Listening to Beethoven #179 – Sonata for piano and violin no.8 in G major Op.30/3

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Landscape with Ruth and Boaz (1823/5) by Joseph Anton Koch

Sonata no.8 for piano and violin in G major Op.30/3 (1802, Beethoven aged 31)

1. Allegro assai
2. Tempo di minuetto, ma molto moderato e grazioso
3. Allegro vivace

Dedication Tsar Alexander I
Duration 18′

Listen

by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

For the third in his Op.30 set of violin sonatas, Beethoven moves from the turbulence of C minor to the fresh air of G major. This is a piece, in Gerald Abraham’s words, ‘so short and unpretentious that it can be easily undervalued. Yet there is no Beethoven sonata remotely like it, and it is one of his wittiest and most delightful works. Again he seems at once to revitalize the past and to point to the future.’

Abraham singles out the second movement, ‘an exceedingly beautiful slow minuet which, far from being old-fashioned…generates the sort of expressive warmth we have already found in the slow movement of Op.24 (the Spring sonata). Jan Swafford finds a lovely description of the opening of the piece, ‘a swirling unison followed by a lilting (and a touch tipsy) theme, complete with hiccup in the violin. The rondo of the G major is one of the most whimsical finales he ever wrote, its theme a spinning folk tune over a bagpipe drone, starting a brilliant and smile-inducing movement unlike anything else in his work. Call it Haydnesque wit and folksiness gone deliriously over the top.’

Thoughts

This is a fun piece and, as the commentators above have noted, a compact marvel. Not a note is wasted, from the exuberant beginning, where violin and piano toy with a phrase like a cat with a ball of string, to the airy slow movement, which has the air of a Bach sicilienne in its beautiful simplicity. Here the instruments finish each other’s sentences in an intimate setting.

Beethoven packs his faster music with good melodies, many of them derived from the opening mood. The second movement has a softer side but is warm with it, though a central section finds Beethoven moving to further and less certain keys and musical language.

The finale is as good as they say, high-spirited and bubbling with energy. It is essentially a jig, the ideas once again passed between the instruments, with bird-like calls from the violin recalling an early Haydn quartet from the Op.33 set, the Bird.

A lovely piece – and a guaranteed mood-lifter.

Recordings used and Spotify playlist

Midori Seiler (violin), Jos van Immerseel (fortepiano) (Zig Zag Classics)
Yehudi Menuhin (violin), Wilhelm Kempff (Deutsche Grammophon)
Josef Suk (violin), Jan Panenka (piano) (Supraphon)
Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (Wigmore Hall Live)
Tasmin Little (violin), Martin Roscoe (piano) (Chandos)
Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin), Martin Helmchen (BIS)
Paul Barritt (violin), James Lisney (piano) (Woodhouse Editions)
Arthur Grumiaux (violin), Clara Haskil (piano) (Philips)
Augustin Dumay (violin), Maria João Pires (piano) (Deutsche Grammophon)

Some very enjoyable recordings here, the approach again falling between the leaner sound of the period-instruments (Midori Seiler and Jos Van Immerseel) and the more overtly romantic approach of Suk and Panenka. Yehudi Menuhin and Wilhelm Kempff have fun, while Dumay and Pires enjoy the work’s exuberance too.

The Spotify playlist below does not contain the Barritt / Lisney version, but does also include a highly powered account by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich, recorded for Deutsche Grammophon:

You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!

Also written in 1802 Samuel Wesley – Symphony in B flat major

Next up 7 Bagatelles Op.33

In concert – CBSO / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla: Ruth Gipps, Adès & Brahms

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City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Gipps Symphony no.2 Op.30 (1945)
Adès: The Exterminating Angel Symphony (2020) [CBSO Centenary Commission: World premiere]

Brahms Symphony no.3 in F major Op.90 (1883)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 4 August 2021

Written by Richard Whitehouse

This unexpected yet worthwhile addition to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s season saw the revival of two works recently heard along with a belated premiere – twice postponed – for one of the most notable among the orchestra’s impressive roster of Centenary Commissions.

Its UK premiere guardedly received four years ago, Thomas Adès’s third opera felt limited as to provocative intent by the difficulty of transferring its theme of Spanish religious fascism to a different era. What was undeniable is the suitability of its numerous orchestral passages to being rendered in a more abstract context, hence The Exterminating Angel Symphony heard tonight. Its four sections arguably amount to a symphonic suite rather than symphony per se, yet their formal follow-through undoubtedly makes for a cohesive and finely balanced entity.

