(COPAKE, N.Y.) – Works by Mozart and Schubert will be featured in the “Classically Romantic” program for string trio and flute at Our Lady of Hope Church on Saturday, October 8, at 7:30 pm, as part of the Leaf Peeper Concert Series presented by Clarion Concerts. “Classically Romantic” brings together Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Melissa Reardon, viola; Daniel Chong, violin; and Eugenia Zukerman, flute, and features two works of Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s great Divertimento in E flat major.

The evening’s performance will open with Quartet in G minor for flute, violin, viola and cello, an arrangement by Robert Stallman of Franz Schubert’s Violin Sonata D.408. Stallman, known for having expanded the chamber music repertoire for flute with his re-creation of works by Mozart, Schubert, J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Dvorak, Mendelssohn and others, is the founder of the Cambridge Chamber Players and the Marblehead Summer Music Festival in Massachusetts. In this arrangement of a work Schubert produced at age 19, Stallman has vividly brought to the forefront the composer’s exploration of a new harmonic vocabulary and created a totally integrated chamber work.

The opening work yields to Schubert’s String Trio in B Flat Major, D 581, with an elegant theme that begins the Allegro moderato certainly reminiscent of Mozart. Particularly endearing is the way the theme keeps returning, always slightly different, yet always beautiful.

Mozart’s Divertimento in E Flat, K.563, often described as the crown jewel of the string trio repertoire, concludes the evening’s program. As Julian Rushton notes in his biography of Mozart, the trio is full of “thematic invention, contrapuntal play and ornamental elaboration,” which mark it as great chamber music. Considerable virtuosity is demanded from the performers in this piece.

The 2016 Leaf Peeper concert series concludes Saturday, October 22, at 7:30 p.m., with “Basking in the Baroque” at the Hillsdale Methodist Church.

 

All 2016 Leaf Peeper Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. Single tickets are $25, with premium tickets (reserved) priced at $35. Season tickets are $80 or premium $120. Students are admitted free of charge. Tickets are available at Leaf Peeper Concert Series or by calling 413-644-0007.