BEETHOVEN String Quartet in F Op.135 HAYDN String Quartet in G Op.33 No.5 ‘How do you do?’ MOZART String Quartet in A K464
Music in the Round’s Visiting String Quartet make their Barnsley debut! The Consone Quartet has won great acclaim for its authentic interpretations of Romantic and Classical works, with prestigious awards including the Royal Over-Seas League Ensemble prize and as BBC New Generation Artists.
BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, String Quartet in F Op.135
Allegretto
Vivace
Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo
Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß [The difficult decision]. Grave, ma non troppo tanto (Muss es sein? [Must it be?]) – Allegro (Es muss sein! [It must be!]) – Grave, ma non troppo tratto – Allegro
Beethoven’s final string quartet (only the replacement finale of Op.130 is later) was completed in October 1826. After an awful summer during which his nephew Karl had attempted suicide and been imprisoned, Beethoven was able to escape to the tranquillity of Gneixendorf, a village near Krems about fifty miles from Vienna. He arrived at the end of September and his last masterpiece was finished in the following month, much of it composed outdoors (the locals were amused to observe Beethoven singing and waving his arms as he worked). It is dedicated to his friend and supporter Johann Nepomuk Wolfmayer, who was originally to have been the dedicatee of the C sharp minor Quartet Op.131. The F major Quartet Op.135 is much the shortest of the late quartets, and there’s a conciseness and simplicity that perhaps point forward to the direction Beethoven might have pursued in his music had he lived longer. Its less serious mood can also be explained by the circumstances in which it was written: at the end of his tether after his nephew’s problems in the summer, the composer could at last be refreshed. Op.135 seems to be imbued with this new sense of well-being, and within a relatively conventional movement structure (unlike several of the other late quartets), Beethoven expresses both humour and the deepest seriousness with amazing brevity. The expressive heart of the work was probably the first part to be composed: the Lento assai, barely fifty bars long, was originally intended for the Op.131 Quartet. The finale has the famous superscription “The difficult decision”, based on a question-and-answer motif: “Must it be? – It must be!” The origins of this are a canon jotted down at the end of July 1826, “half-humorous, half-philosophical” as Barry Cooper puts it, providing the ideal theme for a movement that seems to encapsulate the “difficult decisions” that marked out Beethoven as a timeless genius.
HAYDN Joseph, String Quartet in G major ‘How do you do’
i. Vivace assai ii. Largo e cantabile iii. Scherzo. Allegro – Trio iv. Finale. Allegretto
Haydn’s Op.33 came after a ten-year gap from his previous string quartet. In 1781 he wrote this set of six pieces that have since been called the ‘Russian’ quartets, as Haydn dedicated them to the Grand Duke Paul of Russia. ‘Russian’ quartet No. 5 is also known as ‘How Do You Do’, due to the four-note sequence that opens the first theme, and that is repeated at various intervals throughout all four movements. The second movement is set apart from the other lively and upbeat movements, holding a darker, more melancholy feeling to it. The Scherzo is by far the most playful of the four pieces, containing displaced accents and long pauses that constantly fool the listener into believing the piece is reaching its end. Together, Op.33 No.5 is a set of sophisticated pieces full of energy and momentum, that audiences have adored since Haydn first composed them.
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, String Quartet in A major K464
i. Allegro ii. Menuetto and Trio iii. Andante (theme with variations) iv. Allegro non troppo
Mozart wrote this String Quartet in A major in 1785, and it was the fifth of his six quartets that he dedicated to contemporary composer Joseph Haydn. Haydn and Mozart held each other’s work in high regard, even sitting down together to play the last three ‘Haydn’ quartets, with Haydn on first violin and Mozart playing viola. String Quartet in A major is much more frugal in its makeup than many of Mozart’s other works, with only a couple of short musical themes being established and explored in each piece. Ironically though, it is one of his longest quartets. It is sometimes known as the Drum because in the sixth variation of the Andante, the cello part has a repeated staccato section that has been likened to a drumbeat. The coda in the Allegro non troppo picks up on Haydn’s practice of ‘joke’ endings, bringing the set to a playful conclusion.
Programme includes: MOZART Sonata in E minor K304 (12′) SCHUMANN F-A-E sonata, ‘II. Intermezzo’ (3′) LUTOSLAWSKI Subito (6′) SCHUMANN Sonata No.1 in A minor Op.105 (17′) MOZART Sonata in G K301 (15′) MESSIAEN Theme and variations (11′) MOZART Sonata in A K.305 (15′)
Mozart’s glorious violin sonatas – among the composer’s most charming works – nestle between music by Robert Schumann in this gorgeous recital for violin and piano. Violinist Claudia Ajmone-Marsan and pianist Tim Horton promise an evening of exuberant, lyrical, and joyful music from two of the greatest composers of the Classical and Romantic periods.
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor K304
Allegro
Tempo di Menuetto
Mozart’s visit to Paris in 1778 – fifteen years after his dazzling first appearance in the city as a child prodigy – was not a success, and the composer was irritated by the apparent indifference of both the musical public and the aristocracy. The highlight of his stay was probably the first performance of the ‘Paris’ Symphony K297 on 18 June. Among the works he composed in Paris was the Violin Sonata in E minor (a key seldom used by Mozart). It has been suggested that the desolate mood of this work – headed “Sonata IV à Paris” in Mozart’s hand on the manuscript – may reflect the tragic illness and death (on 3 July) of Mozart’s mother, who was with him in Paris. While this may be an unduly Romantic interpretation, it is certainly one of Mozart’s bleakest works from this period, and also one of remarkable concentration – in just two movements, the second of which is a melancholy, restrained Minuet in which both players are directed to play sotto voce at several points in the score.
