CM Notes » Corey Cerovsek, violin and Julien Quentin, piano
December 2, 2007
Today’s program explores different aspects of nineteenth century violin music, particularly the violin and piano sonata. Three of the pieces were written by master composers who covered most genres within their work, Brahms, Fauré and Janacek. Janacek and Fauré lived on into the first quarter of the twentieth century but still used the modes and idioms of their past. Only one of them, Janacek, looked into modernity from a unique and idiosyncratic perspective. These men came to composing through the piano.
The fourth piece is by Wieniawski, an extraordinary prodigy, virtuoso and composer. He turned to composing as an executant violinist, fully aware of the very last ounce of virtuosity and éclat to be obtained from the instrument. We hear the differences in the style of composition but do not articulate the reasons. Wieniawski is in the tradition of Corelli and Paganini, dazzling violinists whose playing actually took music forward. In each case they stretched the possibilities to the then limit.
With each generation, new skills were transmitted in two ways. One was that a master taught the pupil directly, showing the latter how to do something which he had painstakingly worked out for himself. The other was that there was now a body of music available which showcased these and other skills. The gifted student was determined to be able to play these challenging works. Today a reasonably good young violinist comes out of the conservatory easily playing pieces which two or three generations ago were only tackled by great virtuosi.
This phenomenon has been observed in many types of highly skilled activity, such as ballet and skating.
Franz Liszt did the same for the piano. Listen closely to today’s program and see what you think about the contrast between very great composers writing for the violin and a stellar player writing for himself.
Sonata for Violin and Piano (1922) Leos Janacek 1854 to 1928
Con moto
Ballada: Con moto
Allegretto
Adagio
Leos Janacek was born in Hukvaldy (in the Moravian section of Bohemia) near the Polish border, where the folk music is decidedly more modal and angular than in the rest of the country. This alone cannot account for the unusual qualities of Janacek’s mature works, but partial answers can be found in his unorthodox theories about sound, and in his fascination with the spoken word. Janacek was obsessed with the need to translate the rhythms and pulses of speech into musical values. He also had some odd notions about how musical tones interact in the listener’s ear to produce additional “subliminal” tones, and these theories led him to develop an entirely unique method of writing - one which his original champion, Antonin Dvorak, found highly disturbing.
Janacek was a fanatical Czech patriot, and violently resented the dominant Germanic culture which resulted from being part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This underlying attitude colored much of his approach to music. The language and speech he strove to encapsulate in his music was Czech, not the German most people spoke around him. It is interesting to speculate how different his music might have ended up sounding if he had attempted to capture German speech values musically.
The Violin Sonata is one of Janacek’s best known works. It was originally written in 1914, during World War One,”….when we were expecting the Russians to enter Moravia.” After several rejections it went through two major revisions, the last in 1922; by this time it was hardly the same sonata, with one movement discarded and the rest moved around. All the usual Janacek trademarks are present: the germinal motifs - hardly themes at all - which are not so much developed as repeated, combined, repeated in combination and de-combined, often to the accompaniment of a highly characteristic broken modal chord that rotates repeatedly around three notes. The rhythms are often abrupt, the phrases isolated from each other, and the overall effect is a haunting, mystical blending of the primitive and the sophisticated.
Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, Op. 78 Johannes Brahms 1833 -1897
Vivace ma non troppo
Adagio
Allegro molto moderato
The work of Johannes Brahms epitomizes the central German tradition of the Romantic era. He was “a genius,” according to Robert Schumann. Brahms’ works combine a classical style with a Romantic temperament. The effects of his sonorities are extremely varied, ranging from a violent symphonic texture to the delicate whisper in a song.
In his personal life, Brahms was stubborn and reserved as well as loyal and generous. His life-long devotion to the Schumann family is well known. Although he remained a bachelor, his attachment to Clara Schumann, Robert’s widow, and to their children, was of particular importance to his emotional and musical life.
Brahms composed his Sonata in G Major, Op. 78 shortly after the untimely death of his 24-year-old godson, the violinist and poet Felix Schumann. Even though the sonata reflects Brahms’s sadness, the overall effect of the work could be described as tender rather than despondent. Upon receiving the completed manuscript, Clara Schumann is quoted as having said, “[I] could not help bursting into tears of joy over it. … I wish the last movement could accompany me to the next world.”
