program notes - Rockport Music

5
Sunday
june
trio solisti
Maria Bachmann, violin
Alexis Pia Gerlach, cello
Fabio Bidini, piano
5 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Jeremy Gill, 4 PM
PIANO TRIO IN C MINOR, OP. 1, NO. 3
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Allegro
Adagio cantabile
Scherzo: Allegro assai and Trio
Finale: Presto
PIANO TRIO NO. 3, OP. 122
Lowell Liebermann (b. 1961)
:: intermission ::
PIANO TRIO NO. 1 IN B MAJOR, OP. 8
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Allegro con brio—Tranquillo—In tempo, ma sempre sostenuto
Scherzo: Allegro molto—Meno allegro—Tempo primo
Adagio
Finale: Allegro
35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 9
WEEK 1
the program
PIANO TRIO IN C MINOR, OP. 1, NO. 3
Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, December 16, 1770; d. Vienna, March 26, 1827)
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Composed ca. 1793-95, published 1795; 20 minutes
Around 1790, Ludwig van Beethoven began planning a move from Bonn to Vienna in order to
study with his idol Wolfgang Mozart. Upon Mozart’s passing in December 1791, the grieving
young german contacted Josef Haydn, Mozart’s friend and mentor, who agreed to accept
Beethoven for composition lessons. Arriving in November 1792, Beethoven had the good
fortune to find lodgings at the Lichnowsky Palace. At that time, the noble families of Vienna
commonly let out their attic spaces, and Beethoven’s rented garret room put him under the
same roof as one of the most generous and devoted of that city’s music patrons, Count—and
later, Prince—Karl Alois Johann Nepomuk Vinzenz Leonhard Lichnowsky.
Prince Lichnowsky, who had known and befriended Mozart, immediately recognized
Beethoven’s talent. Soon, Beethoven was living in more comfortable quarters on a lower
floor of the residence, and taking meals with the family. Furthermore, the Prince, who was
himself an educated musician, set up a comfortable workroom for the young composer and
began to feature him in the weekly musicales—every Friday morning—that he held in his
residence.
Prince Karl von Lichnowsky
(1756-1814) was one of
Beethoven’s most generous
and loyal benefactors.
Beethoven eventually
dedicated to the Prince,
not only the three Piano
Trios Op.1, but also the
“Pathétique” Piano Sonata
Op.13, the Piano Sonata
Op.26, Symphony No. 2
in D major, and the Piano
Variations on “Quant’ è
pìu bello.”
A brilliant piano improviser, Beethoven immediately caught the attention of musical Vienna
for his keyboard displays. His studies with Haydn were brief—neither of the men warmed
completely to the other—but Beethoven was determined to become an accomplished,
recognized composer.
In 1795, at the age of twenty-five, Beethoven launched himself in the publishing world with
a set of three trios for piano, violin, and cello. Prince Lichnowsky, to whom Beethoven
dedicated the Trios, helped to underwrite the enterprise and the list of advance subscribers
included many of Vienna’s elite music patrons. The sales of Op.1, Nos. 1-3, were successful
for all parties, earning Beethoven some money and proving his worth to Artaria for future
publications.
When Haydn returned from his second London tour in 1795, he heard the Op.1 Trios at the
Lichnowsky residence, with Beethoven at the piano. While he confessed admiration for his
erstwhile student’s first published work, Haydn offended Beethoven by expressing reservations
about No. 3, in C minor.
In his own piano trios, Haydn had continued the older practice of having the cello perform a
continuo role, doubling the piano’s bass line, whereas Beethoven liberated the cello to full
partnership in the ensemble. Furthermore, the Beethoven trios, particularly the one in C
minor, seemed too bold in spirit to Haydn. And to top it all off, Beethoven’s Trios had not
three, but four movements, for he had inserted a Minuet and Trio, or a Scherzo into his
Piano Trios, a practice that Haydn had reserved for his string quartets.
Haydn actually advised Beethoven to withhold the Trio Op.1 No. 3 from publication, possibly
because, in his ears, it was too advanced for the audience of that time. Since this was
(reportedly) Beethoven’s favorite of the three, he ignored Haydn’s advice.
Beethoven cast the first movement, Allegro con brio, in sonata form, with a main theme in
somber C minor and a contrastingly cheerful second theme in C major. He developed the
entire first movement from these extremes. The Andante cantabile is a theme and five
10 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM
variations, which the composer concludes with a coda and a quiet ending. The third movement,
Menuetto and Trio, creates an uplifted mood, with jaunty rhythm and melodic accents, as a
prelude to the dramatic, emotionally pulsing Finale: Prestissimo. Although Haydn himself
frequently employed abrupt key changes and surprising contrasts in his compositions,
Beethoven’s daring in this composition clearly confounded his Classic sensibilities.
PIANO TRIO NO. 3, OP. 122
Lowell Liebermann (b. New York City, February 22, 1961)
Composed 2012; 16 minutes
Lowell Liebermann, a New York-born composer, pianist, and conductor, received his training
at The Juilliard School, where he earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. A
prolific composer, he works quickly and with care, and has composed works in many genres—
operas, orchestral compositions, chamber works for many and diverse instrumental
combinations, solo vocal pieces and choral works, piano solo, and more. They have been
commissioned, performed, and recorded by the world’s most highly regarded orchestras,
opera companies, chamber ensembles, and soloists.