The F-A-E Sonata wascreated in 1853, as a gift for violinist Joseph Joachim. Writtenfor violin and piano, and made up of four movements, the sonatawas actually composed by 3 individuals; Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahams, and Albert Dietrich, who was a pupil of Schumann’s. The three composers had recently befriended the violinist and challenged Joachim to work out who had composed which movement. Schumann was responsible for movements 2 and 4, the 2nd movement being a short Intermezzo. The Sonata’s movements are all based on the musical notes of F, A and E, and are taken from the first letters of Joachim’s adopted motto “Frei abereinsam”, meaning “free, but lonely”. Schumann would later add two more movements to the ones written for Joachim, to make his Violin Sonata No.3 in A minor. The F-A-E Sonata wasn’t published in its entirety until 1935, 82 years after it was first written.
LUTOSŁAWSKI Witold, Subito
One of Lutosławski’s final works, Subito was commissioned in 1992 by Joseph Gingold for the 1994 Indianapolis International Violin Competition. He had learned to play the violin as a child, something that served him in good stead when composing for strings throughout his life. Lutosławski believed the piece to be a “functional” challenge that would show off a competitor’s virtuosity, with a refrain from the opening bars being used to form four episodes that come together to create a story of violinistic excellence.This commission arrived shortly after Lutosławski was diagnosed with cancer, putting on hold a violin concerto that he had been writing for acclaimed violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Fragments of this concerto were only discovered posthumously, making Subito his final published work for violin before his death.
SCHUMANN Robert, Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor, Op.105
Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck [With passionate expression]
Allegretto
Lebhaft [Lively]
Schumann often composed in bursts of creative speed, and his Violin Sonata No.1 Op.105 was written in less than a week in September 1851 – starting on his wedding anniversary (12 September) and finishing five days later. Originally he described the work as a ‘Duo for piano and violin’ and it was the first of what Linda Correll Roesner has described as ‘an exceptional group of three chamber works’ written within a couple of months – along with the Piano Trio in G minor Op.110 and the Violin Sonata No.2 Op.121. In his articles, Schumann often wrote about the challenges of musical form for any composer after Beethoven. In this sonata, Schumann uses great economy of means, evident right from the start: the themes of the first movement are based on a limited range of notes, characterised by a falling semitone figure that is heavy with melancholy. The central movement is less anguished – a kind of quirky intermezzo in F major –while the finale is urgent and uncompromising. Near the close, a recollection of the sonata’s opening theme is undermined by the restless, rapid semiquavers that dominate the movement.
The sonata was first played by Joseph von Wasilewski (leader of Schumann’s orchestra in Düsseldorf) and Clara Schumann, at a private run-through on 16 October 1851. The public premiere was given a few months later in Leipzig on 21 March 1852, performed by Ferdinand David with Clara Schumann. Both Clara and Wasilewski recalled playing the piece through for Schumann. According to Clara, ‘I was so restless, I had to try Robert’s new sonata this very day. We played it, and were particularly moved by the very elegiac first movement and the lovely second movement. Only the somewhat less charming third movement caused us some difficulty.’ Wasilewski recalled that ‘on the whole Schumann was satisfied with my performance. Only my playing of the finale failed to please him. We went through it three more times, but Schumann said that he had expected the violin part to have a different effect. I was unable to convey the unyielding, brusque tone of the piece to his satisfaction.’ The finale clearly proved troublesome for both pianist and violinist. Clara’s suggestion that it is ‘less charming’ is puzzling. While the music is indeed brusque (as Wasilewski says) – Schumann resists any hint of easy allure by interrupting its more tender moments with abrupt chords – it is strong and intense, bringing this highly original piece to an impassioned conclusion.
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Sonata for Violin and Piano in G, K301
Allegretto con spirito
Allegro The G Major Sonata for Violin and Piano is the first of a group of six for piano and violin composed in Mannheim and Paris during the course of the tour undertaken by Mozart and his mother during 1777 and 1778. Mozart seems to have been inspired to write these works after a chance discovery. On October 6, 1777, he wrote a letter to his father about a set of sonatas by the Dresden musician Joseph Schuster (1748–1812): “I send my sister herewith six duets for harpsichord and violin by Schuster, which I have often played here. They are not bad. If I stay on I shall write six myself in the same style, as they are very popular here.” What seems to have struck Mozart about Schuster’s sonatas is the independence of the two instrumental parts – with much more prominent writing for violin than in Mozart’s earlier sonatas for this combination. These six sonatas were published in Paris in as Mozart’s “Opus 1”, dedicated to Maria Elisabeth, Electress of the Palatinate. The first movement is a variant of sonata form (without a significant development of the ideas), and the second suggests a bucolic dance, with a minor-key episode at its centre providing a contrast to the sunnier outer sections.
