carte blanche concert iv: Violin Celebration

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) s August 4 Sonata in D Major for Violin and Piano, op. 12, no. 1 (1797–1798) Allegro con brio Saturday, August 4, 8:00 p.m., The Center for Performing Theme and variations: Andante con moto Arts at Menlo-Atherton Rondo: Allegro Erin Keefe, violin; Wu Han, piano Program Overview Throughout the history of Western music, composers have Aaron Copland (1900–1990) been drawn to the violin for its lyrical and expressive capabili- Sonata for Violin and Piano (1942–1943) Andante semplice ties. Through this fascination, an unparalleled body of work Lento has been amassed, and audiences have fallen in love time Allegretto giusto and again with the instrument’s rich oeuvre. In this special Jorja Fleezanis, violin; Gilbert Kalish, piano performance, Music@Menlo celebrates the violin’s history with performances of four diverse sonatas for violin and Intermission piano. Leoš Janácˇek (1854–1928) Violin Sonata (1914–1915) Con moto Ballada: Con moto SPECIAL THANKS Allegretto Adagio Music@Menlo dedicates this performance to Michael Ian Swensen, violin; Hyeyeon Park, piano Jacobson and Trine Sorensen with gratitude for their generous support. Richard Strauss (1864–1949)

Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 18 (1887) b l a nche concert c a rte Allegro ma non troppo Improvisation: Andante cantabile Finale: Andante – Allegro Arnaud Sussmann, violin; Gloria Chien, piano

www.musicatmenlo.org 49 Program Notes: Violin Celebration

Ludwig van Beethoven Aaron Copland (Born Bonn, baptized December 17, 1770; died March 26, 1827, Vienna) (Born November 14, 1900, Brooklyn, New York; died December 2, Sonata in D Major for Violin and Piano, op. 12, no. 1 1990, North Tarrytown, New York) Composed: 1797–1798 Sonata for Violin and Piano Dedication: Antonio Salieri Composed: 1942–1943 Other works from this period: Serenade for Violin, Viola, and Cello, Dedication: Harry L. Dunham op. 8 (1797); Cello Sonatas nos. 1 and 2 (1797); Quintet for Piano and First performance: January 17, 1944, with violinist Ruth Posselt and the Winds, op. 16 (1797); Septet in E-flat Major, op. 20 (1799) composer on piano Approximate duration: 19 minutes Other works from this period: Rodeo (Four Dance Episodes) (1942); An Outdoor Adventure (1938); Lincoln Portrait (1942) In November of 1792, the young Ludwig van Beethoven traveled to Approximate duration: 20 minutes Vienna, Europe’s musical capital, to study with the composer Joseph Haydn. Unfortunately, to Beethoven’s dismay, Haydn’s busy schedule as In 1931, the composer Aaron Copland met a striking twenty-one-year- Vienna’s preeminent composer precluded him from spending any thor- old Princeton undergraduate named Harry Dunham. Described by the ough time tutoring Beethoven. After a year of frustration, Beethoven composer David Diamond as “the most adorable, good-looking boy,” and Haydn parted ways, and Beethoven began studying with Johann Dunham became a close friend of Copland’s, admiring him and his Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri, two of Vienna’s most noted artistic circle in New York before going off to serve in World War II. By compositional pedagogues at that time. During his studies, Beethoven 1942, with the war ravaging the European continent and Japan and a began to establish his name within Vienna’s aristocratic circles, both as whole generation of young men from the United States sent off to serve a composer and as a pianist. By 1797, Beethoven’s career was in full with the Allied Forces, a palpable sense of the unknown swept across swing; having made a successful trip to Prague, he wrote to his brother: America. Artists and the larger public were left to grasp with the uncer- “I am well, very well. My art is winning me friends and respect, and what tain reality of whether their friends, loved ones, and acquaintances that more do I want?” In 1797, Beethoven began composing his Opus 12 went to serve would ever return home. The realities of the war hit Aaron violin sonatas, works that demonstrate his full compositional maturity. Copland hard when he learned the news in 1943 that Harry Dunham Though the exact genesis of Beethoven’s First Violin Sonata is had been shot down over the South Pacific. Completing his Violin unknown, the impetus for its composition could lie in Beethoven’s close Sonata that year, Copland inscribed in the score this simple dedication: friendship with Karl Amenda, a violinist and student of theology who “To Lt. Harry Dunham (1910–1943), a friend of mine who lost his life arrived in Vienna from Courland in 1798. Amenda was employed as while on duty in the South Pacific.” Upon the premiere of the piece in a musical tutor to Prince Lobkowicz’s children, and he and Beethoven 1944, the composer Virgil Thomson wrote: “[This is] one of the author’s soon became inseparable. Beethoven biographer Maynard Solomon most satisfying pieces. It has a quality at once of calm elevation and of described Beethoven’s friendship with Amenda: buoyancy that is characteristic of Copland and irresistibly touching.” The work is tinged with a bittersweet solemnity and tenderness He quickly made Beethoven’s acquaintance and soon, that permeate each of the three movements. The Andante semplice and in the words of a contemporary document, “captured begins with a slow piano introduction, evoking the spirit of a chorale Beethoven’s heart.” They became such inseparable compan- and highlighted by Copland’s characteristic use of open fourths and ions that when one was seen alone people would call out, fifths. The violin then enters with a simple tune, contrasting with the “where is the other one?” stoic chorale opening in the piano. A dialog between the piano and violin ensues with the spinning violin melody juxtaposed against the Written between 1797 and 1798, Beethoven’s First Violin Sonata piano’s homorhythmic progression. The movement develops with the is a remarkable musical statement, different from the violin sonatas of piano and violin voices in close dialog, leading to a stunning triple- Beethoven’s predecessors in that the two instruments are treated as forte climax, before a return of the opening material. equal partners. The Allegro con brio begins with a bold and stately

