Max Bruch | Chamber Music Trio Apollon
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MAX BRUCH | CHAMBER MUSIC TRIO APOLLON G0100034178981 MAX BRUCH (1838–1920) EIGHT PIECES, OP. 83 FOR CLARINET, VIOLA AND PIANO Acht Stücke, op. 83 für Klarinette, Viola und Klavier 1 I. Andante 3:40 2 II. Allegro con moto 2:29 Total time: 61:06 3 III. Andante con moto 6:30 A coproduction with Deutschlandradio ℗ & © 2015 Deutschlandradio / Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH 4 IV. Allegro agitato 3:57 Recording: February 21–23, 2014, Kleiner Sendesaal des rbb Berlin 5 V. Rumänische Melodie: Andante 5:23 Executive Producer: Stefan Lang (Deutschlandradio Kultur) 6 VI. Nachtgesang: Andante con moto 5:23 Producing & Editing: Christoph Franke 7 VII. Allegro vivace, ma non troppo 3:37 Sound Engineer: Henri Thaon Assistant Engineer: Christoph de la Chevallerie 8 VIII. Moderato 5:08 Artwork: Roland Demus 9 KOL NIDREI, OP. 47 FOR CLARINET, VIOLA AND PIANO 9:34 Cover Photo: plainpicture/Demurez Cover Arts Kol Nidrei, op. 47 für Klarinette, Viola und Klavier Photos Trio Apollon: Elena Panouli (Arrangement by/von Uwe Hilprecht) www.sonyclassical.de www.deutschlandradio.de 10 CANZONE, OP. 55 IN B-FLAT MAJOR FOR CLARINET AND PIANO 6:56 www.trioapollon.de Canzone op. 55 in B-Dur für Klarinette und Klavier (Arragement by/von Matthias Glander) 11 ROMANCE FOR VIOLA AND PIANO, OP. 83 IN F MAJOR 8:29 Romanze für Viola und Klavier op. 83 in F-Dur TRIO APOLLON Matthias Glander, clarinet/Klarinette Felix Schwartz, viola Wolfgang Kühnl, piano/Klavier TRUE MELODY was with Brahms, Bülow and Pohl and thought that he had stumbled into a den of thieves” (Op. cit.). Between Max Bruch’s birth in 1838 and his death in 1920 the world witnessed a whole series of fundamental political and social upheavals beginning with the rev- It was as a talented adolescent that Bruch conquered the musical platforms of his olutions in the German Confederation and, indeed, in Europe in general, followed day, and he enjoyed a high level of acceptance thereafter. In the course of his life by Bismarck’s restructuring of the German Reich, the empire of Wilhelm II, the First he held many different positions, on all of which he left his hide-bound imprint. He World War and its catastrophic consequences, the abdication of the Kaiser and, was a Kapellmeister in Koblenz, court Kapellmeister in Sondershausen, conductor finally, the foundation of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in February of the Stern Choral Society in Berlin, music director of the Philharmonic Society in 1920. In music a new era began with Wagner and the New German School associat- Liverpool, Kapellmeister in Breslau and, finally, a professor at the Royal Academy ed with Liszt, a revolution continued by Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, Max Reger of Arts in Berlin. His works were widely performed in his lifetime, whereas only and Max von Schillings among others. his First Violin Concerto continues to be a part of the mainstream repertory to- day – even in the composer’s own day it was a favourite among German violinists: It was a period of confusion and upheaval to which Max Bruch responded with an “Someone turns up every couple of weeks or so and wants to play me my first unwavering political conservatism: “The red and black tide continues to rise inex- concerto as an audition piece; I have already become quite rude about this and tell orably,” he wrote, “...no German who has witnessed the events of 1866 and 1870 them: ‘I can’t bear to hear this concerto any longer – have I really written only this can ever be proud of this.” His fellow composers became the subject of luridly one concerto? Go away and for a change play my other concertos, which are just offensive rhetorical outbursts: they were accused of “corrupting art” and reviled as good, if not better!” as “scribblers” and “hacks”. By the end of his life his feelings of embitterment had persuaded him to lump together musicians, audiences and journalists: “I have been Bruch’s ideal of beauty in music was one that he owed to his mentor Ferdinand Hill- forced to drink more than I wanted from the dreadful vinegar decanter of modern er, who was one of the leading pianists and teachers of his day and who in turn was anti-music. [...] The worst possible rubbish is being held up for praise, and the transmitting an aesthetic outlook gleaned from the circle of composers associated good is simply ignored. They are all swimming in a sea of conceptual aesthetic con- with Mendelssohn and Schumann. In particular Hiller encouraged the young Bruch fusion and have neither melody nor form nor a sense of beauty nor a knowledge to write word-based compositions such as his opera Scherz, List und Rache, Op. 1 of