JS BACH Sonata No. 1 in G minor (18’) Partita No. 1 in B minor (28’)
Benjamin Nabarro performs the first in a new series of concerts celebrating JS Bach’s much-loved music for solo violin. Centred on the intricate and expansive partitas and sonatas, Ben’s recitals explore the wonder of Bach through some of the most enduring and joyous works ever written for the violin.The pieces are presented together with a short, informal conversation about Bach’s celebrated works between Benjamin Nabarro and BenjaminTassie, Music in the Round’s Programme Manager for Sheffield.
View the brochure online here or download it below.
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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.
Share in the delight of joining a large chorus. Expertly guided by our Singer-in-Residence, Roderick Williams, you’ll be singing selected movements from Fauré’s much-loved Requiem. Music available in advance.
Participant numbers are limited. Early booking recommended.
HONEGGER Intrada (4’) L BOULANGER Nocturne et Cortège (8’) TURNAGE True Life Stories: Elegy for Andy (3′) VIVALDI Agitata da due venti (6’) BOZZA Aria (4’) FRANÇAIX Sonatine (8’) HUBEAU Sonata (15’) PRICE The Glory of the Day was in Her Face (3’) PRICE Song to the Dark Virgin (3’) MAHLER Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft (3’) ROPARTZ Andante et Allegro (6’)
Having made waves with recent performances at Wigmore Hall and the BBC Proms, rising star trumpeter Aaron Akugbo makes his Sheffield debut. Citing Louis Armstrong as his greatest musical influence, this charismatic performer presents an eclectic mix of works.
This promises to be an afternoon concert of discovery and delight, with music spanning centuries and continents. Works from familiar names such as Vivaldi and Mahler are combined with new treats to discover from Florence Price and Eugene Bozza.
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HONEGGER Arthur, Intrada
The Intrada by Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) was composed in April 1947 for that year’s concours at the Geneva Conservatoire. Its maestoso outer sections are ceremonial in character – with angular melodic lines (over sustained piano chords) that are particularly well suited to the trumpet – while the lively central section resembles a kind of toccata for trumpet.
The phenomenal gifts of Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) were recognised when she was in her teens, and in 1913 she became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome for composition at the Paris Conservatoire with her cantata Faust et Hélène. She was nineteen at the time, but her musical language was already distinctive. The Nocturne was one of her earlier pieces, originally entitled ‘pièce courte pour flûte et piano’, the manuscript dated 27 October 1911. It was subsequently reworked for violin and piano and is here arranged for trumpet. The Cortège,which is often paired with it, dates from June 1914 when it began as a piano solo which was then arranged for violin and piano and later transcribed for trumpet.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) is much less remembered for his operas than for his instrumental and choral works, but he claimed to have composed more than 90 of them, of which complete scores of around 20 are known to survive. The aria ‘Agitata da due venti’ began life in his opera Adelaide – first performed in Verona during the Carnival season in February 1735, and recycled few months later in Griselda which was given its premiere at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice on 18 May 1735. In both cases, this florid virtuoso aria was performed by the same singer, Margherita Giacomazzi. The title refers to the character Costanza, caught by conflicting emotions like a sailor between opposing winds. The coloratura vocal lines of Vivaldi’s original transfer very successfully to a trumpet.
Eugène Bozza (1905–91) was born in Nice to an Italian father (who was a professional violinist). After graduating from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, he pursued further studies over the next decade (in violin, conducting and composition) at the Paris Conservatoire, winning the Prix de Rome in 1934. He composed the Aria in 1936, scoring it originally for saxophone and piano but its flowing melody over ripely-harmonised piano chords is well suited to the trumpet.
Jean Françaix (1912–97) composed his Sonatine for the 1952 trumpet concours. Cast in three short movements, the opening ‘Prélude’requires considerable agility while the ‘Sarabande’ presents a long, slow melody on a muted trumpet which gives way to faster and more complex section full of rapid chromatic writing. An unaccompanied cadenza leads directly to an entertaining ‘Gigue’ which brings the work to a high-spirited close.
Jean Hubeau (1917–92) is remembered primarily as a pianist, but he studied composition with Paul Dukas at the Conservatoire and was runner up in the 1934 Prix de Rome competition, coming second to Eugène Bozza. Hubeau composed his Sonata for Trumpet in 1943 and it was published by Durand the following year with a dedication to Jean Bérard, head of the Pathé-Marconi recording company. One of its most celebrated later exponents was the trumpeter Maurice André who recorded the work with the composer at the piano. It is cast in three movements: a Sarabande marked Andante con moto, a rapid Intermèdeand a concluding blues-inspiredSpiritual.
PRICE Florence, The glory of the day was in her face
The rediscovery of the African-American composer Florence Price (1897–1953) has not only revealed an impressive body of symphonic music but also a number of songs including The Glory of the Day was in Her Face (on a poem by James Weldon Johnson) and Song to the Dark Virgin (from her 1941 collection Songs of the Weary Blues, four settings of Langston Hughes, the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance).
