PROGRAM NOTES by Joseph and Elizabeth Kahn
March 6 and 7, 2010 "Seductive Romance"
dedicated to country, passion, and another man's wife
EDVARD GRIEG (1843-1907)
From Holberg's Time, Op.40
Playwright Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754) was known as the Molière of the North and the first Scandinavian literary figure to garner a reputation outside his own region. Although actually Danish by birth, Holberg had spent time in Bergen, Norway – then a province of Denmark – and Grieg composed the suite From Holberg’s Time in 1884 to commemorate the bicentennial of Holberg’s birth.
The most successful and best known of nineteenth-century Scandinavian composers, Grieg was one of the great exponents of Romantic nationalism and the obvious choice to compose the commemorative work. As a composer, pianist and conductor he was popular in Europe’s music centers. His wife Nina was an accomplished singer, and the two traveled extensively together, popularizing his songs and piano works. In the process he also helped bring the writings of other Scandinavian literati – the most famous being the playwright Henrik Ibsen – to the attention of the rest of Europe. Grieg excelled in the smaller musical forms, intimate songs, short piano pieces and Scandinavian dances.
As a student he had been a failure. He quit school at 15 never to return. Under the sponsorship of Norwegian violinist Ole Bull he was granted a scholarship to the Conservatory in Leipzig but hated his teachers there and never forgave them their conservatism and pedantry. After his return to Norway, he developed the lasting interest in Norwegian folk music that would solidify his reputation. Understandably, he was not satisfied with the constraints of the classical sonata structures and of all his surviving output only eight works fall into this category, including the famous piano concerto, a string quartet, a piano sonata, the three violin sonatas and the cello sonata. In all his other compositions he insisted on the freedom of form so dear to the Romantic tradition.
Grieg originally composed the Suite for piano, orchestrating it a year later. He particularly sought to recreate the Baroque idiom, especially the suites of the French keyboard masters Jean-Philippe Rameau and François Couperin, who were Holberg’s contemporaries. However, the style of Domenico Scarlatti and J.S. Bach, born a year after Holberg, can be heard respectively in the toccata-like figuration of the Prelude and the ornamental melody in the Air.
FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810 - 1849)
Piano Concerto No.2 in f minor, Op.21
The son of a French father and Polish mother, Frédéric Chopin was born and grew up in Poland; but after the collapse of the Polish revolution against Russia in 1831, he went into exile to France. He settled in Paris, which was then the center of Polish émigrés.
Chopin’s chosen medium was the piano as a solo instrument. Although in his late teens he tried to combine the piano with the orchestra, creating the two piano concertos, the Variations Op. 2, Fantasia Op. 13, Concert Rondo Op. 14 and the Grand Polonaise Op. 22, he was uncomfortable with the medium and after age 20 never again wrote for a large ensemble. In all these works, the orchestral scoring is so light that during the nineteenth century it was fashionable to re-orchestrate and “improve” it. Be that as it may, Chopin probably intended the orchestra to serve as a delicate background for the soloist, especially since he himself was known to have had a rather light touch on the piano; heavy orchestration would have drowned him out.
The f minor Concerto, although listed as No. 2, was the first composed (1829-30) but was the second published. It was premiered in March 1830 in Warsaw with the composer at the piano. As was so often the case with composers in the Romantic Era, the inspiration for the Concerto came to Chopin as the result of unrequited love. The object of his ardor was a voice student at the Warsaw Conservatory. But by the time the Concerto was published six years later, he had long forgotten her and dedicated it instead to his pupil, Countess Delphine Potocka, a gifted singer and close friend.
Although Chopin has the reputation for musically “wearing his heart on his sleeve,” he was also gifted and innovative in his use of harmony and phrase structure. The Concerto capitalizes on all the pianistic qualities that were to catapult him to fame in Paris. It opens in a gruff mood, followed by a more lyrical second theme introduced by the solo oboe. When the piano enters in a standard double exposition, it inserts its own second theme before taking up the oboe theme. In a major departure from true development as understood by Beethoven, Chopin’s music never argues; rather, his development could be described as a commentary on the themes and on what had gone on before, his customary tendency is to embellish and decorate the pianistic line. This long section is almost serpentine in the way it slides in and out of new keys and deftly manipulates phrasing and the themes themselves. In this regard, the Concerto foreshadows the composer’s future, even more adventurous writing.
