Peter Laul

Saturday, May 14, 2022
4:00 PM
APOLLO FESTIVAL HALL

Program Notes

by Ruth Atkins

Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 'Pathetique'

The Grande Sonate Pathétique hails from the early part of Beethoven’s career, the late 1700s. At this point, traditions of the Classical period held fast, and Beethoven trained and composed within these constraints. The year 1798, however, was not only a prolific but a pivotal year for the 27-year old composer. The key of C minor—to remain a favorite with Beethoven—featured in two other new works, but the power of the Pathétique was unprecedented. Rapidly transcribed for a variety of different ensembles, it spread Beethoven's distinctive voice to a wide audience of players and listeners. For some, its extreme contrasts and violent energy were too much: six years later the young pianist Ignaz Moscheles was warned to stay away from such eccentric music.

The first movement of the sonata is unapologetically “goal-oriented.” The characteristic dotted rhythms of the grandiloquent introduction, (repeated later in the coda) are portentous, and suggestive of high purpose. The main event, ​Allegro molto e con brio​, takes us through the standard key relationships, with major and minor in swift alternation, in textures varied yet all of a piece. This is the “organic unity” we associate with Beethoven .everything seems carved from the same sovereign material - the key of C minor

If the first movement is carved of stone, the ​Adagio cantabile is woven on a loom. The melody is simple and unforgettable. We hear it twice (bars 1-16), we hear it again (bars 29-36), and we hear twice allowed to resonate.

The finale is what is called a “sonata rondo”, featuring the tonal opposition and reconciliation of the two main keys, C Minor and E-flat Major, with glance at others for assistance and variety The structure relies on the cyclic return of a mosaic of motives that are readily separated and readily recombined.

The depiction of suffering ​as such​ is not the purpose of art; what must be conveyed is resistance to the inevitability of pain or despair, for in such resistance is lodged the principle of freedom.

Schiller ~Über des Pathetische ​(“On Tragic Pity”)

Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 ‘Moonlight'

Beethoven’s Sonata 14 op. 27 no. 2, was composed in the summer of 1801, published in 1802 and dedicated to Beethoven’s pupil, the 17-year-old Countess Giulietta Gucciardi. The name Moonlight was appended posthumously by music publishers after the association was made by a German music critic and poet, Ludwig Rellstab. It has resonated in the imagination of listeners ever since.

The Adagio Sostenuto is based on an accompanying motif in triplet rhythm that, together with the key of C# minor, creates the impression of a grave, meditative mood.

The short Allegretto may have been conceived as a connection between the first and third movements: its triple meter and major harmonies provide a diversion from gloomy introspection. However, the final Presto Agitato revives and intensifies the emotional gravity. One can distinguish two themes: a tempestuous one created from arpeggios and strongly accented notes; and a second more lyrical one contrasting with it. Both themes are magnificently interlaced, creating the singular beauty of inexorable passion. Beethoven was in love with Giulietta at the time, as his own letters testify. He may have had both painfully hopeless aspirations of marrying her and fear of his increasing deafness. In 1802 the Heiligenstadt Testament (a letter from Beethoven to his two brothers) confessed his despair of ever regaining his hearing.

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There is an intensely poignant scene in the film Immortal Beloved in which the composer plays the Moonlight sonata with his ear to the closed lid of his new fortepiano, in order to feel the vibrations of the strings on his new piano. This piano by Erard in France had been ordered shortly after the publication of the sonata. The keyboard spanned five-and-a-half octaves, had three-way stringing, a split bridge for the bass and four pedals. The opening of the Moonlight is marked sempre senza sordino; this counter-intuitive marking means ‘always with pedal’ – namely, without the dampers touching the strings allowing them to ring on, deliberately blurring and enriching the sound. The continuous vibration would also have helped Beethoven’s struggle to hear his composition.

Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 'Waldstein'

“Dear Beethoven! You go to realize a long-desired wish : the genius of Mozart is still in mourning and weeps for the death of its disciple. (…) By incessant application, receive Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.”

The Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, was inspired by Beethoven’s friendship with Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein of Vienna, his first protector in Bonn and close friend, who had arranged for Beethoven to study with Hadyn in Vienna. It was completed in 1804.

Known in sunny Italy as ‘L’Aurora’ (The Dawn, the sonority of the opening chords of the third movement are thought to conjure an image of daybreak or, metaphorically, light and serenity. Indeed, the sonata’s three movements can, with a supple imagination, be construed as different moments: the first, an invigorating, boisterous day, the second a reflective nocturnal search, the third an ardent new dawn.

From its opening measures, the Allegro con Brio showcases the elements of Beethoven’s new “heroic period”. Although the key signature and initial tonality of the sonata denotes C major, the music courses through distant keys without even a tip of the hat to customary rules of modulation. Indeed, the mysterious, meandering Introduzione is the perfect introduction for the Rondo, This dark and dramatic, three-part introduction to the finale led Donald Francis Tovey to say that here, as a composer of sonatas, Beethoven crossed the Rubicon. Nine bars of literally introductory gestures precede an eight-bar melody, not readily perceivable as such because of the slow tempo; twelve further bars of introductory material, harmonically wandering, bring us to the precipice and the ​Rondo​ brings the sonata to a close.