The rediscovery of the African-American composer Florence Price (1897–1953) has not only revealed an impressive body of symphonic music but also a number of songs including The Glory of the Day was in Her Face (on a poem by James Weldon Johnson) and Song to the Dark Virgin (from her 1941 collection Songs of the Weary Blues, four settings of Langston Hughes, the great poet of the Harlem Renaissance).
‘Ich atmet’einenlinden Duft’ is from the Rückert-Lieder by Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), composed in the summer of 1901 and evoking the gentle fragrance of a lime tree which the poet associated with his love.
Joseph Guy-Ropartz(1865–1955) composed his Andante et Allegro for the 1903 trumpet concours at the Paris Conservatoire. Born in Brittany, he studied composition with Massenet and the organ with César Franck before becoming director of the conservatoires in Nancy and then Strasbourg. His compositions include five symphonies as well as shorter works including this fluently written competition piece which explores many of the characteristics of the instrument – expressiveness in the slower sections and considerable brilliance towards the close.
EMMA RAWICZ saxophones IVO NEAME piano CONOR CHAPLIN bass ASAF SIRKIS drums ** TONY KOFI saxophones JONATHAN GEE piano BEN HAZLETON bass ROD YOUNGS drums
A very special concert, a double bill, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sheffield Jazz and its predecessors. It features two great all-star bands led by multi-award winning British Jazz musicians, one of whom is a longstanding favourite with Sheffield audiences and another who has made a huge impression in the past couple of years.
Described as “an astonishing new talent” by Jamie Cullum, rising star saxophonist and composer Emma Rawicz is already making waves on the UK scene. She has a unique sound, fusing many influences from lilting Afro-Cuban inspired grooves to modern jazz and funk numbers. Emma has already recorded two albums of original compositions, with her second, ‘Chroma’, released on the prestigious German label ACT, garnering numerous 4 star reviews.
One of the most popular jazz musicians (both in the UK and internationally), Tony Kofi is a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist, whose list of collaborators reads like a Who’s Who of jazz. Having cut his teeth in the Jazz Warriors of the early 90’s, Tony has gone on to establish himself as a musician, teacher and composer of real authority. He leads and co-leads several groups, including this quartet which is dedicated to the music of Thelonious Monk.
Please note there will be an interval of 30 minutes for this event.
“A young musician who is destined to be a major voice in the music both as an instrumentalist and composer.”
Jazz Views about Emma Rawicz
“There is so much respect in jazz circles for Tony Kofi.”
Join Contemporary Music for All Sheffield (CoMA) for this presented workshop that interweaves explorations of the human voice into the unique colours of an open ensemble. CoMA are joined by composers Héloïse Werner (Hermes Experiment) and Ellen Sargen (MD CoMA Manchester) to explore pieces for mixed ensemble and voice. Either join in as an instrumentalist or vocalist on the day (all abilities of instrument and voice are welcome), or simply relax and watch as an audience member, with opportunities for Q&A throughout. Either way, this is an event to bring you closer to the music and scores will be available to peruse on the day.
Allcomers participants will be supported on the day to engage with these open scores, which invite players to make small decisions about what and how to play, and consider new ways of thinking about music.
If you’d like more information about this event, please email Learning and Participation lp@musicintheround.co.uk.
This event is hosted by Music in the Round. It is the third in our series of Participation Events around our Sounds of Now concerts. Don’t miss Hermes Experiment in the evening at 8pm in the Crucible Playhouse. Tickets for the 8pm event are available here.
Read more about CoMA here, and see what previous participants have said about their Allcomer Events here.
A grand work for a grand finale: captivating charm and wit from George Onslow’s Nonet. Nicknamed the ‘French Beethoven’, this is a chance to hear one of his finest and largest-scale chamber works whose five movements move through an expressive array of moods from turbulence to a jubilant conclusion.
Steven Isserlis then joins pianist Tim Horton for a heartfelt lament by Gabriel Fauré, before we sign off with Tchaikovsky’s celebratory musical postcard, Souvenir de Florence. This hugely popular string sextet by the great Russian composer features both Steven Isserlis and Ensemble 360’s cellist Gemma Rosefield, and promises to be a fitting farewell to the Festival in our anniversary year.
Note from Guest Curator, Steven Isserlis
“George Onslow, grandson of the first Earl of Onslow, is an interesting figure, straddling the twin worldsof London and Paris. Almost killed in a hunting accident – an incident which inspired his best-known work, a string quintet subtitled ’The Bullet’ – he sounds like a lively character, whose music was admired by Chopin. Tchaikovsky – who praised the piano quartet by Fauré that opened this festival – closes our programme with his irresistibly celebratory Souvenir de Florence. Party time!”
