CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 8pm First Congregational Church

Pinchas Zukerman, & ,

PROGRAM

Franz Schubert (1797–1828) Sonatina No. 2 for Violin and Piano in , D. 385 (1816) Allegro moderato Andante Menuetto: Allegro Allegro

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Sonata No. 7 for Piano and Violin in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2 (1802) Allegro con brio Adagio cantabile Scherzo: Allegro Finale: Allegro

INTERMISSION

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) Sonata for Viola and Piano in F minor, Op. 120, No. 1 (1894) Allegro appassionato Andante un poco Adagio Allegretto grazioso Vivace

Funded, in part, by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ – Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. This performance is made possible, in part, by Paton Sponsors Diana Cohen and Bill Falik. Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES

Franz Schubert (9>@>–9?:?) tions for voice and keyboard that could be used Sonatina No. : for Violin and Piano in to support his application, but his works for vi - A minor, D. ;?= olin had all been within an orchestral or cham - ber ensemble context. He was trained in violin Composed in 1816. (though he preferred playing viola in the Schubert household quartet and in the amateur Between 1814 and 1816, Schubert worked as orchestra that sprouted from it), but he had not a teacher in his father’s school in suburban yet written a piece featuring the instrument, so Vienna. He cared little for the situation, and in March and April 1816 he quickly composed soothed his frustration by composing; in 1815 three Sonatinas for Violin and Piano. It is un - alone, he wrote nearly 150 songs, the Second known, however, whether he intended these and Third Symphonies, a Mass and other works—conventional in form and idiom, and church music, piano pieces, and a half-dozen modest enough in their technique to be acces - operettas and melodramas. The torrent of sible to students—to enhance his chances at music continued unstaunched, and he stole Laibach or to be played at the convivial enough time from his pedagogical duties to Schubertiads at which he and his friends met to compose some 200 pieces between the Third savor the latest products of his flourishing ge - Symphony and the Symphony No. 4 nius. If nothing else, their propinquity to the (“Tragic”), completed in April 1816. Music, Laibach application suggests that Schubert was not teaching, was his passion. Schubert, how - then seeking not only to move beyond the ever, was apparently not yet then quite ready drawing-room confines of his earlier works but to give himself over completely to his art, so also to carry his nascent reputation to music when an advertisement appeared in the lovers outside his native Vienna. (Two other Wiener Zeitung on February 17, 1816, for a works for violin, these with orchestra—the position at the German Normal School at Concertstück in D [D. 345] and the Rondo in A Laibach (now Llubljana), he submitted the fol - [D. 438] —date from that same year.) When lowing application (in the third person) in re - Schubert did not get the position in Laibach, sponse to the notice: he decided that he had had more than his fill 1. Applicant has been educated at the of teaching, so he left his father’s school that Konvikt [i.e., Imperial and Royal spring to devote his full time to composing and Seminary], and was a Court Chorister never again held a regular job. His only em - and composition pupil of Antonio Salieri, ployment during the remaining twelve years of first Court Conductor, on whose kind his life was as a music tutor for two summers recommendation he applies for this post. on the Hungarian estate of Count Esterházy. 2. He has gained such thorough knowl - Lacking virtually any income, he lived on the edge and experience in every type of charity of his friends. The Violin Sonatinas composition for organ, violin, and the were among the last compositions that voice that, as the enclosed references tes - Schubert wrote before retiring from teaching— tify, he is considered in every way the at age 19. most capable among all the competitors The three Sonatinas o f 1816 (published as for the post. Op. 137 by Anton Diabelli in 1836 , eight years 3. He promises the best possible appli - after the composer’s death) show Schubert’s cation of his abilities to the carrying out of devoted study of Mozart’s works, but move his duties should he be graciously consid - beyond those “piano sonatas with the accom - ered a fitting applicant to fill the post. paniment of violin” in the independence of According to the Laibach advertisement, the their instrumental parts. The relationship be - winning applicant “must be a thoroughly tween the two partners is demonstrated by the trained singer and organist, as well as an beginning of the Sonatina No. 2 in A minor , equally good violin player.” Schubert had al - in which the piano alone presents the slow, ready authored literally hundreds of composi - arching main theme, and then retreats to an

