Angela Hewitt: Notes on the Program

Many in the audiences for these recitals will know that Angela and I have been good friends for many years and that, in fact, I have the honor of working with her every summer in Italy at her Trasimeno Music Festival. So, we have long discussed fine points of music history, among a hundred other subjects. When we talked about notes for these programs, Angela suggested that I extract her own writings from the superb recordings she has made of this music on Hyperion. (CDs will be available in the lobby before and after these recitals.) Here are the quotations I chose, plus a little bit from me about the Brahms sonata. – B.C.

SATURDAY

François Couperin ‘le Grand’ (‘the Great’) was a member of a musical dynasty unique in France and surpassed only by the Bach family. A succession of Couperins held the post of organist at the church of Saint-Gervais in Paris for an amazing 173 years (between 1653 and 1826). It all seems to have begun with his great-grandfather, Mathurin Couperin, who farmed twelve acres of land around Beauvoir in Brie. He was also known as a merchant, attorney, joueur d’instruments (master instrumentalist) and music teacher. Two of his three children were musical. The youngest son, Charles Couperin (‘l’Ancien’) owned many vineyards around the area of Chaumes and also played several instruments, among them the oboe and organ. Of his own eight children, three sons became professional musicians and transformed the family status from artisan/peasant to courtier. How this came about is colourfully told in Le Parnasse François by Titon du Tillet (1677–1762):

“The three Couperin brothers were from Chaumes, a small village in Brie, not far from the Territory of Chambonnières. They played the violin, and the two oldest played the organ very excellently. These three brothers and their friends, also violin-players, were among the group who did go to the castle of Sieur de Chambonnières on his nameday to serenade him at dawn. On arriving there, they took their places at the door to the room where Chambonnières was at table with several guests, persons of wit and music-lovers. The master of the house was pleasantly surprised, as were all his company, by the fine symphonie which was heard. Chambonnières straightaway complimented Louis Couperin, invited him and all his companions to sit at table, and displayed much friendliness towards him, telling him that such a man as he was not meant to remain in the provinces, and that he must without fail accompany him to Paris. Louis Couperin accepted with pleasure. Chambonnières introduced him to Paris and to the Court, where he was much appreciated.”

The composer Jacques Champion de Chambonnières was well-placed to make such an offer as he was organist and harpsichordist to the Royal Chamber (Chambre du Roi). This aubade took place somewhere around 1650. Three years later, Louis became the first Couperin to hold the post of organist at Saint-Gervais, as well as being organist to the Chambre du Roi. He died in 1661 at the age of thirty-five, leaving us with some of the best compositions of his time. He was succeeded at Saint-Gervais by his younger brother, Charles. At the time of the above-related incident, the latter would only have been twelve years old, so no doubt only later made the move to Paris. We know very little of his life and music, but he does seem to have appeared in one of Lully’s ballets at court in 1659. He married Marie Guérin, and their only child, François, was born on 10 November 1668. Their house, built in 1475, was owned by Saint-Gervais expressly to lodge the organist, and Louis would have lived there before them (the present-day ‘Couperin house’ in the rue François Miron replaced the older one in 1730).

François was only eleven when his father died, aged forty. He must already have shown signs of his exceptional talent, as the church wardens decided to preserve the tradition of handing the post from father to son, and confirmed that it would be his at the age of eighteen—as long as he continued with his musical education. In the interim, Michel Richard de Lalande was appointed organist. The young François continued his studies with Jacques Thomelin, organist of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, who, according to Titon du Tillet, became ‘a second father’ to the boy. In 1683 Thomelin was appointed organist at the Royal Chapel, and it is quite probable that Couperin, then fifteen, was already playing unofficially at Saint-Gervais.

In 1689 Couperin married Marie-Anne Ansault, about whom we know little except that her father was a wine merchant. They had four children: the youngest, Marie-Madeleine, was an organist and became a nun; the other daughter became harpsichordist to the Royal Chapel; one son died in infancy, and the other deserted his parents (why, we don’t know—perhaps he didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps) sometime around 1713, never seeing his father for the last twenty years of his life. He evidently turned up in a very bad state two years after the latter’s death, only to disappear once more.

Upon the death of Thomelin in 1693, Couperin was chosen by Louis XIV himself as one of four organists at the Royal Chapel. The following year he began teaching harpsichord to the Dauphin, the Duc de Bourgogne, as well as several other royal children. He was ennobled by the king in 1696, and several years later became a Chevalier of the Lateran Order, designing his own coat-of-arms. In 1717, two years after the death of Louis XIV, he had one final court appointment, that of harpsichordist to the king—a post he relinquished to his daughter in 1730 when he felt his strength diminishing. Already seven years before that, he had passed on his post at Saint-Gervais to his cousin, Nicolas. We don’t know the nature of his declining health, but it was something he lived with for at least the last twenty years of his life, if not more. Indeed he mentioned his ‘delicate state of health’ in the prefaces to three of his four books of harpsichord pieces. He died on 11 September 1733, just short of his sixty-fifth birthday.

