B.E.J. WINTER VIOLA RECITAL - 2024(tbd) - PROGRAM NOTES
Johann Sebastian Bach - Solo Suite #2
The instrumental suite, with its predictable allemande-courante-sarabande-gigue sequence of dances and its un-predictable addition of various galanteries (minuets, bourrées, gavottes, etc.), was a staple of the Baroque.
Arising from neither of the period’s two great wellsprings of musical emotion – religious piety and operatic bombast – the subtext of the suite was social gaiety in an intimate setting, but not just any setting. The tone had more than a whiff of aristocratic elegance about it, its imaginary terpsichorean world being one of crisp court etiquette rather than rollicking village merriment. This was the music that housewives of the Baroque era’s rising middle class heard in their head as they reached for Hello magazine, or Majesty, in the checkout line at the local fishmonger’s.
In this context, the second of Bach’s set of six cello suites from ca. 1720 is a remarkable example of the genre. Written in a minor key, it constitutes an exceptionally dark and serious take on the dance culture of the French court, from which the religious and dramatic impulses of Lutheran Germany cannot be excluded as inspirational prompts in its creation.
The opening Prelude is homogenous in its texture of running 16th notes, from which a recurring habit of pausing on the second beat of the bar stands out as a distinctly sarabande-like feature. Its opening arpeggio spelling out the D minor triad sets out a pattern of similar arpeggiated approaches to this second- beat pause that will pervade the movement as a whole, building tension in waves of melodic and harmonic sequences that seek ever higher ground.
The dances that follow are in binary form, each comprised of a first section that drifts away from the home key followed by a second section that returns to it, with each section played twice. The Allemande begins assertively, with a quadruple stop that establishes its punchy style of rhythmic emphasis that, combined with its wide range of motion, provides it an exceptionally rambunctious start to the dance set. The Courante hikes up the intensity a notch further in a driven moto perpetuo of virtually constant 16th-note motion.
The clear harmonic outlines of this breathless movement make it one of the most toe-tapping of the suite.
Darkest of the dark in this collection is the extraordinarily grave Sarabande, set in the deepest register of the instrument. A feeling of intense longing comes through in its long-held dissonances and its bewildered, searching phrases beset with anxious hand-wringing trills.
Minuets I & II form a matched pair of musical contrasts: the first in D minor, thickly scored in multiple stops but with an overtly dancelike lilt; the second in a contrasting D major, sparingly laid out in a single owing line of melody. We see in this pairing a precedent for the future matching of minuet & trio in the Classical era.
The concluding Gigue is true to its origins in the English or Irish jig, characterized by wild leaps, repetitive rhythms, and angular lines of melody that constantly change direction. Sombre as this suite is as a whole, its rollicking finale recaptures some of the genre’s elegant exuberance and élan.
~Donald G. Gíslason (vanrecital.com/tag/alban-gerhardt/)
Johannes Brahms - Viola Sonata #2
At a time when European music was turning towards large programmatic orchestral works performed in grandiose public concerts, Brahms continued to write music created from just the basic building blocks of the tonal system, intended for private performance by small ensembles. In so doing, he established the foundations for a rich new literature of chamber works that featured hitherto neglected instruments such as the clarinet and viola in a leading role. Indeed, the duo-sonata literature for these instruments can be said to begin with Brahms.
His special interest in the clarinet came late in life when, in 1891, he encountered the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinetist in the court orchestra of Meiningen (Thuringia), noted for his warm tone and expressive playing. Brahms’ last published chamber works were two sonatas Op. 120 composed in 1894 for clarinet and piano (dedicated to Mühlfeld) and then re-issued with slight revisions by the composer in a version for viola.
The second of these, the three-movement Sonata in E flat, is remarkable for its relaxed ease of expression, its underlying ethos of moderation, both in mood and in tempo. It begins with a sinuous, songlike melody with many a winding turn but nary a care in the world. A second theme arrives, less meandering but equally carefree, that even the occasional outburst from the piano cannot perturb. This first movement is what a happy contented old age sounds like.
