Gil Shaham, Violin with Original Films by David Michalek
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Thursday, april 14, 2016, 8pm Zellerbach hall Gil Shaham, violin with original films by David Michalek The Sonatas and Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin by Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001 adagio Fuga (allegro) Siciliana Presto Bach Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002 allemanda Double corrente Double (Presto) Sarabande Double Tempo di Borea Double INTERMISSION 15 PROGRAM Bach Sonata No. 2 in a minor, BWV 1003 Grave Fuga andante allegro Bach Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 allemanda corrente Sarabanda Giga ciaccona INTERMISSION Bach Sonata No. 3 in c Major, BWV 1005 adagio Fuga Largo allegro assai Bach Partita No. 3 in E Major, BWV 1006 Preludio Loure Gavotte en Rondeau Menuet I, Menuet II Bourrée Gigue Original films by David Michalek were commissioned by Cal Performances, University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Hall, Carolina Performing Arts at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Celebrity Series of Boston, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, College of Fine + Applied Arts, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Princeton University Concerts, Symphony Center Presents, Chicago, UCSB Arts & Lecture, UMS at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, University of Washington World Series at Meany Hall for the Performing Arts, and Weill Hall at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center. This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Charles and Helene Linker. Support for the presentation of Israeli artists is provided by the Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust. Funded, in part, by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ 2015–2016 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. Cal Performances' 2015-2016 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES The Sonatas and Partitas posed similar works. all of these composers for Unaccompanied Violin were active in and around Dresden. Bach vis - Johann Sebastian Bach ited Dresden shortly before assuming his post at From 1717 to 1723, Bach was director of music cöthen, and he may well have become familiar at the court of anhalt-cöthen, north of Leipzig. at that time with most of this music. Though he liked his job. his employer, Prince Leopold, Bach may have found models and inspiration was a well-educated man, 24 years old at the in the music of his predecessors, his works for time he engaged Bach. (Bach was 32.) Leopold unaccompanied violin far surpass any others in was fond of travel and books and paintings, but technique and musical quality. his real passion was music. he was an accom - plished musician who not only played violin, Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001 viola da gamba, and harpsichord well enough The three solo violin sonatas follow the prece - to join with the professionals in his house or - dent of the serious “church sonata,” the sonata chestra, but he also had an exceptional bass di chiesa , deriving their mood and makeup voice. he started the court musical establish - from the works of the influential Roman ment in 1707 with three players (his puritanical master arcangelo corelli. The sonatas follow father had no use for music), and by the time of the standard four-movement disposition of Bach’s appointment it had grown to nearly 20 the sonata da chiesa —slow–fast–slow–fast— performers equipped with a fine set of instru - though Bach replaced the first quick move - ments. It was for this group that Bach wrote ments with elaborate fugues and suggested a many of his outstanding instrumental works, certain dance-like buoyancy in the finales. The including the Brandenburg concertos, orches - Sonata No. 1 in G minor opens with a deeply tral suites, violin concertos, and much of his expressive adagio whose mood of stern solem - chamber music. Leopold appreciated Bach’s ge - nity is heightened by considerable chromati - nius (his annual salary as court conductor was cism and harmonic piquancy. The four-voice 400 thalers, equal to that of the court marshal, fugue that follows appealed sufficiently to Bach Leopold’s second highest official), and Bach re - that he transcribed it for both organ (BWV 539) turned the compliment when he said of his and lute (BWV 1000). The G-minor Sonata Prince, “he loved music, he was well acquainted concludes with a lilting Siciliana and a moto with it, he understood it.” perpetuo movement in two-part dance form. Bach composed the sets of three sonatas and three partitas for unaccompanied violin before Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002 1720, the date on the manuscript. Though there Though the three violin partitas vary in style, is not a letter, preface, contemporary account, they are all examples of the sonata da camera or shred of any other documentary evidence (“chamber sonata”), or suite of dances. The First extant to shed light on the genesis and purpose Partita, in B minor, is unusual in that each of of these pieces, the technical demands that they its four movements (allemanda, corrente, impose upon the player indicate that they were Sarabande, and Tempo di Borea) is followed by intended for a virtuoso performer. after the in - a Double, an elaborate variation around the troduction of the basso continuo early in the harmonic skeleton of the preceding dance. The 17th century, it had been the seldom-broken allemanda was a moderately paced dance that custom to supply a work for solo instrument originated in Germany in the 16th century. with keyboard accompaniment, so the tradition French composers found it useful for display - behind Bach’s solo violin sonatas and partitas is ing their most elaborate keyboard ornamenta - slight. Johann Paul von Westhoff, a violinist at tions, and passed it back to German musicians Weimar when Bach played in the orchestra in that highly decorated form. The corrente was there in 1703, published a set of six unaccom - an old court dance type accompanied by jump - panied partitas in 1696, and heinrich Biber, ing motions that was frequently paired with the Johann Jakob Walther, and Pisendel all com - smoothly flowing allemanda . When the sara - PROGRAM NOTES bande emigrated to Spain from its birthplace in to a luminous D Major. The grandeur of vision Mexico in the 16th century, it was so wild in its of this music has inspired several musicians to motions and so lascivious in its implications set it for various ensembles, including Men - that cervantes ridiculed it and Philip II sup - delssohn’s addition of a piano accompaniment pressed it. The dance became considerably for an 1840 performance by Ferdinand David, more tame when it was taken over into French his concertmaster at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and English music during the following cen - and Joachim Raff’s version for full orchestra. tury, and it had achieved the dignified manner None of these arrangements, however, is as sat - in which it was known to Bach by 1700. The isfying as the original, because, as Bach’s early final movement is a bourrée , a French folk 19th-century biographer, Johann Nikolaus dance that was adopted by the court as early as Forkel, long ago realized, the essence of these the 16th century. unaccompanied violin works is Bach’s mastery of writing in one part so that it is impossible to Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003 add another—melodically, harmonically, and The opening movement of the Sonata No. 2 is even contrapuntally, these works are perfect a rhapsodic flight of sweeping scales frequently and complete just as they are. Of the ciaccona, interrupted by double stops whose chromati - Philipp Spitta wrote, “From the grave majesty cally inflected harmonies heighten the music’s of the beginning to the thirty-second notes touching expression. The progress of the elab - which rush up and down like the very demons; orate and precisely planned second movement from the tremulous arpeggios that hang (Bach’s audacity at composing a fugue for just almost motionless, like veiling clouds above a the four strings of a solo violin is justified by the dark ravine…to the devotional beauty of the superbly satisfying result that he achieves) is D Major section, where the evening sun sets in leavened by episodes of single-line melodic a peaceful valley: the spirit of the master urges writing. The following c-Major andante, the instrument to incredible utterances. at the reminiscent in its ineffable blend of strength end of the D Major section it sounds like an and wistfulness of the well-known air on the organ, and sometimes a whole band of violins G String from the Third Orchestral Suite (BWV seem to be playing. This chaconne is a triumph 1068), is built from a long-limbed theme spun of spirit over matter such as even Bach never re - above a regularly pulsing bass line. The closing peated in a more brilliant manner.” allegro eschews double-stopping in favor of a moto perpetuo unfolding of briskly moving Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005 melodic material. The opening adagio of the Sonata No. 3 in c Major, whose somber mood and dotted- Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 rhythm tread recall the style of the French over - The Second Partita, in D minor, follows the cus - ture , serves as a broad preface to the stupendous tomary sequence of dances, each in two re - fugue that follows. Bach borrowed the theme peated parts, that comprise the Baroque suite: for this elaborate and precisely planned move - allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue (an ment from the Pentecost antiphon Veni Sancte English folk dance).