Songs for voice and keyboard and string quartet by Dina Kuznetsova and Michael Barrett, and the Borromeo String Quartet:

• Dvořák: 3 Songs: Ó, duše drahá, jedinká (“Oh Dear Soul, the Only One”) from Love Songs, Op. 83; Dobrú noc, má milá ("Goodnight, my Dear, Goodnight”) and Ej, mám já koňa faku ("Hey, I have a Powerful Horse that Bears Me Well”), both from In Folk Style, Op. 73
• Dvořák: String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, Op. 96 ("American")

The centerpiece of today’s program is probably the only chamber work of Dvořák’s that most classical music lovers recognize immediately: his twelfth string quartet, known as the “American” quartet.

Dvořák was smitten with the country’s traditional music, African-American spirituals and Native American songs in particular. They shared one important attribute: the pentatonic scale that tugs at the heartstrings, and is the backbone of many old American tunes. Dvořák’s “American” quartet makes use of the scale as well as the rhythms of American music.

We’ll hear a few “love letters” to the folk music of Dvořák’s native land: a group of three Czech songs. The first song is a devoted outpouring of affection. In the second song, the protagonist wishes his beloved a night of sweet dreams. Third, we get a story of love gone wrong. In the song, translated as “I have a powerful horse,” the narrator’s initial exaltation of the things he has quickly turns to a reminiscence of the things he doesn’t--most importantly, the sweetheart who has left him.

Songs for voice and piano by Musicians from Marlboro, John Moore, Anna Polonsky, and Benjamin Hochman:

• Schubert: Nachtstück D. 672B; Wanderers Nachtlied, D. 768
• Schubert: Sonata No. 17 in D Major D 850

On today’s podcast, we’ll hear three Schubert works with connections to the mountains.

The meat of our program is the composer’s 17th piano sonata, in D Major, written during a sojourn in the Austrian town of Gastein with singer Michael Vogl. One outcome was this sonata, which was the composer’s 17th but would become only his second to be published. It is a charming piece--far more work for the performer, who must make it through a few speedy movements, than it is for the listener, who can merely sit back and enjoy Schubert’s gift for melody and his way with harmony.

We’ll set the tone a bit with two Schubert songs, each of which alludes to mountainous surroundings. First we’ll hear Nachtstück the German word for “Nocturne,” a setting of a Mayrhofer poem. The first stanza sets the scene, with mist pouring over the mountaintops and an old man playing his harp in the wilderness.

We’ll hear Musicians from Marlboro, John Moore, baritone andAnna Polonsky, piano performing the songs beginning with Nachtstück, followed by pianist Benjamin Hochman, with the sonata.

Songs for piano duo by Christina and Michelle Naughton:

• Mendelssohn: Andante and Variations, Op. 83 in B-flat Major
• Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, Op. 56b

What kind of theme lends itself best to variation?

It’s a question worth asking yourself today, as we hear two pieces that take the form of theme and variations: Mendelssohn’s Andante and Variations, opus 83, and Brahms’s “St. Anthony Variations,” both pieces written for a pair of pianists, in the former case playing one instrument, in the latter, two.

The similarities between the two composers’ chosen themes are quite striking. Both use a chorale-like theme--largely homophonic, with chords beneath a single, clear melody. As a listener it means that, even after just one hearing, you’ve got a pretty good grasp of the tune you’re about to hear turned on its head--enough to be able to follow the journey the composers are about to take us on.

Performing on today’s podcast, we’ll hear a duo that is perhaps more perfectly paired than most: pianists Christina and Michelle Naughton, 24-year-old identical twins from Madison, Wisconsin. Graduates of the Curtis Institute, the two perform duo piano repertoire together worldwide.

Songs for string quartet by A Far Cry and the Borromeo String Quartet:

• Bartók: Romanian Folk Songs BB 68 Arr. for String Quartet
• Bartók: String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 7

When Bartók composed his first string quartet, in 1909, the idea of Hungarian folk music had already found its way into the musical consciousness of Western Europe. Liszt had his Hungarian Rhapsodies, Brahms his Hungarian Dances--written in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s, several decades before Bartók was even born.

