2010 Mimir Chamber Music Festival
13th Anniversary Concert Series

Program Notes

Mimir Chamber Music Festival

7:30 PM Friday July 16, 2010

Pepsico Recital Hall at TCU

Fort Worth, Texas

Program notes by Stephen Seleny

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Piano Trio in G Major, Hob XV: 25
1. Andante
2. Poco Adagio
3. Finale: Rondo Ongarese

A sonata is a multi movement composition built on contrasts and the development of motives. The first movement (almost always in “sonata form”, a technical term referring to the structure) contains an exposition section with two contrasting themes and a closing theme, followed by a development section (often much larger than the exposition) where only the taste and talent of the composer limits the development of the exposition’s themes. After the composer has explored the meaning of these themes, a recapitulation follows where the original themes reappear, more or less in their original form. The second movement is usually slow and lyrical, the optional third movement is dancelike, and the finale is fast and energetic.
It would be false to say that Franz Joseph Haydn invented all of this. But his creative practice brought together the many diverse ideas of his contemporaries into a unified arch, achieving equilibrium. Every composer who has written a sonata or symphony (formally, a “sonata” for orchestra), since this time, owes a measure of debt to “Papa Haydn”.
 

Haydn wrote 45 trios for piano, violin and cello. They are essentially piano sonatas with added contributions by the string instruments. The violin sometimes plays the melody; the cello almost always doubles the bass line of the piano. That the strings play a subordinate role does not in any way diminish the merits of the music. Indeed Haydn’s trios, especially the late ones, are inventive, rich and virtuosic works for the piano. It helps to remember that the “fortepiano”, a forerunner of the modern piano, was an instrument of very limited tone quality and a sound that very quickly decays. The ability of  the violin and cello to sustain notes must have gratified Haydn.

In this G major trio, the string instruments play a more independent role. Composed around 1794, it is a mature work of exquisite charm. The expressive melody of the first movement inspired the composer to create a set of variations in which the violin plays an almost equal role to the piano. The song-like second movement is followed by a “gypsy czardas” -- a quick dance of two fast steps to the right, two fast steps to the left. In Haydn’s day, gypsy music was equated with Hungarian music – therefore, Haydn titled this movement “Rondo Ongarese”. It is brilliant, fast, foot-tapping music.

String Quartet No. 1, “From my Life”
Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884)
1. Allegro vivo appassionato
2. Allegro moderato a la Polka
3. Largo sostenuto
4. Vivace

Because he often incorporated elements of the Czech folk idiom in hiopsitions, Bedřich Smetana is considered a Czech “nationalist” composer. As a young man in his native Bohemia, Smetana was very involved in the 1848 revolution that swept over Europe, in which minorities attempted to gain more freedom from the Hapsburg rulers of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. After this uprising was crushed, Smetana was even more ostracized than before, and went into self-imposed exile in Sweden. In Goteborg he taught, conducted and composed, yearning for his homeland. When the political climate mellowed after 1862, he returned, became the conductor of the National Theater, and wrote his most famous opera, The Bartered Bride. It is not well known that at age fifty, Smetana became deaf. Not even the best doctors could help. The treatments applied were very painful and ineffective. In this period he composed his famous tone poem, The Moldau, and the String Quartet “From my Life”. Shortly after, he went insane and died in an asylum -- a tragic life by any measure!

Smetana always described himself as a composer of “program music”, depicting scenes, describing natural phenomena, or just telling a story. However, one of the strengths of his music is that it can stand by itself as “absolute” music. Smetana’s own words about this Quartet, written in 1876, might enable the listener to have a glimpse into the tortured soul of the composer:

“As regards to my quartet, I gladly leave others to judge its style, and I shall not be the least bit angry if this style does not find favor or is considered contrary to what was hitherto regarded as the ‘quartet style’…My intention was to paint a tone picture of my life.

“The first movement depicts my youthful leanings toward art, the Romantic Atmosphere, the inexpressible yearning for something I could neither express or define, and also a kind of warning of my future misfortune (i.e. deafness).

The second movement, writes Smetana, is a “quasi Polka which brings to my mind the joyful days of youth, when I wrote dance tunes and was known everywhere as a passionate lover of dancing.

“The third movement, reminds me of the happiness of my first love, the girl who later became my wife.

“The last movement describes the discovery that I could treat national elements in music and my joy in following this path, until it was checked by the catastrophe of the onset of my deafness; the outlook into the sad future, the tiny rays of hope of recovery; but remembering all the promise of my early career, a feeling of painful regret…The long insistent note in this finale owes its origin to this (i.e. deafness). It is the fateful ringing in my ears of the high-pitched tones that, in 1874, announced the beginning of my deafness. I permitted myself this little joke because it was so disastrous for me.”

The magic of this quartet lies not only in its highly-charged emotional, colorful texture, but also in the technical mastery of the composer. He was able not only to express his personal feelings but to frame them masterfully within standard classical forms, such as the sonata, song and rondo.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1955)
Suite for 2 violins, cello, piano left hand, Op.23
1. Praeludium and Fugue: Kraftig and bestimmt (forcefully and decisively)
2. Walzer: Nicht schnell, anmutig (not fast, with charm)
3. Groteske: Moglichst rasch (as fast as possible).
4. Lied: Schlicht und innig (plainly and heartfelt) – nicht langsam (not slowly)
5. Rondo – Finale: Variationen

Korngold was one of the most prolific composers of film music. He wrote scores for many swashbuckling Errol Flynn movies and lush orchestral scores for countless Romantic tear-jerkers. Korngold was a child prodigy who, by the tender age of ten, caught the attention of such giants as Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Before his twentieth birthday, he wrote two operas. One of these, Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City) was well received at its 1929 premiere. At about the same time, he became enamored with the work of the innovative film director Max Reinhardt, and wrote scores to some of his most daringly original movies. Inevitably, through Max Reinhardt, Korngold became known in Hollywood.

By 1934, Korngold had moved to California and become an American citizen. While his promising career on the European Continent came to a screeching halt with the rise of Adolph Hitler, Korngold soon became one of the star composers of Hollywood. While creating an enormous quantity of excellent music for the film industry, he did not abandon classical music and also wrote many fine piano works, chamber music, and opera. Although they are not often performed today, the quality and craftsmanship of these works is evident to connoisseurs and professionals alike.

The suite on today’s program is unusual. The piano part is written for the left hand alone. The famous pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right hand in the First World War, commissioned the piece. Previously Wittgenstein had commissioned Piano Concertos not only from Korngold, but also from Ravel and Prokofiev. He obviously loved Korngold’s concerto well enough to request that he write another work for him to perform. Wittgenstein was the pianist for the Suite’s world premiere in Vienna in 1930, and for the American premiere in 1934.