Sir ANDRÁS SCHIFF, piano - The Friends of Chamber Music

the muriel mcbrien kauffman master pianists series
Sir ANDRÁS SCHIFF, piano
Friday, March 6
8 pm
The Folly Theater
HAYDN
Sonata No. 60 in C Major, Hob.XVI:50
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro molto
BEETHOVEN
Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
Vivace, ma non troppo; Adagio espressivo; Tempo I
Prestissimo
Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung
(Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo)
INTERMISSION
MOZART
Sonata in C Major, K. 545, Sonata facile
Allegro
Andante
Rondo: Allegretto
SCHUBERT
Sonata in C Minor, D. 958
Allegro
Adagio
Menuetto: Allegro
Allegro
This concert is underwritten, in part, by Irv and Ellen Hockaday
This concert is underwritten, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts
The Master Pianists Series is underwritten, in part, by the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation
Additional support is also provided by:
the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.
program notes
This evening’s recital presents masterworks by the
greatest composers of the high classic era. Each of these
four sonatas represents the composer’s most mature view
of the keyboard and its possibilities. Haydn’s last three
piano sonatas, including the one on tonight’s program,
date from his second trip to London in the mid-1790s.
Mozart composed K.545 in C major in the summer of
1788, the same time he was working on what proved to
be his final three symphonies. Only two solo keyboard
sonatas would follow it, K.570 in B-flat Major and
K.576 in D Major.
By coincidence, the Beethoven and Schubert works
that Mr. Schiff plays are also part of final trilogies. Both
are early 19th-century compositions. While adhering
broadly to classical models, Beethoven’s Op. 109 and
Schubert’s C Minor Sonata peer into the dawning
age of Romanticism, particularly in their harmonic
explorations.
Ironically, both Mozart and Schubert were
young – 32 and 31, respectively – when they composed
these astounding pieces. Hearing this music reminds
us how richly their genius flowered at such a tender
age. Conversely, we must be grateful that Haydn and
Beethoven lived as long as they did, so that each of them
could achieve the glories of his later style.
Sonata No. 60 in C Major, Hob.XVI:50
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Haydn composed his last three piano sonatas for
Therese Jansen, a pupil of Muzio Clementi who was
much admired for her technical skill and musicianship.
Haydn also composed three superb piano trios for
her. Collectively, those trios and sonatas are his most
technically demanding piano works.
The C Major Sonata is a classic example of Haydn’s
monothematicism. The witty opening gesture generates
nearly all the material of the first movement, including
the second theme and much of the transitional material.
Haydn’s imagination and inventiveness in embellishing
this simple material is marvelous to hear. From the
sparest of means, he expands the idea, first in big rolled
chords, then in all manner of variants and decoration.
HOW MANY HAYDN SONATAS?
Exactly how many keyboard sonatas Haydn composed is
a bit of a sticky wicket. For one thing, he didn’t always
use the term ‘sonata.’ He often labeled his early multimovement pieces Divertimento or Partita. He first used
the term ‘sonata’ in 1771 and adopted it regularly from
the mid-1770s.
Different editions and listings of his sonatas use
conflicting numbering. For example, the Universal Urtext
Edition edited by Christa Landon comprises sixty-two
sonatas, but the Hoboken catalogue lists only fiftytwo. (Landon includes some spurious works and allows
for sonatas that have been lost or that only survive in
fragments.)
By the 1780s, Haydn was famous throughout Europe
and his music was popular with both amateur and
professional pianists. Greedy publishers issued works by
other composers labeled as music by Haydn, knowing
it would sell. In his old age, Haydn attempted to clarify
what music was indeed his, but he complicated matters
further by repudiating some early works, dismissing
them as “not worth preserving.”
The German publisher Gottfried Christoph Härtel first
attempted a complete edition of Haydn’s keyboard
works in 1799. That publication, Oeuvres complettes de
Joseph Haydn, eventually comprised twelve volumes that
included piano trios, duets for piano and violin (some of
which were arranged from solo piano pieces) and songs.
Thirty-four pieces in Härtel’s edition were what we
would call sonatas, and that ‘official’ number persisted
for most of the 19th century. Scholars in the early 20th
century developed an authenticated, standard number
of 52 sonatas.
While Haydn scholarship continues to grapple with
issues of chronology, authenticity, and accurate editions,
no one disputes the stature of the last three sonatas, the
English Sonatas, identified today as Hob.XVI:50-52.
– L.S.©2014
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program notes
Haydn was knowledgeable about the mechanics of
instruments. He was eager to explore new developments
in English pianos. This sonata calls for ‘open pedal’ in
one passage, by which Haydn intended sopra una corda
– a pedal to quieten the sound. The device was not yet
available on his Viennese piano, but in this sonata he took
advantage of the new English invention.