The first movement opens mezza voce. Both instruments play with a slightly hushed quality. The violin has the main theme, with the memorable repeated “D”s in a dotted rhythm beginning the melody. The rhythmic configuration and pattern are quintessentially Brahmsian, especially as the movement begins. The strong beats of the violin and the piano hardly seem to line up. When they do finally meet, the impact of the emphasis is that much stronger, and the uneven overlapping lines of the two instruments give an incredible sense of a prolonged phrase.
The initial rhythm of the three dotted notes can be heard sporadically throughout the movement, as well as in the middle part of the second movement, marked Adagio. This section is distinguished by the somber quality of a funeral march, in great contrast to the heart-warming sections that precede and follow it.
This sonata does not have a Scherzo as would have been expected. Possibly the fact that there is a feeling of threnody made a lighthearted and cheerful Scherzo seem inappropriate. In the final movement the three “D”s make an appearance again. In the melody that begins with the dotted rhythm, one hears the accompaniment of quiet running 16th notes, from which the Romantic imagination evokes a gentle flow of water, perhaps of rain or of tears.
Later a theme from the second movement returns, suggesting hopefulness, and eventually leading to the triumphant sounds of happiness. The opening melody is heard again, after which the work comes to a quiet end, with a tender reminiscence of the past.
Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major, Op. 13 Gustave Fauré 1845 - 1924
Allegro molto
Andante
Allegro vivo
Allegro quasi presto
Gustave Fauré was born into modest circumstances and educated in church music. His slow maturation was not a disadvantage. He eventually studied with Camille Saint-Saëns in Paris. As Saint-Saëns aged Fauré began to take over many of his duties.
Before 1876, Fauré’s creative work was concentrated on songs and choral works. His salary as deputy organist at the Madeleine was small, as was the income he drew from teaching at the Ecole Niedermeyer, the renowned institution where he had received his musical training. To support his family, Fauré had to depend on private students. The Violin Sonata was written in 1876 and offered to Breitkopf and Härtel of Leipzig. The publisher accepted it without agreeing to pay any fee or royalties. Fauré, who at this juncture lacked a prominent teaching position as well as success on the opera stage and saw no prospect of finding a French publisher, accepted the offer. The same conditions were imposed on Fauré by the French publisher who took his Quartet for Piano and Strings.
The premiere of the Violin Sonata took place at the Trocadero in Paris in 1878. In that performance the composer was joined by violinist Paul Viardot, the dedicatee and son of the famous contralto Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Florent Schmitt, one of the Fauré’s most prominent students, declared that, although the Sonata was a coup d’essai (”first attempt”), it was surely a coup de maitre. Antedating Franck’s Sonata in the same key by ten years, it is the first outstanding achievement by a French composer in the genre.
The first Allegro is basically lyric in mood. There is no contrapuntal writing in its middle part that would interrupt the melodic flow. In this comparatively long movement, there are only two fortissimo accents. The Andante contrasts gentle passages with occasional strong ones. Its sad beginning gives way to a consoling ending. The Scherzo developed from the ascending A Major scale, taxes the dexterity of the pianist. There is a surprising feature: a passage in D-flat that allows the violinist lyric display and foreshadows the trio. Although not so designated, the “trio” begins in F-sharp minor, its melodic content distributed equally among the players. But virtuosity claims the “right of way” in the repeat of the Scherzo. A broad-spanned melody in the violin is the principal theme of the Finale, the preferred meter in concluding movements since the eighteenth century. The contrasting second theme is played by the violin in octave double-stops juxtaposed by syncopated motifs in the piano. Schmitt calls it a passage of “almost barbaric violence.” The accuracy of this description must, naturally, be found in the context of the 1870’s. The recapitulation occurs after a fortissimo outbreak, surprisingly in C Major. This may have irritated some academicians. There are no more infractions of the rules until the vigorous conclusion. Opus 13 is a landmark in French music. It foreshadows the Sonatas for Violin and Piano of Saint-Saëns and Franck, and anticipates works of Fauré to come, such as the Quartet for Piano and Strings in C minor.
