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Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 8:00 PM |
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To commemorate the 200th year of Joseph Haydn’s death in 2009, the Geringas Baryton Trio will offer some of the seldom-heard works he wrote for the baryton trio, which is baryton, viola and cello. As Kapellmeister to Prince Nikolaus von Esterhazy, Haydn composed for his patron a total of 126 baryton trios between 1765 and 1774. Esterhazy himself played the baryton, an instrument belonging to the gamba or viol family, which had been known since the middle of the 17th century but was not played widely. The baryton is a bass viol with six bowed strings and up to 40 sympathetic strings. Some of the sympathetic strings can be plucked from behind by the left thumb. It is due to the Prince’s love for this instrument that his court for years was considered to be the center for baryton compositions. Besides Haydn, other composers for the court were Josef Burcksteiner, Anton Neumann and Luigi Tomasini. Members of the Geringas Baryton Trio are cellist and conductor David Geringas, who internationally is one of the leading performers on the baryton; cellist and former student of David Geringas’ Jens Peter Maintz; and the violist Hartmut Rohde. These three artists, professors at Berlin’s Musikhochschulen, besides their solo activities, have been chamber music partners for a number of years. Performers with an international reputation, all have won major competitions and awards. David Geringas studied at the Moscow Conservatory with his teacher and mentor Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1970, he won the first prize and gold medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition. Since 2000, he has taught at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where his cello class is considered worldwide as one of the best. He has performed as soloist with the major orchestras worldwide, and in this country has appeared with the National Symphony, Maestro Rostropovich conducting, and with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Chicago. David Geringas has also been active as conductor, and recently made a triumphant conducting debut with the Moscow Philharmonic. Among many awards for his CD recordings are the Grand Prix du Disque for the recording of 12 cello concertos of Boccherini and the Diapason d’Or d’Année 1994 for the chamber music of Dutilleux. His recording of the cello concertos by Pfitzner won the 1994 prize of the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik. He received his country’s highest honors for his worldwide contributions to Lithuanian music and its composers. German President Horst Köhler awarded the “Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse of the German Federal Republic” to Geringas for his achievements as musician and ambassador for German culture. David Geringas also serves as honorary professor at the Moscow Conservatory and at the Central Conservatory of Music Beijing. Hartmut Rohde, winner of the Naumburg competition, is one of Europe’s most sought-after violists. He is a member of the Mozart Piano Quartet and founder of the Kandinsky String Trio, which also includes Jens Peter Maintz. With these two ensembles, he regularly tours in Europe and North America. Besides numerous recordings for major European radio stations, he has also recorded for EMI Classics, Decca, Arte Nova, MDG, Naxos and the Freiburger Musikforum. He won the 2003 Echo Klassik prize and the 2004 Supersonic Award. Since 1993 Hartmut Rohde has been professor at the Universität der Künste, Berlin. He also teaches as guest professor for viola and chamber music at the Royal Academy of London and was recently awarded the prestigious Honorary Membership in the Royal Academy. Since winning the 1994 ARD International Competition in Munich, not achieved by a cellist for 17 years, the Hamburg-born Jens Peter Maintz has been recognized as one of the leading cellists of his generation. He won the 1997 Echo Klassik prize for his Sony Classical recording of solo works by Bach, Dutilleux and Kodaly. In 2003 his recording of cello concertos by Isang Yun with the DSO Berlin was released on the Capriccio label. On his Tchaikovsky recording for Arte Nova he performs with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under the direction of David Geringas. In 2004 Jens Peter Maintz became professor of cello at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. |
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Program
Tomasini: Trio in C Major for Baryton, Viola and Violoncello
Beethoven: Duet "With Two Obligatory Eyeglasses" in E-flat Major WoO 32 for Viola and Cello
Haydn: Trio in D Major for Baryton, Viola and Cello No. 113
Rossini: Duo for 2 Violoncelli
Haydn: Trio in D Major for Baryton, Viola and Cello No. 97
Join us at 7:00 PM for a pre-concert talk with Albert Mühlböck, concert pianist and CCM doctoral student.
Program Notes
“ … Finally, Capel Meister Haydn is urgently enjoined to apply himself to composition more diligently than heretofore, and especially to write such pieces as can be played on the baryton, of which pieces we have seen very few up to now; and to be able to judge his diligence, he shall at all times send us the first copy, cleanly and carefully written, of each and every new composition.”
