Program Notes

Joseph Kalichstein’s piano recital is dedicated to Robert Schumann, Frederic Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. These three composers are, together with Franz Liszt, among the most significant for the development of the romantic piano style in the first half of the nineteenth century. As Mr. Kalichstein will deliver program notes from the podium, I will try to give a picture of their personalities and their relationship to each other. All three composers knew each other personally, and in the case of Schumann and Mendelssohn their relationship even formed a close friendship. What associates today’s pieces even more is the fact that they were written within a time period of only ten years: first the Fantasy Op. 28 (1833) by Mendelssohn, followed by Schumann’s Kreisleriana (1838) and the Arabeske (1838), and the latest work being the Chopin Ballades No. 2 (1839) and No. 4 (1843).

Robert Schumann is maybe the composer whose personality is most accessible to us. His famous articles in the “The New Journal for Music” and the imaginative display of his thoughts via Eusebius, Florestan and other Davidsbündlers let us know his opinion and feeling very clearly. He was the one who, at the age of 21, in one of his first articles introduced Chopin to his readers with the words “hats off, gentlemen – a genius” and continued to review most of Chopin’s works favorably. His secret mission in his literary work was to find “successors” of the classical masters Beethoven and Mozart, and so he was not happy with the fact that Chopin restricted himself mostly to the piano and even considered Chopin’s highly personal musical style a sign of stagnation of talent. Now Chopin could publish everything anonymously; one would recognize him anyway. In this there is both praise and blame - praise for his talent, blame for his effort.” He was also clueless with the last movement of Chopin’s B flat minor sonata which he considered “more like mockery than like music,” which could easily have been a return for Chopin’s remark on Schumann’s Carnaval in a letter to his publisher, which he considered “not music at all.”

Chopin’s character and his strong musical personality did not permit him to appreciate most of the music of his contemporaries. He did not care for Schumann’s music, probably even felt embarrassed by Schumann’s early “creative criticism” and never mentioned any feeling of gratitude in any of his letters. The recital will be illuminating as it brings face to face pieces of composers with such different priorities in their ideas about composition: Schumann, who all his life, in order to catch up with his fantastic imagination, tried to expand his expressive possibilities; and Chopin who, only in exceptional cases surpassing into larger forms, was perfecting his musical language and was innovative in the details of his works. It is an interesting coincidence that the Kreisleriana by Schumann are dedicated to Chopin, while Chopin’s second Ballade is dedicated to Schumann.

The same pattern, an outburst of enthusiasm combined with high expectations which rarely can be fulfilled by any composer, can also be observed in Schumann’s relationship to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. When Mendelssohn came to Leipzig to lead the famous “Gewandhaus Orchestra” in 1835, Schumann welcomed him with enthusiasm and even included him in his Davidsbündler society by giving him an imaginary name: F. Metitis. Apart from certain compositions which he considers written in “a casual way,” he always appreciated his melodic genius. Only rarely however he praised him in the following, unconditional appreciative manner: Mendelssohn is the “Mozart of the nineteenth century… the one who sees most clearly through the contradictions of this period, and for the first time reconciles them.” Almost as in the case with Chopin, the appreciation Schumann’s was not reciprocated. Mendelssohn at first considered Schumann a mere musical dilettante, but even later, after he got to know him had no real understanding for his composition. In addition to that Mendelssohn also cherished a strong prejudice against musicians who write, and was also very sensitive to adverse criticism, be it ever so mild.

As neither Chopin nor Mendelssohn wrote published articles, we can only guess from hints in their letters and diaries about their open and secret appreciations and depreciations of their contemporaries. Mendelssohn admired Chopin a lot, and even asked for a handwritten dedication for his wife, which Chopin cheerfully granted. On the other hand, the traditionally educated Mendelssohn had a hard time understanding what he called “Chopin’s mannered style” in some mazurkas. However, in one of his letters Mendelssohn recounts what can happen if musicians forget their prejudices and get excited about new or newly discovered music. Even such contrasting characters as Chopin and Mendelssohn can enjoy a “jam session,” mixing music by Handel and Bach with their newest works. Maybe that is the right attitude to capture the particularity of this recital: To imagine our three composers on stage, playing for each other, commenting, and responding to each others musical ideas.

- Albert Mühlböck