Beethoven Brahms

CHAN 10564 BEETHOVEN Triple Concerto BRAHMS Double Concerto Trio Poseidon Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra NEEME JÄRVI Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 –1827) Concerto for Piano, Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Op. 56* 36:41 in C major • in C-Dur • en ut majeur Dem Fürsten Franz Joseph v. Lobkowitz gewidmet 1 I Allegro – Più allegro 17:58 2 II Largo – 5:41 3 III Rondo alla Polacca – Allegro – Tempo I 12:57 Johannes Brahms (1833 –1897) Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Op. 102† 32:45 Portrait by Louis Letronne © Peter Joslin Collection Joslin © Peter Louis by Letronne Portrait in A minor • in a-Moll • en la mineur 4 I Allegro 17:08 5 II Andante 6:58 6 III Vivace non troppo – Poco meno allegro – Tempo I 8:30 TT 69:41 Trio Poseidon* Sara Trobäck Hesselink violin† Claes Gunnarsson cello† Per Lundberg piano Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (The National Orchestra of Sweden) Christer Thorvaldssonconcert master Neeme Järvi Ludwig van Beethoven, 1814 3 unfinished, only taking it up again in the excellent powers of penetration. In fact it is Beethoven: Triple Concerto/Brahms: Double Concerto summer of 1804. Even then it was another the cellist who of the three soloists has the three years before it was published, in 1807, most demanding role. Another strategy, much and the first known public performance was on show in the first and last movements, was Concertos for more than one solo instrument be considered as a piano trio in which the given in a concert organised by the violinist to use melodies that could be divided into have been something of a Cinderella genre. orchestra takes on the role of the piano. Ignaz Schuppanzigh at Vienna’s Augartensaal relatively short motivic fragments; these could They presumably evolved out of the baroque in May 1808. be passed around among the players to give concerto grosso, in which there was a clearly Beethoven: Triple Concerto Writing what was essentially a concerto for them an apparent equality. defined process of give and take between the Beethoven seems to have started composing piano trio confronted Beethoven with some The first movement begins almost main orchestra (the ripieno) and a smaller his Concerto in C major for violin, cello intriguing structural and textural challenges. mysteriously with an ascending figure in the instrumental group (the concertino). But in and piano, Op. 56 – generally known as Evidently he relished expanding the concerto cellos and basses, which develops, via a full the classical era the solo concerto, with its his Triple Concerto – in 1803, the year of form to accommodate three soloists, but orchestral crescendo, into the first subject – guiding concepts of individual virtuosity the Eroica Symphony. It was intended for he clearly wanted to avoid making the apparently rather severe, but capable of and dramatic opposition between soloist and the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, son of structure too long and cumbersome by great warmth in its later developments. The orchestra, came to dominate, and successful Emperor Leopold II, who had begun to mechanically allowing each individual player orchestra next presents the serene second multi-instrument concertos, such as Mozart’s study with Beethoven in that year. This to give full statements in the exposition and theme, and a subsidiary marching tune, then Sinfonia concertante for violin and viola, undoubtedly explains why the piano part, recapitulation of each of the main themes fades out on a hushed, expectant repetition, were rare phenomena indeed. This may be which would have been performed by the in the first movement. In fact he tends to from the first violins, of the key-note of C. because, although in the late eighteenth and Archduke, is suited to a pianist of relatively treat the trio as a double rather than a triple Above this the solo cello enters, establishing nineteenth centuries the solo concerto was modest attainments, while the violin and entity, made up of the two strings and the its primacy in the ensemble of soloists. It is quite clearly an orchestral genre, the interplay cello parts – intended for the violinist Carl piano. This strategy made the form more answered by the solo violin, and the two and dialogue required of two or more solo August Seidler and the cellist Anton Kraft – manageable, while permitting the Archduke instruments prepare for the entry of the piano instruments imported elements that more presuppose players of a more virtuoso rank. Rudolph a number of solo spots (where a (Beethoven perhaps felt that the Archduke’s clearly related to chamber music. This mixture Kraft, indeed, was a highly experienced certain amount of ‘easy’ bravura writing entry would gain authority from coming of genres can easily be apprehended – and is player who had served twelve years in the enters the piano part). Even so, the result was last), after which the orchestra bursts in with dealt with quite differently – in Beethoven’s Esterházy orchestra under Haydn, and