This stern reprimand issued by Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy, softened for our ears only by the antiquated wording, had far reaching consequences for Haydn, for musical posterity and especially for tonight’s concert, as we are going to enjoy the “fruits” of this rebuke. Haydn immediately started to fulfill the task and wrote more than 170 compositions for baryton, an instrument that was considered by some the queen among the bowed instruments, but which quickly disappeared from the concert stage after the classical era, possibly because of its difficulty to play.The origins of the baryton reach back probably to England, although after 1700 it was almost exclusively used in Austrian and German music. It resembles the bass viol (a precursor of today’s cello) with six or seven bowed strings. But in addition it also has several metal strings under the fingerboard, which first acted as sympathetic strings, enriching and enhancing the sound. Later these strings were plucked with the thumb of the left hand, serving as accompaniment to the phrases played with the bow. The instrument was used mainly soloistically until around 1750, when it responded to the public preferences of the violin family, and was modified accordingly. The frets were eliminated and the playing technique was adjusted to enable the use of vibrato. (The preconcert lecture will elaborate on the peculiarities of this instrument.) It was then more frequently used as a chamber music instrument.
Such was the situation when Haydn became aware, rather rudely, of the enthusiasm of his employer for this instrument. Unfortunately the prince was not really a virtuoso on the instrument, and therefore the baryton part is not really “demanding”. It rarely uses bowing and plucking at the same time, although Haydn employs the new possibilities as he contrasts the trio of a minuet by letting the baryton pluck the accompaniment, while the rest of the menuet is played with the bow. At the end of the first movement of No. 113 he lets the movement fade out with five measures of plucked playing, the viola and cello pizzicato, the baryton plucking the bass line on its metal strings.
Trio No. 97 was written for the 52nd birthday of Prince Esterhazy on Dec. 18, 1766. It is the longest and most elaborate trio and the only one with six movements as well as the first with a fugue as finale. No. 113, shorter and written eight years later, features a more involved harmonic language, more dynamic and harmonic contrasts, and expressive melodic design.
Prince Esterhazy’s passion for the baryton “inspired” not only Haydn, but also other musicians and composers in his orchestra. Luigi Tomasini was violinist and later concert master in the court chapel which Haydn conducted. His relationship with Haydn was one of mutual inspiration. Although Tomasini’s works do not reach Haydn’s ingenuity and diversity, they reveal the dominating influence of his boss. Haydn, on the other side, was definitely inspired by Tomasini’s virtuosity and incorporated his technique and style in his own works for solo violin. A lasting friendship developed between the two musicians, and the violin soli in several of Haydn’s early symphonies were written for Tomasini.The trio in C Major features the traditional form of Sonata-allegro, Menuetto and Rondo. Tomasini is very specific in indicating dynamics; and it seems that he wants to emulate the solo-tutti contrast of the solo concerto, a genre he was very accomplished in and to which he contributed many demanding pieces throughout his life time.
The program is completed by two rarities which perfectly fit into this concert as they, too are pieces which exist at the sidelines of the contemporary concert practice. The Duetto for Violoncello and Contrabass by Gioacchino Rossini (today played in an arrangement for two celli by W. Thomas-Mifune) was published only recently in 1968 after it was kept for almost 150 years in the family of its commissioner, the later mayor of London, Sir David Salomons. He was an amateur musician, and premiered this piece with the famous Italian contrabassist Domenico Dragonetti at a soirée at his palace.
This three-movement work reveals with every note that its composer is at home on the opera stage. The two instruments frequently change roles between singer and accompanist, and each one has ample opportunities to indulge in cadenzas, while at other times they create the musical atmosphere with fast repeated notes, characteristic intervals and imitational texture, all devices Rossini uses in his overtures.
The strange, almost whimsical title of Beethoven’s WoO 32, “Duet with two obligatory eyeglasses” for viola and cello, indicates slight vision problems of its dedicatee. This could have been Beethoven’s dedicated friend Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, whom he often teased for his shortsightedness (we already know Beethoven’s crude humor from his jokes about Ignaz Schuppanzigh) and who helped him throughout his life, but especially in his first time in Vienna.It was written between 1795 and 1798, and it seems that Beethoven had planned to complete the piece with a slow movement and a finale, but did not carry out these plans. Its existing two movements are an allegro in sonata form and a minuet. Especially in the first movement Beethoven takes pains to assure equal treatment of the two instruments, giving each instrument the opportunity to shine and exploiting the possibilities offered by a duo of two instruments with similar timbre and range. The Minuetto features contrasts between a playful mood and occasional excursions into remote keys for more serious moments. The trio features even a short fugato with a chromatic subject, as if Beethoven wanted to make sure the interpreters have their eyeglasses with them to decipher the accidentals!
-Albert Mühlböck
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