While studying in Budapest at the Royal Academy of Music, Bartók had befriended a fellow pupil, Zoltan Kodály. In 1908, the two decided to travel beyond the cafes of downtown Budapest, deep into the countryside, to hear what they could hear.

It was early the following year that Bartók completed his first string quartet, and it can easily be read as a sort of musical dramatization of his path. We’ll hear the piece played by Gardner Museum regulars the Borromeo String Quartet.

We have a recording by the chamber ensemble A Far Cry of another of Bartók's folk-inspired works: his Romanian Folk Dances, arranged for string quartet. Originally written for piano, the brief piece is a set of six songs, all arrangements of folk tunes.

Song for voice and keyboard by Randall Scarlata and Benjamin Hochman.

• Schubert: Schwanengesang (Swan Song)

If you had to pick one word to describe the sentiment of Schubert’s final song cycle, Schwanengesang (meaning Swan Song), it would have to be sehnsucht. Sehnsucht is one of those wonderful German words, simultaneously quite literal and entirely impossible to translate. It combines the German words for “longing” and “addiction”; it means something like “yearning,” with a healthy dash of “nostalgia”.

And so, Schubert creates these songs, which capture--in beautiful, perfect miniature--both the intensity of young love and the profound disappointment that only one whose heart has been broken can grasp. Both have that sense of longing, for the thing one has not yet enjoyed and for that which has slipped away.

Taken together, the set of 14 songs offers a good overview of Schubert’s palette, venturing from light and hopelessly optimistic to deep and world-weary. We’ll hear them as performed at the Museum’s Calderwood Hall in February 2013, by baritone Randall Scarlata and pianist Benjamin Hochman.

Songs for voice and keyboard and string quartet by the New York Festival of Song and the Borromeo String Quartet.

• Dvořák: "Goin' Home"
• Dvořák: String Quartet in E-Flat Major, No. 10, Op. 51

Many of us have heard the narrative of “Dvorak: the champion of Czech folk music.” And in a way it’s true: he did popularize Czech--and more broadly, Slavic--folk music, combining it with Western classical forms in a way that made it accessible and appealing to a broad European audience. But, as with so many artists, he was constantly fighting against the very “box” he had created for himself.

The string quartet we’ll hear on today’s program--Dvorak’s 10th--was, perhaps, a halfway point. In it, Dvorak at times drifts fairly far afield from the well-worn terrain of the “Slavonic Dances.” Indeed, the third movement of the quartet could be mistaken for the work of one of Dvorak’s German contemporaries. But at other times--the second-movement “dumka,” for example--Dvorak was clearly playing to the crowd, and giving them what they expected of a composer who was, at the time, still a bit pigeonholed.

We’ll begin with a recording of “Goin’ Home” by the New York Festival of Song, and continue with the complete string quartet in E-Flat Major, performed by the Borromeo String Quartet.

Songs for string and keyboard and string octet by Colin Carr and Thomas Sauer, and the Borromeo and Jupiter String Quartets.

• Mendelssohn: Song without Words, Op. 109
• Mendelssohn: Octet in E-Flat Major, Op. 20

By most accounts, Felix Mendelssohn had a rather charmed childhood. Compared to other child prodigies of the classical and Romantic eras--Mozart, of course, springs to mind--Mendelssohn had a fairly easy time of it. His parents were encouraging and supportive without being overbearing.

But some unhappiness surely lurked below the surface. For one thing, his sister Fanny, with whom he grew up playing and studying music, was at a certain point forbidden from progressing further as a serious composer, and Felix was at least as involved in the decision to hold her back as her parents. For another, though he was born Jewish, his parents hid his identity, baptizing him into the Lutheran church, and even changing his name.