carte blanche concerts carte The second movement, Lento, is a beautifully simple elegy and passage, with the piano and violin in rhythmic unison, making way features a canon between three voices: violin, piano right hand, and for a lyrical melody passed between the two voices. The movement piano left hand. Copland brings back thematic material from the first proceeds through varying characters and developmental passages, movement in the piano, highlighted by a gentle rocking gesture in the demonstrating Beethoven’s remarkable ability to weave melodic mate- violin. The Allegretto giusto is a rhythmic tour de force, beginning with rial seamlessly through unconventional key areas, far removed from the an extended violin riff. As the movement develops, jazz influences, so home key of D major. The second movement is a traditional theme prevalent in the 1940s, can be heard throughout. The tenderness of and variations with the theme in A major first presented in the piano. the first movement’s opening returns near the conclusion of the piece, Interestingly and rather unconventionally, the first variation features the conjuring feelings of nostalgia and longing. piano in the primary role with the violin accompanying it. The mood of the movement changes drastically in the third variation, where Beethoven introduces a stormy a minor variation, before the move- ment returns to the sweet buoyancy of its opening character. The final movement is a lively and playful rondo, full of subtle syncopation and offbeat sforzandos, hinting at the rhythmic complexity and rustic humor of Beethoven’s later works.

*Bolded terms are defined in the glossary, which begins on page 107. 50 Music@Menlo 2012 Leoš Janácˇek Strauss experienced an intellectual awakening upon entering the Uni- (Born July 3, 1854, Hukvaldy, Moravia; died August 12, 1928, versity of Munich. There, he immersed himself in literature, art history, Moravská Ostrava) and philosophy, influences that would manifest themselves in many of Violin Sonata his later works. Also around the time he entered the university, Strauss became acquainted with the influential German conductor Hans von Composed: 1914–1915 Bülow. Bülow would serve as an important mentor figure for Strauss and Other works from this period: Perina (The Eiderdown) (1914); The would eventually give him his first opportunities to conduct. Wolf’s Trail (1916); In the Mists (1912) By 1888, Richard Strauss had firmly established himself as one of Approximate duration: 18 minutes the most promising young musicians of his generation. Having returned to Munich to become a conductor with the Munich Hofoper two years As with many artists of the time, Leoš Janácˇek was deeply affected earlier, Strauss began to familiarize himself with the symphonic poems by World War I. With the advent of new weapons and technology, the of Franz Liszt. After a journey to Italy in 1887, the same year Strauss realities of war took on new meaning, leaving much of the European completed his Violin Sonata, he wrote his first large-scale symphonic population to wrestle with the frightful atrocities that were happening fantasy, Aus Italien. The following year, he would compose his first sym- around them. No country in Europe was immune from the war that was phonic tone poem, Don Juan. The Violin Sonata would prove to be the raging throughout the continent. Janácˇek, who spent most of his career composer’s last substantial instrumental chamber music work before he in Moravia, held deep Russian and Serbian sympathies, perhaps owing fully delved into symphonic writing. to Moravia’s close historical ties as well as its close geographic proxim- Full of youthful energy, the Violin Sonata demonstrates the ity to both countries. A seminal moment in the conflict came on August Classical influences of Strauss’s musical upbringing, in addition to 1, 1914, with Germany declaring war on Russia. Janácˇek, who had been foreshadowing the forward-looking