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ONSLOW George, Nonet in A Op.77
Allegro spirituoso
Scherzo. Agitato
Tema con variazioni
Finale. Largo – Allegretto quasi Allegro
Onslow was born in Clemont-Ferrand, the son of an aristocratic British family. He studied with Cramer and Dussek, and though travelling widely, he always remained loyal to the Auvergne working as a successful farmer as well as composing a large body of chamber music (including thirty-six string quartets) along with four symphonies and operas. His music was admired by Schumann and Mendelssohn, and the Nonet, composed in 1848, is dedicated to Prince Albert. The first movement has a nervous energy that is quite characteristic, and from the very start it’s clear that Onslow makes imaginative use of the ensemble. The Scherzo that follows has an unusual combination of austerity and charm, based on pithy Beethovenian main idea. The slow movement is theme with five variations. After a slow introduction, the finale is gently animated, working its way towards a dramatic conclusion.
Originally written as the slow movement of a planned cello sonata, the Élégie was first performed privately at the home of Fauré’s teacher and friend Saint-Saëns in June 1880. After abandoning the sonata (Fauré’s two cello sonatas – both magnificent works – came much later in his career), he decided to publish the Élégie as a stand-alone movement in 1883. It was dedicated to Jules Loeb who gave the first public performance, with Fauré at the piano, in a concert of the Société nationale de musique on 15 December 1883. The outer sections have a quiet solemnity which is underlined by the repeated piano chords heard at the start, over which the cello plays a melody seemingly laden with grief. The central section sees a move to a major key, and the arrival of a glorious lyrical theme – first on the piano, then the cello – which works up to a dramatic climax before a return to the sombre mood of the opening.
Allegro con spirito
Adagio cantabile e con moto
Allegro moderato
Allegro vivace
For Tchaikovsky, Souvenir de Florence was the one of his chamber works that gave him the most trouble. He had promised to write a piece for the St Petersburg Chamber Music Society in 1886 when the Society made him an honorary member, but after a false start in 1887, it was not until June–July 1890 that he composed the work. He found writing for string sextet problematic, as he wrote to his brother Modest in June 1890: ‘I began it three days ago and am writing with difficulty, not for lack of new ideas, but because of the novelty of the form. One requires six independent yet homogeneous voices. This is unimaginably difficult.’ By mid-July he was much happier with progress (‘at the moment I’m terribly pleased with myself’, he wrote to Modest), but the work was revised the following year after Tchaikovsky had heard a private performance. He was clearly taken aback by the results, telling Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov that he planned radical surgery ‘to alter the string sextet, which turned out to be astonishingly bad in all respects.’ Following extensive changes to the coda of the first movement, the middle of the third movement and the fugue in the finale, he was finally happy with the results and sent the score to Jurgenson for publication at the end of January 1892. The work is only tenuously connected with Florence: Tchaikovsky sketched one of the themes there while composing The Queen of Spades, but the Sextet was mostly composed at the house in Frolovskoye (about 100 miles west of Moscow) that he rented between 1888 and 1891. The first movement begins with a vigorous theme followed by a more lyrical idea that serves as a charming contrast. The Adagio starts with a theme that resembles a slowed-down recollection of the first movement, but this gives way to an expansive melody on the first violin, accompanied by pizzicato. The wraith-like central section of this movement is remarkable for the string effects demanded by the composer. The third movement is dominated by a theme that is redolent of a Russian folk tune, and the finale is also launched with a quick folk dance which is treated in a variety of ways including a rather unexpected fugue before heading to an affirmative close.
Nigel Simeone
CLOSE-UP FAMILY CONCERT: MUSIC FOR CURIOUS YOUNG MINDS
A lively family concert, featuring five wind musicians (flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon and horn) and a very special guest singer, Roderick Williams (soloist at King Charles III’s Coronation) who will perform Vaughan Williams’ song ‘The Vagabond’. Together they breathe life into the wondrous world of chamber music.
They’ll play well-known classical favourites from Britten and Debussy to Haydn and Holst, alongside more recent works such as Anna Meredith’s playful portrait of a moth and Valerie Coleman’s celebratory Kwanza dance.
Perfect for 7-11 year olds, this is a lively, interactive concert, and a rare opportunity for families to experience the world-famous baritone Roderick Williams performing up close in the Crucible Playhouse!
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Programme: BRITTENI. Prologue from Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (1’30) HAYDN arr.ParryIV. Rondo-Allegretto from Divertimento No.1 (2’) ONSLOWIV. Finale (extract) from Wind Quintet(3’30) ARNOLDI. Allegro con brio from ‘Three Shanties’(2’30) VAUGHAN WILLIAMS arr. Morton ‘The Vagabond’ from Songs of Travel (3’) LIGETI III. Allegro grazioso from ‘6 Bagatelles’ (2’30) DEBUSSY‘Syrinx’(3’) BACEWICZI. Allegro from Quintet for Wind Instruments (3’) STRAVINSKY II. from ‘Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet’(1’) HOLSTIV. Air and Variations from Wind Quintet (4’) DANZIIV. Allegretto from Wind Quintet No.2(3’) MEREDITH‘Moth’ from ‘Tripotage Miniatures’(2’30) COLEMANUmoja(2’45)
FAURÉ Piano Quintet No.1 (31’) RAVEL Chansons Madécasses (13’) POULENC Sextet (18’) FAURÉ La Bonne Chanson (33′)
Musical national treasure Roderick Williams, soloist at King Charles III’s Coronation and Singer-in-Residence with Music in the Round, returns to the Crucible Playhouse with Ensemble 360 for a magical tour through the City of Light.