So much for the bare facts of his life. What about his music? From Thomelin he must have received a thorough grounding in contrapuntal technique, but no doubt was also made aware of other styles. His first published works, the two organ masses (1690), show an astonishing maturity for one so young. They also show how he synthesized what others had done before him: the chromaticisms and suspensions used by Gigault and Marchand; the lively rhythms of Le Bègue; and of course the wonderful sense of theatre and ballet from Lully (1632–1687), who catered to the taste of Louis XIV at Versailles and in that role became music’s absolute dictator. There was, however, one other influence that was a huge catapult for change in Couperin’s music, and which he openly acknowledged: the Italian style. When Couperin was seventeen years old, Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713) published his first book of trio sonatas for two violins and basso continuo. The young Frenchman was totally charmed by them, and wrote:

“I was much taken with the sonatas of Signor Corelli, whose works I shall love until the day I die, as well as Lully’s pieces in the French style. I ventured to compose one of my own, and I had it performed where I had first heard Corelli’s sonatas. Knowing the harshness of French attitudes towards any kind of foreign innovation, and not being absolutely certain of myself, I did myself a small service in the form of an official untruth. I claimed that my relative in the service of the King of Sardinia had sent me a sonata by a new Italian author, and I gave my name an Italian spelling, which I put at the head of the sonata. The sonata was received with great enthusiasm, and I kept my secret to myself. This success encouraged me, however, to write others: Under the disguise of my Italianized name, I received great acclaim. Fortunately, my sonatas found sufficient favour that my equivocation does not make me blush.”

André Tessier, who wrote a biographical essay on Couperin in 1926, suggested that this ‘Italianized name’ might have been Pernucio or Coperuni. The Italian influence made its way into Couperin’s writing for the keyboard, giving great vitality to the fast pieces, and a wonderful lyricism adapted from the bel canto style in the slow ones.

In order to fully understand Couperin, it is necessary to have an idea of the manners and habits during the reign of Louis XIV. Gesture and deportment were taught from a young age. Fluency and grace in movement were stressed, all to be accomplished with ease. In his Mémoires, the Duc de Saint-Simon wrote of the king:

“Never did any man give with better grace, and so increase the value of his favours. Never did man sell his words, his smile, even his glances more splendidly … Never was there one so naturally polite … But, more than all, he was unequalled in his behaviour to women. He would never pass the humblest of bonnets without raising his hat, even to a chambermaid … To the smallest gesture, his walk, his gait, his whole physiognomy, all was measured, fitting, noble, grand, majestic, and more—very natural.”

Of course, all of that is related to the dance, which was considered part of a general education, especially among the nobility. Louis XIV was an excellent dancer and is said to have practised the courante for several hours a day in his youth. France led the way with dance music, contributing more to the history of music in the seventeenth century in that domain than in any other. The two—music and dance—were virtually inseparable, with gesture taking precedence over thematic discourse.

Couperin wrote 234 pieces for the harpsichord. Of those, 226 were published in his four books of harpsichord pieces, grouped into 27 Ordres. Rather than using the more conventional name of suite with its implied sequence of dances, the title ordre gave him more freedom in arranging the movements. In the first book (Ordres 1 to 5), published in 1713 when Couperin was already forty-five, he was no doubt collecting a lot of previously composed material, as the number of movements reaches a record twenty-four in the second Ordre. Perhaps he was referring to this in his quip, ‘This is not a suite, although it has the required dances. You want order? Here is an Ordre, though one could call it a Désordre [disorder] just as well’. Already, though, with the publication of his second book in 1717, we have a new sense of unity that then remains to the end. No autograph manuscripts of any of the four books survive, although we are in possession of the original printed versions that were corrected by Couperin himself. The structure of the individual pieces falls roughly into three categories: the binary movement with two sections each repeated (and sometimes adding an extra repeat of the very last phrase); the rondeau (a recurring refrain interspersed with episodes; 43 of the 226 pieces are in this form); and the chaconne, along with its close relative the passacaille (again a refrain or recurring set of harmonies upon which variations are based).

When looking at a list of Couperin’s harpsichord pieces we are immediately struck by the unusual titles. The tradition of giving picturesque or fanciful names to pieces began with the lutenists of the late sixteenth century, and was adopted by Chambonnières and many of the French clavecinists (and later taken up by Satie). More often than not, a feminine form is used, probably as the word pièce was tacitly implied. It does not mean that Couperin was only describing women in many of his miniatures, although many of them do (for instance La Princesse Marie, written for Marie Leczinska, the future queen of France, and one of Couperin’s harpsichord pupils). In the preface to his first book of pieces, he wrote:

“I have always had an object in mind when composing all these pieces, suggested to me by various events or circumstances. Thus, the titles relate to ideas that have occurred to me, and I shall be forgiven if I do not account for them. However, since among these titles there are several which seem to flatter me, I should point out that the pieces in question are in a sense portraits, which, under my fingers, have been found on occasion to be remarkable likenesses. Most of these flattering titles are given rather to the amiable original which I have sought to portray, than to the settings which I have drawn from them.”

Two and a half centuries later we are still perplexed by many of these titles. Recent research by Jane Clark and Derek Connon (‘The mirror of human life’: Reflections on François Couperin’s Pièces de Clavecin, King’s Music, 2002) sheds fascinating light on the subject, revealing the references to contemporary theatrical productions, and various ‘in-jokes’ that might or might not have been understood by his own circle of friends and acquaintances.