harmony, but they need each other, and all they achieve is that all truly musical of 1858. By his own admission, Bruch felt that his fondness for the vocal element people are gradually turning away from all this rubbish with a feeling of loathing in music benefited his instrumental works, too: “It certainly didn’t harm the slow and horror” (quoted by Karl Gustav Fellerer, Max Bruch [Cologne 1974]). Bruch’s movements of my violin concertos that I tried to make them as songlike as possi- attitude to Brahms was ambiguous at best: as an artist Bruch had no choice but to ble.” His sense of melodic beauty and susceptibility to “the innocence, inwardness accept his colleague, but as a fellow human being he found him a “dreadful fellow” and uniqueness of folk music” also left their mark on his instrumental composi- who was “Teutonically ill-mannered by nature”: “Sarasate was utterly appalled; he tions, including the chamber works featured in the present release. In the case of Kol Nidrei, Op. 47, for example, Bruch sought inspiration in Hebrew melodies, while Kol Nidrei: Adagio for Cello and Orchestra and Harp on Hebrew Melodies, Op. 47 his Canzone, Op. 55 – its title harks back to the Middle Ages – clearly underscores was written in Berlin, where Bruch took up his new post as director of music of the the composer’s vocal orientation. In turn, his Romance, Op. 85, a lyrical instrumen- Stern Choral Society in August 1878. As he explained to his friend Emil Kamphaus- tal genre piece that was very popular in its own day, recalls the sentimental songs en, the idea for it stemmed from his frequent dealings “with the children of Israel”, and ballads of the 16th century. Finally, the fifth of his Eight Pieces for Clarinet, which in turn brought him into contact with the cantor Abraham Jacob Lichten- Viola and Piano, Op. 83 is a reworking of “a glorious Romanian melody that I owe stein. The Jewish prayer Kol Nidre, which survives in a number of musical variants, indirectly to the altogether delightful young Princess of Wied”. The sixth of this set is traditionally sung on the eve of Yom Kippur. Bruch presumably got to know it of pieces has the quintessentially Romantic title of “Nachtgesang” (“Nocturne”). in the version by Louis Lewandowski. The work’s second – synagogal – melody is one that Bruch found “among the most glorious melodies to Lord Byron’s Hebrew The Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Viola and Piano, Op. 83 date from the final years of Songs”. It seems likely that it was Lichtenstein who introduced him to the volume of Bruch’s life and are among his most important chamber works, scored, as they Hebrew Melodies that was published by Isaac Nathan in London in 1815. (Nathan, are, for the sort of unusual forces that also feature in Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” Trio who was the son of a Jewish cantor in London and a composer and musicologist K498 and Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132. Bruch was seventy when in his own right, had asked Byron to provide the words for a number of ancient he wrote these pieces in 1908 for his son Max Felix, a well-known clarinettist who Jewish melodies, to which he added what Sabine Lichtenstein has called a simple gave their first performances in Cologne and Hamburg in 1909. Bruch originally “accompaniment in the ornamental Italian style”). Bruch was fascinated: “The two thought of adding a harp but then rejected the idea and instead adapted the piano melodies are first-rate,” he wrote to Kamphausen on 31 January 1882. “The first is part by incorporating into it the sort of specialized techniques that are associated that of an ancient Hebrew penitential hymn, the second the middle section of the with the harp and that include broken chords, overlapping intervals and arpeg- moving and truly magnificent “Oh weep for those that wept on [recte by] Babel’s gios. The first six movements are all typified by songlike forms, the final two by stream”, which is similarly very old. I got to know both melodies in Berlin.” first-movement sonata form. Their themes are stated in turn by the clarinet, which takes the lead, and by the viola, while the piano is largely reduced to the role of At the urging of the cellist Robert Hausmann, Bruch set to work on the score in July an accompanist, only infrequently emerging from the shadows with a power that 1880, while he was staying at the Igeler Hof in Bergisch Gladbach, a refuge placed is positively orchestral. Contrapuntal procedures are relatively rare. Colourful late at his disposal by the Zanders family with whom he was friendly. He completed the Romantic harmonies, delightful expressive contrasts and an astonishing level of score in Liverpool, where it was introduced on 2 November 1881.