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES accompanimental role when the violin takes flood plain. It was three years earlier, in 1799, over the melody. A similar alternation—piano, that Beethoven first noticed a disturbing ring - then violin—is used for the flowing second ing and buzzing in his ears, and he sought theme. The development section consists of medical attention for the problem soon there - just a few phrases spun from the arching after. He tried numerous cures for his malady, melody before the piano again takes up the as well as for his chronic colic, including oil of principal theme to start the recapitulation— almonds, hot and cold baths, soaking in the but in the key of D minor rather than in the Danube, pills and herbs. For a short time, he expected A minor, a technique with which even considered the modish treatment of elec - Schubert experimented in several works of tric shock. On the advice of his latest doctor, those years (Symphonies Nos. 2, 4, and 5, th e Beethoven left the noisy city for the quiet “Trout” ) to broaden the range of har - countryside with the assurance that the lack monic and instrumental colors of his instru - of stimulation would be beneficial to his hear - mental compositions. The songful Andante ing and his general health. shows the manner in which Schubert trans - In Heiligenstadt, Beethoven virtually lived ferred the lyrical gifts that blossomed so abun - the life of a hermit, seeing only his doctor and dantly in his songs into his instrumental a young student named Ferdinand Ries. In creations. The piano, soon joined by the vio - 1802, he was still a full decade from being to - lin, presents the lovely melody upon which the tally deaf. The acuity of his hearing varied first and last of the movement’s three formal from day to day (sometimes governed by his paragraphs (A–B–A) are built; the central sec - interest—or lack thereof—in the surrounding tion, more animated in character, is marked conversation), but he had largely lost his abil - by the delicate chromatic harmonies that give ity to hear soft sounds by that time, and loud Schubert’s music so much of its touching ex - noises caused him pain. Of one of their walks pression. The Menuetto , with its surprising in the country, Ries reported, “I called his at - dynamic shifts and its melancholy minor key, tention to a shepherd who was piping very is pleasingly balanced by the brighter tonality agreeably in the woods on a flute made of a and smooth rhythms of the tiny central trio. twig of elder. For half an hour, Beethoven The finale is a rondo based on the simple, ten - could hear nothing, and though I assured him der main theme of mostly scale steps an - that it was the same with me (which was not nounced by the violin at the outset. The the case), he became extremely quiet and mo - episodes separating the returns of the theme rose. When he occasionally seemed to be provide contrast with two livelier motives: merry, it was generally to the extreme of bois - one, started by the piano, uses wider melodic terousness; but this happens seldom.” In addi - intervals and a few dotted rhythms; the other, tion to the distress over his health, Beethoven assigned alternately to both participants, in - was also wounded i n 1802 by the wreck of an corporates running triplet figurations. affair of the heart. He had proposed marriage to Giulietta Guicciardi (the thought of (9>>8–9?:>) Beethoven as a husband threatens the moor - Sonata No. > for Piano and Violin in C minor, ings of one’s presence of mind!), but had been Op. ;8, No. : denied permission by the girl’s father for the then perfectly valid reason that the young Composed in 1802. composer was without rank, position or for - tune. Faced with the extinction of a musician’s In the summ er of 1802, Beethoven’s physician most precious faculty, fighting a constant di - ordered him to leave Vienna and take rooms gestive distress, and unsuccessful in love, it is in Heiligenstadt, today a friendly suburb at the little wonder that Beethoven was sorely vexed. northern terminus of the city’s subway system, On October 6, 1802, following several but two centuries ago a quiet village with a months of wrestling with his misfortunes, view of the Danube across the river’s rich Beethoven penned the most famous letter ever