Nigel Simeone 2013
MESSIAEN Olivier, Theme and variations
Thème – Modéré Variation 1 – Modéré Variation 2 – Un peu moins Modére Variation 3 – Modéré, avec éclat Variation 4 – Vif et passionné Variation 5 – Tres modéré
Messian wrote his Theme and variations as a wedding present for his first wife, violinist Claire Delbos in 1932. The first performance of the piece was held at the Cercle Musical de Paris on 22nd November (which also happened to be Delbos’ birthday). Although this was Messiaen’s first piece of chamber music, it is as equally characteristic and emotionally accessible as his most well-known chamber piece, the Quartet for the End of Time. Structurally, Theme and variations is one of more straightforward works, with a tender and lyrical theme that is followed by increasingly animated variations. The use of a classical theme and variation form is unusual in Messiaen’s writing, but the intense slow burn created by the very slow tempo markings creates a fantastical world entirely within keeping of the rapturous individualism that he is known for.
MOZART Wolfgang Amadeus, Sonata in A, K305
i. Allegro di molto ii. Andante grazioso
Sonata in A was inspired by Joseph Schuster’s piano and violin duets, which Mozart first played whilst looking for jobs in Mannheim, Germany. The sonatais made of 2 movements. The first is in sonata form, which follows the structure of introducing a musical idea or ideas, exploring it and then returning to the main themes at the end. It is one of Mozart’s most joyous melodies ofall his violin sonatas. The second movement is a theme–and–variation form and completely contrasts with the tone of the first. It has a slower tempo and a much more subdued melody and is followed by six variations on the main theme. Typical of theme-and-variation pieces of the time, the penultimate variation is very stark, and in a minor mode. The set ends with an up-tempo dance and is the only piece of the lot that is in triple metre instead of duple.
Music in the Round invites your class to take part in a brilliant music project, culminating in a live concert at The Civic, Barnsley.
Paul Rissmann (composer) has created a fantastic piece of music based around the children’s book Giddy Goat (Jamie Rix and Lynne Chapman) which includes songs for your class to learn and join in with in the concert.
Our EY and KS1 practitioners will support you to embed singing and music-making in classroom learning throughout the project, with training, resources, and in-school support newly developed around the Giddy Goat story. The project introduces young children to classical music in a fun and educational setting, including a concert featuring strings, woodwind and horn, presented together with story-telling and projected illustrations.
Being a mountain goat is no fun when you are scared of heights! Stand poor Giddy on a mountain ledge and his head starts spinning and his knees turn to jelly. But can he find the fearless goat inside himself in time to rescue little Edmund?
Performed by the wonderfully dynamic and hugely engaging musicians from Ensemble 360, this concert is a great introduction to live music for early years and KS1 children. It’s full of wit, invention, songs and actions, and plenty of opportunities to join in.
HOLST Phantasy String Quartet BRITTEN Three Divertimenti for String Quartet
HOWELLS Phantasy Sting Quartet PURCELL Three-part Fantasias
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS(arr. Gerigk) The Lark Ascending
The violin soars melodiously above the rest of the quartet in the gorgeous arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ most popular work The Lark Ascending, which concludes this concert of English music. Fantasies from the Baroque gems of Purcell’s Three-part Fantasias to Imogen Holst’s Phantasy String Quartet sit alongside this perennial favourite.
HAAS Oboe Suite Op.17 JANÁČEK In the Mists BRITTEN Wind Sextet JANÁČEK Mládí
Janáček’s beloved Mládí (‘Youth’) was written towards the end of his life as a nostalgic celebration of memories of his youth, drawing on his early writing. Receiving its premiere performances in Autumn 1924, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of this iconic piece for wind, featuring the bass clarinet alongside a regular wind quintet line-up of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon.
HAAS Pavel, Suite for Oboe & Piano Op.17
Furioso Con fuoco. Con moto e poco largamente Moderato
Pavel Haas, born in Brno into a Jewish family, was a pupil of Leoš Janáček from 1920 to 1922. Though his music doesn’t imitate that of his great teacher, both composers sought inspiration from Moravian folk song and dance. Janáček once declared that ‘a modern composer has to write what he has truly experienced’, but Haas was to experience more and much worse than most. However, in 1939, when he wrote the Suite for Oboe, he had just been awarded the Smetana Prize for his opera, The Charlatan, first performed at Brno in 1938. The musical language of the Suite, occasionally folk-inspired, sometimes recalling the cadences of Synagogue songs, and notable for its energy and drive, marks out Haas as a composer of real individuality, rugged in the first two movements, and more consoling in the third, rising to a grand climax that has occasional echoes of his great teacher.
Haas was deported to the concentration camp and ghetto at Teresienstadt in 1941 where he met the conductor Karel Ančerl as well as several other Czech Jewish composers such as Gideon Klein (who coaxed Haas back to composition), Hans Krása and Viktor Ullmann. In later years, it was Ančerl who most movingly recalled the appalling circumstances of Haas’s murder after both were transferred to Auschwitz: Ančerl was next in line to be sent to the gas chamber when Haas coughed, thus attracting the attention of the SS Doctor Josef Mengele, who chose to send Haas to his death instead.