The technical demands of the first movement are
legion: chains of parallel thirds, extended octave passages
and a generally dense texture. These traits attest to Jansen’s
command of the piano – and indicate that Haydn also
wanted to maximize the beefier sound possible with the
larger English pianos.
While the rhetorical argument of the sonata is
concentrated in the opening Allegro, the central Adagio
in F major is also impressive. Haydn apparently wrote this
movement in Vienna (Artaria published it there in June
1794) and decided to incorporate it into the C Major
Sonata. The structure is like a free fantasia, with intricate
rhythmic detail and dramatic dynamic contrasts that
foreshadow Beethoven.
Haydn concludes the Sonata with an Allegro
molto that pushes the idea of a minuet to the edge of a
scherzo. His use of silences, sudden stops and starts, and
anticipation of “wrong” key changes all fulfill the promise
of humor in the first movement’s initial motive.
Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The year 1820 was emotionally chaotic for
Beethoven. In the autumn of 1819 he had been removed
as guardian of his adolescent nephew Karl, forcing him to
relinquish custody to his sister-in-law Johanna. Beethoven
appealed the decision in early January 1820. Three
months later, he was reappointed co-guardian with Hofrat
(Privy Councilor) Karl Peters, tutor to the children of
Beethoven’s patron Prince Lobkowitcz.
Resolution of that difficult situation seemed to break
a compositional logjam. Still, the Op. 109, E Major Piano
Sonata was the only significant piece Beethoven
completed in 1820. He interrupted work on the
Missa Solemnis when the Berlin publishing house of A.
Schlesinger wrote to request three new piano sonatas. The
commission restored Beethoven’s productivity, which he
would sustain nearly unabated until his death in 1827.
India Ink drawing of Franz Joseph Haydn
(from a painting of Haydn by John Hoppner)
by George Sigismund Facius, 1800
This sonata followed the oversized Hammerklavier,
Op. 106, of 1817-18. In contrast to that notorious
finger-buster and cry of outrage, Op. 109 is filled with
intimacy and warmth, and only the second movement
gives us a brief flash of fury. Yet all of those qualities have
their balance. Beethoven never strayed far from his
architectural instincts. He chooses a much smaller-scale
work in keeping with the understated mood that
permeates most of the sonata. And his intellect is present
in the sonata’s clear sense of formal organization and its
contrapuntal devices.
The first movement is surprisingly brief: an
economical four minutes. In discussing this sonata,
William Kinderman writes of Beethoven’s ‘intense interest
at this time with parenthetical structures that enclose
musical passages within contrasting sections.’ That
translates to interruptions and startling shifts between
animated music and adagio sections. The effect is not
unlike a Baroque fantasia, resulting in a sense of
improvisation.
the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.
program notes
Such flexibility in his treatment of sonata form is a
noteworthy trait of the late sonatas, paving the way
toward the late quartets and his romantic piano music.
Beethoven’s scherzo is even more concise: barely
two and one-half minutes of resolute, angry, disruptive
music. Surprisingly, this prestissimo is a taut sonata-form
structure. Beethoven is setting us up. Having ascertained
that he has our full attention, he moves to the emotional
heart of the sonata, a set of double variations marked
mit der innigsten Empfindung (with innermost feeling).
If we were not certain that this was the centerpiece of
the sonata, sheer length would persuade us. The finale is
more than twice as long as the previous two movements
combined. More to the point is that it is a profound
meditation, initially serene, presently ecstatic. The theme
moves like a sarabande, another connection to Baroque
thinking, as is Beethoven’s reliance on a variety of
contrapuntal devices. Biographer Marion Scott has noted
the influence of Bach in the sonata’s emphasis on
counterpoint as a variation tool.
Charles Rosen, in his landmark book The Classical
Style, offers a more philosophical insight to Beethoven’s
approach.
By means of an extended pedal point trill, introduced
as an inner voice, then transferred from left hand to
right, Beethoven somehow suspends us in midair. The
extended gesture lifts us, bird-like, aloft to the realm of
the sublime. Our heavenly destination is the restatement
of the theme, now layered with significance because of
the journey we have completed. Listeners familiar with
Bach’s Goldberg Variations may sense a connection to that
work in Beethoven’s reprise of the theme with reinforced
octaves in the bass.
Opus 109 reveals a distinctly private side of
Beethoven. He achieves a spiritual ecstasy that clearly
paved the way for the glorious heights of the late string
quartets.
