Filippo Gorini: Notes on the Program
A challenging work that is actually an invitation to listen unusually closely (Berg) opens this program, which proceeds then with revelations of tender beauty, much humor, and, altogether, a profound portrait of the vast range of human experience and emotion. Those who long for melody that is more than merely comforting will be rewarded (Schubert), as will those who hope for easily perceived “architecture” in compositions. Real astonishment will probably be any listener’s reward, seeing how genius can transform even a banal theme into something majestic. (Beethoven.) All three works in this program have interesting stories about their origins and all three reveal fanatical devotion to each composer’s particular way of writing music. (Some might even say “idiosyncratic.”) Here’s hoping that you will enjoy all the special corners of listening to which this music will call you in the next couple of hours.
Alban Berg: Sonata no. 1
“. . . a totally unified dramatic event that speaks volumes with the utmost economy.” – Marc-André Hamelin
If you are a shameless romantic like me, who loves nothing more than a sweeping melody, choosing to listen to the composers of the Second Viennese School (Schönberg, Berg and Webern) while relaxing on your couch, commuting to work, or cooking dinner probably doesn’t come naturally. I confess: when I read “atonal” or “intentional dissonance” in a music description, my first instinct is to skip over – and reach for more Brahms or Schubert. But here’s a second confession: When encountered in live performance, there is something absolutely thrilling and spellbinding about this very same music that I wouldn’t necessarily choose to listen to for relaxation. Once you have one or two “hooks” to hang your attention on, it becomes a lot more accessible (and enjoyable, even!) to venture outside of one’s musical comfort zone … and in the process, to gain understanding and appreciation for just what the composers of this era intended: Art for art’s sake.
Alban Berg was a composition student of Arnold Schönberg for seven years – starting out as a teenager in 1904 and finally “graduating” from Schönberg’s tutelage with the piece we are hearing today. Although initially intended as a three-movement work in traditional sonata form, Berg, after completing the first movement of the sonata, felt as if he had said everything he intended to say, and Schönberg gave the work his blessing. It was finally published in 1910, at the composer’s own expense, which emphasizes the fact that he had full confidence in his own abilities, although public appreciation of Sonata number 1 wouldn’t follow until much later. (It took until the mid-1920’s – after the success of his opera Wozzeck – before Sonata number 1 found its way into the regular performing repertoire.) Today, it is considered an absolute landmark of Viennese Modernism and one of the rare solo piano works expressing the essence of this complex juncture in history. As Glenn Gould wrote: “this is the language of musical Weltschmerz.” (“worldly pain.”)
Although distinctly modern and “unsettling” in its sound, the Sonata has a perfectly traditional structure, including an exposition with two contrasting themes, a development section in which the themes are expanded, and a recapitulation, in which the themes are restated. It is in the harmonic language, rather than the architecture, where the work is most recognizably “Schönbergian”, with its quartal and whole-tone harmonies – and the use of “motivic cells” (what Schönberg called Grundgestalt) from which the entire work organically develops. In this case, listen for the perfect fourth plus augmented fourth, spanning a major seventh, in the opening bar – and take note of the dotted eighth-note rhythm and skipping ascending patterns that will occur throughout the Sonata. Also be prepared for the climax – around midpoint – which Berg marks ffff (quadruple forte!) … definitely not music to fall asleep to!
Ultimately, Sonata 1 is as boldly modern and unorthodox as it is steeped in tradition and classical form. As one critic put it: “Sonata no. 1 is like an old watch picked out of the clear waters of a lake, encrusted with barnacles but still ticking.
Franz Schubert: Sonata in A Major, D. 664
“One rubs one’s eyes. Compared with Schubert’s pen, Aladdin’s lamp seems a poor affair.” – Daniel Gregory Mason
“Schubert’s musical brain is a wonder of improbability, even more so than the invertebrate’s eye.” – Richard Dawkins
Lovers of Schubert’s music (would you really want to sit next to anyone who isn’t?!) will be pleased, we think, to have this Sonata today, of which Schubert biographer Brian Newbould wrote, “. . . the A Major Sonata is music of such wide-eyed youthful contentment that one could imagine it being a response to both the mountain scenery of Upper Austria and ‘a very pretty’ dedicatee.” Indeed! And, the story behind such a claim is that Schubert, then only 22, wrote this music during the summer of 1819 while on a two-month vacation in the city of Steyr, a place he described as “unimaginably lovely.” The manuscript for the Sonata was dedicated to the 18-year-old Josephine von Koller, a resident of Steyr and daughter of his vacation host, of whom Schubert wrote to his brother that, “She is very pretty, plays the piano well, and is going to sing some of my songs.” (He wrote the famous Trout Quintet during the same time.)