Fauré’s first Piano Quintet was a labour of love that he nurtured over many years, and the song cycles and works for violin he wrote alongside it echo through this exquisitely constructed piece.
Poulenc’s kaleidoscopic sextet encompasses jazz, ragtime, pastiche of Mozart and a tribute to Ravel, whose ‘Madagascan’ songs they follow, in this programme luxuriating in the many sounds of fin de siècle Paris.
Culminating in Fauré’s intricate song-cycle, crafted from the poems of Paul Verlaine, this concert reunites Ensemble 360, with Music in the Round’s singer-in-residence Roderick Williams for the first time since 2017.
Note from Guest Curator, Steven Isserlis
“What a treat it will be to hear Roderick Williams in Fauré’s seductive ‘La Bonne Chanson’ (the first time he’s ever sung it, I understand!). Before that Ravel takes us away from Paris on a magic carpet for his bittersweet Chansons Madécasses. Poulenc is perhaps the ultimate Parisian composer, and so manages to make an appearance here – despite his disgraceful sin of (apparently) not appreciating Fauré’s music. Well – apart from that, he’s a wonderful composer…”
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FAURÉ Gabriel, Piano Quintet No.1
Molto moderato
Adagio
Allegretto moderato
No other work by Fauré gave his as much trouble as the First Piano Quintet. The earliest sketches date from 1887 (in the same sketch-book as the ‘Pie Jesu’ from the Requiem), the bulk of the composition was done between 1890 and 1894, and the work was completed and revised in 1903–5. When it was published in 1907, it was not in Paris, but in New York, issued by G. Schirmer. The first performance was given on 23 March 1906 when Fauré himself and a quartet led by Eugène Ysaÿe (the work’s dedicatee) played it in Brussels at the home of Octave Maus. A week later (30 March) they gave it at the Salle Pleyel in Paris.
One early enthusiast for the work was the young Aaron Copland. In the early 1920s he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger – a Fauré pupil – and it was through her that Copland came to love this music. In 1924, he published an article in Musical Quarterly entitled ‘Gabriel Fauré: a neglected master’, likening Fauré to Brahms, with ‘a genius as great, a style as individual and a technique as perfect’. Copland described the first movement of the quintet: ‘The initial theme is an excellent example of that continuity of line that [is] peculiar to Faure’s late manner. A short subsidiary theme for strings alone, which later plays so important a part in the development, brings us to the second idea – an ardent, yearning phrase which must convince the most recalcitrant ear of Faure’s great powers of melody-making. Note with what technical mastery the recapitulation is made the inevitable climax of the development and is so varied as to take away all feeling of repetition.’ The extended Adagio – melancholy and introspective – is followed by a last movement that Copland described as ‘a sort of combination Scherzo–Finale’.
Nigel Simeone
RAVEL Maurice, Chanson Madécasses
Nahandove, O belle nahandove! Aoua! Aoua! Mefiez-vous des blancs! Il est doux de se coucher
The Chansons madécasses, scored for voice, flute, cello and piano, were commissioned by the American patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge and composed in 1925–6. The texts by Évariste de Parny (1753–1814) are among the earliest prose poems in French, published in 1787. Equally striking are the strong anti-colonialist sentiments of these poems written by a French aristocrat who had been born on what is now the island of Réunion, east of Madagascar. Ravel himself wrote that the songs included ‘a new element, dramatic, even erotic, as a result of the subject matter of Parny’s poems’, and there is no doubting the sensuous erotic charge in ‘Nahandove’. But there is drama of a different kind in the powerfully anti-slavery themes of the second song, ‘Aoua!’, beginning with the warning ‘Méfiez-vous des blancs’ (‘Do not trust the white men’), its words lamenting the violence of the settlers who dispossessed and then enslaved the indigenous population. Ravel creates a harsh and terrifying musical counterpart for the poem, with unflinching dissonance, piercing high notes and motoric rhythms. This is Ravel at his most experimental, and also at his most provocative. The third song comes as a relief, somehow serving to ease the impact of ‘Aoua!’ And yet for all the stillness and simplicity of ‘Il est doux de se coucher’, there is no easy serenity.