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES written by a musician—the “Heiligenstadt The Adagio , one of those inimitable slow Testament.” Intended as a will written to his movements in which Beethoven created brothers (it was never sent, though he kept it music seemingly rapt out of quotidian time, is in his papers to be found after his death), it is based on a hymnal melody presented first by a cry of despair over his fate, perhaps a neces - the piano and reiterated by the violin. A pas - sary and self-induced soul-cleansing in those sage in long notes for the violin above har - pre-Freudian days. “O Providence—grant me monically unsettled arpeggios in the keyboard at last but one day of pure joy—it is so long constitutes the movement’s central section be - since real joy echoed in my heart,” he fore the opening theme is recalled in an elab - lamented. But—and this is the miracle—he orated setting. The coda is dressed with not only poured his energy into self-pity, he ribbons of scales by the piano. The Scherzo , also channeled it into music. “I shall grapple with its rhythmic surprises and nimble figu - with fate; it shall never pull me down,” he re - rations, presents a playful contrast to the sur - solved. The next five years were the most pro - rounding movements. The Finale, which ductive he ever knew. “I live only in my mixes elements of rondo (the frequent returns music,” Beethoven wrote, “and I have scarcely of the halting motive heard at the beginning) begun one thing when I start another.” The and sonata (the extensive development of the Symphoni es Nos. 2–5, a dozen piano sonatas, themes), renews the troubled mood of the the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Triple opening movement to close the expressive Concerto, Fidelio, three violin and piano and formal cycle of this excellent Sonata. sonatas (Op. 30), many songs, chamber works, and keyboard compositions were all (9?;;–9?@>) composed between 1802 and 1806. Sonata for Viola and Piano in F minor, The Op. 30 Sonatas for Piano and Violin that Op. 9:8, No. 9 Beethoven completed by the time he returned from Heiligenstadt to Vienna in the middle of Composed in 1894. October 1802 stand at the threshold of a new creative language, the dynamic and dramatic As an unrepentant, life-long bachelor (he once musical speech that characterizes the creations vowed “never to undertake either a marriage of his so-called “second period.” The C minor or an opera”), Johannes Brahms depended Sonata, the second of the Op. 30 s et, shares its heavily on his circle of friends for support, en - impassioned key with several other epochal couragement, and advice. By word and exam - creations of those years, notably the Fifth ple, Robert Schumann set him on the path of Symphony, Third Piano Concerto, serious composition as a young man; “Pathétique” Sonata, Coriolan Overture , and Schumann’s wife, Clara, was Brahms’s chief Op. 18, No. 4, . The work opens critic and confidante throughout his life. The with a pregnant main theme, announced by violinist Joseph Joachim was an indefatigable the piano and echoed by the violin, which, ac - champion of Brahms’s , and cording to British musicologist Samuel provided him expert technical information Midgley, “is like a taut spring about to snap.” during the composition of the Violin Concerto. This motive returns throughout the movement Hans von Bülow, a musician of gargantuan tal - both as the pillar of its structural support and ent celebrated as both pianist and conductor, as the engine of its tempestuous expression. played Brahms’s music widely, and made it a The second theme is a tiny military march in mainstay in the repertory of the superb court dotted rhythms. The development section, orchestra at Meiningen during his tenure there which commences with bold slashing chords as music director from 1880 to 1885. Soon after separated by silences (the exposition is not re - arriving to take up his post, Bülow invited peated), encompasses powerful mutations of Brahms to Meiningen to be received by the the two principal themes. A full recapitulation music-loving Duke Georg and his consort, and a large coda round out the movement. Baroness von Heldburg, and Brahms was pro -

CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES vided with a fine apartment and encouraged to was eager to issue the scores, but the com - visit the court whenever he wished. (The only poser would not release them until late in the obligation upon the comfort-loving composer spring of 1895 so that Mühlfeld would have was to don the much-despised full dress for exclusive performance rights to them during dinner.) Brahms returned frequently and hap - the tour. Except for the Four Serious Songs and pily to Meiningen to hear his works played by the set of eleven Chorale Preludes inspired by the orchestra and to take pa rt in chamber en - the death of Clara in 1896, these Sonatas were sembles. At a concert in March 1891, he heard the last music that Brahms wrote. a performance of Weber’s F minor Clarinet Though this Sonata was inspired by and con - Concerto by the orchestra’s principal player of ceived for the clarinet, its style and dark color - that instrument, Richard Mühlfeld, and was ing also make it appropriate for the viola, and overwhelmed. “It is impossible to play the clar - Brahms made an arrangement for that instru - inet better than Herr Mühlfeld does here,” he ment that he instructed Simrock to publish as wrote to Clara. “He is absolutely the best I part of the music’s original issue. These late know.” So fluid and sweet was Mühlfeld’s play - Sonatas are works of Brahms’s fullest maturity: ing that Brahms dubbed him “Fräulein economical without being austere, tightly uni - Nightingale,” and flatly proclaimed him to be fied in motivic development, virtually seamless the best wind instrument player that he had in texture yet structurally pellucid, harmonically ever heard. Indeed, so strong was the impact of rich, and, as always with his greatest music, suf - the experience that Brahms was shaken out of fused with powerful and clear emotions tren - a year-long creative lethargy—the Clarinet Trio chantly expressed. (“Who can resist an emotion (Op. 114) and the Clarinet Quintet (Op. 115) strong enough to penetrate all that skillful elab - were composed without difficulty for Mühlfeld oration?” asked the composer’s friend Elizabeth in May and June 1891. von Herzogenberg about the Fourth Symphony During his regular summer retreat at Bad nine years earlier.) The opening movement of Ischl in the Austrian Salzkamm ergut in 1894 , the F minor Sonata follows the traditional Brahms was again inspired to write for clar - sonata-allegro model. The first theme com - inet. During July he composed two Sonatas prises a motive given immediately by the piano for Clarinet and Piano, and invited Mühlfeld in octaves and a wide-ranging melody in the to visit him in September to try out the new viola; the second theme group begins with a pieces. They then took the Sonatas to sweeter strain that leads to more animated ma - Frankfurt, and there played them for Clara terial to close the exposition. The Andante is Schumann four times in five days, but her disposed in a simple three-part (A–B–A) form hearing was so bad by that time that they that perfectly contains the music’s ethereal tran - sounded to her, she said, like little more than quility. The third movement, the gentlest of “chaos.” She read them at the piano, however Ländlers , is a reminder of Brahms’s unwavering (Clara was one of the 19th century’s greatest affection for the popular music and dances of keyboard virtuosos), and pronounced her love Vienna, his beloved adopted home. The last for these latest of Brahms’s creations. With this movement is a sonata-rondo, a form that blessing, Mühlfeld and Brahms toured suc - Brahms borrowed from Haydn, who favored it cessfully with the Sonatas to several cities; the for his symphonic finales. performance in Vienna on January 11, 1895, was Brahms’s last public appearance as a pi - anist. Simrock, Brahms’s publisher in Berlin, © 2014 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

ChamberPlayers perform at the Ravinia, Verbier, and Miyazaki festivals in addition to their third South American tour. Over the last decade, Mr. Zukerman has be - come as equally regarded a conductor as he is an instrumentalist, leading many of the world’s top ensembles in a wide variety of the orchestral repertoire’s most demanding works. A devoted and innovative pedagogue, Mr. Zukerman chairs the Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has pioneered the use of dis - k a

z tance-learning technology in the arts. In a M

Canada, he has established the NAC Institute l y r

e for Orchestra Studies and the Summer Music h

C Institute encompassing the Young Artists, Pinchas Zukerman has remained a phenom - Conductors, and Composers programs. enon in the world of music for over four Born in in 1948, Mr. Zukerman decades. His musical genius, prodigious tech - came to America in 1962 where he studied at nique, and unwavering artistic standards are the with . He a marvel to audiences and critics. Devoted to has been awarded the Medal of Arts and the the next generation of musicians, he has in - Award for Artistic Excellence, and spired younger artists with his magnetism and was appointed as the Rolex Mentor and passion. His enthusiasm for teaching has re - Protégé Arts Initiative’s first instrumentalist sulted in innovative programs in London, mentor in the music discipline. Mr. Zuker - New York, China, , and Ottawa. The man’s extensive discography contains over 100 name Pinchas Zukerman is equally respected titles, and has earned him 21 Grammy Award as violinist, violist, conductor, pedagogue, and nominations and two awards. chamber musician. Mr. Zukerman’s 2013–2014 season includes over 100 performances worldwide, bringing him to multiple destinations in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Mr. Zukerman is currently in his 15th season as Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, with whom he tours China this fall. In his fifth season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, he leads the ensemble in concerts in Spain, Russia, and the United Kingdom, as well as a nationwide tour of the . a t

