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Bernard Crusell was a virtuoso clarinetist with an international reputation, a conductor, and the best known Finnish composer before Sibelius. He was born into an impoverished family in Nystad, Finland (a part of Finland where the culture and language were Swedish) and received his first musical education in a regimental band at age 8. He was thwarted by his parents' lack of interest in music, but fortunately taken as an apprentice in a military band at Sveaborg in an island fortress outside of Helsinki. At age 16 he traveled to Stockholm where he obtained a post as clarinetist in the Royal Court Orchestra and from 1801 onward was the principal clarinetist in the orchestra. In 1800 he played with the reed turned upwards, and later with the reed turned downwards. The latter method is said to favor cantabile playing and is used by most (all?) contemporary clarinetists. He studied composition in Stockholm and later in Berlin and Paris, but for most of his life worked in Sweden and rose to assistant kapellmeister of the Royal Court Orchestra. In 1818 Crusell was appointed musical director of the musical corps of both Swedish royal regiments, a post he held for the rest of his life. He died in Stockholm in 1838.

Crusell composed solo and choral songs, an opera and, because of his linguistic abilities, translated the foremost French, German and Italian operas for the Swedish stage, including Mozart's Figaro, Beethoven's Fidelio, and Rossini's The Barber of Seville. However, much of Crusell's small opus was written to show off his considerable talents as clarinetist, there being a very limited repertoire for the clarinet at the time. His writing for the clarinet is reminiscent of Mozart's and also reflective of contemporary French styles. He inspired Carl Maria Weber to write music for the clarinet. Crusell wrote three lovely quartets for clarinet, violin, viola and cello, which are among the best ensemble pieces for clarinet and strings, although less well known than the Brahms and Mozart clarinet quintets. The clarinet writing is idiomatic, and the string instruments defer to the leading role of the clarinet. The clarinet quartets fall into the characteristic four-movement structure of the period. The first quartet, Opus 2, No.1 in E Flat Major, published in 1811 and on the program tonight, differs from the later clarinet quartets in having an adagio opening.

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was born in 1932 into a musical family in New York City -- his mother was a professional pianist, organist and director of a local theater -- and he seemed destined to musical prominence by his very name, given after the London-born composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), a British composer of African descent. Perkinson early demonstrated musical gifts, and he was admitted to New York's prestigious High School of Music and Art in 1945. He began composing while still a teenager and received the LaGuardia Prize from the school for his choral work upon his graduation in 1949. He entered New York University in 1949, but transferred to the Manhattan School of Music two years later to study composition and conducting; he received his baccalaureate in 1953 and his master's degree the following year. The life-long influence of jazz on Perkinson's musical personality was nurtured at Manhattan by his classmates Julius Watkins, Herbie Mann, Donald Byrd and Max Roach -- in 1964-1965 he played piano in the Max Roach Quartet and at various times served as arranger and music director for such popular artists as Marvin Gaye, Lou Rawls, Barbara McNair, Melvin Van Peebles and Harry Belafonte. Perkinson took advanced training in conducting at the Berkshire Music Center (1954), the Netherlands Radio Union in Hilversum (1960-1963), and the Mozarteum in Salzburg (1960). He went on to teach at Brooklyn College and Indiana University, hold conducting positions with the Dessoff Choirs and the Brooklyn Community Symphony Orchestra, serve as music director for Jerome Robbins' American Theater Lab, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey's American Dance Theater, and co-found the Symphony of the New World, the first integrated symphony orchestra in the United States, for which he served as both its Associate Conductor (1965-1970) and Musical Director (1972-1973). In 1998 Perkinson was appointed Artistic Director of the Performance Program at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College, Chicago. At the time of his death, in 2004, Perkinson was serving as Composer-in-Residence for the Ritz Chamber Players.

