Lieder – Schubert: Some background.

Lieder – Schubert: Some background.

For all the many lovely songs composed by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, it remains true to say that the great age of Lieder composition was ushered in with the work of Franz Schubert, whose first great songs were written when he was a teenager. Schubert lived in a period of remarkable social and artistic change in central Europe, especially notable for an emerging middle class which increasingly replaced the church and aristocracy as the dominant factors in the world of music. Concert societies began to be organized, and public concert halls became a source of pride in prosperous 19^th century city life. But there was music in the domestic sphere as well, seen in the growth of “Hausmusik”: music played and sung by family members, or heard as part of entertainment in the social occasions typical of the day. A key factor was the presence in the parlour of that most impressive article of furniture, a lovingly-polished PIANO, indispensable for music making, and a status symbol rather akin to a color television in homes in our century. Composers (and publishers) were not slow in responding to a promising market, resulting in a flood of music for piano (with piano duets especially popular), songs and chamber music appropriate for amateur performers. It is quite significant Franz Schubert, who only ONCE would hear a professional concert of his works in his short life, focused much of his activities upon the private gatherings of friends and admirers (the so-called “Schubertiads”) where his chamber music, piano music and songs were performed and received with enthusiasm. Around the same time the great burst of Romantic literature found an international audience for the works of Byron and Sir Walter Scott, while on the heels of Goethe and Schiller the German-speaking world embraced the works of figures such as Heine, Eichendorff and Grillparzer. In a way unique to the early Romantic age, these trends in music and literature came together in the work of Schubert, who composed some 600 songs, sometimes setting the words of poets such as Goethe and Heine, in other cases transmuting the serviceable (if second-rate) work of lesser poets into the greatest lyrical expression ever known. There are every sort of song: simple folk like ditties such as “Heiden Röslein, ” expansive songs lasting a quarter hour, songs in Italian, French, even songs in which other instruments take part, as in his very last composition, “Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, ” [“The Shepherd on the Rock”] written for voice, clarinet and piano. The significance of the songs can be seen in the composer’s use of several of them in some of his greatest works: “Trout” Quintet, “Death and Maiden” Quartet, “Wanderer” Fantasy for piano. Probably the most miraculous aspect of Schubert’s career is that “mere songs, ” music ostensibly inspired by casual social entertainment, should lead to the astonishing accomplishment of his song cycles, Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. But even the least of the 600 Lieder have much to offer----Brahms, as is well-remembered, said that something could be learned from studying each and every one of them.

Sibelius: Symphony No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 104

Symphony No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 104

Jean Sibelius
(1865-1957)

The reputation and achievement of Jean Sibelius has always been subject to wildly divergent interpretations. As the most celebrated creative artist to emerge from his native land, Sibelius became known world-wide as a symbol of the spirit of Finnish independence during the turmoil of the 20^th century, early winning a unique position of honour in his homeland. But the best-known musical embodiment of that spirit, the tone poem FINLANDIA, is hardly representative of his best work. And although a very prolific composer, little of Sibelius’ varied output is commonly heard apart from the several of the symphonies, the tone poems, violin concerto, and a handful of songs. As for the composer’s reputation, younger music lovers would find it incredible that between the world wars Sibelius’ symphonies attained a popularity in the English-speaking world second only to BEETHOVEN! (Sibelius won popularity in Germany early in the century, which evaporated after the First World War. The attitude in other countries was probably summed up by Nadia Boulanger’s famous comment, “Sibelius? Alas, a sad case.” Her pupil, Virgil Thomson, writing in 1940s declared that “twenty years’ residence on the European continent has largely spared me Sibelius…. [who] I find to be vulgar, self-indulgent and provincial…” The “sad” aspect of Sibelius’ life might be the fact that he stopped composing by the age of sixty, although rumours of a withheld Eighth Symphony persisted until his death. He became a Living Legend, honoured by the whole world on his ninetieth birthday (Winston Churchill sent a box of cigars), but increasingly neglected in the concert world. Younger musicians in English-speaking countries even blamed the exaggerated popularity of Sibelius for the reluctance of their musical elders to come to terms with the more challenging works of Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

But we live in an age of reassessment----witness the position now occupied by Bruckner, Mahler, even Richard Strauss. Sibelius is being given renewed attention, with conductors leading the way. Herbert von Karajan recorded the complete symphonies twice over, joined by such conductors as Lorin Maazel, Simon Rattle, Leonard Bernstein and Colin Davis. As adventurous a composer as Peter Maxwell Davies speaks of finding inspiration in the orchestral works of Sibelius. A more rounded picture of the composer has begun to take shape, in part through greater understanding of the later symphonies, as well as some of the more imaginative works which have been ignored over the years.