The next thing we are struck by is the huge number of ornaments and unusual signs in his pieces. This is probably enough to put a lot of people off playing it from the start. Leaving them out is not an option! Again it is all related to gesture: ornamentation is there for an expressive purpose, to emphasize one note, to make you wait for another. It is all part of the melodic line and flow. Couperin felt this very keenly and was most explicit with his markings. He included a table of ornaments in the preface to his first book of pieces, and then in 1716 published a treatise on The Art of Playing the Harpsichord (L’Art de toucher le Clavecin) that remains one of the most important and valuable guides ever written to teach keyboard skills. Still in despair at what he was hearing, he wrote in the preface to his third book of pieces (1722):

“I am always surprised, after the pains I have given myself for marking the ornaments which are suitable to my Pièces (of which I have given, in part, a sufficiently clear explanation in a particular Method entitled L’Art de toucher le Clavecin) to hear persons who have learned them without heeding my instructions. This is an unpardonable negligence, the more so since it is not at all an arbitrary matter to put in what ornaments one wishes. I declare that in my pieces they ought to be played as I have marked them, and that they will never make a certain impression on persons of true taste, unless they have observed to the letter everything that I have marked, without adding or subtracting anything.”

It is not easy to absorb fully Couperin’s ornamentation at first sight. Indeed it takes a great deal of time and patience for it to become second nature. This aspect of his work has not always been well understood. The English music critic and historian Dr Charles Burney wrote in 1789 that Couperin’s pieces ‘are so crouded and deformed by beats, trills, and shakes, that no plain note was left to enable the hearer of them to judge whether the tone of the instrument on which they were played was good or bad’. Forkel, Bach’s first biographer, wrote that although Johann Sebastian greatly admired the Frenchman’s compositions, he ‘considered them as too affected in their frequent use of graces, which goes so far that scarcely a note is free from embellishment’. That probably has more of Forkel’s opinion in it than Bach’s (more about the Couperin/Bach relationship later on). As Wanda Landowska, one of the foremost interpreters of Couperin’s music, said: ‘There is a certain common way of playing trills which reminds me of an electric doorbell. An ornament badly played is like a smile in a toothless mouth.’ For sure it makes the performance of Couperin’s music, both technically and musically, much harder than it seems.

COUPERIN 18eme ORDRE

The Dix-Huitième Ordre comes from the Third Book of Harpsichord Pieces published in 1722. Three of the pieces are in F minor; three in F major. It opens with a solemn allemande, La Verneüil, which isn’t far away from Bach in its texture and chromaticisms. We are not sure who this particular Verneuil was—there were several of them around at court.

No doubt Couperin is portraying Verneuil’s daughter in the piece, La Verneüilléte, who, although still dancing in minor mode, is much lighter on her feet. In this Third Book, Couperin introduced a new sign which looks like an apostrophe and which he explained thus:

“It is used to mark the ending of phrases, or of our Harmonic sentences, and to indicate that one must make a slight break at the end of a phrase before going on to the following one. Generally speaking this is almost imperceptible, although, when this little Silence is not observed, persons of taste feel that something is lacking in the performance; in a word, it is the difference between those who read everything straight through, and those who pause at the full stops and commas. These silences must make themselves felt without altering the beat.”

That, of course, is one of the basic rules of musicianship, but it is still necessary to say it to students almost three centuries later!

The rondeau-pastoral, Sœur Monique (‘Sister Monique’), must have already been popular before the Third Book was published. Couperin’s tune was parodied in two songs published in 1721, one serious, one less so, the words of the latter being:

My dear shepherdess, Love is using
Your sweet charms
To give us pleasure.
This victorious god has borrowed your charms.

The word sœur had two distinct meanings at the time: a nun, of course (in which case the repeated C in the left could be portraying the church bell), and a girl of ill repute. Marked tendrement, sans lenteur (‘tenderly, without dragging’), this is certainly one piece where he meant the tempo not to be too slow (he issues a warning in his treatise, saying that ‘Expression and good taste can still be preserved independently of too much slowness’).

Le Turbulent (‘The Turbulent One’) is marked tres viste (‘very fast’). Halfway through, the time signature suddenly changes from 2/4 to 3/8 with some very nimble fingerwork required.

One of Couperin’s most affecting moments comes with L’Attendrissante (‘The Touching One’). The indication douloureusement (‘sorrowfully’) sets the mood for the piece which is played entirely in the lower half of the keyboard. Here we feel Couperin’s special feeling for melancholic longing, and the effect is quite haunting. Lengthening the dotted notes (a Baroque performance practice) is necessary to give the right swing to the rhythm.

This is a pièce croisée (one in which the hands play at the same point on the keyboard but on two different manuals). On a two-manual harpsichord this is no problem. With only one, this particular piece becomes impossible. So Couperin advised putting either the left hand down an octave or the right hand up. (I chose to do the latter.) The effect is different, of course, but is still effective. The title is slightly baffling: obviously onomatopoeic for the first half, but Les Maillotins? Rosalyn Tureck says it has to do with a name given to a band of revolutionaries who rebelled against the re-imposition of taxes in 1382, after the death of Charles V. They carried mallets, hence their name Les Maillotins. Clark and Connon again come up with something different: a famous family of rope-dancers called Maillot who performed at the Foire Saint Germain. For sure the piece is another rondeau with three couplets and a witty coda tacked on to the end. It is also a bit of a finger-twister.

Couperin ends this ordre with a piece dans le goût Burlesque (‘in the Burlesque style’) called Le Gaillard-Boiteux (‘The Limping Fellow’). Although the time signature is the very unusual one of 2/6, Couperin asks for it to be played as though it were in 6/8. Its comic nature is emphasized by the plentiful use of ornaments that must be executed very quickly and clearly.

