Friday October 30, 2009

Charley anticipates the recital by Yeol Eum Son, this year's silver medalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, at the Lakewood Cultural Center next Thursday.
Lakewood Cultural Center Performing Arts Series
Davide Cabassi, piano
Franz Schubert: Impromptu in A flat major, Op.142 No. 2 (D.935)
Franz Schubert: Impromptu in A flat major, Op.90 No. 4 (D.899)
Franz Schubert: Piano Sonata in A minor, Op.42 (D.845) (11/6/08)
Also, Charley talks with Littleton Symphony music director Jurgen de Lemos about their Halloween concert tomorrow.


Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Impromptu in A flat major, Op.142 No. 2 (D.935) & Impromptu in A flat major, Op.90 No. 4 (D.899)

Late in life, Schubert wrote two sets of four impromptus each. It was a who named the first set “impromptus,” probably hoping to exploit the popularity of Jan Václav Voříšek's Impromptus, Op.7, which had appeared in 1822. The idea of single-movement miniatures in three-part form had numerous precursors. Voříšek's teacher, Václav Jan Tomášek, had written Six Eclogues in 1807, because, he said, he objected “to the vapid variation compositions of the time.” Even earlier, Mozart's friend Joseph Mysliveček had composed one-movement Divertimenti per cembalo. Also, Beethoven's first set of bagatelles came out in 1802. Schubert would have known most, if not all of these pieces. He probably knew Vorisek personally.
Schubert played the second set of impromptus at his concert in Vienna on March 26, 1828. He reported that “this was received by a crowded house with such extraordinary enthusiasm that I have been asked to repeat the concert.”
Two of the eight impromptus are in the key of A flat major. In his biography of Schubert, Brian Newbould describes Op.142 No. 2: “The unassuming little Allegretto in A flat which begins the second impromptu has a simple chordal underlay to point the intimate, confiding tone of the melody. The 'trio' in D flat practices economy in another sense: it could almost be heard as an accompaniment to an absent melody, and one could readily 'do a Gounod' and spin a shapely lyrical line from first bar to last. But why? The pleasure is in picking up the implications of expressive linear movement—as they come and go—within the rolling triplet figuration itself.”
About the Op.90 No. 4, Newbould writes: “The ternary form of the last impromptu accommodates orderly contrasts. While the middle 'trio' pulsates with dark passion in C sharp minor, the outer sections sparkle with coruscating arpeggios which are attractive enough on their own, when presented as the 'theme' at the start, but gain extra magic when later supplemented with a surging inner theme whose purposeful simplicity has no double helped to make this one of Schubert's most popular miniatures.”

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Piano Sonata in A minor, D.845 (Op.42)
I. Moderato
II. Andante poco moto
III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
IV. Rondo: Allegro vivace

In July, 1825, Schubert wrote to his father about the reception his latest works were receiving. “Particularly appreciated,” he said, “were the variations from my new Sonata for two hands, which I played, and not without success. Several people assured me that under my hands the keys become singing voices which, if it is true, pleases me very much, because I cannot abide the cursed chopping which is a characteristic even of first-class pianists, as it pleases neither the ear nor the spirit.” This was the A minor sonata, the first Schubert sonata published in his lifetime. It was dedicated to the Archduke Rudolf of Austria, one of Beethoven's patrons (the “Archduke” Trio, Op.97 and other works).
“It can probably be compared only with the greatest and most free-ranging of Beethoven's sonatas,” wrote a Leipzig critic. “We are indebted for this uncommonly attractive and also truly significant work to Herr Schubert, who is, we hear, a still quite young artist of and in Vienna.”
Brian Newbould says the A minor sonata “begins with the sort of dramatic re-interpretation of sonata form that one might expect from Beethoven rather than Schubert. An opening phrase in octaves receives a hesitant harmonized response. A long crescendo build to a new theme, again made of two terse contrasting blocks. This adds up to a volatile, highly charged opening paragraph for a sonata....Everything pushes forward. The crescendo drives to the next idea; and the lack of self-fulfillment in the first theme leaves the ear expectant of later resumption and development. This cross-cutting technique is familiar in modern film, where a number of discrete scenes or episodes follow each other rapidly, to be drawn into a meaningful relationship later as the story unfolds.”
The second movement is the theme and four variations that Schubert said was “particularly appreciated” by its first hearers. In his liner notes to Alfred Brendel's recording, William Kinderman writes, “The third movement is a bold and vigorous scherzo, whose middle section reaches the remote tonal region of A flat minor, before returning, in a hauntingly beautiful passage, to the tonic A minor. The trio brings a calm, comforting episode before the repetition of the scherzo.” In his book on Schubert, Alfred Einstein notes the influence of Mozart's A minor sonata, K.310 on Schubert's rondo finale.