The Sixth is probably the least-known of Sibelius’ seven symphonies, wonderfully fresh and inventive, a work of remarkable transparency, stillness and simplicity. Composed between 1918-23, the energy and rhetorical sweep of the Fifth Symphony here gives way to a clarity of expression and trimming away of surface detail. Of all the symphonies this seems most evocative of the Finnish landscape---it has been said that Sibelius himself remarked that “while other composers offered exotic cocktails, he offered pure cold spring water.”

The symphony opens with a seamless flow of clear, unhurried melody in layers: first two lines in the violins, joined by violas, adding two more strands in the violins. As if hovering in midair, these contrapuntal threads are joined by flutes and clarinets, then dipping down into the celli, horns, more winds, swelling into a rich full tapestry of sound, enriched by brass and timpani----then released into the forward motion which characterises the symphony as a whole. This fresh and original opening is laid out in a cool Dorian mode, and with a relaxed flow of counterpoint that is testimony to Sibelius’ admiration for masters of Renaissance counterpoint such as Palestrina and Lassus, yet without a trace of “archaism.” Sixty bars with but a single accidental leads compellingly into a harmonic world which swings easily between a richly chromatic language and the cool modal colouring of the opening page. Although actually a rather lively composition, the opening provides the framework for the underlying stillness of the symphony, the haunting tranquillity of this opening foretelling the plaintive return to silence which concludes the work.

Woven into the opening melody is a “motive” which is to be found throughout the work: a simple descending three-note figure with which the music begins. The “pure cold spring water” of the first pages BLURS into a new tonality---Sibelius often “modulates” by simply overlapping old harmonies with new, then moving ahead into new tonal regions. Here we find ourselves in a rather unsettled C Major, suddenly lively in character, with winds in thirds (a Sibelius trademark), making use of the three-note motive. In the first movement, which is a sonataform by “suggestion,” without explicit structural features, this restless scherzando element serves as a sort of “second” subject, but almost immediately takes on a questing, “developmental” character. The patter of strings moving in rustling eight-notes (at first scale-wise), set against figures in the winds (mostly in thirds), moves forward into more darkly coloured harmonic territory, with a smooth arc of melody in the celli leading the way back to the “white key” Dorian tonality of the opening. Suddenly the music veers into a moment of lush texture in F Major, almost as if a belated "official Second Subject," in the approved textbook manner. No, it is a further exploration of the pattering eighths and pairs of winds in thirds, with a settling back into a mere echo of the opening theme---which is as much “recapitulation” as the composer allows. A brief shuddering TREMOLO passage, a trace of the scale-wise eighths from the C Major episode, and the movement ends with a laconic settling down upon a concluding minor third in the home key of D Minor.

Although marked ALLEGRETTO MODERATO, the second movement creates the sensation of a slow movement. Mysterious in its tonal ambiguity (eventually it will come to rest in G Minor), it is laid out as a disguised variations structure, with three distinct elements heard in succession, and often combined. Pairs of flutes and bassoons in open fifths and sixths take the lead, in a hesitating sequence of chords, pausing to take on a shimmer of colour with oboes, clarinets and harp. Then a lilting melody shared between the violins begins to hint of an underlying tonality of G Minor, only to slide into a string of chromatic scales curling upward. These elements circle around a second time, more richly scored, with triplets woven into the musical fabric, the scale passages overlapping with the wind chords, bringing the music around to a trobbing, rhythmic variant of the violin melody. Now the scale passage brings about an abrupt shift in mood. Almost as if a shadow had passed over the musical landscape, a hushed, jittery rustling in the strings extends nearly to the end of the movement, with the winds darting in and out, followed by the scale patterns, and a marching figure in harp and basses. A final scale, then three hymn-like chords bring the movement to a close.

Marked POCO VIVACE, the SCHERZO has a brisk, march-like character, opening with a rhyhmically pointed variant of the opening theme of the first movement, followed by figures in thirds in the winds, and a billowing string passage in the strings. This settles into a lightly textured SCHERZANDO, with the woodwind tune now played by the flutes in thirds over a pattering background.

The springy rhythmic opening figure returns, taking on an oddly mechanical, “toy soldier” character, with a folk-like melody added in the flutes, joined by the harp in canon. The billowing figure is heard again, and soon there is a recapitulation of the woodwind melody in thirds, bringing in its wake the mechanical rhythmic passage, the canonic tune now presented in richer orchestral colours. A final swirl in the strings swings the movement to a no-nonsense conclusion.