POULENC Francis, Sextet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn and Piano FP 100
Très vite et emporté
Divertissement. Andantino
Finale. Prestissimo
The Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn was a work over which Poulenc lavished a great deal of time and effort – the final results did not come easily or quickly. First performed in its original version at an all-Poulenc concert at the Salle Chopin in Paris on 19 June 1931 (and described in the Chesterian magazine as one of two ‘intelligent and lovely’ new compositions heard that evening), Poulenc reworked the Sextet several times before it reached a definitive form in 1939. On 29 August 1939 he wrote to Marie-Blanche Polignac that he had ‘thoroughly revised my entire Sextet (now very good)’. The result of this decade of reflection and rewriting is indeed ‘very good’: Poulenc’s most imposing chamber work is notable from the outset for its muscularity and seriousness – though the central ‘Divertissement’ provides an oasis of Mozartian repose – and, after an almost wild Prestissimo, the finale closes with an epilogue notable for its solemn stillness: Stravinsky-like austerity here is softened by Poulenc’s more emollient harmonic language. The first performance of the Sextet in its finished form took place during the early months of the German Occupation of Paris, on 9 December 1940, at a concert given by the Association de Musique Contemporaine, with Poulenc at the piano and the Quintette à vent de Paris. Poulenc kept the manuscript to himself during the years of the war and eventually sent it to Wilhelm Hansen in Copenhagen for publication in 1945. This brought to an end what Poulenc’s biographer Carl B. Schmidt has aptly described as ‘one of the most complicated compositional sagas of Poulenc’s career.’ Poulenc recorded the Sextet not with the original French players, but with the Philadelphia Wind Quintet in March 1960, during one of his last visits to the United States.
La bonne chanson was the most ambitious of Fauré’s settings of Verlaine’s poetry. The first eight songs were completed in 1893 but the ninth was only added in February 1894. A true cycle, La bonne chanson has several recurring themes which bring musical unity to the whole structure. According to the Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux, the result is ‘far more than just a volume of songs. It reaches the proportions almost of a vocal symphony.’ The inspiration for the work was the singer Emma Bardac, with whom Fauré became infatuated in the early 1890s. She gave Fauré advice about revisions while he was working on the songs, and sang them in private at her home in Bougival, with the composer at the piano. La bonne chanson was first given in a concert by the tenor Maurice Bagès on 25 April 1894. Bagès also gave the first London performance on 1 April 1898 (at Frank Schuster’s home in Old Queen Street) and it was for this occasion that Fauré made the version for piano and string quintet (though he later wondered if this arrangement was ‘unnecessary’, it has a tone colour all its own, quite distinct from the solo piano version). Reactions to the new cycle were mixed: Marcel Proust was enchanted by it, writing that ‘I adore this collection’, but he noted that Debussy (who later married Emma Bardac) thought it was ‘too complicated.’ History has come down firmly on Proust’s side: La bonne chanson is recognised as one of Fauré’s greatest achievements, combining sophisticated musical design with lyrical inspiration.
R SCHUMANN Gesänge der Frühe No.1 (3′) FAURÉ Nocturne No.13 (8′) RAMEAU Le Rappel des oiseaux, Rigaudons I, II & Double, Les tendres plaintes (7′) MENDELSSOHN Variations Sérieuses Op.54 (12′) R SCHUMANN Waldszenen (extracts) Einsame Blumen, Verrufene Stelle, Freundliche Landschaft, Vogel als Prophet (10′) RAVEL Miroirs (extracts) Oiseaux tristes, Alborada del gracioso, Vallée des cloches (18′)
No interval
Named ‘Critics’ Classical Music Breakthrough Artist’ in The Times Arts Awards 2021, Mishka Rushdie Momen was praised as “one of the most thoughtful and sensitive of British pianists” shortly before she gave her debut recital at the Crucible Playhouse in January 2022. This recital highlights her versatility, with music encompassing three centuries, from the baroque lyricism of Rameau to the impressionism of Ravel. The work of Robert Schumann also features, a composer with whom Mishka has a special affinity and of whom she is a sensitive and arresting interpreter.
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SCHUMANN Robert, Gesänge der Frühe No.1
Nature was always a potent source for composers, and this recital includes several pieces which were inspired by the sights and sounds of the natural world. Robert Schumann (1810–1856) composed the Gesänge der Frühe, Op.133, in October 1853, just after completing his Violin Concerto. The five pieces were described by Clara Schumann in her diary as ‘dawn-songs, very original as always but hard to understand, their tone is so very strange’. This elusive mood is apparent in the first piece, marked Im ruhigen tempo. A chorale-like theme, occasionally coloured with Schumann’s characteristic harmonic dissonances, the music was described by Schumann himself as ‘impressions at the approach and growth of the morning, but more as an expression of feeling than painting.’
Nigel Simeone
FAURÉ Gabriel, Nocturne No.13
Gabriel Fauré composed thirteen nocturnes for piano between 1875 and 1921. The last of them, No.13 in B minor, Op.119, was completed on 31 December 1921, two weeks after the death of his friend Saint-Saëns. This event may have influenced the noble and introspective mood of the work, much of which seems to inhabit a world of private meditation, though it rises to a climax of great intensity before a return of the opening material. This substantial work moves through passion, anger, consolation, and grief, finally reaching what the British musicologist Robert Orledge described as ‘a visionary coda’ which gradually sinks into silence.