In many of the late variation sets (opp. 109,
111, 127, etc.) there is a progressive simplification
as the variations proceed — not of the texture but of
the conception of the underlying theme. . .
Beethoven tends to simplify as the texture becomes
more complex. For this reason, his late variations give
the impression that they are not so much decorating
the theme as discovering its essence.
The six variations that follow Beethoven’s heartfelt theme
span a universe of emotions, capitalizing on the
expressive contrast of which the piano is capable. First
is a slow waltz that preserves the dignity of the theme.
Among the variations that follow are a playful virtuoso
Allegro vivace (Var. III) and a distinctly Bach-like Allegro
ma non troppo (Var. V).
The movement culminates in the radiant sixth variation, which re-establishes the serene opening tempo.
Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1819
39th season 2014-15
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program notes
From 1784, Mozart maintained a catalogue of his new
compositions. On 26 June 1788, he entered several
recently completed works, including a new symphony
in E-flat Major (we know it as No. 39, K. 543) and a
piece he called “eine kleine Klavier Sonate für Anfänger”
(a little piano sonata for beginners). That assessment has
been translated into Italian as Sonata facile and, in French,
Sonate facile.
Mozart was remarkably consistent in his piano
sonatas. All are in three movements. With the exception
of the A Major Sonata, K. 331, which opens with
variations, they begin with a sonata allegro form
movement. (See page 125 in the Glossary for a diagram
of the Sonata Allegro form) The slow movements tend to
be in ternary form and share a cantabile character. Most
of Mozart’s finales are lighter and fast, either a sonata or a
rondo or some combination thereof.
Unlike his piano concerti, which are virtuoso works,
many of the solo keyboard sonatas were intended for
domestic study and entertainment. Mozart clearly
conceived the C Major Sonata as a teaching piece. It
avoids black keys for the most part, and is not brilliant in
its technical demands. The scale is miniature compared to
his more ambitious sonatas.
Yet no beginner could play it. A gifted student might
require at least one year of study before attempting a
work of this complexity. The opening Allegro demands
Sonata in C Major, K. 545, "Sonata facile"
exceptional evenness of scale technique and rhythmic
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (1756-1791)
control. Mozart’s Andante has galant grace.. Listeners
What is a world famous virtuoso like András
familiar with the composer’s operas will hear a
Schiff doing playing a piece that Mozart described as “for resemblance to Don Ottavio’s aria “Dalla sua pace” in
beginners?” This C Major Sonata has become a cliché:
Don Giovanni. The finale is cheerful and unclouded: a
played regularly on student recitals, labored over in
suitable conclusion to this piece. Rest assured: the sonata
living rooms, a parody of itself with its foursquare phrases, is not easy. More to the point, its performance in the
Alberti bass accompaniment, and scale patterns. At the
hands of a master is a thing of beauty.
same time, it is the apogee of structural purity and
classical elegance in Mozart’s keyboard music.
Sonata in C Minor, D. 958
Musicians often observe that Mozart is too easy for
Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)
children and too difficult for adults. This sonata is an
In March 1827, the Austrian pianist and composer
excellent example demonstrating that aphorism. The
Johann Nepomuk Hummel traveled with his pupil
very things that Mozart deemed essential for a budding
Ferdinand Hiller from Weimar to Vienna. The purpose of
young pianist to master are exceptionally difficult to
the trip was to see Beethoven before he died. During their
execute well. Scale passages and arpeggios must be even
stay, they dined frequently at the home of Katharina von
and smooth. The left hand Alberti bass – broken triads in Lászny, a music-loving friend who had settled in Vienna.
a repetitive pattern – should anchor harmonic movement On one of those evenings, the guests included Franz
and rhythmic flow, without distracting from the melody it Schubert, who had just turned 30.
supports.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (artist unknown)
the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.
program notes
Hummel did not know much about Schubert or his
compositions, but was most impressed with what he
heard that evening. Schubert played some original piano
pieces and accompanied several singers in his Lieder.
Despite the difference in their ages and reputations Hummel was 49, established, and famous – the two men
hit it off well and Hummel was generous in his praise of
Schubert’s music.
Gratified by the older man’s enthusiastic
response, Schubert planned to dedicate three keyboard
sonatas to Hummel. In a letter to his Leipzig publisher
Heinrich Probst dated October 2, 1828, he wrote: “I
have composed, among other things, 3 sonatas for piano
solo, which I should like to dedicate to Hummel.” Seven
weeks later he was dead.
A year after Schubert’s untimely death, the
Viennese publisher Anton Diabelli purchased the
manuscripts of three keyboard sonatas from Schubert’s
brother Ferdinand. Either unaware of the treasure he had
acquired or preoccupied with other business
dealings, he sat on them for a decade. When Diabelli
finally published the sonatas in 1839, Hummel had
also died. Diabelli engraved the dedication to Robert
Schumann.