The final movement, ALLEGRO MOLTO, drawing upon melodic elements from the opening movement, sets out an introduction in A Minor: sonorous harmonic phrases are passed between a choir of winds and upper strings, and the darker colours of the lower strings, a pattern repeated four times. A brief reminiscence of the woodwind pairings from the second movement leads in the principal theme of the movement, which springs into action with an urgent rhythmic figure in the strings, decisively moving from C Major to the home key of D Minor. This primary element is repeated three times, always moving from C Major to D minor---indeed, this final movement, not only mono-thematic in design, comes close to being quite “mono-tonal” in its harmonic shaping. However, the third statement ventures into more chromatic harmonic territory, reaching a climactic unison on B natural. Quite abruptly the introductory figure returns, this time on F, soon inching its way eventually to the home key. Moving into an expansive coda, the introductory material is heard in diminution, surging to a full sonority in the strings before settling back into a spacious, expressive version of the theme which opened the symphony. There is a last expansive phrase with the strings in their intense higher register, in dialogue with the flutes and bassoons, with echoes of the second movement. Then the reflective calm which opened the symphony returns in a handful of notes in the strings, trailing away into silence.

The Symphony in the Twentieth Century

Although the roots of the symphony go back to 18^th century Italian opera, today we think of it

as largely the product of composers in the German-speaking world. This will hardly come as news to those for whom the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven & Co. form the center of the musical universe, together with some well-loved 19^th century works by Russian and Czech composers, plus a few stray examples written in France. It is hard to imagine that by the end of the 19^th century, especially in Central Europe, the symphony was thought to have run its course, becoming obsolete, and of interest only to rather academic composers----which, for some, included Johannes Brahms! The tone poems of Richard Strauss were taken as a portent for the future, causing some to wonder why Gustav Mahler insisted upon ploughing exhausted soil.

By the early twentieth century the symphony was indeed a problematic matter. Mahler’s symphonies were hotly controversial, not winning a firm place in the repertoire until fifty years after his death, just as the composer had predicted. Younger composers seemed to be attracted to other musical tasks----Bela Bartok, for one, never composed a symphony. What could not have been expected was the remarkable flood of symphonies which soon took place in countries lying OUTSIDE the central European tradition: Denmark [Carl Nielsen], Sweden [Allan Pettersson], USSR [Prokofiev, Shostakovich---15! Miaskovsky---27!], Czechoslovakia [Martinu], France [Honegger, Milhaud, Dutilleux], England [Vaughan Williams, Bax, Maxwell Davies], America [Ives, Copland, Harris, Barber, Piston, Hanson, Diamond, Schuman]…. Even Stravinsky himself got around to writing a few examples of the form. The symphony, far from extinct, seemed to be a supreme challenge to composers in defining themselves, their age, their cultures.

Of course, how to DEFINE the symphony in the 20^th century has been a perennial topic of discussion. As it happens, Mahler and Sibelius, who were acquaintances, once debated the nature of the symphony in a Viennese café, nicely summing up their quite individual approach to the form. Sibelius viewed the symphony as a process of germination, small kernels expanding into a grand organism---while Mahler made his celebrated declaration that “the symphony must embrace the world!” (Mahler later said about Sibelius that “I admired [his] style and severity of form, and the profound logic that created an inner connection between all the motifs.”)

Casadesus: Deuxieme Suite pour Orchestre, Op. 26

Deuxieme Suite pour Orchestre, Op. 26

Robert Casadesus
(1899-1972)

The Second Suite for Orchestra was composed in December, 1937 (the month of Ravel’s death), and completed in May, 1939. It was first performed in 1952 by the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Dimitri Mitropoulos, with later performances in 1969 by the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell given in tribute to the composer’s seventieth birthday. It is scored for an orchestra of three flutes, two piccolos, two oboes and cor anglais, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps and strings.

The composer himself described the suite as follows:

The OUVERTURE in classical form is gay and alert. The NOCTURNE (in G Minor)

is melancholic and mysterious. The SCHERZO recalls Spanish folklore. The CHORAL I

is exposed in sombre mood, serving as an introduction to the DANSE, which is very gay

and full of different rhythms, the middle part recalling Spanish folklore again. The CHORAL II is a repetition of the CHORAL I, concluding the work in “apotheose.”

