ISAAC STERN Violinist
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UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY in association with Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research Division of the Warner Lambert Company ISAAC STERN Violinist ROBERT McDONALD Pianist Thursday Evening, January 30, 1992, at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan The University Musical Society expresses thanks to Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research Division of the Warner Lambert Company for a generous grant supporting tonight's concert. The box office in the outer lobby is open during intermission for tickets to upcoming Musical Society concerts. Eighteenth Concert of the 113th Season 113th Annual Choral Union Series PROGRAM Sonata in D major, K. 306 .................. Mozart Allegro con spirito Andante cantabile Allegretto Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24 ("Spring") ........ Beethoven Allegro Adagio molto espressivo Scherzo: allegro molto Rondo: allegro ma non troppo INTERMISSION Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7 ........... Webern Sehr langsam Rasch Sehr langsam Bewegt Romance in F minor, Op. 11 ................ Dvorak Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 .............. Brahms Allegro Adagio Un poco presto e con sentimento Presto agitato Robert McDonald plays the Steinway piano available through Hammell Music, Inc., Livonia. Isaac Stern is represented by ICM Artists, Ltd., New York City. Mr. Stern records exclusively for CBS Masterworks/Sony Classics. Program Notes Sonata in D major, K. 306 to be published separately, as Op. 23 and Op. WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791) 24. At some time in the course of its history (no one knows when), the sunny warmth of ozart's preferred instrument its melodies and the rustling figuration of its was the piano, but in his instrumental writing gave the Op. 24 the youth he was a fine violinist, nickname "Spring" Sonata. too, and his father, who was The Allegro first movement is an excep a distinguished violin tional one, in which the violin is given the teacher,M always thought that with a little opportunity of leading off with the beautiful more application the son could have been opening theme. The movement is long and "the first violinist in Europe." As a composer, richly textured, so elegantly harmonized that Mozart showed the way to what his era called some of the beautiful bass lines for the the "piano sonata with violin accom pianist's left hand sound as though they could paniment" into the nineteenth century's so be the cello part of a great trio. The thematic nata for violin and piano, and a critic of his subjects are assembled from smaller melodic time was surprised to discover that his "sona materials that are then stretched to great tas require just as skillful a player on the violin length, clearly stated and later so freely re as at the keyboard." called that only brief discussion and develop Convention then required that sonatas ment are necessary. The second movement, be published in groups of three or six, and Adagio molto espressivo, is a romantic song when he composed this one during his stay whose ornamented main theme is akin to that in Paris in the summer of 1778, it filled out of the first. After an abbreviated Scherzo with the set dedicated to the Electress Palatine. It playful rhythms, Allegro moito, comes a finale, is a big work in three movements almost Allegro ma non troppo, that is not the stereo a concerto. There is a grand first movement, typical fast and jolly Rondo, but a lyrical and Allegro con spirito, and then an Andante can' poetic one, even more springlike than the labile slow movement with a main theme first movement. imitated (or perhaps even borrowed) from J. C. Bach, the beloved mentor of his child Four Pieces for Violin and Piano, Op. 7 hood, who was in Paris that summer. The ANTON WEBERN (1883-1945) finale is a brilliant rondo, Allegretto, with contrasting Allegro episodes. orn in Vienna, Anton Webem received his first instruction in Sonata No. 5 in F major, music from his mother, an ama Op. 24 ("Spring") teur pianist. He continued studies in piano, cello, and theory before LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) enteringB the University of Vienna, where he studied harmony, counterpoint, and musicol- eethoven's true domain as a public ogy. In 1904, he began private studies in performer was the keyboard, and composition with Arnold Schoenberg. he was the greatest pianist of his Webern was active as a conductor in Vienna time, but as a practical musician and Germany but, for the most part, devoted of his generation, he knew the himself to composition. violinB well and wrote fluently and idiomati After Hitler came to power in 1933, cally for it. Posterity wishes he had written Webern's music was banned as a manifesta more, for in