Schubert & Chopin: Cello Sonatas
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Franz Schubert Arpeggione Sonata, D 821 Frédéric Chopin Sonata for Cello & Piano, Op 65 Arpeggione Sonata, D 821 Franz Schubert 1 I. Allegro moderato [11.25] 2 II. Adagio [4.02] 3 III. Allegretto [8.32] Sonata for Cello & Piano, Op 65 Frédéric Chopin 4 I. Allegro moderato [14.58] 5 II. Scherzo (Allegro con brio) [4.56] 6 III. Largo [3.18] 7 IV. Finale (Allegro) [6.16] Total playing time [53.36] David Kenedy cello Rianka Bouwmeester piano 2 INTRODUCTION As surely as the four seasons, our lives too seem Interestingly, it is the last of Chopin’s works to to follow a cyclical pattern. My musical journey be published in his lifetime and one I played at (after my mother’s singing over the cradle) my debut recital at the South Bank Centre, the began when my father introduced the magic work at the end of Chopin’s career marking the of a record player and two boxed vinyl sets to beginning of my own. our home: Bach’s Cello Suites and Schubert’s Winterreise. I am sure it is as a result of And the cover? Two slightly overlapping trees hearing the dark and soulful tone of Casals’ for summer and winter, joy and sorrow, light F playing that I am a cellist today, and the tears and dark, heat and cold, youth and old age, [11.25] I shed, at the age of five, on experiencing the two masterworks by two master composers, 2 [4.02] beauty and purity of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s linked by a poet’s bleak journey, all too aware of their own impending fate, two instruments 3 [8.32] voice singing those tragic, death-filled verses combined with the poeticism and evocative intertwining at the hands of two performers power of Gerald Moore’s piano playing that united in love, music rooted in the ground and instilled in me a bond with Schubert lasting into reaching for the stars, life and death. All is here. [14.58] my maturity. Ten years ago, at the age of fifty, I 5 [4.56] recorded Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello. Here, This recording is dedicated to the memory of my 6 Largo [3.18] I am partnered by my beautiful wife, Rianka, to father, mother and father-in-law, it is a love- token for (and with) my wife, a gift to my four 7 [6.16] give you Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, neither Winterreise (certainly less tragic) nor a true very wonderful children, my sister Ros and all [53.36] cello work, but the closest we can approach our friends and relations, all those who are and the Schubert song-cycles in this duo formation. have been part of our lives, and for all those who We have decided to pair this lovely piece with care to listen, and even those who do not. Music Chopin’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, a rich for everyone. and complex work with its own roots in the Winterreise, bursting with passionate longing, David Kenedy pain, beauty and joy, energy and virtuosity. 16th November 2016 3 Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Am Brunnen vor dem Tore Da steht ein Lindenbaum; Ich träumt’ in seinem Schatten So manchen süßen Traum. Ich schnitt in seine Rinde So manches liebe Wort; Es zog in Freud’ und Leide Zu ihm mich immer fort. Ich mußt’ auch heute wandern Vorbei in tiefer Nacht, Da hab’ ich noch im Dunkeln Die Augen zugemacht. Und seine Zweige rauschten, Watercolour of Schubert by Wilhelm Rieder (1825) Als riefen sie mir zu: Komm her zu mir, Geselle, Kuß!” in his setting of a text from Goethe’s Hier find’st du deine Ruh’ ! Faust, “Gretchen am Spinnrade”, the seemingly The opening verses of “Der Lindenbaum” unstoppable semiquavers in the piano from “Eine Winterreise”, words by Wilhelm Müller accompaniment representing the whirring of the spinning wheel come to an abrupt and It all began with a scream. The year 1814, shattering halt in three fortissimo sforzato when the composer was only 17, was to mark chords, the memory of Faust’s kiss in stark Schubert’s entry to the world as a mature contrast to the lost love and emptiness of life in composer and perhaps the greatest ever creator an outcry of passion and pain that will recur in of song and melody. At the words “Ach, sein almost all of Schubert’s later major works. 