The Movement for Violin, Viola and Cello, a valedictory both in its mood and the circumstances of its creation, was composed in early 2004, just before Perkinson's death. Though only four minutes in length, it encompasses a profound emotional journey, from the stark, introspective purity of its beginning, an homage to Bach's Air on the G String from the Third Orchestral Suite, through the tense, shadowed uncertainty of its central episode, to the return of the opening music, which seems upon re-hearing to offer quiet acceptance if not full resolution.

César Franck was born in Liège, Belgium in 1822 and studied at the Liège conservatory as a child. He toured Belgium as a child prodigy at 11, but because of his remarkable proficiency as a pianist, his father moved the family to Paris when he was 13 in order for him to obtain the best and most prestigious musical education. He entered the Paris Conservatory, and, a few months after his entrance examinations, received a special award for playing a fugue a third lower at sight. Upon completion of his studies at the conservatory he briefly returned to Belgium, but went back to Paris in 1843, where he became a celebrated organist known for his skill in improvisation. Franck held various posts as organist in Paris and served as professor of organ at the Paris Conservatory until his death in 1890.

Franck's compositions include operas, oratorios, organ works, tone poems for orchestra, chamber music, the Symphony in D minor, which has become a staple of the concert hall, and the Violin Sonata in A Major (1886), the latter two being among Franck's best-known works.

In the late 16th century numerous terms were used for instrumental pieces, the one which endured being the "sonata" or sound-piece, indicating something played as opposed to something sung, a "cantata" or sing-piece. A sonata is an instrumental piece for piano or violin, cello, etc. with piano accompaniment, usually consisting of three or four independent pieces or movements. In their movement structure many compositions for chamber groups or orchestras could be considered sonatas for quartets, quintets, or symphonies, etc. Sonatas of the Romantic period for the most part retained the form and musical structure of the Baroque and Classical sonata but, as other music of the era, emphasized the subjective and emotional possibilities of the music as opposed to its form and structure. Franck's Sonata for violin and piano is a superb example of a sonata composed in the Romantic era. Unlike many sonatas of the classical period which preceded it (with some notable exceptions) in this sonata Franck uses what he referred to as "cyclic" development in which the same motif or musical theme is subjected to different transformations, a method of achieving unity among the movements.

The sonata was composed as a wedding present for Franck's countryman, the famous Belgian violinist, Eugene Ysaÿe. The work's popularity is suggested by the number and variety of arrangements that were eventually made, including versions for flute, cello, viola, and even tuba (perhaps in our next season).

Antonin Dvorak was born in Bohemia, now Czechoslovakia, in 1841. He studied the violin as a child and then entered the organ school in Prague in 1857, where he soon demonstrated a talent for composition. After school he earned a meager living as a violinist in a small orchestra and later as a violist in the Orchestra of the Nation Theatre in Prague, but it was not until he was in his thirties that he attracted attention as a composer. As his stature as a composer grew, he was given a post as professor at the Prague Conservatory and later became director of the conservatory. He toured Europe, making many visits to London where he was immensely popular. In 1892 he went to America with his family and took up the post of Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, but returned to Prague in 1895 and resumed his professorship at the Prague Conservatory. He was made director of the conservatory in 1901 where he served for the rest of his life.

Dvorak's works incorporated the folk music of Bohemia and later the folk music of America (Negro spirituals and the music of Native Americans) into 19th century Romantic Music. He was a prolific composer, including among his compositions many operas, symphonies, vocal works and more than forty works for various chamber ensembles.

Dvorak composed his first piano quartet (Opus 23 in D Major) in 1875 and, at the behest of his Berlin publisher, Simrock, his second (Opus 87 in E Flat Major) in 1889, at a time when he had somewhat departed from Classical models and entered a period in which Slavonic elements predominated. Unlike the less known D major Quartet, the Piano Quartet in E Flat has been one of Dvorak's most admired works for its variety of moods, the deft fusion of piano and strings and the easy modulation between keys. The masterful instrumental writing is Dvorak at his finest, as are the integration of symphonic grandeur with characteristic elements of Czech folk music, the subtle rhythmic interplay of the instruments, and the lavish richness of its harmonic palette. The quartet is scored for piano, violin, viola and cello.