To expand upon this description the OUVERTURE is set in 12/8 metre, giving the effect of a GIGUE, sometimes approaching the character of a TARANTELLA. The NOCTURNE is a refined and atmospheric movement, notable for its subtle writing for solo winds. The SCHERZO, on the other hand, is a rhythmically inventive movement, again GIGUE-like in character, sometimes altering the basic 6/8 metre by dividing the bars into groupings of FIVE, eventually brought to an abrupt and quizzical ending. The CHORAL I (ANDANTE) is marked by long and lyrical melodic lines, with much attention to the brass. The DANSE (marked VIVO), set in ¾ metre, has been described by the composer as a “study in cross rhythms,” with rhythmic layers running counter to one another. CHORAL II is marked LARGAMENTE, and is an extended variant of CHORAL I, the materials broadened, enriched and intensified. The full orchestral forces come together for a sonorous conclusion.

Some Thoughts on Robert Casadesus (1899-1972)

Many music lovers cherish the memory of concerts given by Robert Casadesus, ranging from aristocratic performances of the concerto repertoire, solo piano recitals and chamber music. Probably more than any other other pianist appearing in the mid-20^th century, Casadesus seemed to possess a unique understanding of the the works of French composers, as well as of Chopin and Schumann. Yet the range of his musical interests and sympathies was quite wide, stopping just short of the warhorses of the Russian school. For those of us with a particular love of Faure, Debussy and Ravel, Casadesus’ performances were cherished as a link with a tradition which seemed to have disappeared by the end of the 1930s. Happily, many of his superb recordings of Debussy, Ravel, Chopin and Mozart are being reissued and coming to the attention of a younger generation of musicians and music lovers.

Casadesus was born into a musical family whose many branches and varied talents bring to mind other famous musical families from an earlier age, such as the Bachs and the Couperins. Born and educated in Paris, he entered the Paris Conservatory at age eleven, winning prizes in piano and composition. He began a concert career in 1917, winning international fame, coming to America to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic under Toscanini in 1935. As a teacher he had a long association with the Conservatoire Americain at Fontainebleau, an institution especially known for the presence of Nadia Boulanger, who took over the directorship from Casadesus in 1952. This association with young Americans perhaps prepared him for increasing activity in the United States, where for many years he made his home after 1940----in Princeton.

The advent of the Second World War brought a number of remarkable people to Princeton----they did not all go to California! The range of the intellectual and artistic community, impressive to this day, must have been remarkable, ranging from Thomas Mann (who DID eventually gravitate to the Golden State), to Roger Sessions, and Albert Einstein, himself a keen amateur musician---with whom Casadesus was to perform chamber music.

Prof. Edward Cone has written an affectionate recollection of Robert Casadesus, particularly interesting in its comments about his activities as a composer, which have remained too little recognised to this day. He writes that Casadesus “humorously disparaged his works, mocking them as old-fashioned and hence not a healthy model for students of today. Once when I went to congratulate him after hearing one of his elegant concertos performed in New York, he laughingly insisted that it was ‘something out of the Middle Ages.’”

Casadesus’ compositional style is usually described as masterful in craftsmanship, of a general

neo-classical idiom reflective of a generation of French musicians who came of age in the day of Ravel and Stravinsky. The range of his catalogue of works takes one’s breath away: some 70 opus numbers, including seven symphonies, four piano sonatas, eight concertos (including works for flute, violin and cello), several dozen chamber works, songs and various orchestral works. All that and a concert career as well! A final judgment upon Casadesus the composer awaits a comprehensive study of this great body of work. But, to use a word always stressed by his friend, Nadia Boulanger, the achievements of an artist of such gifts and artistic vision should be shown ATTENTION.

Mozart: Piano Concerto in A Major, No. 23, K. 488

Piano Concerto in A Major, No. 23, K. 488

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)

The son of one of the great violin teachers of his time, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart received early training as a string player, and appeared as a solo violinist right up to the end of his teens----his father declared that a great career lay ahead were he willing to put his mind
to it. But Mozart was more attracted to the piano, which began to absorb his attention as early as 1764, when he travelled to London with his sister and father. There he met Johann Sebastian Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian, who would become a powerful influence upon his musical development.

