MARLBORO — The final weekend of Marlboro Music's 65th season will offer three concerts - on Friday, Aug. 14, and Saturday, Aug. 15, at 8:30 p.m., and on Sunday, Aug. 16, at 2:30 p.m. at Marlboro College's Persons Auditorium.
Most of the noted Vermont retreat's 75 resident artists will be heard in chamber works that have had the benefit of many weeks of exploration, as well as performing in the Wagner Siegfried Idyll on Friday and in Mozart's last symphony, No. 41 in C Major, Jupiter, in Sunday's closing concert.
Leon Fleisher, who first came to Marlboro in 1959, and last played there in 1963, will conduct both works and will also perform the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52, to open Saturday's program, with pianist Katherine Jacobson, soprano Hyunah Yu, mezzo-soprano Lauren Eberwein, tenor Spencer Lang, and baritone Hadleigh Adams.
In addition, to the Mozart symphony, the performers will play other notable late works.
On Friday, they will perform the Beethoven String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, which the artists explored for 54 hours and for the season's full seven weeks, and, on Saturday, the Brahms String Quintet in G Major, Op. 111, which, at one point, was to be Brahms' last work.
Joining violinist Lucy Chapman, chair of the New England Conservatory's chamber music department, in the Beethoven, which is being performed at Marlboro for the first time, will be Robin Scott, violin; Wenting Kang, viola; and Ahrim Kim, cello. Colleagues of noted violist Kim Kaskashian in the Brahms will be Scott and Siwoo Kim, violins; John Stulz, viola; and Jonah Ellsworth, cello.
In addition to the Wagner and Beethoven quartet, Friday's concert will also include the Brahms Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 101, with pianist Roman Rabinovich, violinist Maia Cabeza, and Christoph Richter, former cellist of the Cherubini String Quartet.
Saturday's program will offer Janacek's String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters,” with David McCarroll and Carmit Zori, violins; Molly Carr, viola; and Tony Rymer, cello; as well as the Liebeslieder Waltzes and the Brahms Quintet.
Woodwinds have always played a major role at Marlboro and Sunday's program will open with the rarely-heard Strauss Suite in B-flat Major, Op. 4 for woodwinds and four horns, only performed three times in the last 64 years.
The artists will be Marina Piccinini and Brook Ferguson, flutes; Mary Lynch and Joseph Peters, oboes; Gabriel Campos Zamora and Michael Rusinek, clarinets; Steve Dibner and Brad Balliett, bassoons; Radovan Vlatkovic, Nicolee Kuester, Lauren Hunt, Laura Weiner, horns; and Nathaniel West, double bass.
The first half will close with Bartok String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 with violinists Alexi Kenney and Tessa Lark, violist Kim Kashkashian, and cellist Isang Enders. The variety of repertoire performed at Marlboro is illustrated by the fact that this will be only the second performance of the Bartok in the last 20 years.