Canon in C major Hess 248 for four voices (1795, Beethoven aged 24)
Dedication not known Duration 1’10”
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Background and Critical Reception
This short canon is for four ‘voices’ – as in four separate parts. It is the second canon of Beethoven’s we have heard to date, but as we listen to more of his music this aspect of his output will be more fully revealed.
Thoughts
A bold, confidently written piece – with a motif whose repetitions become a little trying after a while! It is however a good example of Beethoven’s rigorous training and ability to work with an ever-increasing number of techniques.
Recording used and Spotify link
Benjamin Lichtenegger, Lara Kusztrich, Luka Kusztrich, Dominik Hellsberg (violins) (Naxos)
An attractively performed and brightly lit version.
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 1795Hyacinthe Jadin – 3 String Quartets Op.1
Helmut List Halle, Graz Friday 9 October (review of the online broadcast)
Written by Richard Whitehouse
Now into its 53rd season, the Musikprotokoll festival in Graz has long been synonymous with some of Austria’s most innovative music-making, with this evening’s concert from the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and its current chief conductor Marin Alsop being no exception. Notable too was the sizable audience – notwithstanding the needs of social distancing – and its enthusiasm for a programme, as concise as it was uncompromising, which contained music by a younger Austrian composer and one who has been resident in that country over the past three decades.
First, though, a curtain-raiser by Kaija Saariaho – the Finnish composer who has long resided in Paris, whose output features harmonic subtlety and timbral finesse as its hallmarks. Both of these were present in Chimera – an oblique homage to Beethoven in the 250th anniversary of his birth, in which material from her earlier orchestral piece Orion was (almost) book-ended by the beginning and ending of that composer’s Second Symphony. The result was diverting if insubstantial, redolent of Berio’s re-imaginings while assuredly not outstaying its welcome.
Among the leading Austrian composers of his generation, Philipp Maintz (b1977) evidently wrote or at least began several piano concertos prior to completing the one heard tonight. He has spoken of admiration for the Ligeti and Lutosławski concertos, as well as his nonplussed regard for the Schoenberg; yet this latter soon came to mind in a piece whose four continuous movements take in a gradual accumulation of energy, followed by two contrasting intermezzi then a further and more rapid gathering of momentum toward the emphatic close. Connecting the whole are brief recitative-like passages as cede the foreground to a soloist whose dextrous pianism is otherwise embedded into the overall texture. Joonas Ahonen was an alert and agile soloist in music that requires, and received, acute coordination with orchestra and conductor.
Championed by such conductors as Michael Gielen, Peter Eötvös and Ilan Volkov, Jorge E. López (above) eschews both the gnomic intricacies of new-complexity and ironic self-regard of post-modernism in drawing resourcefully on the past for a provocative challenge to the future; not least those symphonic works as dominate his recent output. Leading into them is Disparates, described as a ‘Goya / Beethoven homage’ that draws parallels between the artist’s desolate late sketches with the composer’s equally gnomic Six Bagatelles from much the same time.
The sequence is no mere orchestration or paraphrase of piano originals. Its sepulchral textures thrown into relief by glassy asides from Stroh violin, the first piece merges reluctantly into the militaristic march-past of its successor, then on to those stark pathos and disjunctive contrasts of the two that follow. Fusing aspects of the final two bagatelles, the fifth piece veers between fraught eloquence and glowering recessional as it lurches on to an ending bereft of meaningful closure: Goya’s ominous imagery and Beethoven’s flights of fancy united in unwitting accord.
An engrossing and disquieting sequence, which yet offers a direct way into López’s singular musical ethos. The VRSO responded with verve and no little virtuosity to Alsop’s animated prompting, so rounding off what was an intriguing fixture in this always enterprising festival.
Engraved portrait of Gottlieb Stephanie dem Jüngeren
2 Arias for Umlauf’s Singspiel Die schöne Schusterin oder Die pücefarbenen Schuhe for tenor, soprano and orchestra (1795, Beethoven aged 24)
1 O welch ein Leben (tenor) 2. Soll ein Schuh nicht drücken (soprano)
Dedication Ignaz Umlauf Text Gottlieb Stephanie dem Jüngeren Duration 9′
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Background and Critical Reception
These two songs were written for Ignaz Umlauf’s Singspiel Die schöne Schusterin oder Die pücefarbenen Schuhe (The Beautiful Shoemaker’s Wife or The Puce-Coloured Shoes). They were completed in 1795 for the composer Umlauf, who sadly died the following year. Beethoven provided an aria each for tenor and soprano, the singers accompanied by a small orchestra of woodwind and strings.
Andrew Stewart, in his sleeve notes for a recent recording of the second aria by Chen Reiss, gives a helpful overview of the story. “Die schöne Schusterin revolves around Lehne, a shoemaker’s wife, subject of a prank played on her husband, the aptly named Sock, by the boisterous yet good-natured Baron von Pikourt. Beethoven’s interpolations complement the work’s genial humour: Sollein Schuh celebrates the pleasures of a pair of fine new shoes, even if they demand the pain of do-it-yourself chiropody.”
Reiss herself describes the soprano Magdalena Willmann, for whom the second aria was written – and with whom Beethoven was briefly infatuated: “She was famous for her unusually deep low register, which may explain the many low passages in both arias.”