J. C. Bach had settled in London, where he appeared in the earliest known concert of music for the new instrument, and began to compose piano concerti, works were to provide models for the nine year-old composer. Not surprisingly, Mozart’s earliest piano concerti included three (K. 107) which were based on solo keyboard works by J. C. Bach, together with four others (K 37, 39-41) which were artful arrangements of music by other prominent composers of the day. Later these apprentice works were followed by an astonishing string of 23 concerti written between December 1773 and September, 1791. (There was even another concerto for violin AND piano written in 1778 [K. 315f], bringing together both of Mozart’s performing instruments---alas, left unfinished.)

With his remarkable E-flat Concerto, K. 271 ( traditionally referred to as No. 9), Mozart established his mature approach to the piano concerto. In somewhat the same manner in which Haydn “invented” the symphony, Mozart could almost be said to have “invented” the piano concerto, setting in motion an expansive tradition which was taken up by Beethoven, and carried right down to the present day.) After composing a concerto for two pianos, there came an astonishing string of seventeen concerti composed in the space of ten years, a dozen of which were written in the space of THREE YEARS (1784-86.) By then Mozart had settled in Vienna, where (like Beethoven and Brahms after him) he built a reputation as a composer-pianist. Featuring himself as soloist in new concerti, Mozart organised a series of subscription concerts which became the talk of Vienna. But the public proved fickle, attention began to wane, and in the last five years of his life Mozart was to compose only two more piano concerti.

Like the poignant, valedictory Clarinet Concerto, (Mozart’s last instrumental composition), and the earlier Piano Concerto K. 414, the 23^rd Concerto is in A Major, a key which always Mozart always invests with great warmth and subtle coloration. Scored for an orchestra without horns, trumpets and timpani, replacing the oboes with clarinets, the concerto creates an atmosphere of remarkable intimacy in which the wind instruments become partners with the solo piano, weaving a chamber music texture of delicate transparency.

No fewer than seven of Mozart’s mature piano concerti open with a lively rhythmic pattern typical of Austrian military music---a notable exception being the brooding D Minor Concerto, K. 466. However this A Major Concerto could not be farther removed from march rhythms or tragic moods, opening without rhetorical gestures in an atmosphere of ease and lyrical tenderness. (This gentle opening seems reminiscent of another A Major work, the Clarinet Quintet.) As is common with Mozart, the opening orchestral RITORNELLO lays out a series of elements which are gathered into a conventional sonataform pattern upon the entry of the piano. Unlike some of Mozart’s more “symphonic” concertos, no thematic elements are withheld, to turn up unexpectedly later on. Rather there is a genial spreading out of basic ingredients which will take on deeper meanings as the musical structure unfolds. These include the easy-going principal subject, followed by a vigorous transitional theme in the orchestra, and a second subject in three short segments. The first carries forward the relaxed mood, the second is more rhythmic and pointed, the third a murmuring, more chromatically-inclined theme which gives way to brilliant passage-work in the solo instrument. The “transition” theme returns to form a link with a closing theme, again quiet and relaxed. The challenge for Mozart is to avoid a mood of blandness, having laid out so many understated, quiet thematic elements. This he manages through contrasts in texture, instrumentation, and shifts in harmony which give fascinating gradations of tonal colour, and moments when the music raises its voice, however briefly. There is no orchestral RITORNELLO rounding out the exposition, going directly into the development, which is largely given over to extended “chamber music” for the piano and winds, the harmony always gliding forward through a variety of colours and textures. The recapitulation is quite regular, an interesting change being that the piano takes the lead in the closing theme, which is expanded to accommodate a final virtuosic flourish before the final orchestral RITORNELLO. Following the CADENZA the orchestra has a parting glance at the “transition” theme to conclude the movement.

It is surprising to consider that the slow movement is the only music Mozart ever wrote in F-sharp minor, a key notable for its rich, dark intensity. The result is one of the most touching, inward-looking movements he ever composed. It is laid out as a simple three-part structure, with a pensive, SICILIANO-like principal theme played by the piano, utterly exposed and alone, then joined by the orchestra. The contrasting central episode is an innocent tune in A Major played by the winds in partnership with the piano, creating the mood of one of the composer’s woodwind serenades. Then the main theme returns as before, followed by a coda in which tiptoeing PIZZICATO strings form the background, the piano steadily moving into the distance with poignant, hesitating melodic gestures.