Nigel Simeone 2014
JANÁČEK Leoš, In the Mists
JANÁČEK Leoš, In the Mists
Janáček inspiration for In the mists probably came from a recital at the Brno Organ School on 28 January 1912 when Marie Dvořáková played Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau. In the mists certainly shows the influence of Debussy’s Impressionism, though it is also a nostalgic reflection on childhood: Bohumír Štědroň wrote that ‘Here Janáček sees his youth in a mist and remembers the days spent at Hukvaldy’. Janáček made some revisions to the cycle before publication by the Club of the Friends of Art in Brno (to which Janáček belonged) near the end of 1913. According to the title page of this edition, In the mists was given to members of the club as a gift for the year 1913. The first performance took place on 7 December 1913 at Kroměříž, played by Marie Dvořáková. She played it again, on 24 January 1914, at a Brno Organ School concert in the Lužánky Hall when Janáček himself was present. The first known performance in Prague was not until 16 December 1922, given by the pianist Václav Štěpán and the following year Janáček asked Štěpán to help him prepare an edition incorporating his final versions. An inspired combination of Impressionism and musical ideas derived from Moravian folk music, In the mists is in four movements: the first haunting (and occasionally trouble), the second quite free, the third based on a memorable melody heard at the start, and the fourth hints at the flourishes of gypsy music as well as moments of high drama. All four movements are permeated by tenderness and nostalgia, without any hint of sentimentality.
Nigel Simeone
JANÁČEK Leoš, Mládí
Janáček composed Mládí in July 1924 (the month of his 70th birthday) at his rural retreat in the village of Hukvaldy. He described it to Kamila Stösslová as ‘a sort of memoir of youth’, and a newspaper article in December 1924 described the programme of the suite as follows: ‘In the first movement, [Janáček] remembers his childhood at school in Hukvaldy, in the second the sad scenes of parting with his mother at the station in Brno, in the third in 1866 as a chorister when the Prussians were in Brno; the concluding movement is a courageous leap into life.’ Intended as a nostalgic evocation of Janáček’s youth (his original title was Mladý život – Young Life) it is a typically quirky and ebullient product of his incredibly productive old age. It was first performed in Brno on 24 October 1924, followed a month later by a performance in Prague. Janáček also heard the work during his only visit to England, at a concert in the Wigmore Hall on 6 May 1926 when it was played by British musicians including Leon Goossens and Aubrey Brain.
BEETHOVEN
Cello Sonata in C Op.102 No.1 (15′)
Cello Sonata in A Op.69 (26′)
Cello Sonata in G minor Op.5 No.2 (24′)
Cello Sonata in D Op.102 No.2 (19′) FRANCES-HOAD Invocation (4′)
These works for piano and cello are the perfect introduction to the unique musical mind of Beethoven. Beethoven broke the mould by creating works in which the two instruments were true equals: in conversation and competition, wrestling and supporting one another to create dazzling musical journeys that remain thrillingly fresh and deeply moving.
Join Music in the Round for a friendly and welcoming classical concert performed by the brilliant Ensemble 360, a group of world-class artists who perform music written specially for small combinations of strings, wind and piano.
BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, Cello Sonata Op.102 No.1
Beethoven’s two cello sonatas Op.102 (in C major and D major) were composed in 1815 and dedicated to Beethoven’s friend, Countess Anna Maria Erdödy. They were published in Vienna (by Artaria) and Bonn (by Simrock) in 1817. The first of the two sonatas is one of Beethoven’s most unusual structures, consisting of two fast movements, each of them preceded by an extended slow introduction.
The first movement opens gently, with a lyrical melody in the upper register of the cello, to which the piano responds with an answering phrase, establishing the instrumental dialogue that is so often a feature of this sonata. After subsiding on to a C, the lowest note of the cello, there is an abrupt change of mood and tempo with the arrival of a stern idea in A minor, marked by dotted rhythms. The movement remains in A minor for most of the movement, ending tersely. The second movement begins with an elaborate slow introduction which gives way to a radiant recollection of the first movement – an unusual procedure that Beethoven was to use again in the finale of his Ninth Symphony. The main theme of the Allegro begins strangely, with a four-note rising fragment and a held note, but this idea quickly develops dramatic momentum, interrupted on several occasions by passages where the cello plays sustained notes and the piano is silent. The movement ends by appearing to fizzle out (using the four-note idea), before a triumphant closing flourish.
BEETHOVEN Ludwig van, Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Op.102 No.2
Allegro con brio
Adagio con molto sentimento d’affetto
Allegro – Allegro fugato
Beethoven’s last two cello sonatas were composed in 1815 dedicated to the Countess Anna Maria Erdödy. The initial critical response was one of bewilderment, one critic declaring that “these two sonatas are definitely among the strangest and most unusual works … ever written for the pianoforte. Everything about them is completely different from anything else we have heard, even by this composer.” Indeed, the D major Cello Sonata Op.102 No.2 is a work that points forward to some of Beethoven’s final instrumental works – the late piano sonatas and quartets – in significant ways. The Beethoven scholar William Kinderman has suggested that the solemnity and austerity of the slow movement (in D minor) has pre-echoes of the ‘Heiliger Dankgesang’ from the Quartet Op.132, while fugal finale is the one of a series of such movements in Beethoven’s late instrumental pieces (followed by the ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata and the Grosse Fuge among others). The whole sonata, from the brusque opening of its first movement, to the extraordinary culmination of the fugue, is characterized by wild emotional contrasts: the stern, profoundly serious Adagio is flanked by two faster movements that are dominated by a fiery, even angry, dialogue between the two instruments.