The formal contrasts that normally distinguish sections within first-movement sonata form are attenuated in this last sonata movement that Brahms was to compose. The fluidity of form is most keenly felt in the development section, where tumult is avoided in favour of civilized lyrical conversation. Despite the odd provocation from the piano, the blood pressure rarely rises beyond a slight quickening of pulse from duplets to triplets, so that the recapitulation arrives like a welcoming hostess announcing to her guests that dinner is served. The coda, marked Tranquillo, nudges the movement to a conclusion with the viola playing beneath the piano for the last chord.
The Allegro appassionato second movement is where one would expect real fire, but this is not a whip-cracking scherzo like that in the F minor piano sonata, nor the heaven-storming scherzo of the Piano Concerto No. 2. The passion here seems more remembered in affection than vividly lived through in the present moment. Its headlong impetus, most persuasively argued for in the massively demanding piano part, is blunted by the relatively gentle pace, one-in-the-bar rhythmic feel, and frequent use of feminine phrase endings. The middle-section trio is a fervent hymn-like elegy that maintains the seriousness of mood, contrasting only in the stern evenness of its steady quarter-note motion.
The last movement, Andante con moto, is a series of variations on a gracious theme with alternating two-note patterns of dotted and even notes. The first variation staggers the viola and piano parts with rhythmic offsets, sounding almost as if preparing for a fugato. In the second, the two instruments take turns enveloping the theme in a lace-like tracery of arpeggiation. The third variation intensifies the decorative detail into a constant patter of 32nd notes while the fourth slows down the pace to linger lovingly over the resolution of a constant chain of syncopations. The original rhythmic pattern of the theme returns in the fifth variation in a sparkling minor-mode treatment leading to the finale, which builds from an almost pastoral mood to one of vigorous celebration as the work ends.
~Donald G. Gíslason (vanrecital.com/2014/03/program-notes-brahms-festival/)
York Bowen - Viola Sonata #1
The two viola sonatas are examples of the remarkable succession of works that Bowen produced while still a student, and soon afterwards. In fact he was only twenty when he wrote the Viola Sonata No 1 in C minor Op 18 (1905). At this time Lionel Tertis had started a series of London recitals of viola music at which he was regularly accompanied by Bowen, a series that continued for several years. The sonata was first performed by Tertis and Bowen at London’s Aeolian Hall on 19 May 1905. It appeared again on 30 October 1906, and then in Berlin in 1907 when Tertis, Bowen and the work were all enthusiastically received.
This is the first of Bowen’s many instrumental sonatas, and with its traditional exposition repeat it sets the pattern of the ‘well-made’ work which he would follow all his life. To this renewal of an existing idiom Bowen brings a personal voice and authority, especially noticeable in a viola sonata. While some listeners at the time might have looked to Brahms’s then new sonatas for the composer’s model, in 1905 Bowen’s music must have struck many people as a fresh breeze blowing through the British music of the time.
The wide-spanning first movement, lasting more than ten minutes, clearly announces a composer who has arrived. With the busy and idiomatic piano part and the viola part’s singing melody, drama, and distinctive passagework (which was at first thought to be uncharacteristic of the instrument), in this sonata Bowen provided a model for Tertis’s other young collaborators—Benjamin Dale and Arnold Bax. Bowen’s first subject opens with a questioning dotted motif which, at first reflective and questioning, soon becomes dramatic and challenging, especially when running on with flashing semiquavers. The second subject, marked molto espressivo, is lyrical and expansive. The music eventually rises to a substantial climax before the affecting final nine bars, where the opening theme returns, all passion spent, and the music ends on a dying fall.
The slow movement is basically ternary in shape, with a middle section in which the viola sings fervently over rippling piano figurations. The movement is notable for its passionate expression markings—molto espressivo at the outset, and soon appassionato—yet this is a remarkably well-bred passion and the music maintains a poise which rather tempers the emotion the composer seems to be feeling.
The finale is generally carefree, and certainly Tertis referred to the sonata as ‘a vivacious and light-hearted work’. Bowen writes a powerful introduction, though this is soon followed by happy music alternating spirited and dancing passages with typical lyrical invention. Eventually the music reaches a portentous episode when, over pounding sustained chords in the piano, the viola is instructed to summon up all possible tone molto vibrato. Just when we are thinking the music is to end in tragedy after all, the viola’s running semi-quavers announce the throw-away closing bars.