4 But this is not the whole story. Schubert’s of a housemaid. He was a man of the people, growing sense of horror, intensified by the sharing their hopes and worries, almost his awareness of his own impending fate from the whole life dogged to a greater or lesser extent by diagnosis of syphilis in 1822, is balanced (until poverty. Physically, he cut a small, rather portly the composition of Eine Winterreise in 1827) figure and hence came to be endearingly known by an equal measure of joy in friendship, love, by his friends as “Schwammerl”, meaning Viennese society, music, indeed all the pleasures “little mushroom”, but Schubert was loved of life, exemplified by the famed Schubertiade and admired by them as much for his modesty, evenings, informal performances of his music, generosity, honesty and sense of fun as for his often also including poetry readings and more. musical genius. He died in great pain, his gift largely unrecognized and many of his finest Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797, the twelfth works unknown. child of a peasant turned schoolteacher, and Autograph score. “Eine Winterreise” (Pierpont Morgan Library) 5 The Arpeggione and intonation more accurate – Schubert was obviously unaware of the potential flaws of this In 1824, disappointed new instrument, namely the difficulty of crossing by the recent failure strings cleanly due to a reduced differential of his opera, Alfonso angle at the bridge, the limited dynamic range, und Estrella (despite (the arpeggione was a smaller-bodied and the fact that he quieter instrument than the cello, one on which considered it one of application of too much downward pressure of his finest works), the bow would result in hitting adjacent strings) Schubert returned to and the restriction of expressive powers that was instrumental music the inevitable consequence of the use of frets. It on a smaller scale. seems likely that Schubert typically wrote this As Bach had been sonata largely as a friendly gesture towards the stimulated by the instrument’s inventor, Vincenz Schuster. The recent invention of a increasing dynamic range of the piano would five-string cello (with have made balance and projection even more a top E string) to problematic – no wonder that, after little more emphasise the Sixth than ten years, the arpeggione succumbed to Arpeggione. Photo courtesy of Suite’s position as rapid extinction. hettiprice.co.uk the crowning glory of the set by writing in a higher register for the The Sonata instrument than in the previous five suites, Schubert was clearly motivated by the arrival Schubert was born into a musical world of the six-stringed arpeggione, a strange hybrid dominated by the colossal figure of Beethoven. of a bowed instrument with the extended range It is a mark of how much the younger man was and possibility of fast and accurate leaps and in awe of the great master that on his deathbed runs facilitated by its Classical-guitar-like he asked that his body should be buried in a stringing (E-A-D-G-B-E). The incorporation grave next to that of his idol (which it was). of frets was designed to make playing easier Compositionally there are many similarities 6 between these two composers, most obviously their use of predominantly Classical forms and their prowess in almost all areas of instrumental and vocal writing with the notable exception of opera. This said, Schubert appears the more introverted and perhaps the more sensitive and fragile of the two, generally more at home in the smaller, more intimate forms of music-making (quartets, sonatas and of course Lieder) than in larger scale works. And while Julius Schmid’s 1897 Schubertiade Schubert’s later symphonic works are second to none, it is interesting to note that he was one of shortly before the Great C Major Symphony very few Classical composers never to write a of 1825-28 and the C Major String Quintet of concerto – it was against his nature to write a 1827, perhaps his finest instrumental works. piece with the intention of showing off his own It is written on a smaller scale, with three ability or those of the performer and instrument movements: a sonata form allegro moderato, he was writing for. And while Beethoven a heartfelt, singing adagio and an allegretto would frequently struggle to find a theme or rondo movement whose interludes are bursting melody for his work, with Schubert this was an with variety and energy. apparently effortless process – all came from song (Schubert wrote more than 600 Lieder). The first movement, in A Minor, is imbued Beethoven’s later experimentation with form throughout with a touching blend of sadness made him a revolutionary, but with Schubert it and joy (as was Schubert’s own life), the is the predominance of melody, and especially beauty, sensitivity and lyricism of its first theme the emotion it conveys, that sees him moving contrasting with the carefree nonchalance towards Romanticism. of the second, a shattering outburst of pain (like Gretchen’s scream) at the climax of The Arpeggione Sonata was written in 1824, the development section leading through soon after the Schöne Müllerin song cycle and the recapitulation to the last breaths of the 7 instruments and culminating in the death The last movement begins as an ecstatic rondo, sentence of the two closing chords.