Nigel Simeone
RAMEAU Jean-Philippe, Le Rappel des oiseaux, Rigaudons I, II & Double, Les tendres plaintes
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) published his first collection of harpsichord pieces in 1706 and further collections appeared in the 1720s. Though widely admired at the time, these works lapsed into obscurity and it took their rediscovery at the end of the nineteenth century, when a handsome edition, prepared by Camille Saint-Saëns, was published by Durand in 1895. Rameau’s collections mostly comprise dance movements, such as the two Rigaudons and ‘Double’ from the 1724 volume of Pièces de clavecin. This was also the source of one of his most celebrated imitative pieces, Le rappel des oiseauxwith its evocations of chirruping birdsong, and of Les tendres plaintes, a more subtle evocation of melancholy.
Nigel Simeone
MENDELSSOHN Felix, Variations Sérieuses Op.54
Felix Mendelssohn’sVariations sérieuseswere completed on 4 June 1841 and had been written to encourage contributions for a statue of Beethoven in Bonn. The work was published along with pieces by Liszt, Chopin, Moscheles and Henselt (among others) in a fund-raising ‘Beethoven-Album’. The piece was much admired at the time by Ignaz Moscheles, Mendelssohn’s friend and fellow-contributor to the album, who often included it in his recital programme. It comprises an original theme followed by 17 sharply contrasted variations, the first group gradually building momentum, a solemn chorale (Variation 14), and the brilliant virtuosity of the closing pages.
Nigel Simeone
SCHUMANN Robert, Waldszenen Op.82
Schumann’s Waldszenen, Op.82, dates from 1848, just after finishing his opera Genoveva, the last act of which takes place in a forest. The woodland inspiration evidently persisted and the new set of pieces was completed in January 1849, with the last of them, ‘Vogel als Prophet’ (‘The Prophet Bird’) added as an inspired afterthought. One early review captured the spirit of these pieces, delighting in ‘the enigmatic rustlings, the distant melodies, the mystical flowers in this magical forest.’
Nigel Simeone
RAVEL Maurice, Miroirs (extracts) Oiseaux tristes, Alborada del gracioso, Vallée des cloches
Maurice Ravel composed Miroirsin 1904–5, and each piece was dedicated to a fellow member of Les Apaches, the group of musical friends formed in 1903. They included the pianist Ricardo Viñes (‘Oiseaux tristes’), the critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (‘Alborada del gracioso’) and the composer Maurice Delage (‘La vallée des cloches’). ‘Oiseaux triste’ is an evocation of a solitary bird, joined by others in due course. ‘Alborada del gracioso’ is a virtuoso piece, based on the rhythms and melodic shapes of an exciting Spanish folk dance. Like Debussy, Ravel heard the gamelan music at the 1889 Exposition universelle in Paris, and memories of those sounds may well have been in his mind when he composed ‘La vallée des cloches’, a piece in which different layers of bell sounds mingle in the most atmospheric way.
Nigel Simeone
FOCUS ON FAURÉ
Steven Isserlis, Irène Duval, Roy Howat & Tom McKinney
Steven is joined by Irène Duval, Caroline Potter and Roy Howat to chat about one of his favourite composers, Gabriel Fauré, in celebration of his centenary year. Chaired by Tom McKinney.
Violinist Irène Duval, a prize-winner at the 2021 Young Classical Artists Trust International Auditions, opens this concert with a monumental sonata written by Fauré’s violin virtuoso pupil, George Enescu. Irène joins Ensemble 360 for Fauré’s only string quartet, an ethereal piece that derives its principal melody from Fauré’s early Violin Concerto. It was his final work and is a fitting swan-song that resolves into an ultimately life-affirming finale.
Note from Guest Curator, Steven Isserlis
“Enescu’s impassioned Violin Sonata No.2 reveals the strong influence of his revered teacher Fauré. Like his beloved Schumann, Fauré used a theme from his Violin Concerto in his final work, his only string quartet. Unlike Schumann, however, Fauré did so deliberately; having discarded the Violin Concerto, he must have been loath to waste such a beautiful melody. It provides a poignantly human response to the chant-like opening of a work that gently, lovingly bids us farewell. Fauré’s work here is done, he seems to tell us; and it is time for him to pass on to the better world he has so often allowed us to experience through his music.”
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ENESCU George, Violin Sonata No.2 Op.6
Assez mouvementé Tranquillement Vif
Born in Romania, George Enescu was a child prodigy and he entered the Vienna Conservatory at the age of seven. His teachers there included Joseph Hellmesberger and Robert Fuchs, and in 1891 Enescu was introduced to Brahms. After graduating in Vienna at the age of twelve, Enescu moved to Paris where he studied with Fauré and André Gedalge – both of whom also taught Ravel. Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 2 was written in April 1899 when he was 17 years old – and still a student. Its premiere was given in Paris on 22 February 1900 by Jacques Thibaud with the composer at the piano, and the sonata was dedicated to Thibaud and his pianist brother, Joseph. Enescu himself recalled that the opening theme first came into his head during a walk when he was 14: ‘I carried it inside me for three years; then, at the age of seventeen, I wrote my Second Violin Sonata in the space of a fortnight.’ As Enescu’s biographer Noel Malcolm has noted, the work has ‘an extraordinary unity, mainly because of the way it is pervaded by the long, mysterious … theme which opens the first movement.’ This theme is developed and transformed throughout the Sonata, giving the whole work a powerful coherence. The musical language has occasional echoes of Fauré, but even in this early work, Enescu was a highly original creative voice, even incorporating elements of the modes and harmonies of his native Romanian folk music in the slow movement.
