About this Event
Three B's: Beethoven, Bartók & Brahms
Three giants of the repertoire—Beethoven, Bartók, and Brahms—come together in a program spanning more than a century of musical innovation, passion, and extraordinary chamber music.
At its center is Todd Levy, clarinet, whose artistry brings a distinctive voice to a program exploring the remarkable range of expression these three composers found within intimate musical settings.
Beethoven's music embodies the restless energy and bold individuality that transformed the Classical tradition. Brahms offers another dimension: warmth, lyricism, and profound emotional depth. His late discovery of the expressive possibilities of the clarinet inspired some of his most intimate and deeply personal music, works in which the instrument seems almost to speak.
Bartók's exhilarating Contrasts provides the program's brilliant change of pace. Written for the unusual combination of clarinet, violin, and piano, the work was inspired by legendary clarinetist Benny Goodman and violinist Joseph Szigeti, who commissioned it from Bartók in 1938. Its title could hardly be more appropriate: earthy folk rhythms collide with sophisticated harmonies, moments of haunting stillness give way to explosive virtuosity, and clarinet and violin alternate between spirited rivalry and intricate partnership. Drawing heavily on Hungarian and Romanian musical traditions, Contrasts is by turns playful, mysterious, wild, and dazzling.
Together, Beethoven, Bartók, and Brahms trace a fascinating musical journey—from Classical tradition through Romantic introspection to the rhythmic and harmonic freedom of the twentieth century. With Todd Levy at the center of both Brahms's lyrical world and Bartók's electrifying Contrasts, the concert showcases the clarinet as an instrument capable of remarkable warmth, agility, humor, and expressive power.
Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Trio, op. 11
Béla Bartók - Contrasts, Sz. 111
Johannes Brahms - Clarinet Trio in a minor, op. 114
Event venue & nearby stays
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 914 East Knapp Street, Milwaukee, United States
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