About this Program

Beethoven, and Bach too, were princely architects in my spiritual realm.–FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

Frank Lloyd Wright loved music, and he played the piano well. In particular, he admired the works of Bach and Beethoven and often talked about them in relationship to his own work. In a conversation about his Coonley house (1907-08), Wright stated, “Articulate buildings of this type have their parallel in the music of Bach particularly, but in any of the true form-masters in music.” Wright also later wrote in his An Autobiography, “When I build, I often hear his [Beethoven’s] music and, yes, when Beethoven made music I am sure he sometimes saw buildings like mine in character, whatever form they may have taken then.” This MBM program will be an immersive experience in which the audience can sit in Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1951 Madison masterpiece, the Unitarian Meeting House (on its 75th anniversary) while enjoying the music of Bach and Beethoven. What all three masters share is an ability to be at once both personable and universal. If you attend one of the concerts, please email MBM with any connections between music and architecture that you experienced during the program.

We’ll start with Bach and his affable Sonata for Violin and Continuo in G major, then move to the large-scale structural cohesion that he so off-handedly summons in the successive dances of the French Suite in E major for harpsichord. We’ll then linger in the sublime solitude of the Prelude and Allemande from the Cello Suite in C major. The first half will close with selections from Bach’s late-in-life The Art of Fugue. The celestial counterpoint and sense of harmonious numbers here bring to mind Wright’s keen observation, “It seems to me that music is a kind of sublimated mathematics. So is architecture … There lies the great relationship and warm kinship between music and architecture. They require very much the same mind.”

The second half of the program is devoted to Beethoven. First, the opening Allegro con brio to the Quartet in F minor, Op. 95. Here is Beethoven in his middle years, age 40: deaf, somewhat isolated, and in full commend of his powers of concentration, enjoying the balance and clarity of the string quartet medium that gave him solace throughout his life. We’ll end with a bang, Beethoven at his rambunctious best—25 years old, a magnificent performer (his hearing still intact!), in his very first published work, the Trio in E-flat, Op. 1 No. 1—energy beyond compare!

J. S. Bach (1685-1750)—Sonata for Violin & Continuo, BWV 1021; French Suite No. 6 in E major, BWV 817; Prelude & Allemande from Cello Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009;Contrapunctus I & IX from The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 
Beethoven (1770-1827)—Allegro con brio from String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 (“Serioso”); Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 1 No. 1

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