Fauré worked on a violin concerto in 1878–9, but the project was destined to remain unfinished. Though the first two movements were performed by the violinist Ovide Musin and the Colonne Orchestra on 12 April 1880, the finale was never written. The slow movement of the concerto was destroyed, but was probably reworked as the Andante for violin and piano Op.75. The first movement – lyrical and expansive – survived complete, and turned out to be a surprisingly fruitful source for the composer: Fauré’s biographer Robert Orledge noted that its two main themes ‘proved far better suited to the more intimate medium of the String Quartet’ when they were reused ‘in the light of a lifetime’s experience’ in his last work, written in 1923–4.
Fauré’s String Quartet was his last composition, completed in 1924 shortly before his death. It was also his first chamber work without piano. For the first movement he drew on ideas composed 45 years earlier for his Violin Concerto, but now reworked in a much more compact and tightly organised sonata form structure. The Andante was written first, in September 1923 at Annecy. The opening Allegro moderato was completed in Paris and the third movement (combining elements of scherzo and finale) was finished in 1924, back in Annecy. The result is a work of great expressive power, with, as the British musicologist Robert Orledge has noted, ‘the craftsmanship being so consummate that we need to listen hard even to notice the joins or the thematic counterpoint that gives the Quartet its virile strength.’ On 12 September 1924, Fauré wrote to his wife from Annecy announcing that ‘yesterday evening I finished the finale. So that’s the quartet finished’. A month later, weakened by a bout of pneumonia, Fauré returned to Paris where he died peacefully early in the morning of 4 November. Two days later, the composer Albert Roussel wrote a moving tribute in the magazine Comoedia: Fauré ‘occupied a place apart in the history of music and, without noise or fuss or meaningless gesture, he pointed the way towards marvellous horizons overflowing with freshness and light.’
N BOULANGER Three pieces for cello and piano (8’) DEBUSSY Cello Sonata (12’) RAVEL Sonata for violin and cello (20’) R SCHUMANN (arr. Isserlis) Violin Concerto (mvt 2) (12’) R SCHUMANN Ghost Variations for piano (12’) FAURÉ Piano Trio (21’)
Three acclaimed musicians and frequent collaborators perform music they adore. This thoughtfully crafted programme celebrates the musical loves and legacy of the French composer, Gabriel Fauré.
Highlights include our Guest Curator’s arrangement of a movement from Schumann’s beloved Violin Concerto, which shares a theme with the delicate and haunting ‘Ghost Variations’ for piano; the final work by one of the giants of Romantic music. Fauré’s miraculous Piano Trio, his penultimate work, radiates ecstatic joy to conclude what promises to be a very special evening of music.
Note from Guest Curator, Steven Isserlis
“Schumann’s Geister Variations for piano have a tragic history: they were effectively his final work, written in the last days before he was taken to the asylum where he was to spend his remaining years. He believed that the spirits of Schubert and Mendelssohn, surrounded by angels, had appeared to him in a dream and dictated the theme; he seems never to have realised that he had actually composed the theme earlier, as the violin’s main melody in the slow movement of his violin concerto (as well as another, much earlier, version in a ‘song for the young’). The variations really seem to be his farewell to life. Fauré’s Piano Trio, although his penultimate work, is quite different, pulsing with ecstatic energy from its opening bars; the slow movement is simply breathtaking – I know nothing like it in the whole of music. For me, this is one of Fauré’s very greatest works.”
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BOULANGER Nadia, Three pieces for cello and piano
Moderato Sans vitesse et à l’aise Vite et nerveusement rythmé
Nadia Boulanger, teacher, conductor, early music pioneer and trusted adviser to the likes of Stravinsky and Poulenc, was also a gifted composer. Fiercely self-critical, she always claimed her own music was nothing like as significant as that of her brilliant younger sister, Lili, but with the rediscovery of Nadia’s music it has become clear that she was a remarkable talent in her own right. She entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine and subsequently studied composition with Fauré. Most of her music dates from between 1904 and 1918 (the year Lili died), including the Three Pieces for cello and piano, composed in 1914 and first published the following year. The first, in E flat minor, presents a song-like melody on the cello over a hushed piano part marked doux et vague. After a brief climactic central section, the opening music returns for a serene close in E flat major. The second piece, in A minor, treats a deceptively simple tune – almost a folksong – in an ingenious canon between the cello and the piano. The last piece, in C sharp minor, is quick, with a middle section that provides a contrast in both rhythm and texture to the playful but muscular mood of the rest.
