Back in the day when “gay” just meant happy, the music reflected those blissful years before WWI changed everything.

We’re talking of course about the 1890s, which will be featured in the opening concert of the Bainbridge Performing Arts Mostly Music series, “Vienna, Prague, Paris: Music of the 1890s,” Sunday afternoon at The Playhouse on Bainbridge Island.

The musical palette of the concert includes Brahms’ “Sonata for Clarinet in F Minor,” Dvorak’s “Dumky Trio” and Debussy’s “Fetes Galantes.”

Performing the music will be Patti Beasley on clarinet, Justine Jeanotte on violin, Christine Edwards on violoncello, James Quitslund on piano and soprano Carol Willis Simsak.

Quitslund will also act as moderator, guiding the audience through an inside look at the pieces.

“‘Gay’ as the 1890s may have been, they were also years in which European and trans-Atlantic civilization were modernizing at a breathtaking rate,” he wrote in the program’s notes. “The last works of Brahms — especially the two clarinet sonatas — show that the impulses of Romantic music could still be fresh.”

While the Brahms’ piece reflects the past, the other works point to the future.

Quitslund said the Dvorak trio suggests the sad songs and foot-stomping celebrations in the villages of Bohemia, which may have moved the audiences of the day to yearn for a world that was disappearing as the century turned.

“Still, in the context of cultural history, the folkloric spirit of the trio belongs to a trend that looks directly forward to the radical ‘folk’-based art of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Picasso and their followers after the turn of the century.”

The concert musicians should be familiar to local classical music fans.

Clarinetest Beasley is a member of Blue Fish Tango, Island Soundscape Players, and the Bremerton and Bainbridge symphony orchestras.

Violinist Jeanotte has played with the Bainbridge Orchestra and currently heads the strings program at the Madrona School and gives private lessons.

Cellist Edwards performs with the Rainier Symphony Orchestra and the Bainbridge Orchestra.

Pianist Quitslund is a Bainbridge Island native, former Bainbridge Performing Arts board member and longtime performer and moderator for the Mostly Music concert series.

“Vienna, Prague, Paris: Music of the 1890s” takes place 4 p.m. Dec. 4 at The Playhouse, 200 Madison Ave. N, Bainbridge Island.

Tickets are $12 all seats, available at the box office 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays and one hour prior to the show, by phone at (206) 842-8569 or online at www.theplayhouse.org. wu