18 Jul. 2010 – Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Conductor : Christoph Eschenbach Concert with SHMF Orchestra Violin concerto No.2 in D minor Op.22 by H.Wieniawski
Allegro con fuoco – Allegro moderato (à la Zingara) in D minor/D major
Both main elements of the first movement, its sombre, restless first subject, and its lyrical pendant (begun by a solo horn) are discussed freely and subject to dazzling embellishments by the solo violin. This movement includes a demanding variety of technique, including chromaticglissandi, double stops, arpeggios, sixths, octaves, thirds, chromatic scales, and artificial harmonics, not to mention a myriad of bowing techniques. The beat is based on a 4/4 or common time. The first movement uses a half-sonata form where the orchestral coda after the exposition transitions into the second movement instead of a development section.
The slow movement, a Romance, follows without a break. It is based on a lilting tune in 12/8 time and rises to an impassioned central climax.
A rhapsodic passage marked Allegro con fuoco and mainly a solo cadenza, leads to the finale, a dashing rondo in the gypsy style, which quotes the first movement’s subsidiary theme in the course of its second and third episodes. The final movement implements a 2/4 time, which allows the violinists to emphasize certain notes in the beginning of some measures.
Wieniawski’s second Violin Concerto remains one of the greatest violin concertos of the Romantic era, memorable for its lush and moving melodies and harmonies.
[youtube.com/watch?v=NSCslGqxCVQ] Peter Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme Op 33 DIMITRI MASLENNIKOV (cello), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH (conductor)
In this 1969 recording, Christoph Eschenbach and members of the Amadeus Quartet — Norbert Brainin, violin; Peter Schidlof, viola; and Martin Lovett, cello — perform the Beethoven Piano quartet in C major, WoO 36 No. 3. I recorded this video from a cassette I purchased back in the early 1970s, issued on the Deutsche Grammophon label (serial number 3335 174-10).
Allegro vivace (0:08) Adagio con espressione (6:10) Rondo: Allegro (12:57)
From David Hertzberg: “In this 1970 recording, Christoph Eschenbach and members of the Amadeus Quartet — Norbert Brainin, violin; Peter Schidlof, viola; and Martin Lovett, cello — perform the Beethoven Piano quartet in E flat major, WoO 36, No. 1. I recorded this video from a cassette I purchased back in the early 1970s, issued on the Deutsche Grammophon label (serial number 3335 174-10).
A rare form of piano quartets consist of two pianos with two players at each piano. This type of ensemble is informally referred to as “8 hand piano”, or “2 piano 8 hands”. 8 hand piano was popular in the late 19th century before the advent of recordings as it was a mechanism to reproduce and study symphonic works. Music lovers could hear the major symphonic works all in the convenience of a parlour or music hall that had two pianos and four pianists. Many of the popular works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák were transcribed for two piano eight hands. The majority of 8 hand piano music consist of transcriptions, or arrangements.
Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and Christian Gottlob Neefe. During his first 22 years in Bonn, Beethoven intended to study with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and befriended Joseph Haydn. Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792 and began studying with Haydn, quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. In about 1800 his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf.
The three piano quartets of WoO 36, written when the composer was 15, are among the most substantial of Beethoven‘s earliest compositions. They are so early, in fact, that the autograph score calls for “clavecin” instead of piano. The same manuscript gives “basso” instead of cello, with the pieces ordered C major, E flat major, and D major. The pieces were not printed until 1828 in Vienna, in the order E flat, D, and C. Material from the C major Trio was subsequently used in the Piano Sonatas, Op. 2, Nos. 1 and 3. These are the only works Beethoven composed for this ensemble, which he abandoned for the piano trio after moving to Vienna.
When he was a boy, Beethoven was musically influenced primarily by Christian Gottlob Neefe(1748-98), a composer and one of Beethoven‘s first music teachers, Abbé Franz Sterkel(1750-1817), one of the foremost pianists in Europe, and Mozart. Of these influences, Neefe’s was the most immediate and Mozart‘s the most profound. Each of the three quartets of WoO 36 draws on a specific violin sonata by Mozart, from the set published in 1781. The first ofBeethoven‘s quartets is modeled on Mozart‘s K. 379/373a, the second on K. 380/374f, and the third on K. 296. All three quartets of WoO 36 are in three movements.
The E flat major quartet is unusual in that its slow introductory movement jumps without pause into an Allegro con spirito in E flat minor. The E flat minor movement, in sonata form, features a tiny development, but contains some adventurous passages in the recapitulation. The final movement is a set of six variations in an ornamental style on a high-Classical-era theme with two eight-measure segments. Each of the segments is repeated, the first moving to the dominant and the second returning to the tonic. Beethoven follows this pattern in all of the variations, the fifth of which is in E flat minor. After the variations have run their course, the theme returns, only slightly rearranged, followed by a coda reminiscent of the first variation. Throughout the work, the piano dominates the proceedings.
Beethoven cast the D major quartet in a more traditional format, with a central slow movement enclosed by two fast ones. The opening Allegro is in sonata form and modulates to the dominant. Boasting a much larger development section than that of the E flat quartet, the movement touches on D minor before the recapitulation. The second movement, in F sharp minor, is in two parts and marked Andante con moto. The piano opens the concluding Rondo, a movement of youthful energy dominated by the keyboard part.
The quartet in C major is also in three movements, the second of which is in a relaxed F major. After a very brief development section, Beethoven begins the recapitulation on the subdominant, a procedure Schubert would use in several of his works. The second movement features some of the most compelling melodic passages of Beethoven‘s youth, although his tendency to double most of these robs them of some of their delicacy. Nearly all of the thematic material in the closing Rondo is concentrated in the piano part.
Despite the degree to which some aspects of the Piano Quartets, WoO 36, look forward to the mature Beethoven, they have little independent life as concert pieces that command interest for more than curiosity value
The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in A Minor, Op. 114, was one of four chamber works featuring clarinet composed by Johannes Brahms in rapid succession after emerging from retirement toward the end of his life. Brahms was inspired to compose these works by the playing of clarinettist Richard Muhlfeld. It is one of a small number of compositions for clarinet, cello and piano, and one of the very few to have entered the standard repertoire. Eusebius Mandyczewski, a scholar and friend of Brahms, wrote of the trio that “It is as though the instruments were in love with each other.”
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