Prologue. Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto – Poco animando
Sérénade. Modérément animé
Final. Animé, léger et nerveux
‘Where is French music? Where are the old harpsichordists who had so much true music?’ It was thoughts like this that prompted Debussy to embark on a series of sonatas at the start of World War One. Weakened by cancer, he only lived to complete three of them. The Cello Sonata was the first to be finished, in the summer of 1915, and it was originally going to have a title: ‘Pierrot angry with the moon’. As well as its links to a vanished past, the Cello Sonata has debts to more recent music including use of a cyclic theme. Debussy used this device in his early String Quartet but now there is greater refinement and austerity. The first movement opens with a gesture that introduces the motif which unites many of the musical ideas in the work (and which recalls Baroque ornamentation). The second movement is a ghostly Serenade full of enigmatic harmonies, and this leads to a more flowing and animated finale which seems reluctant to settle until the closing D minor chords.
In 1920, Ravel was asked to contribute to a musical supplement in memory of Debussy for the Revue musicale (other contributors included Bartók, Satie and Stravinsky). This ‘Tombeau’ for Debussy (with a front cover specially drawn by Dufy) appeared in December 1920 and included a ‘Duo’ for violin and cello that would become the first movement of the Sonata for Violin and Cello. It was another two years before Ravel completed the other movements and the whole work was published in 1922 with a dedication to Debussy’s memory. Ravel himself described the austere, pared-down language of the Sonata as ‘stripped to the bone’ and said that ‘harmonic charm is renounced’. The Sonata is also remarkable for its thematic unity, and some ingenious cyclic transformations. For instance, the violin theme heard at the start returns later in the work as do other ideas. The Scherzo suggests that Ravel was familiar with Kodály’s 1914 Duo for violin and cello: Ravel includes elements of Hungarian music in a movement of formidable drive and energy. The slow movement is stark and serious and after building slowly to an impassioned climax, its ending is remote and strange. The finale is brilliantly written for both instruments, bringing this extraordinary work to an athletic close, the dissonances finally resolving on to a chord of C major.
SCHUMANN Robert (arr. Isserlis), Violin Concerto (mvt.2)
Schumann wrote his Violin Concerto in September and October 1853 for his friend Joseph Joachim. Though Joachim played it through with the Hannover Court Orchestra for the composer, he never performed it in public, coming to believe that it was the product of Schumann’s disturbed mental state at the time. Evidently Clara Schumann and Brahms agreed, as the concerto was not included in the edition of Robert’s collected works which they prepared. It was not until 1937 that the work was given its belated premiere. The slow movement is the expressive heart of the work, its main theme very similar to that of the Ghost Variations, though in a different key. Its intimate character – in the style of an intermezzo – lends itself very well to the present arrangement for piano trio.
In February 1854, Schumann’s mental health was in a steep decline; at the end of that month he attempted suicide and, after being rescued from the river, asked to be admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Endenich, where he was to remain until his death. The ‘Ghost’ Variations were composed in the midst of this traumatic crisis. Dogged by increasingly disturbing visions, on the night of 17 February he claimed to hear angels singing a theme which he immediately wrote down – though in fact it is very similar to the slow movement of his Violin Concerto, composed six months earlier. A few days after this vision, Schumann started to compose a set of variations on the ‘angel’ theme, writing out a fair copy on 27 February. Before finishing it, he left the house and threw himself into the Rhine. After being brought home, he finished the work the next day. It was the last music he wrote. A year later, Clara Schumann had a copy made which she gave to Brahms (who subsequently composed variations on the theme as his Op.23). It is impossible to imagine the harrowing circumstances in which Schumann wrote this work which comprises a theme followed by five variations. Apart from the copy made for Brahms, Clara kept the work entirely private and it was not published until 1939.
1. Allegro ma non troppo
2. Andantino
3. Allegro vivo
Fauré retired as Director of the Paris Conservatoire in 1920, at the age of 75. Though he was increasingly troubled by a kind of deafness that distorted musical sounds, he produced several late works that demonstrate a wonderful economy and concentration: the Second Piano Quintet, Second Cello Sonata and the song cycle L’Horizon chimérique were completed in 1921, and his only String Quartet was to occupy him from 1923 until just before he died the following year. The Piano Trio was started in his favourite retreat of Annecy-le-Vieux in August 1922 and his original idea was to write it for clarinet, cello and piano but he soon settled on having a violin as the top part. Progress was slow. Fauré wrote to his wife: ‘I can’t work for long stretches of time. My worst problem is perpetual tiredness.’ There’s no sense of fatigue in this work, partly because Fauré took his time. The slow movement was the first to be completed, and the outer movements of the Trio were finished by February 1923. The first performance was given on 12 May 1923 at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique by Fauré was too ill to attend. He did hear a performance the following year given by the celebrated trio of Alfred Cortot, Jacques Thibaud and Pablo Casals. The music demonstrates Fauré at his most subtle harmonically and rhythmically in the first movement, at his most elegantly restrained in the slow movement, and at his most vigorous in the finale (the resemblance between its main theme and ‘Vesti la giubba’ from Pagliacci – an opera Fauré particularly disliked – was, according to Fauré himself, entirely accidental).
Nigel Simeone
“An extraordinarily moving performance where time, very briefly, seemed to stand still.”
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