CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM NOTES Tuesday, October 11, 2011, 8pm Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) in the October 23 edition of his journal, Neue Zellerbach Hall Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 Zeitschrift für Musik (“New Journal for Music”): “It seemed to me that there would and indeed Composed in 1853. must suddenly appear one man who would be Yefim Bronfman, piano singled out to articulate and give the ideal ex- In April 1853, the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms pression to the tendencies of our time, one man set out from his native Hamburg for a concert who would show us his mastery, not through PROGRAM tour of Germany with the Hungarian violin- a gradual process, but, like Athene, spring ful- ist Eduard Reményi. The following month ly armed from the head of Zeus. And he has in Hanover they met Joseph Joachim, whom come, a young man over whose cradle Graces Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 (1853) Brahms had heard give an inspiring perfor- and Heroes stood guard. His name is Johannes mance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto five Brahms.” Brahms was inspired by Schumann’s Allegro maestoso years earlier in Hamburg. Brahms was at first unstinting advocacy, and he threw himself Andante espressivo somewhat shy in the presence of the celebrated into the composition of a new F minor Piano Scherzo: Allegro energico virtuoso, but the two men warmed to each other Sonata, his third work in the form in two years, Intermezzo (Rückblick): Andante molto when the young composer began to play some of which he played for Robert and Clara “from his Finale: Allegro moderato ma rubato his recent music at the piano. Before the inter- head” on November 2, the eve of his departure view was done, Joachim had been overwhelmed from Düsseldorf. Brahms then made his way to by his visitor: “Brahms has an altogether excep- Leipzig, the center of European music publish- Franz Liszt (1811–1886) Selections from the Twelve Transcendental tional talent for composition, a gift which is fur- ing, where, with Schumann’s blessing and the Etudes (1826, 1837–1838; rev. 1851) ther enhanced by the unaffected modesty of his instant renown imparted by the Neue Zeitschrift character. His playing, too, gives every presage article, his first two Piano Sonatas, a set of six IV. Mazeppa: Allegro of a great artistic career, full of fire and energy.... songs and the Scherzo in E-flat minor were ac- XI. Harmonies du Soir: Andantino In brief, he is the most considerable musician cepted by the prestigious firm of Breitkopf und XII. Chasse-Neige: Andante con moto of his age that I have ever met.” The following Härtel; they were issued in December as, respec- summer Brahms and Joachim spent eight weeks tively, Opp. 1–4. By the end of the year, Brahms at Göttingen, discussing music, studying scores, had completed the notation of his Third Piano INTERMISSION playing chamber works together, and setting the Sonata, and the score was published as his Op. 5 foundation for a creative friendship that would by the Leipzig firm of Senff in February 1854 last for almost half a century. Joachim learned of with an appreciative dedication to Countess Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Piano Sonata No. 8 in B-flat major, Op. 84 Brahms’s desire to take a walking tour through Ida von Hohenthal, who had acted as his host- (1939–1944) the Rhine Valley, and he arranged a joint re- ess in Leipzig and who also hired the compos- cital to raise enough money to finance the trip. er’s younger brother, Fritz (a piano teacher in Andante dolce Along with the proceeds of the gate, Joachim Germany and Caracas, known in his later years Andante sognando gave Brahms as a parting gift several letters of as “the wrong Brahms”), as music tutor for her Vivace introduction, including one to Robert and Clara children. The F minor, the largest of his key- Schumann in Düsseldorf. board works, was Brahms’s last piano sonata, On the last day of September 1853, Brahms though the following year he did attempt a so- met the Schumanns for the first time. “Here is nata for two pianos that was eventually trans- Funded by the Koret Foundation, this performance is part of Cal Performances’ one of those who comes as if sent straight from formed into the Piano Concerto No. 1. 