~ Lewis Foreman (hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W11268_67651)
Johann Sebastian Bach - Solo Suite #2
The instrumental suite, with its predictable allemande-courante-sarabande-gigue sequence of dances and its un-predictable addition of various galanteries (minuets, bourrées, gavottes, etc.), was a staple of the Baroque.
Arising from neither of the period’s two great wellsprings of musical emotion – religious piety and operatic bombast – the subtext of the suite was social gaiety in an intimate setting, but not just any setting. The tone had more than a whiff of aristocratic elegance about it, its imaginary terpsichorean world being one of crisp court etiquette rather than rollicking village merriment. This was the music that housewives of the Baroque era’s rising middle class heard in their head as they reached for Hello magazine, or Majesty, in the checkout line at the local fishmonger’s.
In this context, the second of Bach’s set of six cello suites from ca. 1720 is a remarkable example of the genre. Written in a minor key, it constitutes an exceptionally dark and serious take on the dance culture of the French court, from which the religious and dramatic impulses of Lutheran Germany cannot be excluded as inspirational prompts in its creation.
The opening Prelude is homogenous in its texture of running 16th notes, from which a recurring habit of pausing on the second beat of the bar stands out as a distinctly sarabande-like feature. Its opening arpeggio spelling out the D minor triad sets out a pattern of similar arpeggiated approaches to this second- beat pause that will pervade the movement as a whole, building tension in waves of melodic and harmonic sequences that seek ever higher ground.
The dances that follow are in binary form, each comprised of a first section that drifts away from the home key followed by a second section that returns to it, with each section played twice. The Allemande begins assertively, with a quadruple stop that establishes its punchy style of rhythmic emphasis that, combined with its wide range of motion, provides it an exceptionally rambunctious start to the dance set. The Courante hikes up the intensity a notch further in a driven moto perpetuo of virtually constant 16th-note motion.
The clear harmonic outlines of this breathless movement make it one of the most toe-tapping of the suite.
Darkest of the dark in this collection is the extraordinarily grave Sarabande, set in the deepest register of the instrument. A feeling of intense longing comes through in its long-held dissonances and its bewildered, searching phrases beset with anxious hand-wringing trills.
Minuets I & II form a matched pair of musical contrasts: the first in D minor, thickly scored in multiple stops but with an overtly dancelike lilt; the second in a contrasting D major, sparingly laid out in a single owing line of melody. We see in this pairing a precedent for the future matching of minuet & trio in the Classical era.
The concluding Gigue is true to its origins in the English or Irish jig, characterized by wild leaps, repetitive rhythms, and angular lines of melody that constantly change direction. Sombre as this suite is as a whole, its rollicking finale recaptures some of the genre’s elegant exuberance and élan.
~Donald G. Gíslason (vanrecital.com/tag/alban-gerhardt/)
Johannes Brahms - Viola Sonata #2
At a time when European music was turning towards large programmatic orchestral works performed in grandiose public concerts, Brahms continued to write music created from just the basic building blocks of the tonal system, intended for private performance by small ensembles. In so doing, he established the foundations for a rich new literature of chamber works that featured hitherto neglected instruments such as the clarinet and viola in a leading role. Indeed, the duo-sonata literature for these instruments can be said to begin with Brahms.
His special interest in the clarinet came late in life when, in 1891, he encountered the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinetist in the court orchestra of Meiningen (Thuringia), noted for his warm tone and expressive playing. Brahms’ last published chamber works were two sonatas Op. 120 composed in 1894 for clarinet and piano (dedicated to Mühlfeld) and then re-issued with slight revisions by the composer in a version for viola.
The second of these, the three-movement Sonata in E flat, is remarkable for its relaxed ease of expression, its underlying ethos of moderation, both in mood and in tempo. It begins with a sinuous, songlike melody with many a winding turn but nary a care in the world. A second theme arrives, less meandering but equally carefree, that even the occasional outburst from the piano cannot perturb. This first movement is what a happy contented old age sounds like.