Fantaisie brillante on themes of Gounod’s opera “Faust”, Opus 20 Henri Wieniawski 1835 - 1880
Violin prodigies emerge very early in childhood and Henri Wieniawski was no exception. At the age of eight he was ready to enter the Paris Conservatoire. Genius and prodigies abounded but none was as young as he was. Franz Liszt needed two attempts to enter the conservatoire but the faculty accepted Jacques Offenbach in that same year to study the cello on his first attempt. Offenbach was thirteen. Wieniawski was born into a Polish Jewish family but his father, Tobiasz, subsequently converted to Catholicism.
Today we think of him as the composer of brilliant and exquisite encores, essentially a miniaturist, when we think of him at all. This is the fate of a rather narrow-based composer because of the enormous competition from so many other composers on a larger scale. Wieniawski wrote some very important works for the violin repertoire. The second violin concerto in d minor, (1862) is still played quite frequently but the first one in F sharp major, (1853) is just as remarkable and difficult. In 1847, while still a student, he published his first piece, a Grand Caprice Fantastique. His catalogue eventually contained 24 opus numbers.
For several years after he graduated, Wieniawski and his brother Jozef, a gifted pianist, toured Europe giving recitals and concerts. Anton Rubinstein heard him play and invited him to move to St Petersburg in 1860. Wieniawski and Rubinstein later toured the United States from 1872 to 1874. He was succeeded as the leading violin teacher in St Petersburg by Leopold Auer.
On his return from the United States, Wieniawski was recruited to replace Henri Vieuxtemps as violin professor as the Brussels Conservatory. He only survived four years in that post, dying from the illness which had dogged his for some time.
On March 29, 1865, the audience at the St. Petersburg Opera house was treated to the first performance of Wieniawski’s new composition, Fantaisie brillante on the themes of Gounod’s opera “Faust”, dedicated to King Christian IX of Denmark.
The work shows Wieniawski’s skill in reworking materials from Gounod’s opera into an extended narrative. The cadenzas are expansive and in them the utterances of the violin seem almost vocal.
Program notes supplied by the ARTS MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC, augmented and edited by Judith Taylor
Today’s program explores different aspects of nineteenth century violin music, particularly the violin and piano sonata. Three of the pieces were written by master composers who covered most genres within their work, Brahms, Fauré and Janacek. Janacek and Fauré lived on into the first quarter of the twentieth century but still used the modes and idioms of their past. Only one of them, Janacek, looked into modernity from a unique and idiosyncratic perspective. These men came to composing through the piano.
The fourth piece is by Wieniawski, an extraordinary prodigy, virtuoso and composer. He turned to composing as an executant violinist, fully aware of the very last ounce of virtuosity and éclat to be obtained from the instrument. We hear the differences in the style of composition but do not articulate the reasons. Wieniawski is in the tradition of Corelli and Paganini, dazzling violinists whose playing actually took music forward. In each case they stretched the possibilities to the then limit.
With each generation, new skills were transmitted in two ways. One was that a master taught the pupil directly, showing the latter how to do something which he had painstakingly worked out for himself. The other was that there was now a body of music available which showcased these and other skills. The gifted student was determined to be able to play these challenging works. Today a reasonably good young violinist comes out of the conservatory easily playing pieces which two or three generations ago were only tackled by great virtuosi.
This phenomenon has been observed in many types of highly skilled activity, such as ballet and skating.
Franz Liszt did the same for the piano. Listen closely to today’s program and see what you think about the contrast between very great composers writing for the violin and a stellar player writing for himself.
Sonata for Violin and Piano (1922) Leos Janacek 1854 to 1928
Con moto
Ballada: Con moto
Allegretto
Adagio
Leos Janacek was born in Hukvaldy (in the Moravian section of Bohemia) near the Polish border, where the folk music is decidedly more modal and angular than in the rest of the country. This alone cannot account for the unusual qualities of Janacek’s mature works, but partial answers can be found in his unorthodox theories about sound, and in his fascination with the spoken word. Janacek was obsessed with the need to translate the rhythms and pulses of speech into musical values. He also had some odd notions about how musical tones interact in the listener’s ear to produce additional “subliminal” tones, and these theories led him to develop an entirely unique method of writing - one which his original champion, Antonin Dvorak, found highly disturbing.
