There will be six concerts in this series, all of which will be broadcast by Seattle’s classical radio KING-FM. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, these concerts will be available live at the KING-FM website, and on concert nights I will lay out the schedule and provide a link to the concert. Chamber music can put a little light into people’s lives.
I’ll provide insights into the musicians if I happen to know them. I’ll also give a preview of the pieces to be played.
For those who remember my series on Johannes Brahms a few years ago, his last sonata, the Sonata for Violin and Piano in D minor, Op. 108, to be played Saturday night, shows the Brahms of his final years. He turned 55 in 1888, and he had nine more years to live before liver cancer cut him down. His last works show a compression that he had worked hard to achieve. In his youth, a work of this sort would unfold for about 45 minutes; this sonata clocks in at a mere 21. He had learned how to say more with less, a sign of musical maturity.
He wanted Clara Schumann, widow of composer Robert, to play the piece, but at age 69 she was starting to fade. The first reading occurred in Clara’s house with daughter Elise on the piano and a local violinist playing the score. Clara wrote Jo about the first time she heard the piece.
”I marveled at the way everything is interwoven, like fragrant tendrils of the vine. I loved very much indeed the third movement, which is like a beautiful girl sweetly frolicking with her lover – then suddenly in the middle of it all, a flash of deep passion, only to make way for sweet dalliance once more.”
It was a letter like this that makes biographers suspect that Jo’s involvement with Clara some 35 years earlier was not entirely platonic.
The first movement, marked simply allegro, is in traditional sonata format. Catch that beautiful and lyrical second subject. The entire development is set under an “A” pedal point on the piano. The recap is straightforward, but the long coda is set with the piano playing a long “D” pedal point, thus unifying the movement. The sun comes out at the end.
The slow movement is marked simply adagio, and is a stately and heartbreakingly beautiful song for violin with the piano playing a dreamy chordal accompaniment. Have your hankie ready.
The scherzo movement in third position is marked un poco presto e con sentimento, which requires no translation. It’s short and simple, in duple time.
The finale, marked presto agitato, is turbulent and in sonata format. Brahms compresses his development and recapitulation in such a way that you can’t find the line that divides them. And what a finish!
This video is by two members of the Kosher Nostra, Itzhak Perlman and Daniel Barenboim, from 1985.
Good Evening, Publius!
Thank You for the Music Tonight.