Académie Provençale des Amis de Stuttgart - Vivaldi, Clarke, Leonarda & Brahms - 08/08/26

Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto for 4 Violins in B Minor, Op. 3 No. 10, RV 580 

Rebecca Clarke: “Poem” for String Quartet 

Isabella Leonarda: Trio Sonata, Opus 16 

Johannes Brahms: String Sextet No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 18 

I would go far and wide for my beloved Johannes Brahms, and last Saturday evening, my mom and I went all the way to the very small and very quiet town of Bonlieu-sur-Roubion, whose main attraction, the beautiful complex of its medieval Basilique Sainte-Anne, was going to host a concert featuring—You’ve guessed it—Brahms. Even better, it would be performed by the young members of the Académie Provençale des Amis de Stuttgart (Provençal Academy of the Friends of Stuttgart) whose talent and dedication had already impressed us in previous years. 

Although it had not been decided if this year’s event would take place outside in the carefully maintained cloisters or inside the superbly restored barn since so much depends on the weather these days, once we had arrived there at a ridiculously early time, which is the price to pay if I go with my mom, we and the numerous other attendees were happy to hear that the performance would take place al fresco, even if fresh air is kind of hard to find these days. 

 We also realized that the intriguing program intentionally consisted of a wide range of works that had been composed by women, with women, for women or about women, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birth of a favorite local luminary, the illustrious madame de Sévigné. Therefore, joyeux anniversaire, madame la Marquise ! 

It was consequently not surprising that the first piece, Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for 4 Violins in B Minor, Op. 3, had been written for the female orphans of the Ospedale della Pietà in 14th-century Venice. Those abandoned girls would often become prodigiously skilled musicians and perform all over Europe in wildly popular, highly unusual all-female concerts. As performed on Saturday in Bonlieu-sur-Roubion by a mix of prodigiously skilled young men and women, including the four violinists Covandonga Alonso, Carola Eva-Richter, Noé Inui and Kai Ono, the lively piece quickly filled up the elegantly rustic setting with an infectious joie de vivre and plenty of virtuosic sparkles. 

Then the energy level went down a notch (or two) with Rebecca Clarke’s short “Poem” for String Quartet, whose muted string sounds created a quiet, serene, maybe a tad melancholic, mood. Its delicate impressionistic touches brought to mind Ravel and Debussy, which we had heard the previous evening, and contributed to cooling off the hearts and minds as the temperatures were thankfully getting into the bearable warm zone. 

A contemporary of madame de Sévigné, 17th-century Bolognese composer Isabella Leonarda could brag about having made history by writing the first set of instrumental sonatas ever published by a woman. Listening to her lovely Trio Sonata, Opus 16, we could see why she had been bestowed this significant honor. It was not just pretty and engaging, but it was also as well-crafted as any score produced by male composers of early Italian Baroque church music. 

That said, at the end of the day, we had come for Johannes Brahms’ String Sextet No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 18, which, in all likelihood, he concocted in tight collaboration of his fellow composer and dear friend Clara Schumann. It is hard to believe that Brahms was just 26 years old when he wrote this highly ambitious, boldly unusual, remarkably accomplished and perennially popular masterpiece. And it was hard to believe that the young musicians on the stage, who mostly had to be in their twenties too, could be so proficient and poised as to effortlessly negotiate the numerous challenges of the thorny composition. But they did, and we were all very grateful for it. 

Our evening had started with the incomparable Vivaldi, and it would close with him too, as the encore turned out to be the highly dramatic and unfailingly exciting Presto movement of the summer from The Four Seasons, which was led by Noé Inui, a clearly fearless violinist and bona fide citizen of the world, who was born in Brussels to a Greek mother and a Japanese father (You just can’t make that up). 

Although we could definitely have used an actual thunderstorm on that still unusually warm evening, we were more than happy to content ourselves with the fast and furious musical version of fierce lightning, ominous thunder, turbulent winds and raging hail. In fact, the performance was so vividly evocative that we almost felt refreshed for a few minutes! Two down, one more to go.