It always interests me, in this wonderful world of classical chamber music, what the connections might be between composers of diverse eras. This evening offers an opportunity to see!
We begin with Haydn, credited with codifying so many of the standard forms and ensembles we still enjoy. We end with Brahms who embraced the taut restrictions of the musical forms defined by Haydn, using them as he pushed musical expression to even greater romantic heights. Between these lions we offer music of York Bowen, a gifted British composer and pianist. There is no question that Bowen’s schooling came through a line of composers and teachers who all understood and taught these historic forms. One line of his musical education leads back to Friedrich Wieck, father and teacher of Clara Schumann and teacher of Robert Schumann. Another line leads back (via Arthur Sullivan) to Carl Friedrich Zeller, who taught Felix Mendelssohn. The connections are clear!
Franz Joseph Haydn is regarded as the father of the string quartet. He was not the first to write for the combination of two violins, viola, and cello, but he was the first to understand the potential for the drama this grouping could achieve. In 1765 he gathered and listed all the music he had composed up to that time. Among those works were 12 pieces for string quartet that he lumped with other assorted ensemble combinations labeled as “Divertimenti.” In 1770 he began to compose for string quartets in earnest—and in an original way. His two most notable innovations were elevating the role of the three lower voices such that rather than merely backing up a violin melody, they fully participated in the musical interplay. He also embraced the philosophical ideal of “Sturm und Drang” (Storm and Stress), which had been advanced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his literary art. His way of building tension melodically and releasing that into contrasting melodic material demonstrated to the next generation of composers a range of new expressive possibilities. Beethoven, for example, meticulously copied out Haydn’s Quartet opus 20, no 1 from 1772 to more deeply understand its structure before attempting his own string quartet.
The Six quartets opus 76 and 77 come 25 years after his first earth-shaking innovations and continue his radical explorations of what is possible. They take liberties with the expected formal compositional structures and feature almost continual weaving of musical lines between the string voices.
The Quartet in d minor, opus 76, no. 2 was subtitled “Quinten,” referring to the falling melodic fifths that define the main melody in the first movement. After presenting this material throughout the first section, Haydn turns the gesture upside down, speeds it up, and piles it in overlapping canons in the development section. The other three movements follow the expected grouping of movements Hadyn himself had established—a gentle slow movement, a Minuet and Trio, and a fast Finale.
York Bowen was born in London in 1884. His father was the owner of Bowen and McKechnie whisky distillery, which is still in operation. His first piano lessons were with his mother when he was very young. He entered the Royal Academy of Music at age 14 and graduated in 1905, the same year he composed the Sonata in c minor, opus 18 for viola and piano.
The work is dedicated to the renowned viola soloist Lionel Tertis. Tertis was a professor at the Royal Academy and is credited with expanding the solo literature for the viola by pressing his colleagues and students to write new pieces for the instrument. This was a happy task for Bowen as he much preferred the quality of the viola’s sound to that of the violin. He would add many more works to the viola repertoire, including a Fantasy Quartet for four violas (!) and piano. Bowen and Tertis premiered the sonata in 1905 and went on to tour and concertize together.
Bowen was a prolific composer, writing some 160 works during his lifetime. He also enjoyed a wonderful reputation as a concert pianist, earning recognition as “the English Rachmaninoff.” Although his compositions fell out of favor in the post-WWI era for being dated, he never stopped concertizing, and he published editions of piano masterworks including Mozart’s complete works for piano and Chopin’s nocturnes, preludes, valses, ballades and scherzos. You can find more about the composer at the York Bowen website at http://www.yorkbowen.co.uk/
The three movements of the Sonata are packed with youthful passion and intense drama. The first movement, Allegro moderato, starts with a wavelike chromatic piano line that becomes flowing arpeggiated gestures under the rich viola melody. A gentler melancholy second subject follows, and, after a complete stop, a third upbeat tune is introduced. A development section starts gently, steadily building until releasing all tension in a quiet ending.
The second movement, Poco lento e cantabile, has a more reserved passion. The Finale-Presto begins and ends with driving perpetual motion but journeys through many contrasting moods and textures before concluding. Tertis’s one-word description of the piece was “vivacious.”
Johannes Brahms was at a very comfortable point in his life when he composed his Piano Trio no.2 in C Major in 1880. He was financially successful and enjoyed wide critical acclaim. He also had accepted the changes of middle age. He recognized that his virtuosity as a pianist had slipped due to lack of consistent practice, and so he turned his energies from concertizing to composing—and he grew that iconic beard we all picture him sporting!
Brahms had always been intensely critical of his own work but was very happy with this Trio. He wrote to his publisher, ”you have not yet had such a beautiful trio from me and very likely have not published its equal in the last ten years.” There is an extraordinary openness in the sound he achieves from the outset of each movement by pairing the violin and cello in octaves against the accompanying piano. The first movement is unusual in the number of themes Brahms introduces.
The second movement is a theme and variations. One surprising element is the use of an accompaniment figure as the theme of a variation, a radical twist on the form. The third movement scherzo is jittery and dark, the tension relieved by a soaring melody in the middle. The final movement is incredibly upbeat and happy, and a masterful compositional puzzle. It is structured as a large arc in the manner of a typical first movement, but it feels like a Rondo in which the main melody keeps recurring after digressions. It is the work of an artist whose experience and skill allows him to color outside the lines to great effect.