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Tuesday, January 13, 2009, 8:00 PM |
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Yehonatan Berick http://www.music.umich.edu/faculty_staff/berick.yehonatan.lasso Yehonatan Berick is Associate Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan School of Music. He was a prizewinner at the 1993 Naumburg Competition. He attended Tel Aviv Music Academy and completed his studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His principal teachers were Ilona Feher, Henry Meyer, Dorothy DeLay and Kurt Sassmannshaus. Mr. Berick’s busy performing schedule takes him to orchestras, recital halls and festivals worldwide. |
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Anton Nel Hailed by The New York Times as “an uncommonly elegant pianist,” Anton Nel won first prize in the 1987 Naumburg Competition and also won awards in the 1984 Leeds Competition and 1986 Joanna Hodges Piano Competition. He earned his master’s degree and DMA from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where his teachers were Bela Siki and Frank Weinstock. His engagements include performances with major orchestras in the U.S. and abroad, as well as festival and recital appearances. He is Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at the University of Texas at Austin. |
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Program of Violin and Piano Sonatas
by Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 12 No. 3
Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30 No. 2
Intermission
Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 96
Join us at 7:00 PM for a pre-concert talk with musicologist Eftychia Papanikolaou.
Program Notes
Unlike most of the other genres in Beethoven’s oeuvre, the violin sonatas (originally “Sonatas for Fortepiano with Violin”) are represented only in his first two periods of creativity. The sonatas Op. 12, still oriented on the model of Mozart’s late violin sonatas, were written in his first creative period. The following seven pieces of this group give a great outline over Beethoven’s development from 1800 to 1812. The famous "Spring" sonata Op. 24 and its sibling, the A Minor sonata Op. 23, are on the cusp of his “Heroic” period, while the sonatas Op. 30 and the "Kreutzer" sonata Op. 47 are representatives of the mature Beethoven. The last sonata, Op. 96 in G-major, looks into the “promised land” of the ninth symphony and the last piano sonatas, without really entering the area of extreme expression, but rather commits to the pastoral style, not unlike the sixth symphony which was written four years earlier.
While it is common knowledge that Beethoven’s primary instrument was the piano, he was in close contact with the leading violinists of his time. In Bonn he made a living from playing viola in the orchestra, and later even took regular violin lessons with Ignaz Shuppanzigh, primarius of the Rasumowski Quartet, which premiered most of Beethoven’s quartets.
The first sonata to be performed today was premiered in 1798 with Rodolphe Kreutzer and the composer on the piano. The newspaper review of this concert was very ambivalent. While the author found the composition “unnatural and learned,” he also considered that “it has its merit and can particularly be useful … for already very skilled pianists… who love the overly difficult in invention and combination…” This is quite a surprising reaction for a work we consider still more oriented towards the past, the style of Mozart and Haydn. It also shows that Beethoven, in order to find his personal style of expression, had to overcome more obstacles than we at first might imagine.
The architecture of the sonata is conventional in three movements. The beginning of the first movement is a bold definition of the tonality, with virtuosic, cadenza like arpeggiations in the piano. The second theme is distributed between the two instruments, distributing the antecedent and the consequent between the violin and the piano. Between the thematic groups as well as in the development section there unfolds a virtuosic to and fro with scales and arpeggios. The second movement, titled “adagio con molto espressione” begins in the style of an aria, the two instruments taking turns in singing and accompanying, while the last part is more in a recitative texture with conversational gestures between them. The last movement is a fast, virtuosic and cheerful rondo, although the sforzandi and dynamic contrasts reveal the personality of Beethoven.
The sonata in c minor is of more symphonic nature in many respects. With four movements, it is longer than the previous violin sonatas, and is much more dramatic in temper. Contrasts are the “elixir of life” for this sonata. They are employed on a large range (consider the restlessness of the first movement and the almost perfect idyll of the adagio) and on a small scale (the fortissimo chords before the second theme in soft dynamics). Especially effective is the juxtaposition of lamenting melodies and agitated bass figures, especially in the coda of the first movement. The adagio spices its idyllic melody with crescendi and sudden dynamic changes, but on two occasions an outburst reminds us of the character of the first and last movements. The scherzo brings us back to reality, although syncopations do not let us really settle down. Only the trio with its imitative main theme provides temporary relief. The last movement re-establishes the mood of the first movement. The insecurity and instability which radiate from this finale are immense. An impatient, impetuous gesture is answered by a few hesitant chords which stop the momentum immediately. Anything which looks like a melody is distorted by excessive crescendi and sforzati. A coda in presto takes up the beginning motive and drives the movement towards a relentless ending.
The third and last sonata on today’s program is special in that it was written nine years after all the other violin sonatas. While the piece is dedicated to Prince Rudolf, the Archduke of Austria, Beethoven’s pupil and dedicatee of many others of Beethoven’s ground-breaking compositions like the "Hammerklavier" sonata Op. 106 and the Grosse Fuge Op. 133, it was written for Pierre Rode, an eminent violinist who visited Vienna around 1812, when the sonata was premiered by him and the Prince Rudolf on the piano. It is interesting to learn from one of Beethoven’s letters that he agreed to make concessions to the taste of the performer, something he usually avoided at all costs. “In view of Rode’s playing I have to give more thought to the composition of this movement. In our finales we like to have fairly noisy passages, but Rode does not care for them – and so I have been rather hampered.“
Typical for this piece are a rather undramatic attitude and the effort to unify the piece. The prominent display of E-Flat Major in the first movement, hinting at the key of the idyllic adagio is one way, as is the similarity of mood between the trio of the third movement and the finale, variations on a song from the popular singspiel “The Merry Cobbler.” The attacca between the second and third movements involves an unusual harmonic manipulation which, subtle as it seems, has a great impact on the mood of the transition. After hearing the E-Flat Major tonality with only small deviations for more than three minutes, and anticipating the concluding tonic chord as a point of rest, Beethoven adds a C-Sharp in the violin. With a few strokes of the pen he destroys the idyll and directs the music towards a livelier realm.
As conclusion to this introduction to this magnificent, but less popular genre in Beethoven’s output, I would like to mention that Beethoven and his relation to the violin did lend enormous wings to some writers’ inspiration. German author Dieter Kühn’s book “Beethoven and The Black Violinist” sends the composer and George Bridgetower, the violinist who premiered the later renamed Kreutzer sonata, to a safari in Africa, where they hurl themselves into all kinds of adventures, including a love story, pirates at sea and their capture by an African tribal leader. While this book is still waiting to be translated into English, the sonatas will definitely inspire our own imagination and fantasy. Notes by Albert Mühlböck
-Albert Mühlböck
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