Invocation was originally the second movement of Melancholia, my first piano trio, written in 1999.
The piano trio is based on Melancholy, a painting by Edvard Munch that formed part of his Frieze of Life. Munch described the Frieze as a “poem of life, love and death”, and Melancholy, which depicts a man (sometimes thought to be the artist himself) looking out at the sea and oppressive sky, concludes the first of the three sections of paintings called Love blossoms and dies.
I had written a chamber opera, with all manner of instruments at my disposal, before starting my piano trio. In Melancholia I aimed at producing a much sparser music (at many points simply a melody with chordal accompaniment) in an attempt to prove to myself that I could still convey a great deal of emotion with only those notes that were absolutely necessary.
A celebration of JS Bach’s much-loved music for solo violin and a chance to enjoy some of the most beautiful works ever written for the instrument.
BACH Sonata No.1 in G minor (18’) BARTÓK Sonata for solo violin (25′) BACH Partita No.1 in B minor (28’)
Join Music in the Round for a friendly and welcoming classical concert performed by Ensemble 360‘s brilliant violinist Benjamin Nabarro.
BACH J.S., Sonata No.1 for solo violin, BWV 1001
On Bach’s autograph fair copy of the Sonatas and Partitas he calls them ‘Six Solos for violin without bass accompaniment’. They were completed in 1720, the date Bach added beneath his signature on the title page, though it is likely that he had been working on them before then. These magnificent pieces stand as one of the greatest monuments of Baroque instrumental music, but it is worth considering some of the precursors that might have inspired him – all works with which Bach was almost certainly familiar. First, a suite for solo violin without bass and a set of six partitas by Johann Paul von Westhoff (1656–1705), the movements based on dance forms, making extensive use of ‘multiple-stops’ (playing more than one string at the same time) to create the illusion of a solo instrument in dialogue with itself. Westhoff spent his last few years as a violinist at the court in Weimar where Bach met him in 1703, and this encounter may well have given Bach the idea of trying something similar. The unaccompanied Passacaglia which Heinrich Biber (1644–1704) composed as an epilogue to his Rosary Sonatas in about 1676 could well have provided a model (particularly for the Chaconne of the D minor Partita), and Biber’s pupil Johann Joseph Vilsmaÿr (1663–1722) published a set of Six Partitas for solo violin in 1715. In 1717, Vivaldi’s pupil Johann Georg Pisendel (1687–1755) showed Bach his Sonata for solo violin without bass – and later performed Bach’s sonatas and partitas.
The overall design of Bach’s Six Solos alternates Sonatas with Partitas. Each Sonata is in four movements, with a slow opening movement followed by a faster fugue. The finales are characterised by fast, continuous writing full of the kind of kinetic energy that fuels so much of Bach’s music. The third movements are more varied – and each is in a different key from the rest of the sonata. In the First Sonata (in G minor), Bach’s third movement is a gently lilting Siciliano in B flat major. But some of Bach’s most innovative writing in this work is to be found in the fugue (second movement), a marvel of ingenuity which demands from the player a combination of virtuosity and musical insight: Bach was writing here for extremely skilled musicians and may have played the Sonata and Partitas himself (he was a fine violinist as well as a superb keyboard player). There’s a brilliant kind of musical conjuring trick involved in the fugue: the violin is essentially a melodic instrument intended to play a single line, but here, through the use of double-stops and incredibly ingenious part-writing, Bach presents two or more musical lines at once. The result is a compositional sleight of hand with the violin functioning as more than one part, sometimes supported by bass lines that it also supplies itself. The G minor Sonata demonstrates Bach’s ability to create music of the greatest imagination within quite a strict, formal structure: at its most expressive in the first and third movements (Adagio and Siciliana), at its most technically brilliant (and demanding) in the fugue, and at its most energetic and direct in the Presto finale.
Written for the renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s (1881-1945) Sonata for Solo Violin is widely considered one of the most challenging and expressive works for the instrument. It sits well in this programme, inspired, as it was, by Menhuin’s performance of Bach’s solo violin sonatas. Indeed, Bartók blends elements of the Baroque – the striking triple- and quadruple ‘stops’ of the opening, for example, in which the violinist plays three or four notes simultaneously – with the composer’s signature folk-inspired melodies; angular, sometimes discordant tunes drawn from the folk traditions of Eastern Europe, for which he is perhaps best known. The Sonata is in four movements: the intense and lyrical Tempo di ciaccona, the haunting Fuga, the delicate Melodia, and the virtuosic Presto. Each movement explores the violin’s capabilities, demanding both technical mastery and profound musicality.
BACH J.S., Partita No.1 for solo violin, BWV 1002
The Partitas are very different in terms of their structures. While each is, broadly speaking, a suite of dances, Bach treats this idea with considerable freedom. The First Partita presents four dances – Allemanda, Corrente, Sarabande and Tempo di borea (i.e. Bourée) – but each of them is followed by a ‘Double’, a kind of variation which Bach uses either to create contrast (as in the Allemanda and Corrente) or to intensify a particular mood, something he does to memorable effect in the Sarabande and its ‘double’, or to create still greater musical momentum, as in the Tempo di borea and its double.