MESSIAEN, PRELUDES (1929)

The music of Olivier Messiaen immediately attracts our attention with its rhythm, variety of colour, technical brilliance, energy, joy, and spirituality. For the pianist, it is a part of the twentieth-century repertoire that cannot be ignored—the understanding of which is certainly helped by a thorough grounding in French music, especially that of Debussy, Ravel and Dukas. It is incredibly well written for the instrument, even though its difficulties may deter many a player. Audiences are rarely indifferent to it, and for many it has a very powerful effect.

Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen was born in Avignon on 10 December 1908. His father, Pierre, taught English (a language his son never mastered) and was noted for his translations of Shakespeare. His mother, Cécile Sauvage, was a poetess who greatly influenced her son by bringing him up in a world enhanced by poetry and fairy-tales. Although she died before Messiaen’s musical career began, she had the intuition, even before his birth, that he would be artistic (she also seemed to be sure it was a boy!). Her series of poems, L’âme en bourgeon(‘The Budding Soul’), written while she was carrying her baby, spoke of ‘an unknown, distant music’ and predicted his love of birds and the Orient. At the outbreak of World War I his father joined the army and the rest of the family moved to Grenoble. The mountains of the Dauphiné, where he now lies at rest, made a profound impression on him and he returned there throughout his life to compose some of his most important works. Between the ages of eight and ten Olivier enjoyed performing the complete Shakespeare plays for an audience of one (his younger brother, Alain), and built a toy theatre, using coloured pastry wrappings to reflect light. His favourite plays were those with a touch of the supernatural (The Tempest, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream). By this time he was teaching himself the piano and composed a short composition on Tennyson’s poem, The Lady of Shalott, a piece he later described as being ‘not entirely stupid’. In 1917 he had his first piano lessons and the following year, when his father returned home, the family moved to Nantes. His precocious talent led him to request opera scores of Mozart, Gluck, Berlioz and Wagner as Christmas presents from the age of seven, which he would sight-read at the piano, singing every part. For his tenth birthday his piano teacher gave him Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande which he said was ‘like a bomb in the hands of a child’. It was to remain his most decisive musical influence.

Although his parents were not particularly religious, Messiaen was attracted to the Catholic faith from his early years. Its mysteries no doubt captivated such an imaginative child, and he was never anything but a believer. The expression of his faith soon became his sole reason to compose, and the one aspect of his work that he said he would not regret at the hour of his death.

In 1919 the family moved once more—this time to Paris. Messiaen entered the Conservatoire and remained there as a student for the next eleven years, winning prizes in harmony, counterpoint, piano accompaniment, history of music, organ (in the class of Marcel Dupré) and composition (with Paul Dukas). It was while studying with the latter that he wrote his eight Préludes (1928/9), which are remarkable pieces for one so young. It would be easy to dismiss them as being too influenced by Debussy’s works of the same name (the most obvious similarity being the poetic titles), but they are already stamped with Messiaen’s unique sense of tone colour and harmony. When Messiaen heard or even just read music, he inwardly saw certain colours shifting with the music and he used different sonorities to depict these colours, juxtaposing them or placing them against each other. These sonorities were based on ‘modes of limited transposition’—groups of notes arranged differently from the traditional diatonic scale that, after a few transpositions, return to the same notes. Each one had its own colour or blend of colours. These discs of colour produce dazzling effects in all of his music (the composer speaks of ‘interweaving rainbows’), and it comes as no surprise to read of the lasting impression the stained-glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle had on him as a child. His favourite painter, Robert Delaunay, also believed that colour determined form and emotional content.

The first piece in the set, ‘La colombe’ (‘The dove’), uses mode 2 whose colours are orange and violet (and centered around E major). It is marked ‘slow, expressive, with a very soft (‘enveloppée’) sonority’. The melody presented in octaves is surrounded by shimmering chords above and a steady pulse below. It is a simple binary sentence with a most beautiful ending. A short fragment of the melody (with a ‘wrong note’ effect of not quite being an octave apart!) is played above a sustained chord, making full use of the resonances of the piano. These added resonances, which are in fact written-out harmonics, appear throughout his music, uniting harmony and timbre.

‘Chant d’extase dans un paysage triste’ (‘Song of ecstasy in a sad landscape’) presents its initial theme four times, augmenting and then diminishing the number of parts. The bleak atmosphere of the outer sections (grey, mauve, Prussian blue) is contrasted with the ecstatic song in the middle (silvery, diamond-like). Here Messiaen inserts a canon, a device he uses no fewer than five times in the preludes, and with which he first experimented as a boy. The third prelude, ‘Le nombre léger’ (‘The light number’), reaches its brilliant ending by leading a canon at the unison to another resonant close, again centered around E major. It is a study in agility and lightness of touch. ‘Instants défunts’ (‘Defunct moments’) is marked ‘slow, moved, with a gentle and distant sonority’, and combines velvet grey with reflections of mauve and green. Few composers can achieve such a wonderful feeling of stillness as Messiaen does in the final bars. This is one of his unique traits, and comes from his desire to express the Eternal. Unlike traditional Western music, there is often no development in Messiaen’s music, but rather repetition and juxtaposition of blocks of music, achieving a static quality. Here time stands still and gives us ample chance for contemplation.