Our friend and musician Michael Meeks noted perceptively that this musical moment, like a similar moment in the choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, seemed to be a beacon to higher states.

“Never forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours.” Beethoven to Waldstein

Peter Laul

Sunday, May 15, 2022
4:00 PM
APOLLO FESTIVAL HALL

Program Notes

by Ruth Atkins

Chopin

Waltzes
op. 34, op. 64, op. 69

Chopin's waltzes span the whole of his career and feature a variety of types. The composer was able to draw on several traditions of this dance, as it was represented in the different cultures he experienced. In his youth, Chopin became acquainted with functional waltzes, both in Poland (where "walcerki" were often danced) and in Vienna. Later, in Paris, he composed for salons.

However, Chopin's waltzes reproduce no models, instead giving us music that is inimitable, recognizable from the very first bars, full of elegance, charm and brilliance, not infrequently marked by profound expression. Some are miniatures, others more expansive waltzes, with the character of dance poems. Chopin treated some of his waltzes as personal gifts, writing them into albums for friends as keepsakes.

Of a different character are the concert waltzes from others that qualify “officially” as waltzes in the Chopin oeuvre. As compositions intended more for listening than dancing, their dimensions are larger, and their pianistic bravura incomparably greater. Here the degree of artistic refinement reaches its peak, particularly manifest in the rich melodies and subtle harmonies. Among these eight masterful waltzes, two fundamental types may be distinguished. The first, more numerous, type is the striking valse brillante. This type of waltz might begin with an arresting introduction and end with a virtuosic coda, as in the A flat major waltz, Op. 34 No. 1. The second type is associated with a different sort of expression: it reflective, often considered sentimental, and in a much slower tempo. The most famous examples of this type are the Waltz in A minor, Op. 34 No. 2 and Waltz in C sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2.

Mussorgsky. Pictures at an Exhibition

The Quest for Immortality: Pictures at an Exhibition

'Hartmann is bubbling over’, Mussorgsky wrote to a friend. 'Ideas, melodies come to me of their own accord, like a banquet of music.’

Mussorgsky wrote his Pictures at an Exhibition in honor of Viktor Hartmann, who had died at the peak of his career, aged just 39. The loss of a close friend and artistic inspiration had a profound effect on the composer and the wider artistic community in Moscow. By way of tribute, friends organized a memorial exhibition of Hartmann's work shortly. Inspired by the experience , Mussorgsky decided to compose a set of piano pieces as a tribute. When he took up the project the following June, it virtually flowed out of him.

The pieces are musical renderings of the sketches, watercolors and architectural designs from the Hartmann exhibition, linked together with a musical Promenade depicting the viewer moving from one picture to the next. We are privileged to hear it in the composer’s original version, which uses the piano’s rich range of color, dynamic and timbre to create its own orchestral sound for painting the images, rather than Ravel’s popular version for orchestra.

According to Stasov, one of the founders of the exhibition, “Hartman designed the costumes for the staging of the ballet Trilbi at the Maryinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg. In the cast were a number of boy and girl pupils from the theatre school, arrayed as canaries. Others were dressed up as eggs.”

Hartmann’s watercolor of the Paris catacombs. Surely, this picture reminded Mussorgsky of his friend’s untimely death. A series of strange, often dissonant harmonies rings out in the darkness, the alternation of loud and soft a kind of written-out reverberation that suggests the cavernous space. A tam tam fades into what Mussorgsky marks as a new section of the movement: “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua”— “with the dead in a dead language.

The Promenade theme returns in the oboe as high, tremolo violins evoke the flickering light. Perhaps Mussorgsky is imagining himself in the catacombs. Near the end, the music brightens, and Ravel adds a hint of the heavenly with harp arpeggios.

This tranquil mood is dispelled by the next movement: The Hut on Hen’s Legs. In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga is a witch who flies through the woods on a mortar and pestle, searching for children to eat. She lives in a hut on hen’s legs that stalks the land. This movement was inspired by Hartmann’s design for an ornate clock in the shape of Baba Yaga’s hut. In the music, one can hear the clock ticking, another traditional symbol of mortality.

Suddenly, the specter of Baba Yaga is banished by a resplendent chorale. We have reached the final picture, a sketch for a new gate in Kiev, The Great Gate at Kiev.

The main “gate” melody alternates with the Russian hymn, “As you are baptized in Christ.” The sound of Russian church bells resounds from the gate’s tower, above which the Promenade theme returns.

Hartmann’s gate was never built, but here, his and Mussorgsky’s vision of art becomes reality. Mussorgsky’s music may not have been able to save all of Hartmann’s pictures, but whenever Pictures at an Exhibition is performed, they are brought to life again.

Thanks and acknowledgement for the material in these notes to the Houston Symphony website.