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla evidently thought so – obtaining an incisive response in the ‘Entrances’ music whose expressive ambivalence intensifies second time around, then a virtuosic one in ‘March’; its malevolence building over a remorseless side-drum tattoo in a vivid foretaste of what lies ahead. Although it draws on one of the opera’s love-duets, ‘Berceuse’ seems a little unyielding in its emotional content despite the allure of scoring as was always apparent here.  It remains for ‘Waltzes’ (following without pause) to provide a suitable finale and, while this extended and ingeniously organized sequence of fragments from across the opera undeniably evokes a notable precedent in terms of its inexorable motion toward ultimate catastrophe, the animation and sheer panache of the CBSO’s playing brought about a suitably emphatic close.

Before this MGT again made a persuasive case for the Second Symphony by the orchestra’s one-time oboist Ruth Gipps, the contrasted sections of its single movement – a martial scherzo and eloquent Adagio framed by an ambivalent Moderato and cumulatively energetic Allegro – audibly unfolding as variations on an evocative theme heard at the start. An autobiographical aspect, concerning personal aspirations near the end of war, explains this piece’s confessional nature. Whether or not it will undergo several further decades of neglect remains to be seen.

After the interval came Brahms’s Third Symphony, which orchestra and conductor had given before the lockdown last December. Tonight, however, the first movement (exposition repeat taken) was purposefully controlled with real cumulative thrust, a less than decisive transition into the reprise affording the only lapse in momentum prior to a coda of unfettered eloquence. The Andante was once again unerringly shaped in terms of its ruminative contrasts, and if the third movement had now become a little torpid, this hardly affected its unforced pathos. MGT rightly made the finale the culmination in every sense, her tautening of tension at the apex of its development yielding as tangible an expressive frisson as did the coda – where the work’s main motif descends as if from afar to secure the most transfigured of emotional touchdowns.

A memorable addition to an inevitably truncated yet memorable (and for all the right reasons) season, which the CBSO repeated at the Proms the following night. Beyond that, the autumn portion of its 2021/22 season has just been announced.

You can find information on the CBSO’s new season here.

BBC Proms – Sayaka Shoji, RPO / Petrenko: Vaughan Williams, Respighi & Mendelssohn

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Sayaka Shoji (violin, below), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko (above)

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910)
Respighi Concerto gregoriano (1921)
Mendelssohn Symphony no.5 in D minor Op.107 (1830)

Royal Albert Hall, London
Wednesday 4 August 2021

Written by Ben Hogwood

A fascinating concert, notable on several counts. It marked the first Prom for Vasily Petrenko, recently transferred from Liverpool, in his new role as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director. It featured three works paying tribute to a distant musical past – Vaughan Williams, Respighi and Mendelssohn expressing their admiration in very different ways. By way of an aside, it was your correspondent’s first live music in 17 months. A happy experience indeed!

In a sense my ears were in alignment with those who would have been at Gloucester Cathedral on 6 September 1910, for the world premiere of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis. The Royal Albert Hall, in its current reduced capacity, offered a similar acoustic, suitable for a performance where the quietest statements could be clearly heard. In the wake of a pandemic, this was wholly appropriate music to be listening to.

The Fantasia is written for two string orchestras, the second of which, nine players strong, might normally be distributed high in the gallery. Here they were positioned on stage, upper left from the conductor’s viewpoint, and projected beautifully to the back of the arena. Petrenko did not linger over the serenity of the opening, but allowed Vaughan Williams’ invention plenty of space to breathe as the Fantasia formed. A sensitive audience ensured every little nuance could be heard, and the RPO strings – in particular the solo quartet within the main orchestra – played beautifully. Petrenko has recorded a good deal of Elgar with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, so it will be interesting to see if he decides to look at Vaughan Williams in equivalent detail.

There followed a Proms premiere of a work written 100 years ago. As David Gutman’s excellent programme footnotes pointed out, Respighi has not enjoyed good representation at the festival over the years, and in general his music still languishes in the repertoire. This first account of the Concerto gregoriano could hardly have been more persuasive, with a passionate advocate in violin soloist Sayaka Shoji, who quarantined on her arrival in the UK prior to this performance. Respighi was a violinist, writing with skill for the instrument, but chose not to use this concerto as a display piece. Rather he paid homage to the Gregorian chants with which he had had been preoccupied in recent years, and he used these as the basis for a piece containing some particularly lush harmonies and idiosyncratic rhythms.

This was a compelling performance, Shoji soon into her groove and leading with faultless intonation in the high passages of the slow movement, carrying beautifully into the wide open spaces of the hall. She was aided by the horns and trombones of the RPO, positioned along the back of the orchestra, the punctuation of harp and celesta adding glitter to the edge of the sound.

The first movement found nicely judged contributions from oboe (John Roberts) and cor anglais (Patrick Flanaghan), with a sheen from the strings not unlike that of the Vaughan Williams. The third movement presented faster music and a greater sense of drama from its main theme, the brass again involved. This pulled back to peaceful climes, and a recap of the second movement material. Concerto gregoriano was certainly a work benefiting from a live performance, deserving of a higher profile.