The next two preludes were Messiaen’s favourites in later life, although he regarded the whole set with affection and tenderness. The chord clusters that open ‘Les sons impalpables du rêve …’ (‘The impalpable sounds of the dream …’) foreshadow things to come in the Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus and are already one hundred per cent Messiaen. These chords in mode 3 are combined with a chordal theme in the left hand using mode 2, the top voice of which is to have the timbre of a brass instrument. The middle section is taken over by a rather plaintive canon in contrary motion. It ends with another astonishing resonance preceded by a glissando, using the extremes of the keyboard. The sixth prelude, ‘Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu’ (‘Bells of anguish and tears of farewell’) is the longest of the set and the most challenging to decipher with its profusion of accidentals and chord clusters. We immediately think of Ravel’s ‘Le Gibet’ from Gaspard de la Nuit (one of Messiaen’s favourite pieces of music) with its tolling bell and smell of death, but whereas Ravel’s piece stays in sombre mood, Messiaen builds to a climax of great intensity. Suddenly the colour changes and we are bathed in light. These ‘tears of farewell’ centre around the key of B major which in Messiaen’s language denotes spiritual fulfilment. The final adieu of three single notes (B, E sharp, B) is immensely moving.

‘Plainte calme’ (‘Calm lamentation’) returns to the colours of the fourth prelude and is a simple, yearning song. By now we are ready for some virtuoso playing, and we get just that in the last prelude, ‘Un reflet dans le vent …’ (‘A reflection in the wind …’). Again we hear traces of Ravel in the stormy outer sections, most notably from some of the more chromatic passages in Scarbo. The melodic second theme is enveloped in what Messiaen calls ‘sinuous arpeggios’, suggesting the sound of the wind. In the middle we reach a triumphant and brilliant climax which is full of joy. After a recapitulation of the opening, the work ends with a dramatic flourish.

The Préludes were premiered in 1931 at the Société Nationale by the work’s dedicatee, Henriette Roget, a fellow student at the Conservatoire.

Olivier Messiaen died on 28 April 1992 at the age of eighty-three. I will never forget hearing the posthumous performance of his last work, Éclair sur l’au-dela (“Bright Glimpses of the Beyond”) in London soon after that. Although he was not there to acknowledge the tumultuous applause that followed the extended, rapt silence, he was certainly there with us in spirit. His music, like that of any truly great composer, is recognizable after only a few bars – so unique is his language, and so uplifting its effect. Its wide appeal is perhaps explained by something the composer himself said:

“Real music, beautiful music – you can listen to it without understanding it; you don’t need to have studied harmony or orchestration. You must feel it.”

BRAHMS, SONATA No. 3 (This note by Bill Crane.)

The year in which Brahms composed not only this third piano sonata, but the two preceding it as well, 1853, at the tender young age of 20, proved to be utterly life-changing for the exceptionally gifted, but effectively unknown pianist who suddenly became a star, celebrated widely after a happy, nearly impromptu meeting.  The tale of this coming about is quite interesting. 

In the spring of that year, Brahms had been on a concert tour with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Remenyi and while on it happened to meet another great violin virtuoso, of a very different musical temperament, more like his own, Joseph Joachim, who was to remain a great influence and devoted friend throughout their lifetimes. It was this Joachim who penned a letter of introduction to Robert and Clara Schumann that September. On meeting them, Brahms played, of course, to introduce himself musically and, by all accounts, they were quite vividly impressed from the get-go. Robert, in his role as the most renowned music critic in Germany at that time, wrote about this bright young composer, “. . . sooner or later . . . someone would and must appear, fated to give us the ideal expression of times, one who would not gain his mastery by gradual stages, but rather spring fully armed like Minerva form the head of Jove. And, he has come, a young blood at whose cradle graces and heroes mounted guard. His name is Johannes Brahms . . . .”

Overnight, it is not too much to say, the German musical establishment learned of “Schumann’s young Messiah.” The fuss and exaltation seem quite deserved, particularly when we hear this sonata, his biggest solo piano work, and, at that, his final piano sonata. (Other great music followed, of course, but no more piano sonatas.) So exciting were his interactions with the Schumanns, most of all their cheering encouragement, that Brahms worked furiously to compose this third sonata during the brief visit with them in Dusseldorf. His new renown led to the publication of his Opp. 1-4 by Breitkopf und Hartel and in February, 1854, the third sonata was published by Senff in Leipzig. Clara Schumann, one of the era’s most esteemed piano virtuosos, put it solidly in her recital repertory, contributing to its immediate success across Europe. In her diary, Clara noted, “Here is one of those who comes as if sent straight from God.”

As wonderful as the story of this acclaim is, it is even more fun to delve into the wonderful sonata itself. For, indeed, what the Schumanns immediately recognized and what piano lovers ever since have likewise celebrated is the remarkable union of strongly emotional “Romantic” melody, harmony, and overall effect with the normal architecture of the sonata allegro form. (That is – idea, other idea, repeat the ideas, then develop/stir up/amplify them, and, after revealing a great deal of a “story,” return to the original idea/other idea in a triumphant way.) In the persons of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, among others, German musical traditions were taking a path distinctly away from these “old-fashioned” ideas, of which Beethoven had seemed to be the apotheosis. Brahms, of course, passionately admired Beethoven and those classical compositional practices. His ability to infuse them with his very special and personal aesthetic was exactly the thing that made him so quickly and so universally admired. More exactly, it is his exceptional balancing of ardent emotional expression and intellectual formal necessity, linking heart and head, if you will, that makes this music so powerful.

The unusually long and very dramatic first movement, Allegro maestoso, is a best exemplar of this special juxtaposition of a leaping main motive as principal subject and a chordal strain as its complement. In the development, these dramatic and lyric expressions contend to splendid effect. The brief re-statement of the main theme (“recapitulation” in musicological terms) is both attention grabbing and reassuring.

