The DaPonte String Quartet became a quintet for its latest program, “Bees in Your Bonnet,” which held its last performance at the Unitarian Church in Brunswick on Sunday, March 26. The program included two contrapuncti from Johann Sebastian Bach’s final composition Die Kunst der Fugue (Art of the Fugue) that he died in the midst of composing; Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quintet in C Major (Opus 29), one of 16 string quartets typically delineated into early, middle and late periods; and Johannes Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G Major (Opus 111), also known as the Prater. This particular scoring was written for two violas, but one of them has to play at a range much lower than is typical for viola, indeed, in the cello range.

The two Bach contrapuncti are a musical form dating from the Baroque period in which each line forms the harmonic line for all the other lines. In the case of the Art of the Fugue counterpoints, the melodies are the same and are recapitulated by each line, or in some cases, are inverted, or in other cases, diminished by halving the note lengths. In the case of the last two contrapuncti, the second to last was a triple fugue with mirror fugues, while the last would have likely been a four-figure inverted fugue had Bach lived to complete it.  Close to the end of the piece, he introduces his fourth fugue, which begins with four notes. B flat, A, C, and B natural, which in German notation is often written as H – in other word’s, Bach’s own name. A couple of hundred measures after it begins, the viola line, which has the subject, trails off to nothing. The notation states, “Here the author died.”

The end of Bach’s greatest work, coinciding with his death, is enough to send a shiver up the spine of any listener. Over the many years, many have attempted to finish it, or at least pay homage to it. Probably the most successful attempt was by Zoltán Göncz, who did a creditable completion. Without an intimate knowledge of the piece in question, even Bach aficionados would be hard pressed to determine where Bach leaves off and Göncz begins. (There is of course no real need to complete the work, but there is something magical about a piece of music that composers have been trying to finish for 267 years!)

The Beethoven String Quintet in C Major was possibly the last piece from Beethoven ‘s early period, as it demonstrates most of the hallmarks of a typical classical string quartet form. Beethoven, however, was moving into new directions, a more romantic form, and this piece also has glimpses into his future work, as his deafness takes hold and he chooses to create music based on some sort of inner vision rather than mathematics (or even music theory!) alone.

The Brahms String Quintet in G Major was Brahms’ second and final string quintet. Named for the large public park in Vienna, the piece ranges from ebullient and filled with excitement, to stormy. If the Bach piece highlighted the work of the viola, the Brahms piece was all about the cello for the first two movements, and the first violin for the last two movements.

The quartet welcomed guest violist Katherine Murdock. She is a member of the Los Angeles String Quartet and a former member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet. She also toured with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, among other orchestras and musical organizations.

The three composers’ work performed in this piece highlights something of the end of musical periods. The death of Bach is considered the end of the Baroque period; Beethoven’s Quintet in C Major marks the end of his classical period and moves him much more into the romantic camp; and Brahms’ Quintet in G Major, despite its romantic tendencies, demonstrates his personal desire to remain in the clear, time-honored musical path of Mozart and Hayden, a time that was fast moving into the past. The year this piece was written, Brahms had also written the opening notes for Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz, and signaled his Quintet in G Major might be his last work.  Although he wrote many more pieces in the last seven years of his life, Brahms realized that the musical world had moved on.