Thoughts
The two arias are a contrast. The tenor aria, O welch ein Leben, ein ganzes Meer von Lust (‘Oh! What a life, a whole ocean of pleasure’) proceeds in a relatively straightforward manner, with Beethoven’s control of the vocal line and orchestra interaction resembling Mozart. The approach is an elegant one, with a hint of playfulness.
Soll ein Schuh nicht drücken (‘For shoes not to pinch’) is a different story. After an extended orchestral introduction the soprano really gets a chance to let herself loose in a wide-ranging aria. Beethoven moves from the depths to the heights, asking his singer to really extend herself. The bravura takes her centre stage, the orchestra supplying the punctuation.
Recordings used
Chen Reiss (soprano), Academy of Ancient Music / Richard Egarr (Onyx Classics) DanKarlström (tenor), Reetta Haavisto (soprano), Turku Philharmonic Orchestra / Leif Segerstam (Naxos) Nicolai Gedda (tenor), Anneliese Rothenberger (soprano), Convivium Musicum München / Erich Keller (Deutsche Grammophon)
On a new recording for Naxos, with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra sensitively conducted by Leif Segerstam, DanKarlström sings with great clarity, while Reetta Haavisto gives her aria plenty of gusto in the higher passages.
Nicolai Gedda and Anneliese Rothenberger are both very good in a recording that shows its age a little. Chen Reiss gives a wonderful account of Soll ein Schuh with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr, supplying the brio and full dose of passion that this aria really needs. The high notes are sensational.
Spotify links
This playlist collects the available versions mentioned above:
You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!
Gould Piano Trio [Lucy Gould (violin), Richard Lester (cello), Benjamin Frith (piano)]
Mozart Piano Trio in G major K564 (1788) Clarke Piano Trio in E flat minor (1921) Ravel Piano Trio in A minor (1914)
Wigmore Hall, London, 29 October 2020
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
This latest event in the Wigmore Hall season saw a welcome recital by the Gould Trio, now well into its third decade and whose frequent appearances at this venue have always featured music from right across the medium of the piano trio; with tonight’s programme no exception.
A medium to which Mozart came relatively late in his career, producing five such works in little more than two years. Last in this sequence, K564 has rather remained in the shadow of its predecessors; unfairly so, as motivic interplay across and between its three movements is comparable to any of his more imposing pieces of this time. Such was affirmed in a reading which brought out the muscular interplay of its Allegro, the wistful elegance of its Andante then the relaxed nonchalance of a final Allegretto as ranks among Mozart’s most endearing.
Would that Rebecca Clarke had followed up her solitary contribution; the Piano Trio belonging to a clutch of pieces that should have laid the basis for a composing career but were destined to remain the peak of her achievement. The influence of Debussy and Ravel is often cited, but the vehemence of Bartók’s music from this period is equally evident – witness the emotional volatility of the first movement (which predates the similarly conceived opening movement of the Hungarian composer’s First Violin Sonata), fraught eloquence of the central Andante then driving impetus of the final Allegro; its powerful culmination subsiding into a resigned coda whose defiant ending feels almost in spite of itself. A fine performance by an ensemble which was championing this piece well before it attained the recognition it now justly enjoys.
If Ravel’s Piano Trio has never lacked for advocacy over the century and more since it was first performed, it remains a tough challenge both technically and interpretively. The present account was perhaps a shade under-characterized in the simmering dance rhythms of the first movement, with the Scherzo’s deft syncopations similarly downplayed at least until the sheer effervescence of its closing bars. No doubts, though, as to the ensuing Passacaglia – building methodically yet irresistibly to its baleful climax before winding down into the depths of the piano, from whence the finale steals in. The latter movement has been criticized for exuding near-orchestral sonorities, but Ravel’s handling of this is astutely judged – not least in a coda whose hard-won triumph in the face of encroaching adversity was powerfully conveyed here.
It certainly made for an impressive conclusion to this recital, just the sort of programme that feels necessary at such a time as this. Hopefully, these next few weeks will bring no cessation on the part of Wigmore Hall or the Gould Trio – their activities necessary now more than ever.
This concert can be streamed again until 29 November via the YouTube link above, or through the Wigmore Hall website here
These Wigmore Hall concerts are free to view but the venue is relying on the generosity of its audience to make them possible. If you do watch the concert, please consider making a donation, either at the Wigmore Hall website or via PayPal
It gives us great pleasure to welcome Digitonal‘s Andy Dobson to Arcana’s playlist section.
He has been busy working on album number four for Digitonal, Set The Weather Fair – released only last Friday on the Just Music label. It features a typically blissful set of sonic pictures, with extra-descriptive hues from Dobson’s clarinet and cello.
The Spotify playlist here is a selection of music that led to the album, and it includes restful but thoroughly immersive ambient music from varied sources such as Loscil, Pye CornerAudio, Philip Glass and BT:
Our thanks to Andy for this regenerating collection of music. Digitonal’s new album Set The Weather Fair is out now on Just Music. You can listen and purchase on the Bandcamp embed below:
Beethoven’s compass © Beethoven-Haus Bonn