The slow movement is intense and still lyrical, with the ornamentation of the main theme gradually becoming an integral part of it. With its seemingly endless, fluid lines, elaborate ornamentation and recitative-type passages, this movement has led scholars to compare Chopin with the contemporaneous Italian bel canto style of opera composer Vincenzo Bellini, whom Chopin greatly admired.
The Finale is a rondo in which the third episode is in the rhythm of a mazurka. The mazurka became one of Chopin’s signature rhythms, an expression of his nationalistic feeling. It originated as a Polish folk dance in triple meter from the Mazovia district near Warsaw. But mazurka became an umbrella name for a number of related dances: the fiery mazurek, the lively oberek or the slower and more sentimental kujawiak. All three dances originated from the older polska, a dance in which a strong accent falls on the second or third beat of the measure, accompanied by a tap of the heel. Chopin composed nearly 60 mazurkas for piano solo, as well as several more that have been lost. A horn fanfare heralds a spectacular coda. Oddly, there is not a single cadenza in this piece. Even the youthful Chopin had some sense of decency.
The Concerto was received enthusiastically at the premiere, but Chopin had his doubts as to whether the audience actually understood it: “The first allegro...received, indeed, the reward of a ‘Bravo,’ but I believe this was given because the public wished to show that it understands and knows how to appreciate serious music. There are people enough in all countries who like to assume the air of connoisseurs!”
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Serenade No. 2 in A major, Op. 16
The eighteenth century witnessed the birth of many of the important genres in classical music; the symphony, the string quartet and the piano trio were among the important new musical forms. The instrumental serenade was another, written in a light vein designed primarily for entertainment and, frankly, background music for social gatherings and meals. It developed as a hybrid of chamber and orchestral music, as well as the dance suite, with three to ten relatively short movements, often involving unusual instrumental combinations, as in Mozart’s Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments. In the hierarchy of musical genres of the time, the serenade was definitely second-class – although not necessarily in musical quality, as witnessed by the aforementioned Mozart serenade.
For Brahms, a classically oriented composer who revered Beethoven, writing a symphony was a daunting proposition. “You don’t know what it is like always to hear that giant marching along behind me,” he wrote. By the late 1850s, after nearly four years under the benevolent influence of Clara and Robert Schumann, Brahms was ready to strike out to find his own symphonic voice. The two youthful serenades and the Piano Concerto No.1 in d minor composed in his mid-20s had been a way to evade Beethoven’s ghost while allowing him to gain experience in orchestration.
The Serenade in A Major was finished in the fall of 1859 and premiered and published in the following year. Its modest tone stands in stark contrast to Brahms’s first performed orchestral work, the gargantuan Piano Concerto No.1. The Serenade is essentially a work for wind instruments with string accompaniment, since it is scored without violins. The lower strings give it a darker and more subdued tone color and depth than winds alone could provide.
Resistance to new music is nothing new and could be as violent in 1860 as it was to atonality and serialism in the twentieth century. After conducting the Serenade in Hanover in March 1860, Joseph Joachim received the following anonymous letter:
“Brahms’s Serenade is a monstrosity, a caricature, a freak, which should never have been published, much less performed here...whilst the piano concerto served up to us last winter still sticks in our throat! It is inexcusable that such filth should have been offered to a public thirsting for good music...Poor Mozart, Poor Beethoven!...do not impose (on your audience) a taste for that which can only be the greatest torture to people with sound ears.”
The first movement, marked Allegro moderato, contains no less than four developed themes, each one introduced by a different wind instrument or combination: first all the winds, then flute, clarinet and oboe. The effect is to give each of the melody-carrying instruments a spot in the limelight. The extensive development section is worthy of a proper symphony. The movement concludes with an extensive coda. The bouncy Scherzo theme introduced by the whole orchestra is contrasted with the tranquil waltz in the Trio for the winds alone.
It is customary for slow movements to be in ternary (ABA) form, but the best composers, as far back as Haydn and Mozart, interpreted the convention freely. The melancholy Adagio is another example of Brahms's ability to unfurl a string of themes, blending them seamlessly into a coherent musical image. The initial melancholy melody is interrupted by a stormy outburst. The middle section, in the major mode features a lovely clarinet solo. Brahms recasts the return to the main theme as the kind of development, as would occur in a sonata form.
The following gentle Quasi menuetto begins with an unusual limping melody, the halting rhythm of which is converted into a beautiful melancholy oboe solo. The presentation of the high-spirited Rondo is again shared by each of the upper wind soloists. The oboe presents the second theme, and despite a hint of darkness, the high piccolo glissando ending in a trill at the climax adds a childlike innocence to the movement.
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