The sweet Andante that follows has a quotation of poetry in the score: “The evening falls, the moonlight shines, two hearts, joined in love, embrace each other blissfully.” A sort of nocturne, very touching, it, too, combines subtly contrasting themes, the second, to my ears, being particularly moving with its chordal accompaniment.

The Scherzo proceeds in a voluptuously romantic way, in a sense, as a nod to the characteristically strong contrasts found in Robert Schumann’s composing. It is not too much to say that it is one of Brahms’s most profoundly expressive pieces, with surprising calm in the middle.

Then, unusually, instead of proceeding right to a finale, Brahms interposed an extra movement, an Intermezzo, for, among other reasons, a way to accommodate the surfeit of musical ideas that he wanted to present, and to provide a chance to “reflect” themes from the Andante, (“Ruckblick”) albeit significantly altered in mood. One may even hear funereal drumbeats as though in the distance. 

The Finale is essentially a Rondo (a consistent refrain coming back again and again to unify many ideas), tempered by that classical sonata allegro form – no small trick – so that the first very rhythmic theme and two later, more lyrical ones, converse in building, climactic ways. The brilliant, major-key coda ending the work incorporates, as one might have hoped for all along, demandingly virtuosic playing, real fireworks. It is lovely to think about how Brahms himself was a tremendous pianist and how this sonata from a 20-year-old must have dumbfounded and thrilled the Schumanns, Joachim, and countless others through the years, as it will us, no doubt, this afternoon.

SUNDAY

These notes are extracts taken from Angela Hewitt’s liner notes in her various CDs in which she has recorded these works. (CDs will be available in the lobby before and after these programs.)

SCARLATTI, SONATAS

The keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti are unique in the history of music. The sheer volume of them—some 555 in all—is astounding. It takes about 34 hours to play through them all (Beethoven’s complete piano works would only take half that time). Bach comes close, but only if you include the organ works. The great majority are written in binary form—two sections, both repeated. It seems they were also largely written for one person, Scarlatti’s very gifted pupil, patron and friend Princess Maria Barbara of Portugal, who became the Queen of Spain. None exists in the composer’s hand. They have all been passed down to us—thanks to the famous castrato Farinelli, who transported them back to Italy from Spain—in manuscripts copied by others. It is also exceptional that most of them were written after Scarlatti had reached the age of fifty.

Born in Naples in 1685, the same year as Bach and Handel, Domenico (or ‘Mimo’ as he was nicknamed) was brought up in a clan of musicians, the most famous being his father, Alessandro Scarlatti. The latter’s fame as a composer of operas and cantatas seems to have overshadowed Domenico’s talents, even though Alessandro did everything he could to help his son. After periods of living and working in Naples, Venice and Rome (as maestro di cappella at the Vatican), he was hired as Kapellmeister by João V of Portugal, probably arriving there in 1719. Most of the records of this time were lost in the great Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755. There is much we will never know.

After his father’s death in 1725, Scarlatti’s life bloomed. He married for the first time at the age of forty-two. His bride was only sixteen, and it was most likely an arranged marriage, as was common at the time in Mediterranean countries. Ralph Kirkpatrick, to whom we owe so much for his 1953 biography of Scarlatti, makes an interesting presumption. Domenico’s marriage coincided with the marriage of his cherished pupil, Princess Maria Barbara (then eighteen), to the heir of the Spanish throne, two years her junior. It is evident that the flowering of his genius coincided with the constant contact with his pupil, and that she insisted that he follow her to Spain. At the time her whole musical life was wrapped up with Domingo Escarlati (as she called him). To quote Kirkpatrick: ‘A reflection of Domenico’s own attachment for his royal pupil might be seen in the curious coincidence that his bride was almost the same age as Maria Barbara.’ Scarlatti remained in the employment of Maria Barbara for the rest of his life.

Only the first thirty sonatas (as numbered in Kirkpatrick’s edition) were published during Scarlatti’s lifetime, and these were issued in London, thanks to the Irish composer and organist Thomas Roseingrave. At the end of the preface to these ‘Esercizi per il gravicembalo’, presumably written by the composer, appear words which set the stage for this music so full of life: ‘Vivi felice’ (‘Live happily’). The first complete edition appeared in 1906 published by Ricordi and edited by Longo. It is notable that Brahms owned seven volumes (containing 308 sonatas) in manuscript copies.

D Major, K 430

The Sonata in D major, Kk430, is one of Scarlatti’s most charming sonatas. The tempo indication is Non presto ma a tempo di ballo (Not fast but in the tempo of a dance). This is one example of how Scarlatti can express so much with so little. One is captured immediately by its simple tune. As in the opening bars of Kk113, much is made of interjections in the lower register (here beginning in bar 19). Horns accompany a leaping figure before the double bar line. Scarlatti can’t help being Scarlatti, though, and shoves in a G sharp when you are least expecting it (bar 63).

B minor, k 87

I remember the day I discovered the Sonata in B minor, Kk87, and was astonished by its beauty. The stepwise counterpoint and syncopated suspensions hark back to Palestrina, a composer who was revered by one of Scarlatti’s teachers, Bernardo Pasquini. Pasquini wrote in 1690: ‘Whoever pretends to be a musician, or organist, and does not taste the nectar, who does not drink the milk of these divine compositions of Palestrina, is without doubt, and always will be, a miserable wretch.’ The closeness of the hands at the beginning somehow emphasizes the tension created by the hovering of the music around the tonic, rarely straying from it for long. The sorrowful thirds in bars 27–29 become even more intense after the climax in bar 44, also creating a hemiola. The bass drops twice in a cycle of fifths, before this inspired sonata ends with a downwards, exhausted gesture.