After Bach’s death, a few expert performers continued to play the Sonatas and Partitas from manuscript copies, notably Haydn’s friend Johann Peter Salomon. The whole collection was published for the first time in 1802. In the nineteenth century, Mendelssohn and Schumann both felt the need to ‘enhance’ Bach’s original by adding piano accompaniments. Joseph Joachim was perhaps the first great virtuoso since Salomon to present Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas in concerts, and even in the recording studio (some extraordinarily evocative records from 1903). Thanks to Joachim’s efforts and those of his successors such as Georges Enescu, the Sonatas and Partitas finally came to be recognised as creative pinnacles of the violin repertoire.
SCHUBERT String Trio in B flat D471 (8′) DOHNÁNYI Serenade for string trip in C Op.10 (21′) WATKINS String Trio (9′) BEETHOVEN String Trio No.3 Op.9 (24′)
Ensemble 360 performs works, including those by two of classical music’s most celebrated composers, Beethoven and Schubert, showcasing this versatile and elegant combination of instruments: violin, viola and cello.
SCHUBERT Franz, String Trio in B flat D471
Schubert’s String Trio in B flat major was composed in September 1816 and only its first movement survives complete (along with a fragment of a second). His only other venture into the medium of the string trio – a complete four-movement work this time – is in the same key and dates from exactly a year later. The earlier single-movement trio was written when the composer was nineteen years old, and this sunny and assured piece sounds almost like a tribute to Schubert’s great forebears Haydn and Mozart, and probably to Salieri too, with whom Schubert was studying at the time he wrote it. However, this substantial but charming sonata form movement is not an exercise in pastiche: there are several distinctive Schubertian harmonic touches, especially in the central development section.
Marcia. Allegro Romanza. Adagio non troppo Scherzo. Vivace Tema con variazioni. Andante con moto Rondo. Finale
Dohnányi was one of three important composers to emerge from Hungary at the turn of the twentieth century. The other two – Bartók and Kodály – both developed highly individual musical voices, partly through their exploration and study of folk music. Dohnányi, a brilliant pianist as well as a gifted composer, chose a different path. He became an enthusiastic disciple of Brahms (who reciprocated by arranging the Viennese première of Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet Op.1) and subsequently evolved a characteristic late-Romantic harmonic language. The Serenade for String Trio was written in 1902. The choice of instruments was surprising: since Mozart and Beethoven the string trio had been neglected but Dohnányi writes for this ensemble most convincingly. His revival of the form may well have encouraged its rediscovery by composers such as Max Reger and Schoenberg. Dohnányi’s Serenade is in five movements, the first of which is a March. The Romance is lyrical and beautifully crafted for the three instruments, and is followed by a quicksilver Scherzo. In the Theme and Variations, Dohnányi makes sure that each of the three instruments has a fair share of the thematic material and he composes some very resourceful variations. The Finale of this inventive and attractive work is an exuberant Rondo.
Huw Watkins was born in Pontypool in South Wales in 1976 and is a pianist and composer. He studied at Chetham’s School of Music, King’s College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music. This String Trio was commissioned in 2015 for the Nash Ensemble and first performed at Wigmore Hall in March of that year.
BEETHOVEN Ludwig Van, String Trio in C minor Op.9 No.3
1. Allegro von spirito
2. Adagio con espressione
3. Scherzo. Allegro molto e vivace
4. Finale. Presto
Beethoven’s three String Trios Op. 9 were finished by March 1798. The C minor trio is the most intense and closely argued of the three. The first movement opens with a hushed idea in octaves, soon followed by a more overtly melodic contrasting theme. Both are used in the terse development section and are heard again in the recapitulation before the movement ends with a stern affirmation of the home key of C minor. For the slow movement, Beethoven turns to C major, though the main theme soon takes a few unexpected harmonic turns, rather in the manner of Beethoven’s mentor Haydn. An early example of Beethoven’s ability to create seemingly endless melody with plenty of dramatic episodes, this movement ends with hushed chords. Back in C minor, the Scherzo is fast and angular, with only a charming major-key Trio section providing a moment of calm, though this uneasy movement ends quietly. The finale is notable for music that has a plain-speaking gruffness, and the whole work is notable for the imagination with which Beethoven writes for the three instruments at his disposal.
BRITTEN Phantasy Quartet Op.2 (13′)
ELGAR Andante and Allegro (7′)
MOZART String Quartet in D K.499 (25′)
FINZI Interlude for strings and oboe (11′)
CLARKE Poem for string quartet (10′)
BAX Oboe Quintet (18′)
Ensemble 360 returns with a captivating programme of virtuosic music which combines the haunting world of the oboe with the richness of the strings. Featuring one of Benjamin Britten’s most assured early works, alongside Bax’s celebrated quintet and Rebecca Clarke’s haunting ‘poem’ for string quartet. This is a captivating programme centred on exquisite English music for oboe, beautiful miniatures and expansive chamber music.
In partnership with Hoylandswaine Arts Group.
Seating:
Seats are church pews; feel free to bring your own cushion for extra comfort.