Shoji was a sensitive performer, allowing Respighi’s music star billing, a sign of her maturity as a soloist. She also chose a wholly appropriate encore, the soft pizzicato beginning the Sarabande from Ysaÿe’s Sonata for solo violin no.4 (À Fritz Kreisler) the only audible noise in a rapt hall.

Mendelssohn wrote his Reformation symphony in 1830, making it the second in his output chronologically, but it was not published until long after his death. He appears not to have been wholly satisfied with it, leaving it unperformed. It carries a powerful impact, anticipating Schumann’s own D minor symphony (no.4) while including the Lutheran chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A mighty fortress is our God). In this the composer, perhaps inevitably, was including Bach in his homage.

Petrenko had the work’s measure, leading us straight into the ‘sturm und drang’ of the first movement with its grim, D minor struggles. They were captivating, especially at the end of the introduction when rapt strings introduced the ‘Dresden Amen’, a striking alternative to the flurry of activity around them. The second movement had an attractive lilt, the third a nicely poised subject, before flautist Emer McDonough gave an impeccable solo to lead us into the finale. It fell to her to present the chorale theme, taken up with greater number and power by the rest of the orchestra. The mood turned from struggle to victory. Petrenko’s pacing was ideal, as was the phrasing, while the final reverberations of the chorale were more than sufficient in lieu of an encore.

This was a very fine if slightly understated first Prom for the RPO conductor in his new role, bringing the ideal combination of new and familiar. The orchestra appear to be in very good hands.

You can listen to a playlist of the works featured in this concert, including the violin encore, on Spotify below:

You can find more information on the BBC Proms at the festival’s homepage

Listening to Beethoven #178 – Sonata for piano and violin no.7 in C minor Op.30/2

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Grindelwald Glacier in the Alps (1823) by Joseph Anton Koch

Sonata no.7 for piano and violin in C minor Op.30/2 (1802, Beethoven aged 31)

1. Allegro con brio
2. Adagio cantabile
3. Scherzo: Allegro
4. Finale: Allegro; Presto

Dedication Tsar Alexander I
Duration 26′

Listen

by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

Once again, a group of three instrumental pieces by Beethoven is found to contain a tempestuous piece in C minor, the Op.30 violin sonatas following in the footsteps of Op.1 (piano trios), Op.9 (string trios) and Op.10 (piano sonatas). Gerald Abraham, writing in The Beethoven Companion, says ‘one grows used to finding that the C minor work in a group is the outstanding piece’. He finds the first movement of this work to be ‘one of Beethoven’s grandest first movements to date in any medium’.

Jan Swafford is slightly less affected, declaring the sonata ‘only modestly fiery compared to the storms that that key usually roused in him’. He reserves greatest praise for the slow movement, ‘a touching Adagio cantabile with no lingering hints of the eighteenth-century galant but rather an inward and spiritual atmosphere of wonderful beauty’.

In this piece Beethoven reverts to a four movement structure, with the slow movement second and a scherzo placed third.

Thoughts

Beethoven is certainly a different animal when operating in C minor. Right from the off there is a tension about this piece, and added urgency to the material that follows. As in all his C minor works Beethoven uses silence to intense dramatic effect, the breaks between the notes as important as the notes themselves. There is a big-boned piano part, too, which could dominate due to its sheer weight, even though the violin has an equal share of the melodic material.

The slow movement lies in Beethoven’s familiar ‘slow movement’ key of A flat major, and has a calming introduction to the theme from the piano. The violin follows almost in step, but gradually the dialogue becomes more animated, especially in the central section.

The third movement is playful, a Scherzo choosing C major briefly as its home. The clipped delivery of its theme is shared between the two instruments, and for a while we are in sunnier climes. Yet the closing Allegro takes us back to more serious business, the instruments shadowing each other again before rushing to a close in the coda. Beethoven toys with a lighter ending but at the close he firmly shuts the door with an emphatic gesture.
This is Beethoven’s most dramatic violin sonata so far, the tension bubbling on the surface. Though it may not cut loose in the same way as his other C minor works there is a great deal of inner strength and a keen sense of purpose. Repeated listening only heightens the admiration for a fine piece of work.

Recordings used and Spotify playlist

Midori Seiler (violin), Jos van Immerseel (fortepiano) (Zig Zag Classics)
Yehudi Menuhin (violin), Wilhelm Kempff (Deutsche Grammophon)
Josef Suk (violin), Jan Panenka (piano) (Supraphon)
Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (Wigmore Hall Live)
Tasmin Little (violin), Martin Roscoe (piano) (Chandos)
Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin), Martin Helmchen (BIS)
Paul Barritt (violin), James Lisney (piano) (Woodhouse Editions)
Arthur Grumiaux (violin), Clara Haskil (piano) (Philips)
Augustin Dumay (violin), Maria João Pires (piano) (Deutsche Grammophon)

The drama of this piece is laid at its most bare by Midori Seiler and Jos Van Immerseel, and while some pianists exaggerate the forceful nature of their part, Yehudi Menuhin and Wilhelm Kempff strike the ideal balance. Dumay and Pires offer a very fine digital version too.