Trio Solisti premiered Lowell Liebermann’s Piano Trio No. 3, Op. 122, in Tucson in January
2013. Liebermann has written about the Piano Trio No. 3:
Like my first two piano trios, this work is in one movement. The Third Trio unfolds in
three clearly discernible sections.
Its opening introduction features two cadenzas—one for violin followed by one for
cello—which are heard over repeated pianissimo chords in the piano and which serve
to introduce the work’s motivic material. The broadly lyric section that follows features
long lines in the strings over a glittering ostinato in the piano. The final section of the
Trio is a menacing and somewhat jazzy processional which bears the subtitle
(“They’re coming…..”) in the printed score.
The works of the composer
Lowell Liebermann have
been commissioned, performed,
and recorded by the world’s
most highly regarded
orchestras, opera companies,
chamber ensembles, and
soloists. For further
information see his website
at lowellliebermann.com.
The entire Trio was written during a year notable for events which revealed some of
the most disturbing aspects of American culture, events ranging from multiple public
shootings to the hate-filled rhetoric leading up to the 2012 election.
For me, the viewing of almost any news media these days seems to inspire an
encroaching sense of paranoia and despair. I think some of this feeling crept into
the work’s final section, which has an undercurrent of pessimistic sarcasm running
throughout. The Trio culminates in a climax which seems to be a musical embodiment
of the triumph of banality, before it all comes crashing down in an abrupt ending.
Individual audience members are invited to imagine a bogeyman of their own choosing
to serve as the object of paranoia represented in this closing section.
PIANO TRIO NO. 1 IN B MAJOR, OP. 8
Johannes Brahms (b. Hamburg, May 7, 1833; d. Vienna, April 3, 1897)
Composed 1854/1889; 40 minutes
The curious date of composition, “1854/1889,” is unique in Johannes Brahms’s works. Well
known for destroying compositions that he found inadequate, Brahms actually allowed this
35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 11
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
Piano Trio to circulate for more than 35 years before he decided to correct what he regarded
as its imperfections. In 1888 he had signed with a new publisher, Simrock Verlag in Berlin,
who offered to issue new versions of Brahms’s previously released works, should he choose
to revise them.
Completing his revision of the work, Brahms sent it along to Simrock with this caveat,
“With respect to the modernized Trio, I must categorically state that the old one is bad, but I
do not maintain that the new one is good….What about the old edition? There is no point in
discussing it, but all I would say is: if it is requested, send it, and if you find it necessary and
advisable to reprint it one day, then do so.”
Simrock did not find it necessary, and the 1889 score (published in 1891) became the
authoritative performing version of the Trio. The full extent of Brahms’s revisions and
rewrites constitutes a clear look into a composer’s processes (the distinguished British
music scholar Ivor Keys has published an excellent guide to the two versions of the Trio).
Suffice to say, the early Trio in B major was the work of a 21-year-old; the revised Trio in B
major reflects the skills that came with that young composer’s maturity.
These photos of Johannes
Brahms, from 1862 and
1886, reflect the years of
his maturity, during which
he began to contemplate
revising his Piano Trio No. 1.
It was first composed and
published in 1854; in 1889
he revised it significantly,
and his publisher, Simrock
Verlag, issued it in 1891.
Johannes Brahms acquired an early love for literature, an interest that no doubt provided
extra glue for the instant bond that he formed with the Schumanns—Robert and Clara—upon
meeting them in 1853. Brahms was especially attracted to the fanciful, and music-saturated,
writings of E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), in particular a principal character in Hoffmann’s
writings. Johannes Kreisler, who served as Hoffmann’s fictional stand-in, was an opinionated,
cranky composer and conductor whose passion and fire appealed to the young artists of his
generation. In 1838, Schumann had written a suite of piano pieces, “Kreisleriana.” Now, in the
1850s, Brahms was working under the pseudonym “Joh. Kreisler, Jun.” It was in that frame
of mind—of youthful, unrestrained passion—that Brahms composed the Piano Trio No. 1.
In 1889 the mature Brahms managed to keep that youthful vigor, while applying structural
discipline to the piece. The first movement, Allegro con brio, begins with the piano and cello
lyrically introducing the main theme in the tonic key of B major. The lyricism soon gives way
to a passionate declamation by all three instruments, and to a second theme in g-sharp minor.
The Scherzo begins with the tonic key, as well, except that it is now B minor—a dancing figure
reminiscent of a Mendelssohn scherzo. The dance gives way to lyric drama in the trio section
and then returns for a vigorous ending—and a suddenly calm closing measure in B major.
That calm predicts the repose of the Adagio movement. Like the first movement, the Adagio
moves from an opening in B major to a second theme, for the cello, in g-sharp minor. Within
the repose, the music of the Adagio speaks of restrained pain. The Allegro finale, shot
through with a persistent dotted rhythm and syncopations, begins in
B
minor, recalls the B major of the first movement, and then drives to
In summer 1889 Johannes Brahms
a
passionate
ending in B minor.
wrote to Clara Schumann, “…With
what childish amusement I while away
the beautiful summer days you will
never guess. I have rewritten my
B-major Trio [originally composed in
1854] and can now call it Opus 108
instead of Opus 8…It will not be so
wild as it was before—but whether
it will be better—?”
12 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM
COMING NEXT
LECTURE–PERFORMANCE: THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 2 PM
Elena Ruehr with the
Borromeo String Quartet & Donald Berman, piano
Free, no tickets required.