Janacek was a fanatical Czech patriot, and violently resented the dominant Germanic culture which resulted from being part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This underlying attitude colored much of his approach to music. The language and speech he strove to encapsulate in his music was Czech, not the German most people spoke around him. It is interesting to speculate how different his music might have ended up sounding if he had attempted to capture German speech values musically.
The Violin Sonata is one of Janacek’s best known works. It was originally written in 1914, during World War One,”….when we were expecting the Russians to enter Moravia.” After several rejections it went through two major revisions, the last in 1922; by this time it was hardly the same sonata, with one movement discarded and the rest moved around. All the usual Janacek trademarks are present: the germinal motifs - hardly themes at all - which are not so much developed as repeated, combined, repeated in combination and de-combined, often to the accompaniment of a highly characteristic broken modal chord that rotates repeatedly around three notes. The rhythms are often abrupt, the phrases isolated from each other, and the overall effect is a haunting, mystical blending of the primitive and the sophisticated.
Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major, Op. 78 Johannes Brahms 1833 -1897
Vivace ma non troppo
Adagio
Allegro molto moderato
The work of Johannes Brahms epitomizes the central German tradition of the Romantic era. He was “a genius,” according to Robert Schumann. Brahms’ works combine a classical style with a Romantic temperament. The effects of his sonorities are extremely varied, ranging from a violent symphonic texture to the delicate whisper in a song.
In his personal life, Brahms was stubborn and reserved as well as loyal and generous. His life-long devotion to the Schumann family is well known. Although he remained a bachelor, his attachment to Clara Schumann, Robert’s widow, and to their children, was of particular importance to his emotional and musical life.
Brahms composed his Sonata in G Major, Op. 78 shortly after the untimely death of his 24-year-old godson, the violinist and poet Felix Schumann. Even though the sonata reflects Brahms’s sadness, the overall effect of the work could be described as tender rather than despondent. Upon receiving the completed manuscript, Clara Schumann is quoted as having said, “[I] could not help bursting into tears of joy over it. … I wish the last movement could accompany me to the next world.”
The first movement opens mezza voce. Both instruments play with a slightly hushed quality. The violin has the main theme, with the memorable repeated “D”s in a dotted rhythm beginning the melody. The rhythmic configuration and pattern are quintessentially Brahmsian, especially as the movement begins. The strong beats of the violin and the piano hardly seem to line up. When they do finally meet, the impact of the emphasis is that much stronger, and the uneven overlapping lines of the two instruments give an incredible sense of a prolonged phrase.
The initial rhythm of the three dotted notes can be heard sporadically throughout the movement, as well as in the middle part of the second movement, marked Adagio. This section is distinguished by the somber quality of a funeral march, in great contrast to the heart-warming sections that precede and follow it.
This sonata does not have a Scherzo as would have been expected. Possibly the fact that there is a feeling of threnody made a lighthearted and cheerful Scherzo seem inappropriate. In the final movement the three “D”s make an appearance again. In the melody that begins with the dotted rhythm, one hears the accompaniment of quiet running 16th notes, from which the Romantic imagination evokes a gentle flow of water, perhaps of rain or of tears.
Later a theme from the second movement returns, suggesting hopefulness, and eventually leading to the triumphant sounds of happiness. The opening melody is heard again, after which the work comes to a quiet end, with a tender reminiscence of the past.
Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major, Op. 13 Gustave Fauré 1845 - 1924
Allegro molto
Andante
Allegro vivo
Allegro quasi presto
Gustave Fauré was born into modest circumstances and educated in church music. His slow maturation was not a disadvantage. He eventually studied with Camille Saint-Saëns in Paris. As Saint-Saëns aged Fauré began to take over many of his duties.
Before 1876, Fauré’s creative work was concentrated on songs and choral works. His salary as deputy organist at the Madeleine was small, as was the income he drew from teaching at the Ecole Niedermeyer, the renowned institution where he had received his musical training. To support his family, Fauré had to depend on private students. The Violin Sonata was written in 1876 and offered to Breitkopf and Härtel of Leipzig. The publisher accepted it without agreeing to pay any fee or royalties. Fauré, who at this juncture lacked a prominent teaching position as well as success on the opera stage and saw no prospect of finding a French publisher, accepted the offer. The same conditions were imposed on Fauré by the French publisher who took his Quartet for Piano and Strings.
