David Finckel, Cello Wu Han, Piano
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CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS Saturday, May 3, 2014, 8pm First Congregational Church David Finckel, cello Wu Han, piano PROGRAM The Unfolding of Music Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) Sonata for Viola da Gamba in G major, BWV 1027 (ca. 1736–1741) I. Adagio II. Allegro ma non tanto III. Andante IV. Allegro moderato Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 4 in C major, Op. 102, No. 1 (1815) I. Andante — Allegro vivace II. Adagio — Tempo d’andante — Allegro vivace Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 in D major, Op. 58 (1843) I. Allegro assai vivace II. Allegretto scherzando III. Adagio IV. Molto allegro e vivace INTERMISSION CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM Claude Debussy (1862–1918) Sonata for Cello and Piano (1915) I. Prologue II. Sérénade III. Finale Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) Sonata for Cello and Piano in C major, Op. 65 (1960–1961) I. Dialogo II. Scherzo-pizzicato III. Elegia IV. Marcia V. Moto Perpetuo Cal Performances’ #!"$–#!"% season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES THE UNFOLDING OF MUSIC skill, that not only his appointment, but his family’s very arrival in Leipzig was reported in Through cello and piano duos spanning newspapers as far away as Hamburg, 180 nearly a quarter of a millennium, David miles away (“He himself arrived with his fam - Finckel and Wu Han take listeners through ily on two carriages at two o’clock and moved the extraordinary evolution of classical music. into the newly renovated apartment in the St. Beginning with Bach’s vibrant sonata for the Thomas School.”). viola da gamba and harpsichord—the ances - The other great development to occur that tors of the cello and piano—the program tran - year was the partnership between Gottfried sitions seamlessly to Beethoven’s experimental Zimmermann’s coffeehouse, Leipzig’s most sonata from the twilight of the Classical per - prominent such establishment, and the iod, whose opening recollects the music of Collegium Musicum. The Collegium was a Bach. Mendelssohn, who paved the way for performing collective of singers and instru - full-blown Romanticism, is featured in his mentalists (largely comprising students) second sonata, an ebullient, virtuosic work founded i n 1701 by Geor g Philipp Telemann, that pushed the capabilities of the instruments and had since then played a vital role in to their limits at the time. Debussy, universally Leipzig’s musical culture. Zimmermann’s cof - regarded as the inspiration for musical mod - feehouse included a concert hall that could ac - ernism, composed his only cello sonata late in commodate large ensembles and audiences of his life, the short work becoming the most 150 (the neighborhood Starbucks it most cer - important work for the cello in the Impressionist tainly was not). A series of weekly concerts— style. The program concludes with the extraor - always free of charge—sprung from this dinary sonata by the renowned Englishman partnership, and would eventually fall under Benjamin Britten, a composer who ranks with Bach’s supervision when he became the the greatest of the 20th century and who Collegium’s music director in 1729. stands shoulder-to-shoulder wi th England’s Though overseeing this series undoubtedly most celebrated composers, Henry Purcell and added a substantial commitment to Bach’s al - Edward Elgar. Britten’s sonata, the first of five ready demanding church duties, he neverthe - masterworks he composed for Rostropovich, less thrived in his dual position as cantor at St. employs innovative ideas in each of its five Thomas’s and concert presenter at Zimmer - short movements, and is a true delight to hear man’s coffeehouse . In fact, in addition to offer - from beginning to end. David Finckel was ing works by Handel, Locatelli, Scarlatti, and privileged to study the work with Rostro - others, Bach moreover took advantage of the povich, gaining priceless insight into the Collegium series as an opportunity to compose sonata’s conception through the intimate a good deal of nonliturgical music himself: pri - knowledge of its dedicatee. marily instrumental music, as well as a number of cantatas known as “moral cantatas,” light - hearted musical dramas dealing with themes of Johann Sebastian Bach (9>@=–9?=8) moral virtue (including the famous “Coffee Sonata for Viola da Gamba in G major, Cantata,” which passes tongue-in-cheek judg - BWV 98:? (ca. 9?;>–9?