VIRTUAL FESTIVAL CONCERT #11 - Released August 5, 2020

Edvard Grieg Sonata for Cello and Piano in A minor, Op. 36 Allegro agitato Andante molto tranquillo Allegro—Allegro molto e marcato Robert deMaine cello / Orion Weiss piano

Maurice Ravel Sonata for Violin and Cello Allegro Très vif Lent Vif, avec entrain Andrew Wan violin / Cameron Crozman cello

Alexander Borodin String Quartet No. 2 in D Major Allegro moderato Scherzo: Allegro Notturno: Andante Finale: Andante–Vivace

James Ehnes violin / Augustin Hadelich violin / Jonathan Vinocour viola / Ani Aznavoorian cello

Concert was originally scheduled for July 29, 2020 Edvard Grieg includes a brief but strenuous cadenza for the cello; one (1843–1907) wonders if this gesture was a gift of brotherly love. Sonata for Cello and Piano in A minor, Op. 36 (1886) The central Andante molto tranquillo begins with a Most recent SCMS performance: Summer 2016 whisper from the piano, a theme cut from the same mold as the Triumphal March from his incidental music Denigrated as a purveyor of “chocolate-covered to Sigurd Jorsalfar, written 11 years earlier (and later snow” by ideologically motivated Claude Debussy, the revised). After this fairly lengthy introduction the cello Norwegian composer’s music remains firmly fixed in the takes up the same theme, mirroring the piano part’s concert-going public’s collective heart. Such works as inward musing. Supportive piano chords provide the his youthful Piano Concerto and the incidental music to armature on which the cantabile cello part unfolds Ibsen’s Peer Gynt do not want for frequent performance. in lyric splendor. The Sigurd Jorsalfar theme recurs Grieg had a fine melodic sense and a conservative periodically, lending unforced nobility to the music. but potent harmonic and timbral palette. Though Scandinavian artists in general are often defined in A brief mysterious introduction by the cello opens the terms of a melancholy and moodiness attributable to concluding Allegro—Allegro molto e marcato. As he the northern clime—Ibsen in drama, Ingmar Bergman in did most effectively in the finale of his A-minor Piano film, Sibelius and Nielsen in symphonic music—Grieg’s Concerto, Grieg follows this passage with a rousing music freely embraces audience-friendly lyricism. It’s no Halling, a wild and intensely physical Norwegian dance. accident that his music was so well adapted to operetta In this, the Sonata’s longest movement, the range of in The Song of Norway. expression varies throughout. Moments of galvanic energy alternate and are thereby highlighted by The motivation for his fine Sonata for Cello and Piano, moments of tenderness and reserve. At times the music Op. 36 derived in part from a desire to provide and erupts with startling outbursts of tempestuous energy. dedicate a work for his cello-playing brother. Fraternal love notwithstanding, Grieg’s psyche at the time of Maurice Ravel the sonata’s composition was anything but sanguine. (1875–1937) A year before composing the piece he noted, “To all Sonata for Violin and Cello (1920–22) appearances I am living a more peaceful life than ever Most recent SCMS performance: Winter 2017 before, but in reality it is a life full of inward struggle. I am both spiritually and bodily unwell and decide every Following World War I, Maurice Ravel moved away from other day not to compose another note, because I the opulence of such ravishing earlier scores as Daphnis satisfy myself less and less.” Regardless of his personal et Chlöe into a spare, economical musical language demons the Sonata shows his fluency in taking that resonated to Stravinsky and the entire Neo-Classic advantage of the cello’s range of arresting timbres, school. An example of his post-World War I efforts to including its remarkable similarity to the baritone voice. redefine himself, Ravel composed the Sonata for Violin and Cello, an unusual though by no means unheard A tremolo-like figure on the piano opens the Allegro of combination. He acknowledged the difficulty he agitato first movement, providing a platform for the experienced in working on the comparatively brief piece cello’s sweet and lyrical main theme. Beyond the rich before its completion in 1922. In addition to his painful and sonorous cello part, the movement is laid out along memories of the War when he served as an ambulance strict sonata principles—he had, after all, received driver and suffered the loss of a number of comrades, thorough if conservative training in Leipzig. The piano he was still grieving the death of his mother in 1917 assumes a tempestuous pose in pressing the music and that of Debussy a year later. onward, though it enjoys a moment of serenity before allowing the cello to present the above-mentioned lyric The Sonata in question is as lean as anything Ravel theme that is so much a Grieg signature. The movement ever wrote. Little comfort is found by way of rich and