Parking:
Car parking is available behind the church, with a path leading directly to the church building. Postcode: S75 5LZ
BRITTEN Benjamin, Phantasy Quartet in F sharp minor
Andante con moto – Allegro vivace – Andante con moto
Bridge had already been successful in Walter Wilson Cobbett’s competition to write a ‘Phantasy’ – Cobbett’s reinvention of the Elizabeth Fantasy as new single-movement chamber works – and in 1910 he (along with Vaughan Williams and others) was commissioned by Cobbett to compose a Phantasy Piano Quartet. It’s a work in a satisfying arch form based on free-flowing musical ideas all of which derive from the powerful opening gesture. Bridge’s most famous pupil, Benjamin Britten, wrote in a programme note for the Aldeburgh Festival about this piece. He described the music as ‘Sonorous yet lucid, with clear, clean lines, grateful to listen to and to play. It is the music of a practical musician, brought up in German orthodoxy, but who loved French romanticism and conception of sound—Brahms happily tempered with Fauré.’
Nigel Simeone 2013
ELGAR Edward, Andante and Allegro for oboe and strings
This very early piece, composed in about 1878, was probably written to be played at the Worcester Glee Club. The manuscript in the British Library is, curiously, headed ‘Xmas music’ on the oboe part. The Andante is graceful, and the second movement is reminiscent of a Mendelssohn Scherzo.
Like Haydn before him, Mozart habitually published his string quartets in groups of six (the ‘Haydn’ Quartets) or three (the ‘Prussian’ Quartets). Between these two sets there is a single work, entered in Mozart’s manuscript catalogue of his own works on 19 August 1786 as ‘a quartet for 2 violins, viola and violoncello’. The autograph manuscript (in the British Library) is simply titled ‘Quartetto’. It was published in 1788 by the Viennese firm founded by Mozart’s friend Franz Anton Hoffmeister and it has come to be known as the ‘Hoffmeister’ Quartet as a result. The first movement opens with a theme in octaves that outlines a descending D major arpeggio – an idea that dominates much of the movement despite some startling harmonic excursions along the way. The development section is marked by almost continuous quaver movement that gives way magically to the opening theme at the start of the recapitulation. The Minuet has an easy-going charm that contrasts with the sterner mood (and minor key) of the Trio section. The great Mozart biographer Alfred Einstein thought the Adagio spoke ‘of past sorrow, with a heretofore unheard-of-depth’. It is not only a deeply touching movement but also an extremely ingenious one, not least when the initial idea heard on two violins returns on viola and cello, investing the same music with a darker, richer texture. The finale is fast and playful, but there’s also astonishing inventiveness in the flow of ideas, from the opening triplets with their chromatic twists to a contrasting theme which scampers up and down the scale. A few sudden and surprising dynamic contrasts keep the listener guessing right to the end.
Nigel Simeone
FINZI Gerald, Interlude for Strings and Oboe
Gerald Finzi began work on this piece in 1932 but only completed it four years later, in 1936. The first performance was given at the Wigmore Hall by Leon Goossens (to whom Finzi subsequently dedicated the work) and the Menges Quartet, on 24 March 1936. Finzi was particularly touched by Goossens’s enthusiasm for the piece, having been unsure if the great oboist would be interested in the work: a nervous composer wrote to his friend Howard Ferguson: “I see that Leon, the pride of oboeland, is playing with the Isolde Menges Quartet … Perhaps he’ll say that the Interlude isn’t big enough for him.”
He needn’t have worried, but this lovely work is just one of four published pieces of chamber music by Finzi.
Tempo molto moderato – Allegro moderato – Tempo primo
Lento espressivo
Allegro giocoso – Più lento – Vivace
Bax wrote his Oboe Quintet in 1922, just after completing the first of his seven symphonies. The inspiration for writing a work for oboe and strings was the playing of the great oboist Leon Goossens, to whom the work is dedicated. Bax’s biographer Lewis Foreman has drawn attention to the Irish elements in the music of this work: not only the jig-like final movement, but also in some of the atmospheric writing earlier in the work. The first movement begins with some richly harmonized string chords, and the oboe’s first entrance is rhapsodic, and rather melancholy. The main Allegro moderato has a strong, muscular drive and also demonstrates Bax’s brilliant instrumental technique, drawing a remarkable range of colours from the strings. A wistful recollection of the opening music brings the movement to a serene close. The slow movement opens with a beautiful first violin melody (again, suggestive of Irish folk music). The oboe enters with something rather different: a wistful, cadenza-like passage that is then developed with the strings. While there is plenty of veiled lyricism in this movement, Bax always remains a little questioning, and there’s a slightly uneasy calm at the close. The finale begins in overtly Irish high spirits, but this movement isn’t quite the romp that the opening might suggest. As Lewis Foreman put it, ‘all too soon clouds cover the sun and the spectres return’ in a passage that is slower and more reflective. The dance-like music returns but even at the close there is a brief moment of reflection before the final cadence.
Ensemble 360’s cellist, Gemma Rosefield presents three of Bach’s well-loved and intimate works for unaccompanied cello. These Suites are some of the most frequently performed and recognisable solo compositions ever written for cello, and regularly feature in film and television soundtracks.
