Da Camera Sarah Rothenberg Pre-concert conversation with artistic and general director , Lars Vogt and Sarah Rothenberg Cullen Theater, 7:15 pm Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center Thursday, February 16, 2017; 8:00 pm Christian Tetzlaff, violin and Lars Vogt, piano

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30, No. 2 (1801-02) (1770-1827) Allegro con brio Adagio cantabile Scherzo. Allegro Finale: Allegro - Presto

Béla Bartók Sonata for Violin and Piano, No. 2, Sz. 76 (1922) (1881-1945) Molto moderato Allegretto INTERMISSION

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sonata for Piano and Violin in F Major, K. 377 (1781) (1756-1791) Allegro Tema con variazioni. Andante Tempo di menuetto, un poco allegretto

Franz Schubert Rondo in B Minor, D. 895 (1826) (1797-1828) Andante Allegro - Più mosso

This performance is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. This event is the inaugural James K. Schooler Memorial Concert, an annual event recognizing the generous bequest made by a loyal Da Camera subscriber and donor.

24 Beethoven: Sonata No. 7 for Violin and panse banters with surprising rhyth- tery rather than grounding the music Piano in C Minor, Op. 30, No. 2 mic contrasts and even dresses up its on an easily perceived tonic (although Trio section with an unanticipated the composer insisted that the Second When he wrote his three Op. 30 canon between the violin and the pia- Sonata was basically in C Major). violin sonatas, in 1802, Ludwig van no’s left-hand part. The Finale is as ex- This work also reveals glimpses Beethoven was on the verge of his citing as the Scherzo is wry. Its open- of Bartók’s characteristic folk inspira- maturity as a composer. The C Minor ing somewhat recalls the simmering tion. The violin sometimes suggests Sonata is the most extroverted and gruffness of the first movement’s lead- “speech-music,” as if articulating spo- obviously dramatic of the set, and its ing motif, and it unrolls through a pal- ken language through the rhythms very key practically demands that we pably tight construction. On the final and melodic inflections; and that consider it in the company of such pages the tempo ratchets up to Presto instrument’s rampant use of glis- “heroic” C Minor works as his Pathé- for a thrilling conclusion. sando may also allude to folk style. tique Piano Sonata (Op. 13), Third Pi- The faster second movement flows ano Concerto (Op. 37), Coriolan Over- Bartók: Sonata No. 2 for forth without any substantial break. ture (Op. 62) and Fifth Symphony Violin and Piano, Sz. 76 Here the folk inspiration is more ap- (Op. 67). As with the Fifth Symphony, Although Béla Bartók was never parent and the Schoenberg influence the theme that launches the C Minor trained as a violinist, his instincts for less so. Indeed, Stravinsky may seem Violin Sonata is an intense outburst the instrument proved uncannily nu- more of a model, thanks to the brash that is hardly a melody but that none- anced. He wrote a number of works Petrushka-like chords in bitonal super- theless holds up to much exploration for violin and piano during his stu- imposition. Another impetus may be and development. And yet, the vio- dent years, including two sonatas (of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski, lence of this opening motif simmers a Brahmsian cast), two fantasies and especially in textural matters. Bartók rather than boils, at least at the outset, several other movements; some are was fascinated by his music when he where it is announced piano by the lost, and those that survived do not composed his violin-and-piano sona- piano. This abrupt motif drifts away hold places in the active repertoire. tas, and he had recently performed in in a descending chromatic pattern of In his maturity he enriched the in- Szymanowski’s Mythes (for violin and notes, and then the violin takes it up, strument’s repertoire with such es- piano) in concert. accompanied by urgent rumblings in sential works as his two Sonatas for the piano. An answering melody has Violin and Piano (1921, 1922), two Mozart: Sonata in F Major for Violin and a more cheerful, march-like character. Rhapsodies for Violin and Orchestra Piano, K. 377 Together these themes fuel most of (1928-29), 44 Duos for Two Violins In November 1781, the firm of Artaria the tense opening movement. (1931), and, at the very end of his life, & Company published a group of six Employing A-flat Major for a a Sonata for Solo Violin (1944). Violin- violin sonatas as Mozart’s Opus 2. suave slow movement following a ists were prominent members of his The set bears a dedication to Josepha tense C Minor opening movement circle, including Stefi Geyer (a violin Barbara Auernhammer. She was the was a Beethoven specialty; famous student with whom he was romanti- daughter of an economic councilor in examples of this tonal architecture are cally infatuated) and the virtuosos Vienna, and shortly after Mozart’s ar- also to found in his Piano Sonata (Op. Imre Waldbauer, Zoltán Székely, Ede rival in Vienna she became his piano 10, No. 1), his Pathétique Sonata and Zathureczky and Jelly d’Arányi. pupil. She had an unrequited crush on his Fifth Symphony. The restrained Waldbauer joined Bartók (as pia- Mozart. He wrote to his father that he elegance and rich harmony of the nist) to play the premiere of the So- actively disliked her, found her unat- opening