The Spotify playlist below does not contain the Barritt / Lisney version, but does also include a highly powered account by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich, recorded for Deutsche Grammophon:

You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!

Also written in 1802 Krommer – Concerto for 2 Clarinets in E flat major Op.35

Next up Sonata no.8 for piano and violin in G major Op.30/3

Listening to Beethoven #177 – Sonata for piano and violin no.6 in A major Op.30/1

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Monastery of San Francesco Di Civitella in the Sabine Mountains (1812) by Joseph Anton Koch

Sonata no.6 for piano and violin in A major Op.30/1 (1802, Beethoven aged 31)

1. Allegro
2. Adagio molto espressivo
3. Allegretto con variazioni

Dedication Tsar Alexander I
Duration 23′

Listen

by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

The Op.30 violin sonatas stand at a crossroads in Beethoven’s output, drawing the early works to a close and beginning the more exploratory middle period. There is more evidence for the ‘equalising’ of the instruments, too, the violin on an equal footing with the keyboard instrument, now firmly established a fortepiano.

This set of three works was dedicated to Tsar Alexander I, in the view of Jan Swafford a convenient gesture ‘to a figure famously allied to enlightened ideals…who might also be moved to do something for a composer now and then’.

Commentators tend to gloss over this first work in the set and head for the stormy C minor work, placed second, or the bubbly third work in G major. However Gerald Abraham, writing in The Beethoven Companion, stops to take in the ‘beautiful three-part writing of the opening’ and the ‘violin cantilena of the slow movement’. Bernhard Uske, writing booklet notes for Deutsche Grammophon, exaggerates the violin-piano relationship. ‘The violin’s role is declamatory and evocative, the piano’s is to energize and keep things moving, as the need arises’.

Beethoven’s friend, fellow composer Carl Czerny, found ‘peaceful, tender seriousness’ in the first movement, described the second as ‘almost like a ballad’ and found the theme for the final movement variations ‘more speaking than sentimental’. In using this format Beethoven put aside his original version of the finale, saving it for another violin and piano work – the Kreutzer sonata, completed the following year.

Thoughts

Beethoven may be at a stylistic crossroads, moving on to something more forward-looking, but he certainly has control over his musical destination. This is fluent, attractive music, full of melody and good feeling.

This first of three sonatas does feel a little ‘older’, however – more Mozartian. The piano leads off and both instruments stay close together with elegant lines – though the violin begins to take its chances to sing more obviously. Things take a slightly darker turn in the middle as the music moves towards minor keys, but this proves to be a brief cloud on the horizon as the original material returns.

In the second movement the violin adopts the poise of a singer for a highly expressive solo, Beethoven taking an effective ‘less is more’ approach, lightly textured and relatively carefree.

The theme and variations begin with a simple melody shared by the violin, before a capricious first variation. Often the hands of the piano appear to be operating different instruments, with the left hand in triplets and the right using trills in Variation 3, before perky multiple notes in the fourth variation suggest the composer is exploring more of the violin’s capabilities. The minor key variation repeats into itself before a sprightly coda, Beethoven teasing the listener towards the end as the two instruments spar politely.

Recordings used and Spotify playlist

Midori Seiler (violin), Jos van Immerseel (fortepiano) (Zig Zag Classics)
Yehudi Menuhin (violin), Wilhelm Kempff (Deutsche Grammophon)
Josef Suk (violin), Jan Panenka (piano) (Supraphon)
Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (Wigmore Hall Live)
Tasmin Little (violin), Martin Roscoe (piano) (Chandos)
Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin), Martin Helmchen (BIS)
Paul Barritt (violin), James Lisney (piano) (Woodhouse Editions)
Arthur Grumiaux (violin), Clara Haskil (piano) (Philips)
Augustin Dumay (violin), Maria João Pires (piano) (Deutsche Grammophon)

Dumay and Pires come into their own in the slow movement of this work with a highly expressive performance, even though their tempo choice is on the fast side. As always the period instrument duo of Midori Seiler and Jos van Immerseel are illuminating, while the richer tones of Grumiaux, Suk and Menuhin are complemented by beautifully phrased piano playing from Haskil, Panenka and Kempff respectively. The newest version, from Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen, is among the finest.

The Spotify playlist below does not contain the Barritt / Lisney version, but does also include a highly powered account by Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich, recorded for Deutsche Grammophon:

You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!

Also written in 1802 Hummel – Piano Quintet in E flat major Op.87

Next up Sonata no.7 for piano and violin in C minor Op.30/2