BACH Johann Sebastian, Cello Suites
Bach’s Cello Suites were probably composed in about 1720 during Bach’s time in Cöthen. It isn’t known for whom Bach wrote them, though there are at least two likely candidates working in Cöthen at the time: Christian Ferdinand Abel (1682–1761), a great friend of the composer for whom Bach wrote the three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (BWV 1027–9) and Carl Berhard Lienicke (d. 1751), the leading cellist of the Cöthen orchestra. Whether either of them was the player Bach had in mind is a matter of pure speculation since no documentary evidence has come to light. Equally uncertain is why Bach wrote them. The likeliest explanation is that they were intended – like much of his keyboard music – for private performance. Bach sets the tone of the First Suite with a Prelude made of undulating arpeggios. The Allemande meanders purposefully until it arrives at a strong final cadence in the home key. Downward leaps and rather playful decorations characterize the Courante. Using multiple stopping, the Sarabande is noble and understated. It is in two sections; the first ends on D (the dominant) and the second moves to E minor before returning to the tonic, G. The pair of graceful Minuets contrast major and minor and both are marked by flowing movement. The Gigue brings the suite to a joyful conclusion.
VALERIE COLEMAN Umoja (3′) OTTO MORTENSEN Quintette (18’) PAUL HINDEMITH Quintet (15′) ARTURO MÁRQUEZ Danza de Mediodia (10′) FLORENCE PRICE Adoration (4′) VALERIE COLEMAN Red Clay (6′) ỌLÁ AKINDIPE Èkó Scenes (10′)
Introducing the Bridge Ensemble, a wind quintet supported by Music in the Round, who champion music by marginalised composers from backgrounds under-represented in chamber music. Opening with Valerie Coleman’s joyous Kwanzaa dance ‘Umoja’ and concluding with a brand new Afrobeat inspired work by the group’s clarinettist Ọlá Akindipe, this is an inviting tour through unjustly overlooked works.
Please note a change in programme as originally advertised.
HAYDN Piano Trio in B flat Hob. XV:20(16’) DVOŘÁK Piano Trio in G minor Op.26(35’) SMETANAPiano Trio in G minor(30’)
The Leonore Piano Trio brings their series of Romantic trios to Barnsley – featuring music full of high drama and intense passion andcontrasting with theintimate simplicity of work by Haydn.
Dvořák and Smetana are two of Bohemia’s greatest composers, and their trios in this concert explore an incredible range of emotions, with both ending in a blazing glory of light and optimism.
HAYDN Joseph, Piano Trio in B flat Hob. XV:20
Allegro Andante cantabile Finale. Allegro
Haydn wrote piano trios throughout his career, but many of them dated from later in his life. The B flat Piano Trio was completed in 1794 during Haydn’s second stay in London, one of a set of three first published in the same year by the London firm of Longman and Broderip with a dedication to Princess Maria Therese of Esterhazy. The first movement (Allegro) is full of typically Haydnesque verve, some unusual sonorities and numerous delightful touches. In the slow movement (Andante cantabile), the theme is presented in the piano left hand before Haydn embarks on a series of delicate and subtle variations, each instrument contributing the colours and contrasts of each iteration of the theme before coming to rather an abrupt end. The finale (Allegro) is an amiable delight, recalling the style and the expressive range of the finales of Haydn’s mature string quartets, moving from quiet charm to moments of pathos and back again, to bring the work to an affirmative close.
Allegro moderato
Largo
Scherzo. Presto – Trio. Poco meno mosso – Presto da capo
Allegro non tanto
Dvořák composed this Piano Trio in January 1876 at a time of great personal sadness: his daughter Josefa had died in infancy a few months earlier and the composer embarked on three works: this trio, the String Quartet in E major, and the Stabat mater, each of which can be considered a kind of memorial to Josefa. It was first performed on 29 June 1879 with Dvořák himself at the piano at a concert in the Bohemian town of Turnov. The mood of the trio is predominantly melancholic and tender, with a strong aura of nostalgia, but there is a clear national identity too.
A review in the Athenaeum following the first London performance in May 1880 expressed some reservations about Dvořák’s handling of form in the first movement, but praised ‘a succession of charmingly fresh and piquant ideas, more or less suggestive of the nationality of the composer. Some of the themes are so unmistakably Slavonic in character that Dvořák may possibly have culled them from the stores of folksongs ready to be utilized with effect in instrumental composition. Whether this be so or not, the entire trio, and especially the two middle movements, pleases on account of its thematic beauty and easy, unstudied expression.’
Moderato assai
Allegro, ma non agitato
Finale. Presto
Smetana noted down the tragic circumstances in which he composed the Piano Trio in his catalogue of works. He described it as ‘written in memory of my first child, Bedřiška, who enchanted us with her extraordinary musical talent, and yet was snatched away from us by death, aged four-and-a-half years.’ The grieving Smetana wrote this work – his only piano trio – between September and November 1855, and it was first performed in Prague on 3 December with the composer at the piano. Given that the work was written as a memorial, the surprise is that this trio contains no slow movement – and it’s certainly possible (as musicologist Basil Smallman suggested) that Smetana had to modify an earlier scheme that included one owing to pressure of time.
Two features of this trio are noteworthy: one is the powerful motto theme first heard at the very start – an idea that unifies much of what follows – and the other is Smetana’s use of popular Czech dance forms: the second movement is a Polka and the finale is based on the Skočná, a rapid jig-like dance. The reviews of the first performance included some negative comments about the work’s rhapsodic structure, and its use of folk elements that deviated from the abstract ‘purity’ expected in chamber music at the time. Smetana was understandably upset by this, but he was greatly heartened by the positive reaction to the work by a revered colleague: Franz Liszt.
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