The three sonatas crown Schubert’s achievement as a
composer for the piano: the C Minor Sonata that
concludes this program, the A Major Sonata D. 959, and
the B-flat Major Sonata D. 960. He finished all three in
September 1828. In that same month, he also
finished the String Quintet in C Major, D.956, and
several songs in the Schwanengesang cycle. His
productivity is all the more astounding considering
his declining health. Contemporary accounts from his
friends and associates report that Schubert suffered in
September from chronic headaches and dizziness.
Although all three of the final piano sonatas have
found a place in the repertoire, the C Minor is less
frequently performed than the other two, perhaps
because of its character. If the A Major Sonata may be
summarized as lyrical and flowing and the B-flat Major
as contemplative, the C Minor is stormy, tempest-tossed,
occasionally violent. Indeed, it is almost unrelieved in its
tragic mien throughout its four movements.
Schubert clearly had Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C
minor on an Original Theme, WoO 80 in his mind’s ear
when composing the Sonata’s aggressive opening
Allegro. However, the parallels go beyond the shared
key of C minor, a classic ‘heroic’ key for Beethoven.
Schubert’s harmonic progression, triple meter, rhythmic
pattern, and thematic outline all bear a strong
resemblance to Beethoven’s.
The opening is powerful: big chords, decisive
rhythms, and a dramatic descending scale that will recur
at key moments. Schubert pays attention to his
transitional material, moving with grace to a gorgeous
theme in E-flat Major that is as serene as the
opening theme is tortured. He does not stay calm for
long, and his variants on the E-flat Major theme wander
to a couple of distant key centers, hinting at the
adventurous development section that lies ahead.
Franz Peter Schubert by Wilhelm August Reider, 1875
39th season 2014-15
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program notes
ON LATE STYLE WORKS
What makes the later works in a composer’s output
exceptional and worthy of special attention? It seems
perhaps obvious to think that a late style would emerge
when a composer reaches an old age and that it would
be the result of a lifetime of experiences, a tremendous
creative maturity, and the particular wisdom that comes
with advanced years. For composers who die young,
though, late-style works appear at a relatively early
chronological age—Schubert was just 29 when he wrote
his final three piano sonatas, and Mozart didn’t live to
see his thirty-sixth birthday. Factors other than a long life,
therefore, can be associated with a late style.
The noted music theorist Joseph N. Straus, in his book
Extraordinary Measures: Disability in Music, views late
works as “stories of disability” in which composers are
“narrating their fractured minds and bodies.” (p. 82)
This stance certainly applies to the composers represented
on tonight’s program. Haydn lived well into old age
and experienced its attendant physical challenges,
while Beethoven became emotionally exhausted after
the protracted and hostile custody battle for his nephew
that he eventually won in 1820. Mozart experienced a
tremendous decline in both health and finances in 1787,
and Schubert suffered intolerably from syphilis in his final
years.
Straus identifies six descriptors that can be applied
to late works: 1) introspective, 2) austere, 3) difficult,
4) compressed, 5) fragmentary, and 6) retrospective.
(Extraordinary Measures, p. 34) The eminent literary
theorist and cultural critic Edward W. Said in his final
book, aptly titled On Late Style, offered further attributes:
“anachronism and anomaly” (p. xiii), “intransigence,
difficulty, and unresolved contradiction” (p. 7), and, in
the case of Beethoven, giving “an impression of being
unfinished.” (p. 10) When listening to late-style works, and
when performing them, these characteristics certainly come
to the fore.
Many compositions, especially those created according
to the classical paradigms of the late eighteenth century,
tend to exude unity, order, and reason. Late-style works
offer something else. Tensions do not need to be resolved,
fragmentation and non-congruence exist on equal terms
with cohesion and accord, and only what is necessary need
be present—nothing is extraneous.
Late musical works stretch human limits both physically and
intellectually. These pieces often include fiendishly difficult
passages and require formidable technique. They are
also virtuosic in terms of musical processes. One discovers
extraordinary fugues, novel harmonies that challenge the
very essence of tonality, and astonishing sets of variations
in which the composer looks at the same musical idea from
previously unimagined perspectives and vantage points.
Finally, late-style works defy time. They look backward to
centuries of musical developments and absorb the past into
the present. Likewise they presage the future in redefining
musical elements and reimagining previously accepted
musical processes, forms, and genres. These are pieces to
be savored, contemplated, and admired as sublime artistic
statements from the mature and sometimes troubled minds
of their creators.
the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.