summer festival // comfortable sonorities and harmonies. The textures are beloved hobby secondary to his dual profession as a thin, the harmonies often astringent and even bi-tonal. chemist and surgeon. (When Soviet authorities had a In thoroughly renouncing the vestiges of Romanticism, monument erected in his honor it was for his work as a it parallels the uncompromisingly dissonant violin and chemist, not for his musical creations.) The illegitimate piano sonata of Bartók, dating from the same period. son of a Russian prince and the sister of a St. Petersburg civil servant, young Alexander was named for one of The first movement, Allegro, is a troubling musical his father’s servants. His musical education was scanty, dialogue in which the two protagonists clash, playing at that in chemistry quite the contrary. Scientific journals times in different keys and posing minor- versus major- of the time praised his work in chemistry, while fellow thirds, and creating an uneasy yet compelling sense composers—spurred by the advocacy of Balakirev— of harmonic warfare. The two instruments share an applauded his musical efforts. He became one of the obsessive opening theme that is initiated by the cello “Mighty Handful,” as the dominant Russian composers— and soon appropriated by the violin. A sense of disquiet with the conspicuous exception of “Westernized” courses through the movement. Tchaikovsky—were termed by each other and their claques. When Borodin died unexpectedly from a burst A brilliant Scherzo marked Très vif is rife with striking aneurysm in 1887, his lengthy and ambitious opera, instrumental effects, especially so in the plucked Prince Igor, remained unfinished until completed by ostinato played variously by both instruments. A Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov. pervasive eeriness conjures the sound world of a tossing and turning narcotic dream, fascinating, uneasy, A letter from Borodin may hint at his gift for ingratiating, and wholly of the still-newly mechanized century. uplifting melody: “As a composer seeking to remain anonymous I am shy of confessing my musical activity. As if to back away from the strangeness of what This is intelligible enough. For others it is their chief has preceded it, the Lent movement offers relative business, the occupation and aim of life. For me it familiarity and comfort by virtue of its elegiac opening is a relaxation, a pastime which distracts me from melody intoned by the cello and seconded by the violin. my principal business, my professorship. I love my Their “relationship” is made more intimate through an profession and my science. I love the Academy and my ensuing extended duet, though a comparatively restive pupils, male and female, because to direct the work of middle section jabs at our consciousness as a reminder young people, one must be close to them.” of still-festering psychic wounds. The movement ends in a mood of sad resignation and quiet. His String Quartet No. 2 in D Major abounds in sweet, vocal-derived melody, and not merely in the justly The concluding rondo-like movement, Vif, avec entrain famous third movement Notturno. The prevailing good (“Lively, with spirit”) draws its impetus from a lightly spirits and romance of the entire piece reflects feelings tapped opening theme (again first stated by the cello of love for his wife, pianist Catherine Protopopova; he before the violin enters the fray). Several brief episodes composed the quartet while the couple was celebrating dot the landscape before the music abruptly ends on a their 20th wedding anniversary in 1881. pizzicato chord. As elsewhere, an unshakeable eeriness underscores the proceedings. The cello opens the Allegro moderato and is soon partnered by the first violin a fifth higher before Alexander Borodin subsidiary material ensues. The cello re-enters an octave (1833–1887) lower and “hands the baton” over to the first violin who String Quartet No. 2 in D Major (1881) intones the second subject. Both tunes figure in the Most recent SCMS performance: Summer 2015 development section. The closing recapitulation appends a coda that brings the movement to a pacific close. Alexander Borodin was undoubtedly history’s most successful amateur composer, treating music as a In the Scherzo: Allegro, placed second in the quartet, the violins announce both the initial theme and a

August 5, 2020 // program notes waltz-like second subject. Contrasting ideas serve as substitute for the traditional form Trio, cast instead as a combination of development and recapitulation.

The lovely A-Major Notturno: Andante noted above has long enjoyed a separate life as an encore, so immediate is its appeal. Once again honors go to the cello in presenting the main theme, gently accompanied by syncopated chords from the viola and cello before the first violin soars high above the supportive textures. The pace quickens in anticipation of the second theme, Appasionato e resoluto. During the closing minutes of the movement the cello restates the main theme followed in canon by the first violin and viola. With a quaking accompanying tremolo the theme assumes a somewhat sinister mien, but as the movement ends the tremolo is withdrawn and the mood relaxes.

D Major is re-established in the finale. An introductory Andante posits two fragments that constitute the first theme. The shift to the Vivace section is led by the cello and viola in the new, faster tempo. The first violin plays the lyrical second tune. As the movement proceeds Borodin cannily builds to a brilliant climax that brings the work to a celebratory close.

Program Notes by Steven Lowe

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