<9) ment on the vice of caffeine addiction). The instrumental works Bach produced for On two occasions in 1723, the rich musical life this series include numerous important works, of Leipzig got magnificently richer. On May among them this first of three Sonatas for Viola 22, the famous musician Johann Sebastian da Gamba, BW V 1027–29. Bach’s Collegium Bach arrived to assume the post of cantor and works for Zimmermann’s coffeehouse also in - music director at St. Thomas’s Church, one of clude the six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard the city’s musical epicenters. Bach, now 36 Obbligato, BWV 1014–19; the Violin Concerto years old, had achieved enough celebrity in A minor, BWV 1065; and the famous throughout Germany for his élite musical Double Concerto in D minor, BWV 1043. PLAYBILL CAL PERFORMANCES PROGRAM NOTES The G major Sonata for Viola da Gamba also inches its way upwards before quickly laugh - exists as a trio sonata for two flutes and basso ing its way back down to its starting point. continuo, BWV 1039, which is almost cer - The third movement is a languishing Andante tainly the earlier version (probably from Bach’s in the relative minor, which the finale answers days as Cappellmeister at Cöthen). By the lat e with another jovial fugue. 1730s (around the time of Bach’s arrangement In the great wealth of solo and chamber in - for viola da gamba of his trio sonata), the viola strumental works throughout Bach’s œuvre , da gamba had already begun to fall out of favor the Sonatas for Viola da Gamba are among as a solo instrument. Marin Marais, the in - those gems that have, though certainly not ig - strument’s greatest virtuoso, had died in 1728. nored, somewhat taken a back seat to the Bach remained a champion of the instrument, Cello Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for however, as evidenced by his use of it in nu - Violin, Die Kunst der Fuge , and other such merous concerti, cantatas, and the St. John and works. Even 200 years ago, Johann Nikolaus St. Matthew Passions, in addition to these Forkel, Bach’s first biographer, only quaintly sonatas. They remain today as standard reper - made note of “Several Sonatas for toire for both viola and cello; the latter’s more Harpsichord and Violin, Harpsichord and burnished tone, compared to the delicacy of Flute, Harpsichord and Viol da Gamba. They the gamba, demands a heightened sensitivity are admirably written and most of them are of the player to the nuances of Bach’s writing. pleasant to listen to even today.” These sonatas The early Bach biographer Philipp Spitta— are far from second-tier pieces, however, and who ranked the G major among the three demonstrate Bach’s genius in the mature years gamba sonatas “the loveliest, the purest idyll of his career as fully as any other works. conceivable”—also noted that the viola da gamba “afforded a great variety in the produc - Patrick Castillo tion of tone, but its fundamental character was tender and expressive rather than full and vig - Ludwig van Beethoven (9??8–9@:?) orous. Thus Bach could rearrange a trio orig - Sonata for Cello and Piano No. < in C major, inally written for two flutes and bass, for viol Op. 98:, No. 9 (9@9=) da gamba, with harpsichord obbligato, with - out destroying its dominant character.” Beyond the heroic struggles of his middle pe - The sonata does indeed demonstrate trio riod, and by this time almost completely deaf, sonata-style writing. Instead of a sparse basso Beethoven looked to the future in his last two continuo accompaniment to the through- cello sonatas. As in the A major sonata, the composed gamba part, Bach provides a com - cello begins alone, but in an entirely new plete keyboard accompaniment, which moves world. Whereas the A major theme is solid and in melodic and contrapuntal dialogue with firmly grounded in the cello’s lower register, the soloist. In the opening movement, a dig - this one breathes an unearthly air, and the en - nified yet dance-like Adagio , the keyboard tire Andante seems to float somewhere beyond and gamba bear equal melodic responsibility, reality. The writing is contrapuntal, with inde - often following each other in canon. The pendent voices of equal importance moving movement’s latter half features an intricately gently against each other. The thematic mater - involved dialogue between the two, colored ial is once again more complex: the decorative gracefully in turn by florid countermelodies elements Beethoven once applied in his early and ornamental trills. period are now fused seamlessly into the larger The work follows the four-movement struc - structure. Long trills function not merely as ture of the Italian sonata da chiesa (“church ornaments but as orchestration, adding inner sonata”) from the lat e 17th and early 18th cen - intensity to the sound. turies. Following a slow introduction, Bach The demonic and anguished Allegro vivace launches into the fugal Allegro ma non tanto , shatters the hypnotic serenity, Beethoven whose rollicking, perfectly shaped subject using every possible device to contrast with PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES the previous music. Not only dynamics, of fantasy and invention. There are inexplica - rhythm and texture are changed but also ble starts and stops which must have sounded tonality: the rest of the movement is no longer very strange to listeners in Beethoven’s time in the sonata’s main key of C major but in the (as indeed they still do).