Vienna on April 21st, 1784. Mozart composed it for a concert he was to perform with the virtuoso violinist Regina Strinasacchi on April 29th 1784. Strinasacchi had studied at Vivaldi’s school for girls in Venice and Mozart liked her music making very much, describing her as having ‘a great deal of taste and feeling in her playing.’ This is a virtuosic work for piano and violin that reflects Mozart’s own mastery of both instruments.

The second movement is marked Andante. It is a beautiful and substantial piece in the subdominant key Eb Major. The Development in Bb minor is dark, chromatic, and almost fragmentary, evoking sorrow and grief. Mozart’s recapitulation here features embellishments of the opening theme that display the virtuosity of both instruments.

The third movement is an Allegretto that has returned to Bb Major. It is in the rondo form which means that the main theme keeps returning interspersed with episodes of other material. The effect is of increasing familiarity and excitement as the work builds to its joyous conclusion.

Lili Boulanger (1893 - 1918)
Nocturne - Pièce courte (1911)

Lili Boulanger was the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger, the great twentieth-century composer, conductor, organist, pianist and teacher. Lili was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome for composition in 1913. After a case of bronchial pneumonia as an infant, she had a severely weakened immune system and suffered frequent ill-health until she died of intestinal tuberculosis in 1918 at the age of only 24.

Despite her health, she was a productive composer and concerned by the political issues of her time. During World War 1 she founded with Nadia the Comité Franco-Américain du Conservatoire National, an organisation that supported musicians serving in the War.

This Nocturne was written in 1911. Though a short work, it is evocative, passionate, and nostalgic. The piece begins with the piano playing a quiet figure of displaced octaves which conveys feelings of openness and timelessness. The violin part is marked ‘trés chanté’: very sung. After this gentle opening comes a change in intensity. The violin soars with sweeping scales progressively higher until there is a climax in F major. The piece returns by degrees to the gentle world of the beginning before the violin drifts away in the highest register.

Boulanger’s collection of luminous works hint at what she might have written had she been granted a long life in which to fulfil her enormous talents.

Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)
Horn Trio in E-flat major, Op. 40 (1866)

i) Andante
ii) Scherzo
iii) Adagio mesto
iv) Allegro con brio

In the first half of the 1860's Brahms composed a great deal of chamber music and this industry resulted in the publication of two string sextets, a piano quintet, two piano quartets, a cello sonata, and this horn trio, all of which are frequently performed today. Brahms originally wrote this work for the natural horn that he had learned as a child: a valveless instrument more rustic and warm than the valved horn which became dominant as the nineteenth century progressed.

A nostalgic, good-natured mood characterises the first movement. There is an apocryphal story that the first theme came to Brahms as he was walking through the woods and the music certainly does have a pastoral quality. It then alternates between an ambling duple theme and a more agitated flowing, chromatic theme with triplets in the piano part. This movement is the only instance in Brahms’ output that he did not use sonata form in the first movement of an instrumental work, instead preferring a quasi-rondo structure.

The second movement is a boisterous scherzo characterised again by the juxtaposition of duplet and triplet rhythms. A much slower trio hints at the substantially darker and slower third movement.

The third movement begins with a series of rippling chords in the piano before the violin and horn enter with a plaintive duet. The movement evokes a sense of desolation and stasis though there are hints of warmer feeling in some harmonic changes. The horn and violin trade lyrical chromatic sighs and the movement ends with the piano descending step by step in the lowest register.

The fourth movement makes a sharp break from the mood of the third and is marked Allegro con brio suggesting dash and virtuosity. In keeping with the previous movements Brahms explores rhythmic and accent displacement which generates a continual feeling of movement. Accents on traditionally weak beats and lurching syncopations create a continual feeling of surprise and disorientation. The movement concludes in a triumphal and symphonic Eb Major with all three instruments playing fortissimo.