G Major, K 427

Presto, quanto sia possibile (Presto, as much as possible) is the tempo indication for the Sonata in G major, Kk427. The problem, as so often, is that it’s easy to take the opening lines too fast as they’re not nearly so complicated as what comes later on. To avoid having to change your tempo midway through, the speed needs to be appropriate for bar 17 onwards. And the fortissimo chords need to come as a huge surprise, without any preparation—like somebody jumping out at you from behind a door. The whole thing has to be played with a lot of sparkle and humour.

A Major, K 429

The Sonata in A major, Kk429, is a barcarolle. But being Scarlatti, it’s not your ordinary barcarolle. He starts with two bars establishing the barcarolle rhythm in the left hand, after which you would expect a nice tune to come in. But it doesn’t. Instead he keeps vamping for twelve bars, moving into the dominant and then finishing with a descending scale flourish. We still haven’t had anything resembling a melody. After an expressive pause, the music switches to the minor, and a sighing figure is presented in counterpoint, in triplets in two of the voices, while the others drone away. A huge amount of atmosphere is created with few notes. Then the descending scale returns, first in the right hand, then in the left, accompanied finally by something vaguely resembling a tune.

The second section opens as you would expect in the dominant, but doesn’t stay there for long. A lovely sequential passage follows, with a poignant G natural rather than the expected G sharp. It’s wonderful how Scarlatti uses the different registers of his keyboard for expressive effect. After some low-register lamenting, the music comes to another stop in bar 43. Then in bar 44, up he goes to higher regions and gives us C major, producing a shaft of light. The descending passage in bars 49–52 is beautifully sad. But then those happier scales return, and any melancholy is dispelled.

F Major, K 82

One of my favourites is the Sonata in F major, Kk82, which combines a fugue with the dance. In the Coimbra manuscript, where it is indeed entitled ‘Fuga’, it appears along with three other sonatas under the overall heading ‘Toccata’. Take this sonata too fast and you ruin the effect. The swing of the 3/8 rhythm has to become almost hypnotic. It’s a tricky piece to play from memory as you can easily end up in the wrong place if you’re not careful. For once we have a Scarlatti sonata not in binary form, and the effect is enthralling. As Kirkpatrick rightly observes: ‘This brilliant harpsichord approximation of the string orchestra has much in common with the international style of the early eighteenth century which stems from Vivaldi’s concertos.’

BACH, WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER

No. 13.  F sharp Major

The last twelve Preludes and Fugues contain some of the most challenging music of the ‘48’ to interpret. C P E Bach wrote: ‘Interpretation is nothing else but the capacity to make musical thoughts clear—according to their true content and affection—whether one sings or plays.’ Such a task is made even harder by the fact that this is the longest segment and requires a great deal of imagination to sustain the interest. A lively treatment of dotted notes enlivens the Prelude No 13 in F sharp major, otherwise it will die on the spot. Where there is a steady stream of semiquavers, the dotted note will have to fall with the last of these as written, but elsewhere it can be shortened in the French manner to add sprightliness. Once again we have a partial recapitulation at bar 57. The whole thing needs a sense of freedom within bounds, culminating in the last three bars. It is unusual for a Fugue to begin with a trill on the leading note, but this one does. It is a gavotte in the galant style with the sighs appearing first in the countersubject and later featuring in two episodes. On closer examination we realize that they derive from the tail end of the subject. Some triple counterpoint in bars 12 to 20 and 44 to 52 is worth bringing out. This innocent-sounding Fugue is not as easy as it might seem and benefits from a clear articulation.

No. 14, f-sharp minor

A feeling of sad tenderness pervades the beautiful Prelude No 14 in F sharp minor, beginning with the opening two notes of the melody. Bach makes that falling fourth the most expressive feature of the piece, especially noticeable in bar 34 where the ‘Neapolitan sixth’ (the first inversion of the major triad built on the flattened second degree of the scale—in this case G major) is used to magical effect. The long, singing phrases are similar to those in Variation 13 of the ‘Goldberg’, and should be free within a steady pulse. The Fugue is the only real triple fugue (one with three subjects) in the whole Well-Tempered Clavier. Perhaps for this reason it is often compared to the monumental C sharp minor Fugue of Book I (some analysts also consider it a triple fugue—others a fugue with two very important countersubjects). In my opinion the similarities end there. True, the third subject here is similar to the first countersubject of the C sharp minor, but the mood is completely different. The fugue subject itself is well suited to a lively articulation as is the second subject introduced in bar 20 (although the whole piece is often played with no articulation whatsoever). The big danger is to speed up when the third subject slithers in at bar 36. It adds momentum and propels us to the final unison F sharp, but should not hurry. Beginning in bar 55, Bach combines the three subjects in three different permutations.

No. 15, G Major

The Prelude and Fugue No 15 in G major is easier to sight-read than most, and has lots of gaiety and charm. Be careful not to reduce the Prelude to a finger exercise—it is worth more than that! Think of it being played by stringed instruments which it does indeed characterize. The mordents in the left hand in bars 15 to 16 and 47 to 48 do not have time to speak in too fast a tempo. There is an interesting variant in bar 7: most editions stick with the C natural of the autograph; I prefer the C sharp that is found in some subsequent copies. For sheer brilliance, go rather for the Fugue (or Fughetta as it is so brief), and give your technique a chance to show off! This piece exists in a much earlier, simplified version, without the wave of demisemiquavers that precede the final entrance of the subject. Not for the first time, Bach has a twinkle in his eye at the close.