and boundary-defying musical lan- working on a sketch of what would eventually become his Violin Sonata, guage that would become a hallmark of his later works. Throughout the inscribed this date in the manuscript of the work. Though Janácˇek sonata, the intricacies and interweaving of the violin and piano voices composed the bulk of the Violin Sonata between 1914 and 1915, he evoke symphonic textures. The first movement begins with a brief and tinkered with the piece until its premiere in 1922, leaving doubts about heroic piano fanfare, answered quietly by the violin with a gentle mel- any overt connection between the piece and World War I. ody. Out of these two contrasting ideas, Strauss builds a movement Janácˇek’s Violin Sonata is a relatively compact work highlighted of tremendous variety, from virtuosic passages for both instruments to by brief melodic motifs and abrupt changes in rhythm and tempo, hall- gorgeous lyrical melodies. marks of the composer’s late style. The opening Con moto begins with The Improvisation, marked Andante cantabile, is a beautifully a declamatory statement in the violin followed by a nervous and rhap- rendered song, emblematic of the lieder that Strauss wrote from an sodic lyrical melody, spun over a trembling figure in the piano. The early age. It is possible that Strauss drew inspiration for this movement opening’s urgency is juxtaposed against sections of quiet repose. In the from a relationship he cultivated around this time with a young singer Ballada, Janácˇek takes the menacing sonorities of the first movement named Pauline de Ahna, who would eventually become his wife. The and transforms them into a warm, angelic melody in the violin, high- movement, in its tender lovingness, demonstrates Strauss’s ability to lighted by the piano’s oscillating broken chords. compose music of remarkable intimacy and subtlety. The final move- The third movement, marked Allegretto, features the return of ment begins with an ominous piano introduction before launching into the first movement’s urgency, beginning with an insistent theme in an energetic and heroic Allegro. The symphonic thrust of the music is the piano, played over a trill. The violin comments with a flourishing highlighted by a series of virtuosic ascending sixteenth-note passages downward figure before the momentum stops with a series of bleak, in both the violin and the piano. Elements of the extended melodies punctuated chords. The movement continues with various fragmented and lyricism of the first movement return, before the work closes with hints at the thematic material from the two previous movements. The bristling and boundless energy. final Adagio movement opens with a series of ethereal piano chords, —Isaac Thompson before being abruptly interrupted by an angry interjection from the vio- lin. Both the violin and piano continue, each voice restlessly insisting on its own contrasting character, until they eventually merge together with a lyrical melody, reminiscent of the second movement. The movement ends mysteriously, suspended in quiet reflection. carte blanche concerts carte

Richard Strauss (Born June 11, 1864, Munich; died September 8, 1949, Garmisch- Partenkirchen) Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 18 Composed: 1887 Other works from this period: Detailed in the notes below Approximate duration: 29 minutes

Richard Strauss had a remarkably prolific musical career, both as a com- poser and as a conductor, spanning nearly eight decades. Primarily remembered as a composer of large-scale symphonic works, Strauss spent much of his early career composing music for solo piano and small chamber ensembles under the strict tutelage of his father, Franz Strauss, the Principal Horn Player in Munich’s Court Orchestra. Under his father’s watchful eye, Richard Strauss spent his childhood engrossed in the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. In 1882, www.musicatmenlo.org 51