since one of Beethoven’s longest movements in another military march. There is an expansive Triple Concerto, which might be described as 1795 had been in the service of Beethoven’s sonata form. To prevent the cello from being development section in which we encounter a piano trio with orchestral accompaniment, Viennese patron Prince Lobkowitz. However, obscured by the orchestra and the piano’s delightful passages when the orchestra falls and the Double Concerto of Johannes the intended performance did not then bass Beethoven put most of the cello part into silent and the soloists are left alone to play as Brahms, which could for large stretches materialise, and Beethoven put the work aside the instrument’s highest register, which has a trio, or when each soloist takes up one of the 4 5 themes on his own. After the recapitulation within itself contains a teasing modulation friendship between Brahms and the violinist links between the Double Concerto and there occurs a brief, lyrical cadenza for the to E major. It frames episodes of contrasting Joseph Joachim had suffered almost irreparable Brahms’s C minor Piano Trio, Op. 101, three instruments together, accompanied by melody and key. Beethoven plays around damage. Joachim tried to divorce his wife, the completed the previous summer. The trio’s soft chords from the orchestra, just before the with the strutting 3/4 Polacca rhythms, and singer Amalie Schneeweiss, on an unfounded four concise movements have yielded in the coda allows them an opportunity for more eventually, after a recapitulation of the first suspicion of adultery, and the chivalrous concerto, however, to a three-movement plan brilliant display. episode and a mysterious preparation, he Brahms took her side – a major factor in the dominated by a large opening movement. After this very large opening movement wittily foreshortens the metre into a brisk failure of the divorce proceedings. In 1887, This is not merely symphonic in outline but the Largo second movement, in A flat, is 2/4 time. The orchestra pauses for a written- after an estrangement of several years, Brahms enlarged by a brilliant, rhapsodising, cadenza- correspondingly short. An introduction for out cadenza by the soloists, which swells wrote his Double Concerto partly as a kind like introduction presenting cello and violin, muted strings is followed by the solo cello and then fades away; and the original 3/4 of peace-offering to Joachim, who indeed separately and together, in bravura solos singing its soaring molto cantabile theme tempo returns in serene satisfaction for the gave the premiere, conducted by Brahms, in significantly markedin modo d’un recitativo, in its highest register. As the violin and triumphant ending. Cologne with their mutual friend Robert before the hard-driven and passionate cello share the melodic material the piano Hausmann, who had been the cellist of orchestral tutti. supplies a gentle accompaniment. Essentially, Brahms: Double Concerto the Joachim String Quartet since 1879. The innate romanticism of the Double the opening idea is the only subject. It is While Beethoven’s Triple Concerto is an early Joachim deeply appreciated this gesture of Concerto springs from the nature of the developed, and the movement appears to be middle-period work, expansive and relaxed reconciliation. His professional esteem and instruments themselves. In this work progressing unhurriedly towards a central in its treatment of the chosen medium, the admiration for his friend’s music had never Brahms extends to the whole design a series episode; but a quiet anticipatory passage given Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102 by flagged, and as with the Violin Concerto of analogies with vocal music which he had to the soloists reveals itself not as a transition Brahms has all the structural compression of he contributed to a significant extent in the adumbrated in the slow movements of his to such an episode but as the preparation for his late period, something which, combined shaping and refinement of the new concerto’s previous concertos. Treated as co-equal the finale, which follows without a break. with the unusual choice of soloists, caused solo string parts. soloists, the two string instruments, so This proves to be a brilliantRondo alla early audiences – even his close friends – to Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for violin alike in construction and so different in Polacca, an example of the Polonaise, the complain that the work was too difficult, or and viola and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto character, inevitably suggest dialogue – and Polish folk-dance long popular with German even tedious. The verdict of history, however, is were surely significant influences for Brahms, male/female dialogue at that. The violin is composers from Bach to Schubert for its that this is one of the richest and most frankly and the result is in fact the most frankly a sometimes assertive female and the cello a bravura and rhythmic élan.

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