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Program: Program notes

R. Strauss
Sonata for violin & piano in E-flat Major, Opus 18

Schumann
Phantasiestücke (3 Fantasy Pieces) for violin & piano, Opus 73

Additional works and encores announced from the stage:

Kreisler
La Précieuse in the style of Louis Couperin for violin and piano

Tchaikovsky
Chanson sans Paroles

Kreisler/Paderewski
Melody, Op. 16, No. 2

Kreisler
Sicilienne and Rigaudon in the style of Francoeur
Tempo di Minuetto


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An Aaron Richmond Recital

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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Sonata No. 3 in E Major for violin and keyboard, BWV 1016
A very large part of Bach’s chamber music was composed during the happy years (1717-1723) he spent in the court of the music-loving Prince Leopold in Cöthen. Bach’s sonatas for violin (both with and without accompaniment) were probably composed there, not to mention several of the Brandenburg concertos, the violin concertos, and some of the most familiar keyboard works. Only in 1721, when the prince married a woman who was far less fond of music than he, did the bloom of Cöthen fade for Bach, and he began to look for another position.

A solo sonata in Bach’s day usually featured a melody instrument with the accompaniment of a basso continuo. In the written score, this would be a bass line only, to be played by the harpsichord (with the possible addition of a melody bass instrument); the harpsichordist was expected to fill in the harmonies during the performance, according to well-established harmonic practices. But in his six accompanied sonatas for the violin Bach chose to write out a full formal accompaniment for the keyboard, with an elaborated right-hand part presenting its own musical line, quite as if it were a second violin, for example, in the more common trio sonata. Indeed, these sonatas bear the texture of the trio sonata so strongly that one manuscript, copied by Bach’s son-in-law Altnikol, actually bears the title “Six Trios for Keyboard and Violin”!

All of the sonatas but the sixth have four movements arranged in the traditional pattern of the sonata da chiesa—slow, fast, slow, fast. In Sonata No. 3, the first movement displays three levels of activity: The very slow, sustained bass line in the left hand of the keyboard part, a steady sixteenth-note moving figure in the right hand, and—soaring above it all—the violin’s gently hovering song in pensive sustained notes decorated with lavish runs of thirty-seconds. The second and fourth movements—both Allegros—offer the same texture as one of Bach’s three-part inventions: two fast-moving upper parts in imitation over a slightly slower but energetic bass line. The most striking movement of the sonata is the third, a chaconne in which the keyboard’s left hand plays a repeating bass pattern repeated over and over (with slight adjustments for transposition to new keys), while the violin and the keyboard’s right hand alternate ecstatic melody and supporting accompaniment.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Sonata in E-flat Major for violin and piano, Opus 18
Strauss’ reputation is so much bound up with grandiose orchestral scores and operas that we are not likely to think of him as a composer of chamber music. Yet he did write in some of the traditional chamber genres, and though all of these works were early and might be presumed to be merely of historical interest, they betray a talent and an imagination that could have made the reputation of any composer who did not so utterly surpass himself with the works that came after. The chamber music reflects Strauss’s classical training and sheds an illuminating light on the classicizing of his later operas. In addition to a number of unpublished pieces from his earliest days as a composer (two piano trios, a work for flute and piano, and several compositions for horn—his father’s instrument—and piano), Strauss published a string quartet (Opus 2), a cello sonata (Opus 6), a piano quartet (Opus 13), and a violin sonata (Opus 18). Each of them marked a stage in the composer’s progress; the violin sonata in particular is a mature and attractive work, published in 1887, when Strauss was only twenty-three.

Strauss himself had studied both the piano and the violin, so the idea of composing a violin sonata was a natural one. His earlier chamber compositions may have reflected the ever-present influence of Schumann or Brahms, but from the opening measure of the violin sonata, we can have no doubt that this is a fully characteristic work of Richard Strauss.

The resonant, upward-striving theme so full of the panache that we know from Don Juan or Ein Heldenleben is nicely contrasted to a lyrically descending second theme. The development of the various motivic ideas ranges widely in harmony, returning finally to a straightforward recapitulation, then turning on the juice for an operatically potent coda.

The slow movement has always been a special favorite; Strauss or his publisher knew that this would be the case, for the printed sheet music provides a separate identification of the work as being “From Rich. Strauss, Op. 18,” as if they were quite sure that they would publish this movement separately—and indeed they did. The title “Improvisation” is a little misleading, for the movement is essentially in an ABA form, though the middle section (with evident references to the furious triplets in Schubert’s Erlkönig) suddenly disintegrates into the piano traceries of a Chopinesque nocturne before returning to the main theme.

The finale, following a somber slow introduction, is strikingly flamboyant, often exerting the two performers to the outer limits of what can be expected of chamber music. The young composer seems to be signaling that it was time for him to turn to the full orchestra to work out his ideas.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Phantasiestücke for violin and piano, Opus 73
In 1849, following several years of intermittent ill health that had limited his composing, Schumann enjoyed a burst of creative energy resulting in some twenty new works, including four for instrumental duo with piano, the featured instruments being by turns horn, clarinet, cello, and oboe. In virtually all these cases the composer bowed to practicality and sanctioned performance by other instruments as well. In the case of the Phantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), composed for clarinet, Schumann offered either cello or violin as an alternative.

For publication, Schumann replaced his original title Soiréestücke (Soirée pieces) with the more poetic definitive title, one that he was apparently fond of: he used it in three different works for solo piano (Opus 12, Opus 111, and one number in the Opus 124 set) and one other ensemble work, a trio for piano, violin, and cello, Opus 88.

A title of that sort promotes the fundamental romantic stance that creative work is the product of the artist’s untrammeled imagination, as if the artist is merely a medium taking dictation of music that arrives from another world. Moreover the flickerings of “fantasy” justify the sudden changes of mood that are so much a part of Schumann’s music.

In the case of Opus 73, these short pieces are essentially songs without words, lyrical miniatures that allow—and encourage, if not require—legato performance and expressive phrasing from the melody instrument, whether it be the clarinet, violin, or cello. They form a small triptych in the key of A (the first is minor, the last two major), progressing from a mood of tender lyricism through fleet passage work and soaring melodies to a conclusion of fiery energy.

© Steven Ledbetter; www.stevenledbetter.com