2011–2012 Koret Recital Series, which brings world-class artists to our community. God,” Clara recorded in her diary. Brahms The F minor Piano Sonata was among the spent a delightful month in Düsseldorf, see- creations upon which Brahms’s fame was found- This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Peter and Donna Zuber. ing the Schumanns almost every day, sharing ed—Clara Schumann, one of the era’s most es- meals, talking, joining their family walks, and teemed piano virtuosos, immediately took it into Cal Performances’ 2011–2012 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. playing music with them. Robert was simply her repertory and performed it with great suc- overwhelmed by Brahms’s talent, a convic- cess across northern Europe; Eduard Hanslick, tion that he shared with the musical world in the leading music critic of the time, said that his famous article New Paths, which appeared “it belongs to the most inward experiences 6 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 7 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES that recent piano music has to offer”; Richard nature that loom so large in Schumann’s output. accomplished on his instrument. To that end, could flatter himself that he could approach Specht believed that the work and its immedi- Ominous, sometimes demonic, it is one of the Liszt undertook a thorough transformation of being able to perform them.” Liszt returned ate companions “are the most wonderful begin- most vehemently expressive pieces that Brahms his old Op. 1 Etudes in 1837, and produced one yet again to the Transcendental Etudes, in 1851, ning ever made by any master”; and Brahms’s ever wrote, and his sense of Classical formal pro- of the most awesome documents of instrumental when he alleviated some of their technical dif- modern biographer Malcolm MacDonald said priety required him to balance it with a sedate virtuosity of the Romantic century—the Twelve ficulties, tightened their formal structures, and that “it stands with Liszt’s B minor Sonata and central Trio that glides smoothly along in an al- Transcendental Etudes. added poetic titles to all but two of them. (Both the Grande Sonate of Alkan as one of the three most hymnal manner. Liszt’s Op. 1 Etudes found their principal in- the 1837 and 1851 versions were dedicated to greatest piano sonatas of the mid-19th century.” Instead of proceeding directly to the fi- fluences in the finger-exercising teaching pieces Czerny.) Even in this “simplified” final form, Even the redoubtable Richard Wagner, after nale, Brahms next inserted a movement titled of his teacher Carl Czerny and the lyrical effu- the version usually heard today in the concert hearing Brahms play the Sonata in recital in Intermezzo, which “looks back” (Rückblick) to sions of fashionable Italian opera. (Liszt’s doz- hall, the Transcendental Etudes remain among Vienna in January 1863, is said to have “over- the Andante by transmuting its theme into a ens of arrangements, paraphrases, fantasias and the most imposing technical and interpretative whelmed him with praise,” and pronounced tragic threnody accompanied by the cadence of reminiscences on operatic themes were among challenges in the piano’s realm. that the Sonata “shows what may still be done distant funeral drums. Though he did not as- the most popular numbers on his recitals.) He Mazeppa is associated with the Polish noble- with the old forms, provided that one knows cribe a literary reference to this sullen music, it had originally intended to produce a cycle of 48 man Ivan Stepanovich Mazeppa (1644–1709), how to treat them.” may perhaps be related to an entry in a notebook numbers which, like the two books of Bach’s who served during his younger years as a page The F minor Sonata is remarkable for the wherein he collected poems that struck him as Well-Tempered Clavier, would include two piec- at the court of King John Casimir of Poland, way in which Brahms harnessed the surging suitable for songs, in which the earlier lines from es in each of the major and minor keys (C ma- where he had an affair with the wife of an older Romantic language of his youthful style into Sternau were followed by the next stanza of the jor, A minor; F major, D minor; B-flat major, courtier. The furious count had Mazeppa tied the logical constructions of Classical form. poem: If ye knew how soon, How soon the trees are G minor, etc.), but he completed only twelve naked to a wild horse which was sent racing (This was precisely the quality that so excited withered, And the wood is bare, How soon comes movements, giving them no titles except for into Ukraine. For three days, the horse gal- Schumann’s admiration.) It is this masterly bal- the dreary day When the heart’s beat is dumb. The their tempo markings. He took up the Etudes loped across the steppes before succumbing to ance of ardent emotional expression and intel- finale, blended from elements of rondo and so- again in 1837, by which time his affair with the exhaustion. Mazeppa was rescued and restored lectual formal necessity—of heart and head— nata forms, is built upon the contrast between Countess Marie d’Agoult, wife of the equerry to health by Cossacks, and eventually became that imparts such power to this music.