The premiere of the Violin Sonata took place at the Trocadero in Paris in 1878. In that performance the composer was joined by violinist Paul Viardot, the dedicatee and son of the famous contralto Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Florent Schmitt, one of the Fauré’s most prominent students, declared that, although the Sonata was a coup d’essai (”first attempt”), it was surely a coup de maitre. Antedating Franck’s Sonata in the same key by ten years, it is the first outstanding achievement by a French composer in the genre.
The first Allegro is basically lyric in mood. There is no contrapuntal writing in its middle part that would interrupt the melodic flow. In this comparatively long movement, there are only two fortissimo accents. The Andante contrasts gentle passages with occasional strong ones. Its sad beginning gives way to a consoling ending. The Scherzo developed from the ascending A Major scale, taxes the dexterity of the pianist. There is a surprising feature: a passage in D-flat that allows the violinist lyric display and foreshadows the trio. Although not so designated, the “trio” begins in F-sharp minor, its melodic content distributed equally among the players. But virtuosity claims the “right of way” in the repeat of the Scherzo. A broad-spanned melody in the violin is the principal theme of the Finale, the preferred meter in concluding movements since the eighteenth century. The contrasting second theme is played by the violin in octave double-stops juxtaposed by syncopated motifs in the piano. Schmitt calls it a passage of “almost barbaric violence.” The accuracy of this description must, naturally, be found in the context of the 1870’s. The recapitulation occurs after a fortissimo outbreak, surprisingly in C Major. This may have irritated some academicians. There are no more infractions of the rules until the vigorous conclusion. Opus 13 is a landmark in French music. It foreshadows the Sonatas for Violin and Piano of Saint-Saëns and Franck, and anticipates works of Fauré to come, such as the Quartet for Piano and Strings in C minor.
Fantaisie brillante on themes of Gounod’s opera “Faust”, Opus 20 Henri Wieniawski 1835 - 1880
Violin prodigies emerge very early in childhood and Henri Wieniawski was no exception. At the age of eight he was ready to enter the Paris Conservatoire. Genius and prodigies abounded but none was as young as he was. Franz Liszt needed two attempts to enter the conservatoire but the faculty accepted Jacques Offenbach in that same year to study the cello on his first attempt. Offenbach was thirteen. Wieniawski was born into a Polish Jewish family but his father, Tobiasz, subsequently converted to Catholicism.
Today we think of him as the composer of brilliant and exquisite encores, essentially a miniaturist, when we think of him at all. This is the fate of a rather narrow-based composer because of the enormous competition from so many other composers on a larger scale. Wieniawski wrote some very important works for the violin repertoire. The second violin concerto in d minor, (1862) is still played quite frequently but the first one in F sharp major, (1853) is just as remarkable and difficult. In 1847, while still a student, he published his first piece, a Grand Caprice Fantastique. His catalogue eventually contained 24 opus numbers.
For several years after he graduated, Wieniawski and his brother Jozef, a gifted pianist, toured Europe giving recitals and concerts. Anton Rubinstein heard him play and invited him to move to St Petersburg in 1860. Wieniawski and Rubinstein later toured the United States from 1872 to 1874. He was succeeded as the leading violin teacher in St Petersburg by Leopold Auer.
On his return from the United States, Wieniawski was recruited to replace Henri Vieuxtemps as violin professor as the Brussels Conservatory. He only survived four years in that post, dying from the illness which had dogged his for some time.
On March 29, 1865, the audience at the St. Petersburg Opera house was treated to the first performance of Wieniawski’s new composition, Fantaisie brillante on the themes of Gounod’s opera “Faust”, dedicated to King Christian IX of Denmark.
The work shows Wieniawski’s skill in reworking materials from Gounod’s opera into an extended narrative. The cadenzas are expansive and in them the utterances of the violin seem almost vocal.
Program notes supplied by the ARTS MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC, augmented and edited by Judith Taylor