He wrote his octet in E-flat Major, the second work on today’s podcast, when he was just 16; the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream came about a year later. We’ll hear it performed by the combined Borromeo and Jupiter String Quartets. By the time he wrote the Song without Words for cello and piano, opus 109, Mendelssohn had reached the advanced age of 36. We’ll begin with the Song with Words, played by cellist Colin Carr and pianist Thomas Sauer.

Songs for piano trio and string trio by the Claremont Trio and Musicians from Ravinia's Steans Institute.

• Gabriela Frank: Folk Songs for Piano Trio
• Ernő Dohnányi: Serenade Op. 10 (String Trio)

We are all, in one way or another, a product of the culture into which we are born. This week’s podcast features music by two composers who built on those roots.

We’ll begin with a recording of the Claremont Trio performing a new work, a piece commissioned for the opening season at the Gardner’s new Calderwood Hall. Simply titled "Folk Songs for Piano Trio", the piece was written by Gabriela Lena Frank. Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank is deeply interested in identity and culture. In this piece, she was especially inspired by her mother’s Peruvian heritage; the composer describes it as “a series of snapshots of Andean life.” It’s a wonderfully imaginative, engaging work, and one that the Claremont Trio--for whom it was written---will no doubt long enjoy playing.

Next, we have another trio, this one Dohnanyi’s Serenade for String Trio, performed by Musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute. Dohnanyi was vitally important to musical life in his native Hungary, sand in this string trio, it is easy to detect the distinct influence of Hungarian folk music, particularly in the first and final movements.

Before our trip to Hungary, though, we’ll begin in the Andes, with Frank’s "Folk Songs for Piano Trio."

Songs for violin and piano by Benjamin Beilman and Yekwon Sunwoo.

• Richard Strauss: Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 18
• Chris Rogerson: Once for Violin and Piano (2011)

This week, we turn our attention to two performers, and two composers, whose music-making exhibits a sort of wisdom beyond their years. The recordings are both taken from a recital presented last spring at the museum featuring violinist Benjamin Beilman and his Curtis classmate Yekwon Sunwoo.

Both of the pieces we’ll hear were themselves the product of youthful composers’ imaginations. We’ll start with Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata in E-flat Major. Written when Strauss was just 23-years-old, the piece is widely agreed to have been the work of a young man in the throes of first love; he had recently met the woman who would later become his wife, Pauline.

Next, we’ll hear another piece by a 23-year-old: Chris Rogerson’s Once. Rogerson was both a classmate of Beilman’s at Curtis and a fellow member of the Young Concert Artists roster. This piece, as Beilman told audiences at the performance at the Gardner, was conceived during the composer’s residency at the famous MacDowell Colony, an artists’ retreat in New Hampshire.

Songs for solo keyboard and string quartet by Seymour Lipkin and the Borromeo String Quartet.

• Beethoven: 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C Minor
• Beethoven: Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, Op. 74

The ability to create brilliant, complex, sprawling symphonies out of a small musical ideas--essentially, the art of variation--is probably Beethoven’s greatest achievement. In today’s podcast, we’ll listen to two of Beethoven’s more straightforward variations--one, his set of 32 variations on an original theme in C minor, for piano, and the other a part of a string quartet, his 10th.

We’ll start with the piano work, played by Seymour Lipkin. The source material here exhibits Beethoven’s extraordinary economy: it’s just 8 bars, a chord progression in the bass with a little flourish of melody in the treble. After that, we’ll settle into Beethoven’s more generously proportioned string quartet number 10, Op. 74, sometimes called the “Harp” quartet. The nickname, like most of Beethoven’s, was bestowed by the publisher, an allusion to the plucked arpeggios in the first movement that sound a bit like the strumming of a harp. We’re interested in variation, though, and for that, we’ll focus on the final movement, marked allegretto con variazione, or quickly, with variations. We’ll hear the piece as performed by the Borromeo Quartet.

First, the lightning-fast 32 variations in C minor.