Additional orchestral engagements include the s o c

Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, A

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Budapest Festival Orchestra, Salzburg Camer - r a ata, Israel Philharmonic, Royal Scottish D National Orchestra, and a return visit to Yefim Bronfman is widely regarded as one of Australia for appearances with the Sydney and the most talented virtuoso pianists perform - Adelaide symphonies and West Australian ing today. His commanding technique and ex - Symphony Orchestra in Perth. Spring recitals ceptional lyrical gifts have won him consistent with pianist Yefim Bronfman take place critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences throughout North America, and the Zukerman worldwide for his solo recitals, orchestral

CAL PERFORMANCES ABOUT THE ARTISTS engagements, and rapidly growing catalogue was awarded the presti gious Avery Fisher of recordings. Prize, one of the highest honors given to In the 2013–2014 season, Mr. Bronfman is American instrumentalists. In 2010, he re - featured Artist-in-Residence with the New ceived the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in piano York Philharmonic. Repertoire from Tchai - performance from Northwestern University. kovsky to Lindberg and including contempo - Widely praised for his numerous recordings, rary composers Marc-André Dalbavie, Mr. Bronfman was nominated for a Grammy Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Marc Neikrug are in - Award in 2009 for his Deutsche Grammophon cluded in chamber concerts, with a winter recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s piano con - tour to the Far East and a complete Beethoven certo with Mr. Salonen the Los concerto cycle over three weeks to bring the Angeles Philharmonic. Mr. Bronfman won a season to a close in June. Grammy in 1997 for his recording of the three With Pinchas Zukerman, Mr. Bronfman un - Bartók piano concertos under Mr. Salonen. dertakes a short duo tour in the spring to Mr. Bronfman’s performance of Beethoven’s Ottawa, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Fifth Piano Concerto with Andris Nelsons and Berkeley, and Vancouver. At the Berlin the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from the Philharmonic’s new spring residency in Baden- 2011 Lucerne Festival is available on DVD, and Baden, he plays Beethoven under Zubin his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Mehta, and during the season returns to the or - Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic chestras of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sir Simon Rattle was released on DVD by Philadelphia, Vancouver, Toronto, Boston, EuroArts. His recent releases include Magnus Houston, Dallas, and Detroit, as well as Paris, Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2, commis - Munich, Berlin, and Amsterdam. He tours sioned for Mr. Bronfman, with the New York Australia with whose Royal Concertgebouw Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert, on Da Capo; Orchestra as part of the orchestra’s worldwide Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with centenary celebrations. Mariss Jansons and the Bayerischer Rundfunk; Mr. Bronfman works regularly with an illus - a recital disc, Perspectives , complementing trious group of conductors, including Daniel Mr. Bronfman’s designation as a Carnegie Hall Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von “Perspectives” artist for 2007–2008; and Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph recordings of the Beethoven piano concertos Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, and the Triple Concerto with violinist Gil Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, , Esa- Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk, and the Tönhalle Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Franz Orchestra Zürich under Mr. Zinman, for Arte Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. Summer en - Nova/BMG. gagements regularly take him to the major fes - Born in Tashkent in 1958, Mr. Bronfman tivals of Europe and the United States. immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, He has also given many solo recitals in the where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head leading halls of North America, Europe, and of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv the Far E ast, including acclaimed débuts at University. In the United States, he studied at Carnegie Hall in 1989 and Avery Fisher Hall in the Juilliard School, the Marlboro Music 1993. In 1991, he gave a series of recitals with School, and the Curtis Institute, and with Isaac Stern in Russia, marking Mr. Bronfman’s , , and Rudolf first public performances there since his emi - Serkin. Mr. Bronfman became an American gration to Israel at age 15. That same year, he citizen in July 1989.

PLAYBILL