The finale, marked PRESTO, is a bubbling RONDO, rich in detail and contrasting textures. The piano initiates the principal (“A”) section which comprises a chain of five distinct, interlocking musical ideas, all but the first given over to the orchestra. A quieter melody in the piano (still in the home key of A Major), acts as a transition to the key of E, where a “B” section lays out four thematic elements, this time quite distinct from one another. (The first is mostly rippling arpeggios in the piano, the second slips into E Minor, the third takes on a declamatory tone, the piano becoming progressive more absorbed in pianistic display, the fourth being a skipping up-the-scale-and-down tune of saucy folk-like character heard against a quiet PIZZICATO accompaniment.) Before we know it the A theme (first part) swings back, only to stomp off into F-sharp minor for an “Episode” (or “C,” if one is keeping track), in which bursts of keyboard temperament are juxtaposed with lilting commentary from the winds. In a carefree twist there comes ANOTHER “episode” (“D”?), this time in D Major, with the piano alternately accompanying the winds, and taking the lead, supported by the strings. Throughout there is no let-up in the breathless chase, going on at some length before gliding back to the tonic key----but not to the primary (“A”) theme, rather the TRANSITION melody (in A Major). This leads to “B,” but without the first of the four segments, reprising the other three much as before. The up-and-down-the-scale figure brings back the missing “A” theme (the one which started the movement going in the first place), now returning in triumph. The first three elements (out of five) are heard again, but suddenly Mozart (always one to mix-and-match) chooses to slip over for an affectionate farewell to the up-and-down-the-scale tune. In the nick of time all is put right: while the piano rollicks about for the last time, the little-noticed final bits of the “A” section (Nos. 4 & 5) join in the fun, and the work sails home in high spirits.

Beethoven: Triumphal March for Kuffner’s Drama, Tarpeja

Triumphal March for Kuffner’s Drama, Tarpeja

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Although the New Grove Dictionary of Music lists some fifteen marches by Beethoven, written for a great range of instrumental combinations (everything from mechanical clock to wind ensembles and full orchestra), there are perhaps only three march compositions which stand out in the catalogue of Beethoven’s works: a majestic march in Act I of FIDELIO, the “Turkish” episode in the finale of the Ninth Symphony (in every way a march), and that dear old chestnut, the March from the RUINS OF ATHENS. The other dozen or so examples of Beethoven as composer of marches mostly fall into the cracks in the vast sweep of his output----some music lovers may remember Beethoven as march-composer when recalling Paul Hindemith’s delightful Sinfonia Serena, where a Beethoven march for wind ensemble is absorbed into the fabric of a 20^th century symphony in an unexpected and inventive manner.

Even the most dedicated Beethovenian may register a complete blank on hearing the title “Incidental Music to Tarpeja,” the source of work opening today’s concert. A young Austrian playwright, Christopher Kuffner, was well-known in the early years of the 19^th century for his adaptations of the works of the Roman comic poet Plautus. Kuffner, who had studied music, and later became acquainted with Beethoven: Carl Czerny credits him with helping to shape the text of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, that curious anticipation of the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony. Kuffner’s drama, Tarpeja, a work set in the antique Roman at the time of the Sabines, was first performed at Vienna’s Hofburgtheater (the court theatre) on March 26, 1813. Two brief incidental numbers were composed by Beethoven, although whether they were heard on that occasion, or were added later is uncertain. The short march in C Major is the sort of “pot-boiler” to which Beethoven could bring unusual touches of invention which lift it beyond the humdrum level of most such occasional music.

The March opens with a fanfare-like tune featuring the dotted rhythms characteristic of Austrian marches from the time of Mozart through Schubert and Johann Strauss. At first played by the brass (softly), the strings join in, at first providing a pizzicato accompaniment, then taking the lead with a majestic statement for full orchestra. A middle section appears in the dominant key of G, with light triplet figuration in the strings against a background of repeated triplet chords in the winds. In a typically Beethovenian touch, a single unexpected note (G-sharp) rises to the surface, lending a piquant twist to what otherwise would be a rather bland display of ceremonial flourishes. The march rounds out its two minutes of splendor with the return of the initial march melody, the triplet figuration pressing the music to a bright, high-stepping conclusion.

The Later Works of Beethoven

The Later Works of Beethoven

For many years it has been common practice to speak of Ludwig van Beethoven’s career in terms of a rather tidy (and all-too convenient) division, like Omnia Gallia, into TRES PARTES. Up to a point this rather arbitrary carving up of an artistic lifetime can be useful, even revealing. But a checklist of dates and major compositions reveals the curious fact that the “early” and “middle” periods TOGETHER (1792-1812) occupy only a few more years than the “late period” (1812-1827) ! Thus a total of 8 symphonies, 11 string quartets, 26 piano sonatas, the various concertos and the only opera are crammed into as amazingly prolific and hectic two decades, set against a single symphony, 5 quartets, 6 sonatas and a gigantic setting of the mass which account for the composer’s output in the final decade and a half. The immediate response, of course, will be “Yes! And just CONSIDER those final works----mere bean-counting here in meaningless!” True enough. And an examination of Beethoven’s turbulent private life, and his health---to say nothing of a period of remarkable spiritual development as he went into middle age, can provide some clues to the very different nature of this final, “late period.” (Of course, had Beethoven been more attentive to matters of his health, there is every sign that the music composed in the mid-1820’s might have been looked upon as the onset of a “fourth period.”)