–Dr. William Everett ©2014
biography
Everything about the second movement speaks of late
Schubert: sudden modulations, relaxed exposition,
mini-variants on themes, and chromatic alterations that
take surprising turns even when we hear them a second
time. Schubert’s harmonic invention finds new territory
in a chromatic theme introduced in the development
section. Never losing his narrative momentum, he drives
the movement forward in ways both delicate and
inevitable. The recapitulation and coda are all the more
effective for his skill.
Such a movement requires contrast and relief.
Schubert provides it in the third movement with a
modified rondo in A-flat Major. His pace is relaxed,
though the episodes wander far afield harmonically and
have considerable drama. They are barely controlled
explosions; the returns of the A-flat Major section are not
without their dark moments. Though he ends peaceably
in a variation on the opening theme, Schubert clearly
does not want us to forget that this is a very serious
sonata.
Thus we have no lighthearted Scherzo, but rather
a somber Minuet with irregular phrase lengths where
silences are as important as the music. We are meant
to think. Schubert is reinforcing the overall tragedy of
the sonata. His Trio is a Ländler, a salute to Schubert’s
Austrian roots and his connection to the sturdy, simple
melodies of country folk.
The last movement, the Finale, is perhaps the most
amazing of all: a galloping tarantella that, like the first
movement, calls to mind Beethoven. In this case, it is
the Beethoven of the Kreutzer Sonata finale, or perhaps
that of the Piano Sonata Op. 31, No. 3 – but this finale
is much darker than either of those works. Actually, it is
closer in spirit to Schubert’s own finale to the Death and
the Maiden String Quartet, sharing that intense drama.
Insistent rhythm drives this movement, which is closer to
an expanded sonata form than the rondo it initially
appears. It is a minefield for any pianist to learn, let
alone to memorize.
Overall, the C Minor Sonata is a brooding work on
a grand scale. Here is a different side of the Schubert we
thought we knew – and more of him to love.
Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2014
Found a word or phrase that you are unfamiliar with? Check out our extensive
Glossary beginning on page 118 to discover the meaning.
S
Sir ANDRÁS SCHIFF
ir András Schiff is world-renowned and critically acclaimed as a
pianist, conductor, pedagogue and lecturer. Born in Budapest,
Hungary in 1953, he started piano lessons at age five with Elisabeth
Vadász. He continued his musical studies at the Ferenc Liszt
Academy with Professor Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág and Ferenc
Rados, and in London with George Malcolm. In June 2014, he was
awarded a KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order
of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the
2014 Birthday Honours.
Having recently completed The Bach Project throughout the 20122013 and 2013-2014 concert seasons, North America prepares
for The Last Sonatas, a series of three recitals comprising the final
three sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. The Last
Sonatas takes place over the course of the next two seasons with the
complete series slated for New York’s Carnegie Hall, San Francisco’s
Symphony Hall, Los Angeles’s Disney Hall, Chicago’s Symphony
Hall, Washington Performing Arts’ Strathmore Hall, The Vancouver
Recital Society and University Musical Society of The University of
Michigan. Further recitals are scheduled in Napa, La Jolla, Santa
Fe, Scottsdale and Kansas City. In October 2015, the San Francisco
Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic host this versatile artist
in a series of concerts with orchestra and chorus – Sir Schiff’s first
performances in North America on the podium and at the piano
with chorus, orchestra and soloists.
In his role as lecturer, Sir Schiff has put together a round table
forum to be presented by New York’s 92nd Street Y, addressing
the pianist’s belief that it is the responsibility of every politicallyinformed artist to speak out against racial injustice and persecution.
Violinist Gidon Kremer and author David Grossman join the
dialogue. As pedagogue, he partners with 92Y and SubCulture for
“Sir András Schiff Selects: Young Pianists” – a three-concert series
in February & March curated by Sir Schiff introducing rising young
pianists Kwouk-Wai Lo, Roman Rabinovich and Adam Golka.
Sir András Schiff has established a prolific discography, and since
1997 has been an exclusive artist for ECM New Series and its
producer, Manfred Eicher. Recordings for ECM include the
complete solo piano music of Beethoven and Janáček, two solo
albums of Schumann piano pieces, his second recordings of the
Bach Partitas and Goldberg Variations, The Well Tempered Clavier,
Books I and II and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations recorded on two
instruments: The Bechstein from 1921 and an original fortepiano
from Vienna 1820 – the place and time of the composition.
For more information visit: www.andrasschiff.com
Sir András Schiff appears courtesy of Kirshbaum Demler and Associates
Recordings are available on the Decca/London, Teldec/Warner and ECM lables
39th season 2014-15
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