addition to the ten sonatas, we tion of "cultural Bolshevism" and "degenerate have only the great Concerto of 1806 and art," and his position became even more some little pieces. This Sonata and the So difficult in 1938, for his works could no longer nata No. 4 were written more or less simul be published. After his son was killed in an taneously during 1800 and 1801. Beethoven air bombardment of a train in February 1945, had intended to issue them as a pair, under he and his wife fled from Vienna to Mittersill a single opus number, but when the engraver (near Salzburg) to stay with their married made the mistake of preparing the printing daughters. Webern's life ended tragically on plates for them in different formats, they had the evening of September 15, 1945, when he was accidentally shot and killed by an Amer works were quartets and quintets, modeled ican soldier after stepping outside his son-in- after Beethoven and Schubert, that he played law's residence. with his colleagues and friends while devel Webem was a composer whose impor oping his craft. Among them was a String tance and worth are not measured by the Quartet in F minor, written in 1873, which small number of his brief compositions. His he intended to be an optimistic work about opus numbers run only to 31, and they fill the changes in his life that would follow his just four LP records; but the musical expres marriage later that year. In 1875, Dvorak sion of the microcosms he created is so was "discovered" by Brahms, and his career condensed, his craft so precise, his ideas so suddenly blossomed, but the Quartet re pure in conception that his works affected the mained unperformed. Dvorak did not aban composers of Europe and America during the don the work completely, however, but 25 years after the Second World War more extracted from its slow movement a beautiful than any other single influence. Stravinsky theme that he used as the basis of a new acknowledged the use of Webern's methods composition, this lovely Romance. in his latest works; jazz composers have pro fessed to follow Webem's ideas of tone color; Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 and analytical treatises have been published JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) in several languages. The International Webern Festival celebrated the centennial of he musical manner that Brahms his birth in December 1983 in Vienna. adopted as a young man, and the Webern composed his Op. 7 in 1910, skill that he showed when he was at the beginning of a period of about five years only 20, led Robert Schumann that he was to devote to making his works as to proclaim him, in 1853, "a concise and as concentrated as possible. The Tmusician chosen to give ideal expression to Four Pieces last only about five minutes his times, a young man over whose cradle altogether, but they seem to encompass a Graces and Heroes have stood watch." From whole world of expression, following the the very beginning, he was the Brahms of dictum of Webern's master, Schoenberg, who noble melody, of rich texture, of rhythmic said that a poem could be contained in a freedom, of large statements in big forms glance, a novel in a sigh. Each of these tiny beautifully written for the instruments. This pieces is a pithy aphorism whose every mo does not mean that there is little difference ment every note and every silence in the music he wrote at 20 and at 55. He Webern loaded with meaning and expression. matured and grew and said different things at The first piece is very slow (Sehr langsam); the different times, but when young, he had second, quick (Rasc/i); the third, very slow found his own eloquent language, which he (Sehr langsam); and the fourth, agitated would use consistently and well until the end (Bewegt). of his life. Schumann's pronouncement also men Romance in F minor, Op. 11 tioned that Brahms had already written some ANTONIN DVORAK (1841-1904) violin sonatas, and years later, a pupil said that he had discarded five of them before ntonin Dvorak's father was a composing the one that he thought good village innkeeper and butcher enough to preserve and present to the world. who hoped to pass his trade on He completed it in 1879, and in 1886, he to his son, but the young man wrote a second. turned instead toward music, The third and last of his violin sonatas, tookA up the violin and organ, and at age 16 completed in 1888, is a profoundly introspec left home to study in Prague. Five years later, tive and meditative work, rich in the calm he joined the orchestra of the National The and the insight of an aging master. The ater playing the viola (which in those days opening movement, Allegro, is a lyric master was the instrument of failed violinists), and piece whose pages are marked by a certain soon he began to test his creative powers with restlessness and agitation that are absent from extended compositions in the classical forms.