By no means was everything composed during Beethoven’s later phase of a quality associated with the last quartets and final symphony---the March for TARPEJA may be heartening evidence of Beethoven as a man of the world, quite capable of turning out an engaging trifle, earning a few gulden. (Anyone trotting around Vienna from one Beethovenhaus to the next might wonder if an occasional toe-tapper might have been useful, if only to cover some of those recurrent moving expenses!) But then, there are also some startling discoveries along the way to the very highest reaches of the last works, as is wonderfully illustrated by the remarkably original "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" Cantata, a work which reveals some unexpected links to the choral finale of the Ninth Symphony some years off in the future.

Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard, BWV 1014-1019

Johann Sebastian Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard, BWV 1014-1019

BACH AND THE VIOLIN

Johann Sebastian Bach was employed as a church musician for most of his life, and was particularly celebrated as a VIRTUOSO organist. The great body of organ works, as well as the massive achievement of the WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER and the other keyboard works have somewhat obscured our picture of Bach, the string player. The violin was Bach’s first instrument, taught him as a small boy by his father. While he went on to concentrate his energies upon the organ and harpsichord, an argument can be made that a number of significant influences on Bach’s music for those instruments can be traced to his intimate knowledge of string instruments. Ironically enough, when Bach prepared his concertos for solo keyboard and orchestra in the 1730s (adapted from violin concertos composed in the 1720s) the result was to launch a new kind of composition, which would eventually lead to the piano concertos of Mozart, Beethoven and the Romantic age.

Most of Bach’s instrumental works date from the period spent at Cothen as court composer (1717-23), when the composer was spared the usual grind of duties as church musician which dominated most of his working life. Since the court was Calvinist (with little call for Bach’s services in supplying church music), the composer’s attention was directed toward chamber music, orchestral music and compositions for solo harpsichord---most of the suites, the Brandenburg Concertos and concertos for solo violin, works for flute, lute, viola da gamba, violin and cello date from this period.

Dating from the Cothen years are Bach’s best-known compositions for violin, the celebrated six sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin---the meat and drink of every serious-minded (and courageous!) violinist. So esteemed were they that, quixotically , Schumann and Mendelssohn provided piano accompaniments for the purpose of making them more acceptable to 19^th century tastes during the first flush of the Bach Revival. How odd that there should exist six OTHER sonatas for violin with Bach’s OWN accompaniments (those to be heard in today’s concert) which even today remain less widely known than their unaccompanied brothers.

The present six sonatas in question are composed with harpsichord OBLIGATO, meaning (unlike the popular notion of the word “obligato”) that all the music played by the keyboard instrument is written out, largely excluding the common Baroque practice of embellishing the keyboard part in an improvisatory manner. This means that every note heard was set down by Bach himself, resulting in a tightly-woven music texture, remarkable for its contrapuntal ingenuity and harmonic richness. With the single exception of the opening movement of the 5^th Sonata, the harpsichord plays two parts, which added to the violin part produces a three-part texture. Following the pattern established by late 17^th century Italian composers (notably Arcangelo Corelli), Bach’s sonatas (with the exception of No. 6) comprise four movements, alternating between slow/fast/slow/fast contrasts of tempo.

In this program Darwyn Apple pays tribute to the late Joseph Knitzer, his teacher and mentor at the Eastman School of Music, and later at the University of Michigan. Despite suffering the terrible pain of advanced cancer, Knitzer performed the Six Bach Accompanied Sonatas on his farewell concert, XXXXX DATE

[Although until recently these sonatas were heard with the accompaniment of the modern piano, nowadays harpsichord accompaniment has become common practice. In this concert Mr. Apple performs Nos. 1, 6, and 4 with harpsichord, followed by Nos. 2, 5 and 3 with piano---providing an interesting opportunity to compare the “ancient” approach with the “modern.”

