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The Kreutzer Sonata: Beethoven, the Tolstoys & Posterity: a Farce in Two Acts

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The Kreutzer Sonata: Beethoven, the Tolstoys & Posterity: a Farce in Two Acts The Kreutzer Sonata: Beethoven, the Tolstoys & Posterity: A Farce in Two Acts Ivan Rosenblum, Concert director, piano, and writer Shannon Delaney, violin Julie James, actor Stephen Muterspaugh, actor Prologue A - Beethoven & Perfume Prologue B - The Violinist’s Lament Act I - A Musical Masterpiece vs. The Perils of Posterity Scene I - Sonatus Interruptus and The Duel Sonate In A Major Op.47 for Violin and Piano The “Kreutzer Sonata” (1803) Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) Adagio sostenuto: Presto Andante con Variazioni Var.I-Var. II - Var. III -Minore- Var. IV - Maggiore Finale: Presto INTERMISSION Act II- Two 19th Century Music Parlors: Scene I - Vienna Élégie for Violin and Piano Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1814-1865) Op.10 (1840) Adagio melancolico ed appassionato Scene II - In a Russian Dacha Sonata in A Major K.402 W. A Mozart (1756-1791) Andante, ma un poco Adagio Allegro moderato Prelude in Db Major, Op. 28 Frideric Chopin (1810-1849) Sostenuto Song Without Words, Op. 62 #1 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Andante espressivo (played twice, first as a piano solo then arr. for violin & piano by IR) Scene II - Conclusion: A Pox on Posterity The Music Program Origins: Literary and otherwise One would suppose that a 73-year-old chamber music pianist would have performed Beethoven’s famous Kreutzer Sonata many times. Certainly I’d heard it over the years in recordings and performances. I also had read through it with various violinists at periodic sight-reading orgies; but actually learning it had escaped me until Aug. 2014, when I read a review of a new book by Professor Michael R. Katz called The Kreutzer Sonata Variations. It contained a new translation of Lev Tolstoy’s 1889 novella The Kreutzer Sonata along with writings by Tolstoy’s wife Sophia, his son, daughter, grandson and granddaughter. I remembered reading the Tolstoy story in college, thinking it an unworthy contribution to the impressive output by the illustrious author of War and Peace. I would have put it out of mind except for its musical association and its memorable, though nonsensical, notion of chastity in marriage. Even as a young college student, I already knew how ridiculous that was. Coupled with its simplistic discussions of male/ female sexuality, I was sure that I would not be re-reading The Kreutzer Sonata again. Professor Katz’s book changed all that. With short stories, diaries and letters by Lev, Sophia and son Lev, together with a Forward and Afterword by two of the grandchildren, Katz’s book provides a multi- generational account of a famous, albeit controversial family. I was immediately attracted to the Rashomon-like dramatic possibilities as I read its conflicting accounts of a troubled marriage. Sophia’s stories were direct responses to her husband’s own account of a difficult marriage. Everyone reading the 1889 novella (including Sophia) assumed that it was the actual Tolstoy marriage (murder aside) being depicted. The similarities were too numerous to ignore. The book was initially banned by the Czar. Even so, the short story became internationally famous (infamous) due to circulated pirated editions. When it was translated into English in 1890, it was barred from circulation by the U.S. Post Office for its “indecent character.” There are two accounts of how the Beethoven Kreutzer became the centerpiece of a Tolstoy short story. According to Tolstoy’s daughter Alexandra, there was an actual Kreutzer performance at the Tolstoy’s Moscow home, performed by one of the Tolstoy sons and his violinist friend. Among the assembled guests were the painter Repin and the actor Andreyev-Burlak. They planned a collaboration based upon the Beethoven Sonata whereby Tolstoy would write the story, Repin would illustrate it, and Andreyev-Burlak would act in it. The idea was never realized except for Tolstoy’s story. Whether it was that Moscow evening soirée, or an earlier Tolstoy sketch, ”The Murder of His Wife,” which actually inspired the 1889 novella, is open to speculation; however Sophia’s diary entry unequivocally supports the former account. Beethoven’s Kreutzer So much for literary underpinnings. Musically, who would not be moved by The Kreutzer’s runaway energy and brilliance, its unconventional construction, and breathtaking beauty! What pianist wouldn’t want to play it, feeling its power from inside the music. So at age 73, it was time to tackle The Kreutzer while hopefully still having the stamina to manage it. The story of how The Kreutzer is a total misnomer, how the now unknown mulatto violinist George Bridgetower was robbed of fame and fortune in favor of Rudolph Kreutzer; further piqued my interest while raising the issue of the “Perils of Posterity” (soon to be dramatized). The amount of spin-off generated by the Beethoven masterpiece is extraordinary: short stories, paintings, plays, films, a ballet, an opera, a string quartet, poems, and last and “probably” least, the 1968 Tabu perfume ad which uses the 1901 Francois Prinet painting entitled “The Kreutzer Sonata.” I soon found myself enmeshed in a treasure hunt of clues, following one work of art to another. Drowning in far too many Kreutzer spin-offs, I quickly realized there was no way to coherently use them all, so some, such as Janacek’s First String Quartet: Inspired by“The Kreutzer Sonata”, were put aside for later investigation. How to organize this ever-growing array of eclectic material was challenging. All kinds of programming questions arose. Can chamber music and theater be artfully combined? Will I offend the chamber music aficionados and disappoint the theater buffs? Can I interpolate theoretical/historical analysis in a theatrical way? Can a well known, well loved piece be interrupted, even choreographed, without totally ruining its emotional impact? I knew I was venturing into largely unexplored territory. Other Music In This Program The disc jockeys (those that chose the repertoire) for this program were none other than the Tolstoys: father, mother and eldest son. Music plays an important part in practically all the short stories collected in the Katz book. Besides the Beethoven Sonata that is central to The Kreutzer Sonata story, Tolstoy mentions other pieces played by the wife and her violinist: “some songs without words and a little sonata by Mozart…Then they played Ernst’s Elegy” at the request of the guests. Other stories feature Chopin and Mendelssohn. I now had our program’s “playlist.” In the Preface to his Elegy, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, a Moravian-Jewish virtuoso violinist and composer of salon pieces, seems to be a character straight out of a Tolstoy short-story. His Elegy, still performed, is his most famous work. The Mozart Sonata took a bit more detective work. Since Tolstoy described it as “little” in his story, I took that to mean that it only had two movements rather than the conventional three. Since only eight of Mozart’s eighteen Sonatas for Violin and Piano have two movements, I was able to narrow down the choices to eight Sonatas. Tolstoy says nothing more about the piece in which would lead to its identification, so I was free to make the selection, and chose the A Major Sonata. It is rarely performed, uses the same key as the Kreutzer, and opens similarly with bold introductory chords of story-telling import, so it seems a good fit for the program. The sonata’s second movement is a complex fugue displaying all of Mozart’s formidable contrapuntal skill. As this program lacked any Baroque repertoire, the Mozart fugue could satisfy any possible audience craving for “something Baroque.” The “songs without words” in Tolstoy’s Kreutzer story refers to the collection of 48 “Songs Without Words” written by Felix Mendelssohn throughout his life. I narrowed it down to a specific G Major Song, not from the citation in Lev’s story but from Sophia’s story Song Without Words, where the G major key is mentioned. The piece recurs throughout the story, providing both its title and a means of advancing the narrative. Songs Without Words are perfect descriptions for Mendelssohn’s simple, accessible, singable melodies written for solo piano. He wrote no less than 48 of these Songs throughout his lifetime. Mendelssohn explains the sense in which he uses “words” for these pieces by stating: ”Even if in one or another of them I had a particular word or words in mind, I would not want to tell anyone, because the same word means different things to different people. Only the Songs say the same thing, arouse the same feeling in everyone-a feeling that can’t be expressed in words.” Perhaps Mendelssohn was guided to this nuanced understanding of musical meaning by Goethe, a family friend who was fond of saying that “music starts where words end.” Too bad Tolstoy wasn’t similarly enlightened. It might have avoided a murder, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t be Tolstoy and I, of course, am being much too literal! Chopin’s D flat Major Prelude (often known as “The Raindrop”) is one of the twenty-four Preludes that Chopin wrote at age 28 while vacationing with George Sand on the isle of Majorca. Their well-documented romance provides extra-musical material for the following programmatic interpretation of the Preludes. Isolated in a deserted Carthusian monastery in the mountain village of Valldemosa, wrestling with cold damp, malnutrition, an old Majorcan cottage piano, and endless rainfall, Chopin pens a Prelude that pits throbbing repeated 8th notes (“raindrops”) against a soaring mournful melody of longing. When the 2nd section becomes ominous, we can speculate in true Tolstoy fashion, that Chopin was anxious at George’s late return. Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, Sophia’s Song Without Words, Whose Fault?, and son Lev’s Chopin Prelude, clearly show the importance of classical music in 19th century Russian culture.
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