The Sonata opens with one of Schubert’s most beguiling melodies, spun out delightfully to exceptional length. That is only the beginning. As we always expect from Schubert, beauty and enchanting melody abound, but there is never a moment of mawkishness or icky sentimentality. The lyricism, ease, and contentment throughout led one writer, Konrad Wolff, to call this music “a Viennese waltz danced in heaven.” Much could be said by the scholarly concerning the flawlessness of the Sonata’s structure, how themes are developed and transformed, etc. It seems best, though, just to approach this listening opportunity with unusually open ears and heart, perhaps even daydreaming of a beautiful landscape and lovely people in it.
A wise music critic, the late Jacob Siskin of The Ottawa Citizen, made this most insightful remark: “ . . . the difficulty with most of the music of Schubert, and this is especially true of his piano sonatas, is to reconcile the seeming simplicity of the structure and the endless flow of melody with the emotional tension generated by the provocative key relationships of the various sections. In lesser hands, the music can sound merely pretty, or puzzlingly disjointed. In the hands of one who has the emotional depths to identify completely with the mysteries of the music, these scores have the capacity to heal the deepest emotional wounds.”
Ludwig van Beethoven: “Diabelli Variations” Op. 120
“ . . . the greatest set of variations ever written.” – Donald Tovey
“ . . . the greatest of all piano works.” And “ . . . a humorous work in the widest possible sense.” – Alfred Brendel
“ . . . a microcosm of Beethoven’s art.” – Hans von Bülow
“ . . . in respect of its harmony, deserves to be called the most adventurous work by Beethoven.” – Arnold Schoenberg
All that praise from “the greats” above, plus so much we think about Beethoven from anecdotes, conjecture, and actually accurate history add up to quite an assessment already of this “monumental” (the term is legitimate here) set of variations. The man whose idea begat all this, composer and publisher Anton Diabelli, said of it upon publication in 1823, that he saw it as “. . . a great and important masterpiece worthy to be ranked with the imperishable creations of the Classics . . .” and that it deserved “ . . . a place beside Sebastian Bach’s masterpiece in the same form.” (The “Goldberg Variations.”) It is probably unfair to think that he was just trying to write inflated marketing copy, for the real origin story is quite interesting.
In 1819, Diabelli dreamt up the idea of sending a little waltz of his own composition to every known composer in Austria, asking them each to compose a variation upon it, promising to publish all of the submissions together as a compendium of current Viennese music and taste. As well, proceeds from the publication were for the relief of widows and orphans of the Napoleonic wars. The collection, from some 50 composers in all, appeared in 1824, including offerings from no less than Franz Schubert, the 11-year-old Franz Liszt, Archduke Rudolph (Beethoven’s pupil and friend), Carl Czerny, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, and even Mozart’s son, Franz Xaver.
The composer who declined (we hope politely) to be involved, because he thought the waltz theme banal, was Beethoven. Nonetheless, he must have been intrigued somehow because he set out independently to write 20 variations on the little waltz. Turning his attention to the completion of the Missa Solemnis and to the last three piano sonatas, he set aside those variations. Returning to the project three years later, in 1822, he finished a total of 33 variations and presented them to Diabelli, no doubt a big surprise! Diabelli published both his collection of variations from the many composers and Beethoven’s, in separate volumes. Only Beethoven’s has much endured.
One can say concisely and with good reason say that the Diabelli Variations cover the whole range of human emotions. Intriguingly, it all proceeds from humor. (Would we normally expect that from Beethoven? Well, indeed!) His music, throughout his life, is filled with humor, sometimes of a slightly coarse manner. In later works, he sought to mix humor with other traits, as if to blend them into a broader range of human experience.
It would make far too long a note to describe the affekt of each of the variations, but a quick surmise reveals Beethoven’s real mocking of Diabeli’s theme, a grandiose march, real hammering of dull chords, a trumpet call in dual marches, lyricism in many of the variations, at times a more serious philosophical tone, adventuresome chromaticism, and on and on. Beethoven lovers (probably all of us today) are used to vivid contrasts in his music, but here he juxtaposes the sublime with the ridiculous. It makes for a lovely ride.
Along the way, we are brought along a remarkable path into the depths of sorrow and the pinnacles of exultation. The next-to-last variation explodes with all the energy imaginable and, at that, in the “wrong” key. How to get home?
The harmonic labyrinth taken defies normal analysis. But, we get back to the original key and Beethoven truly surprises us with a simple, dignified, expressive minuet. Will you permit me the word “spiritual?” Here is Beethoven again facing great philosophical quandaries and he answers with utter simplicity.
A coda follows the minuet and here – as we have so movingly experienced before in the final movements of the last sonata, Opus 111 – the music floats upward, an utter transcendence. I suspect that you and I may well stumble out of the hall after this program!