THE SONATAS

Baroque composers traditionally favoured the “violin keys” of G-D-A-E, which were grounded in the open strings of the instrument. Three of the six sonatas in this set (Nos. 2, 3 and 6) follow this custom, written in A Major, E Major and G Major respectively. Curiously, Bach turned to the brightest of the open-string tonalities, D Major, for a single movement only, in the First Sonata (set in D Major’s related key of B Minor.) For the remaining minor-key sonatas Bach turned to the darker “flat key” tonalities of C Minor and F Minor (Sonatas 4 and 5.) Hearing these six compositions side by side conveys a strong impression that Bach found distinct coloration and personality in these contrasting tonalities, vividly expressing a vast range of emotions and musical images.

Sonata No. 1 in B minor opens with a long-breathing, sustained melody without parallel in the set of six sonatas. A single hovering note swells into a rhapsodic songful flow which is soon enriched with double-stops, reaching an impassioned conclusion. The second movement is sprightly and dancelike in character, with the right-hand of the keyboard in lively dialogue with the violin---a feature common to all the quicker movements in the sonatas. As is the case in all but the Sixth Sonata, the third movement is the reflective, expansively lyrical soul of the work. Here a richly detailed violin melody is unfolded above a calmly striding bassline. The final movement is a “binary” piece (written in two sections, each repeated), which jumps into action with a pounding Vivaldi-like figure in the violin, surging ahead with impassioned energy .

Sonata No. 6 in G Major is the “maverick” among this set of sonatas. Laid out in five movements instead if the usual four, the work opens not with a introductory slow movement, but springs into action with a dashing, athletic ALLEGRO, overflowing with high spirits and brilliant byplay between violin and keyboard. The second movement (here slow instead quick) is a brief interlude, brimming with pathos, acting as a bridge to a fast third movement---for keyboard ALONE! The two instruments are then reunited to round things out with a jig-like fifth movement, a bit reminiscent of the finale of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, also written in G Major.

Sonata No. 4 in C Minor opens with a dark and deeply-felt introductory movement marked “SICILIANO,” suggesting the famous contralto aria, “Erbarme dich” from the Saint Matthew Passion. The mood of sadness is swept aside by a vigorous and forthright ALLEGRO, a complex fugal movement filled with contrapuntal ingenuity and vivid harmonic textures. The succeeding ADAGIO set in the relative major key of E-flat is one of the most profound movements of the entire six sonatas, notable for its consolatory tone, marked by sharp contrasts between FORTE and PIANO passages. The final movement is brisk and business-like at first, becoming ever friskier, with a charming hint of ragtime peeping through the Baroque fiddle-faddle.

Sonata No. 2 in A Major opens with a mellow, singing first movement of unusual sweetness and transparency (characteristic of both Bach and Mozart in music in A Major), followed by a fugue-like fast second movement which presses forward into a central episode of concerto-like brilliance and excitement before concluding with a return of the initial musical elements. The slow third movement is a strict canon between violin and the keyboard’s right hand, the left hand suggesting the sound of a lute or guitar in its softly murmuring accompaniment. The finale is a breezy, slightly “popular” sounding unwinding of polyphony, effortless and insouciant.

Sonata No. 5 in F Minor, by its very key (something of a rarity in Bach’s time) implies a darkness and disquiet unique among the six sonatas. The opening movement is unusual in its four-part writing, with imitative counterpoint in the keyboard, the violin with arching, extended phrases apparently independent of the keyboard, moving with great breadth and slowness. The second movement is a binary, fugal movement. The third movement has been described as “dependent almost entirely upon sonority for its cohesiveness,” consisting entirely of sustained double-stops in the violin against endlessly uncoiling arpeggiando figures in the keyboard. The finale is a jig-like, restless movement of great intensity and drive.

Sonata No. 3 in E Major is the best-loved and most familiar of the six sonatas, the one with perhaps the widest expressive range. The first movement is virtually an impressionistic piece, with reiterated harpsichord patterns firmly anchored to the ground, the violin circling and swooping in great arcs like a bird in flight. The second movement has a carefree, innocent air, laying out a folk-like tune with a trace of “London Bridge is falling down” about it, soon teased into contrapuntal activity. The slow third movement moves to the relative key of C-sharp minor, with a violin melody of questing, uneasy resignation spun out over a steady ground-bass accompaniment. The final movement is a brilliant virtuoso piece, with a complex intrusion of triplet rhythms (in the keyboard) pushing their way into the sixteenth-note bustle. The violin remains blithely unruffled by all this, and romps merrily on to a resounding conclusion.

For a concert by violinist Darwyn Apple