2024/25 Coffee Concerts

A serenade can be defined as a musical work to be performed outdoors on a beautiful evening. Antonín Dvořák helped define the genre with his five-movement serenade from 1875. Hear this work along with Osvaldo Golijov’s tango-flavored Last Round.

Among his most beloved works, Mozart’s “Gran Partita” is a cornerstone of works written primarily for woodwinds and brass. Aside from its high standing with audiences, the work is also notable for featuring the basset horn, a member of the clarinet family but pitched a perfect fourth lower than a clarinet, which was a favorite instrument of Mozart’s. Felix Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss would later foster a brief revival for this rare instrument. The Brass will bring festive sounds just in time for the holidays.

Beethoven wrote his pastoral symphony at the same time as the much-more dramatic Fifth Symphony. A nature lover at heart, his Sixth Symphony is rooted in the outdoors, including capturing birdsong in the score, and is one of only a few works of Beethoven’s that could be considered program music.

With its unmistakable sound, the harpsichord dominated music from 18th-century parlors to the music of the Beatles. But the instrument arguably never had a better friend than J.S. Bach. Hear two of the master’s concertos for harpsichord and the harpsichord-laden Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. Father Seán Duggan, a monk and a specialist in Bach’s keyboard repertoire, serves as soloist.