Hausmusik - Music for informal performance by amateurs in the home. The term dates from the 17th century.
Thus does the Harvard Dictionary of Music define an ancient and venerable tradition that has survived in a reduced fashion to the present day. We like to think that the term "amateurs" in this context does not have the pejorative meaning of bumbling incompetents lacking the necessary skills to accomplish a given task, but rather non-professional, accomplished, musicians, who are making music for the love of it in an informal setting.
The Carmel Bach Festival's Saturday recital at Sunset Center, "Intermezzo No. 1 - Amadeus Remembered," consisted of three major works by Mozart: the
Quintet in E-flat Major for Horn and Strings, K. 407, the
Quintet in C Major for Strings, K. 515, and the
Serenade No. 11 in C Minor, K. 388. Participating musicians were Glen Swarts, horn; David Myford and Catherine Emes, violins; George Thomson and Meg Eldridge, violas; Douglas McNames, cello; Roger Cole and Neil Tatman, oboes; Cheryl Renk and Frank Renk, clarinets; Loren Tayerle, horn; and Jesse Read and Britt Hebert bassoons.
This concert certainly had elements of
Hausmusik about it. We observed some very fine musicians here for the duration of the Carmel Bach Festival who, in between a series of never-ending orchestral and small ensemble rehearsals, come together to perform ambitious works in an informal morning recital.
These were not polished performances. Occasionally there was ragged ensemble, shaky intonation, and imperfect balance between the instruments. But, there were also moments of brilliance. The audience, for the most part, is familiar with the participating musicians and regards them as members of the family. Thus, there is a nice, warm feeling that tends to radiate from the audience and contributes to generous applause. While these were not performances polished enough to appear on a regular chamber music series in one of our major cities in front of a critical audience, they compensated with spontaneity for what they lacked in polish.
The opening work, Mozart's Quintet in E-flat Major for Horn and Strings. K.407, suffered from a major miscalculation in the seating of the musicians. Since the most important member of the ensemble, Mr. Swarts, was seated so that the bell of his horn was aimed on the east wall of the building, his sound didn't project out to the audience. Had he been sitting with the bell pointing to the acoustical shell, the audience would have had far less trouble hearing him (we can't blame this on the acoustics of the hall). Otherwise this was a very interesting performance and showed Mr. Swarts capable of executing the most difficult passages with astonishing ease. He has a lovely tone (even though we had difficulty hearing it) and is capable of shaping a beautiful phrase with the best of them.
The second work on the program,
Mozart's Quintet in C Major for Strings, K.515, seemed of interminable length. It has to be said that in a truly world-class performance we would have been so involved in the performance as not to be aware of its length. Gently dozing patrons around me occasionally interfered with hearing the work's quiet moments, and I even found myself softly sinking into the arms of Morpheus.
The final work on the program, the
Serenade No. 11 in C Minor, K.388, received the best performance of the concert. There was some ragged playing, but the moments of brilliance overshadowed the moments of hectic scrambling, and oboist Roger Cole made an especially strong impression.
Although it is a wonderful idea to have a Mozart program during the Festival, it would have been interesting to have the piano (Mozart's favorite instrument) represented in one of the Piano Quartets or the great Quintet for Piano and Winds. And had this program been planned during Dr. Salgo's reign, it undoubtedly would have happened. However, under the current direction the Festival has taken, the piano has been banished from the Festival, and we can now neither enjoy a Mozart or Beethoven Piano Concerto or have a piano recital as one of the major evening concerts.
Some might say that the piano has no place in a festival devoted primarily to the works of Bach and his contemporaries. But, in recent years under Bruno Weil's direction we have seen the inclusion of such non-Baroque composers as Brahms, Reger, Richard Strauss, Marcel Dupré, Hindemith, Stravinsky, Elgar and Respighi. Works by these composers were included on Festival programs because material inspiring them could be related to 18th century influences. By the same token I can imagine a solo piano recital containing C.P.E. Bach's
Variations on La Folia, the Brahms
Variations on a Theme of Handel and Rachmaninoff's
Variations on a Theme of Corelli (actually the La Folia theme). And there are many hundreds of works in the standard piano repertoire that owe an influence to the 18th century.
The question remains, why has the piano been banished from the Carmel Bach Festival? It held a secure place in Festival programs for as long as I can remember, and its inclusion was certainly one of the most popular aspects of the festival. Looking at the cover of the brochure mailer announcing the Carmel Bach Festival, we can see leaning nonchalantly against a tree on Carmel Beach the two superstars of the festival: Bruno Weil and Elizabeth Wallfisch. Perhaps there is no room for a third superstar.
The Saturday recital of the 1998 Carmel Bach Festival will be broadcast in
July 1999, to coincide with the first week of the next season.
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