The formal contrasts that normally distinguish sections within first-movement sonata form are attenuated in this last sonata movement that Brahms was to compose. The fluidity of form is most keenly felt in the development section, where tumult is avoided in favour of civilized lyrical conversation. Despite the odd provocation from the piano, the blood pressure rarely rises beyond a slight quickening of pulse from duplets to triplets, so that the recapitulation arrives like a welcoming hostess announcing to her guests that dinner is served. The coda, marked Tranquillo, nudges the movement to a conclusion with the viola playing beneath the piano for the last chord.
The Allegro appassionato second movement is where one would expect real fire, but this is not a whip-cracking scherzo like that in the F minor piano sonata, nor the heaven-storming scherzo of the Piano Concerto No. 2. The passion here seems more remembered in affection than vividly lived through in the present moment. Its headlong impetus, most persuasively argued for in the massively demanding piano part, is blunted by the relatively gentle pace, one-in-the-bar rhythmic feel, and frequent use of feminine phrase endings. The middle-section trio is a fervent hymn-like elegy that maintains the seriousness of mood, contrasting only in the stern evenness of its steady quarter-note motion.
The last movement, Andante con moto, is a series of variations on a gracious theme with alternating two-note patterns of dotted and even notes. The first variation staggers the viola and piano parts with rhythmic offsets, sounding almost as if preparing for a fugato. In the second, the two instruments take turns enveloping the theme in a lace-like tracery of arpeggiation. The third variation intensifies the decorative detail into a constant patter of 32nd notes while the fourth slows down the pace to linger lovingly over the resolution of a constant chain of syncopations. The original rhythmic pattern of the theme returns in the fifth variation in a sparkling minor-mode treatment leading to the finale, which builds from an almost pastoral mood to one of vigorous celebration as the work ends.
~Donald G. Gíslason (vanrecital.com/2014/03/program-notes-brahms-festival/)
York Bowen - Viola Sonata #1
The two viola sonatas are examples of the remarkable succession of works that Bowen produced while still a student, and soon afterwards. In fact he was only twenty when he wrote the Viola Sonata No 1 in C minor Op 18 (1905). At this time Lionel Tertis had started a series of London recitals of viola music at which he was regularly accompanied by Bowen, a series that continued for several years. The sonata was first performed by Tertis and Bowen at London’s Aeolian Hall on 19 May 1905. It appeared again on 30 October 1906, and then in Berlin in 1907 when Tertis, Bowen and the work were all enthusiastically received.
This is the first of Bowen’s many instrumental sonatas, and with its traditional exposition repeat it sets the pattern of the ‘well-made’ work which he would follow all his life. To this renewal of an existing idiom Bowen brings a personal voice and authority, especially noticeable in a viola sonata. While some listeners at the time might have looked to Brahms’s then new sonatas for the composer’s model, in 1905 Bowen’s music must have struck many people as a fresh breeze blowing through the British music of the time.
The wide-spanning first movement, lasting more than ten minutes, clearly announces a composer who has arrived. With the busy and idiomatic piano part and the viola part’s singing melody, drama, and distinctive passagework (which was at first thought to be uncharacteristic of the instrument), in this sonata Bowen provided a model for Tertis’s other young collaborators—Benjamin Dale and Arnold Bax. Bowen’s first subject opens with a questioning dotted motif which, at first reflective and questioning, soon becomes dramatic and challenging, especially when running on with flashing semiquavers. The second subject, marked molto espressivo, is lyrical and expansive. The music eventually rises to a substantial climax before the affecting final nine bars, where the opening theme returns, all passion spent, and the music ends on a dying fall.
The slow movement is basically ternary in shape, with a middle section in which the viola sings fervently over rippling piano figurations. The movement is notable for its passionate expression markings—molto espressivo at the outset, and soon appassionato—yet this is a remarkably well-bred passion and the music maintains a poise which rather tempers the emotion the composer seems to be feeling.
The finale is generally carefree, and certainly Tertis referred to the sonata as ‘a vivacious and light-hearted work’. Bowen writes a powerful introduction, though this is soon followed by happy music alternating spirited and dancing passages with typical lyrical invention. Eventually the music reaches a portentous episode when, over pounding sustained chords in the piano, the viola is instructed to summon up all possible tone molto vibrato. Just when we are thinking the music is to end in tragedy after all, the viola’s running semi-quavers announce the throw-away closing bars.
~ Lewis Foreman (hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W11268_67651)