melody seems to point for- nata No. 2 on February 7, 1923, in tractive, and considered her “the most ward to Mendelssohn’s Songs without Berlin, about three months after the aggravating female I know.” Still, he Words. The movement ranges through piece was completed. It is an aggres- esteemed her enough to dedicate to five distinct episodes, visiting both sive, dissonant work, veering closer to her these six sonatas, as well as (in extreme tenderness and forceful out- the modernism of Schoenberg than 1785) his famous set of Variations on bursts. It may be à propos to observe we usually expect of Bartók. This is “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman,” a rite of that this sonata is nearly contempora- not a 12-tone score, but it does echo passage for generations of piano stu- neous with the composer’s heart-rend- the flavor of Schoenberg’s Expression- dents. He also wrote his Sonata for ing Heiligenstadt Testament, in which istic atonalism of the preceding de- Two Pianos in D Major (K.448/375a) he lamented his encroaching deafness, cade. The first of the two movements to play with her and unveiled that by turns lashing out in anger and well- is languorous, its widely spaced in- piece at a concert at her family’s ing up with tenderness. tervals yielding melodies that are not home. Josepha Auernhammer ended The Scherzo fully lives up to its tightly tethered in a traditional sense, up marrying someone else, and her name; packed with wit, this short ex- its harmonies intensifying the mys- daughter carried on the family’s mu- 24 25 sical distinction, becoming an accom- ment that included a full scholarship, plished singer and numbering among with room and board, to the Kaiserlich- her pupils the great soprano Henriette königliches Stadtkonvikt (Imperial Sontag. and Royal City College), which offered The “Op. 2” Sonatas circulated the best education available in Vienna widely. An anonymous Report from to youngsters from non-aristocratic Italy published in Carl Friedrich Cra- families. As an adult, the piano would mer’s Magazin der Musik on July 9, be his personal performance medium, 1784, reads: “Mozart’s sonatas with but he continued to play viola in the obbligato violin please me greatly. orchestra that gathered regularly at They are very difficult to play. Admit- the homes of friends. tedly the melodies are not at all new, Nonetheless, he produced no mu- but the accompaniment of the violin sic to specifically feature the viola and is masterly.” The characterization of only six works to spotlight the violin. Mozart’s instrumental music as inor- In March and April 1816, he composed dinately difficult, even insurmount- three unpretentious sonatas for violin ably so, was not unusual at that time, (D. 384, 385, and 408 — they were with complaints being particularly vo- titled “sonatinas” when published, ciferous in Italy — ironically, since it posthumously in 1836), and a fourth was always vaunted as the native soil followed in 1817 (D. 574 — it was first of great string playing. published as a “Duo” in 1851). Not un- The F Major Sonata (K. 377) from til late 1826 did he return to the medi- “Op. 2” was composed during the sum- um, composing his Rondo in B Minor, mer of 1781, just after Mozart moved a far more dramatic and vociferous to Vienna from his native Salzburg. Its piece in which an extended, harmoni- opening movement is a marvel of en- cally peripatetic Andante introduction ergy and formal ingenuity. The work’s leads to an Allegro main section in emotional heart is the middle move- sonata-rondo form, the whole wend- ment, a set of ominous variations that ing from B Minor to eventual B Major prefigures the corresponding section and concluding in a take-no-prisoners of the masterly D Minor String Quar- coda. Schubert wrote it for the violin- tet (K. 421), which would follow two ist Josef Slavík, a Czech violinist who years later. There is nothing formulaic moved to Vienna that year and created about the concluding minuet move- a sensation at his debut recital there ment. Again, structural originality in April. Frédéric Chopin called him is at play as the Menuetto proper (a “a second Paganini” and wrote that “he study in bashfulness) alternates with knows how to enchant the listener, more unbuttoned Trio sections and all how to move men to tears.” of the material is subjected to imagi- Slavík and the pianist Karl Maria native processes of variation. von Bocklet played this work at a soi- rée hosted by the publisher Domanico Schubert: Rondo in B Minor for Violin and Artaria, apparently at the outset of Piano, D. 895 1827, with the composer in atten- had the good fortune dance; this was probably its premiere. to be born into a musically inclined Artaria published the piece that April, family. Music-making was an in- titling it Rondeau brillant, which dispensable pastime in the family’s seems an apt description. A year later, household, and from an early age our Slavík programmed it again, this time composer played viola while working along with the Fantasia in C Major (D. through the quartet repertoire with 934), which Schubert had gone on to his father and brothers. He would go write for him, the last of his composi- on to focus on singing when, in 1808, tions for solo violin. he was admitted to the Choir of the Court Chapel, a prestigious appoint- James M. Keller

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