No. 16 , g minor

We return to solemnity with the Prelude and Fugue No 16 in G minor. The Prelude is an obvious case for double-dotting and for adding ornaments in places similar to those where Bach has already done so himself. It begins and ends with a pedal point, forming one long arc—the last two bars of which are especially beautiful. The great strength of the Fugue is built upon the rhythm of the subject, punctuated by rests, and its insistent repeated notes. Make sure we know already in bar 2 where the first beat lies. The countersubject, which adds even more emphasis, is constantly present, and breaks forth in full glory at bar 59 where we have two sets of paired entries (one of the subject, one of the countersubject), both in thirds. The last, most powerful entrance of the subject in the bass in bar 79 goes as far as adopting its first three semiquavers to add excitement. The abrupt ending is surely intentional, and would be spoiled by any big ritardando. This is definitely one of Bach’s best!

DUETS

Far removed from the world of the Italian Concerto and French Overture are the Four Duets, BWV802–805. They are curiously included in the third volume of Clavierübung, published by Bach himself in 1739. This is otherwise a collection of works for organ, and certainly their two voices (hence ‘Duets’) sound just as well on that instrument as on any other. They resemble the two-part Inventions, but are much more characteristic of Bach’s later style. Written in ascending keys, the first in E minor opens with a scale but then tacks on an awkward figure that can be very clumsy to play. It reminds me of the A minor Prelude from Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier, with its chromaticisms and invertible counterpoint. The second in F major starts out happily enough, but then proceeds to a middle section almost entirely written in canon and with quite a wild subject. The third in G major is perhaps the most immediately attractive with its lovely pastoral rhythm in 12/8 time. Finishing in the key of A minor, the fourth duet is rather rugged and angular, with two chromatic sequences bringing some startling harmonic progressions. To the usual dedication ‘for music lovers to refresh their spirits’ Bach adds ‘and especially for connoisseurs of such work’. These four duets are definitely ‘musicians’ music’ which, despite their beauty, makes them relatively obscure.

ENGLISH SUITE

The English Suite No 4 in F major, BWV809 immediately establishes a positive, bright, assertive colour in the opening Prelude which is also very orchestral in character. The episode which begins in bar 20 is very similar to material presented by the harpsichord soloist in the opening movement of his Brandenburg Concerto No 5. Likewise, the theme that first appears in bar 28 is a direct quote from the B flat minor Prelude of the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier (written much later), although in a totally different mood. The indication vitement was added to some copies, most likely to prevent the player from taking too slow a tempo rather than adopting a very quick one. The length of the final chord (only a crotchet) should be observed.

The sunny flavour of this suite continues in the Allemande with its groups of triplets that lighten the mood. Here the similarity is to the same dance in the Partita No 5 in G major. What a nice contrast it is to the other Allemandes of the set! There are, nevertheless, tinges of darkness towards the end of each section which add a bit of spice. After another French Courante which continues in the same happy mood, comes a Sarabande of pure delight. Compared to the ones we have already encountered, it looks bare on the page, and there are no variants left by Bach. It is up to the performer, therefore, to do his own, as it can’t possibly be left that way. The chromatic bass that moves upwards four bars from the end is especially beautiful. This Sarabande provides the suite with a moment of complete repose. The only pair of minuets in the English Suites now follows, and both are very melodic and full of the grace and good manners associated with this dance. The second is in D minor, contrasting nicely with the first. To end the work, Bach writes a Giga di caccia imitating hunting horns in the highest of spirits, bringing it all to a joyful conclusion.

PASSACAGLIA

Eugen d’Albert (1864–1932) was another virtuoso pianist attracted to the music of Bach. Born in Glasgow to a French father and a German mother, he studied briefly with Sir Arthur Sullivan in London but then found his spiritual home in Germany where he became one of Liszt’s most brilliant pupils. In fact, he so disliked being called an ‘English’ pianist that in 1884 he wrote:

“Unfortunately I studied for a considerable period in that land of fogs, but during that time I learned absolutely nothing; indeed, had I remained there much longer, I should have gone to utter ruin … only since I left that barbarous land have I begun to live. And I live now for the unique, true, glorious, German art.” 

His life was tempestuous (six wives), his career as a virtuoso short due to his greater interest in composition. His transcription of one of Bach’s greatest organ works, the Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582 shows what a flair he must have had at the keyboard, and why Liszt called him a ‘second Tausig’ and ‘our young lion’. He does manage, nevertheless, to stay remarkably close to the original, even if his frequent change of dynamics and tempi are very much of their time. I find his articulations and phrasing very close to what I would imagine Bach wanted, and the overall ‘editing’ of the work very convincing. I have changed a few things to be closer to Bach rather than d’Albert (beginning the trills from the upper note, for instance!), but these are minor adjustments.

So much for d’Albert. What is Bach saying in this piece? A passacaglia is a set of variations over a ground bass (constantly repeating itself). The first half of the theme Bach uses for this one was borrowed from a passacaglia by the French composer André Raison (1650–1720). The twenty variations and fugue which follow are grouped so as to provide points of maximum tension and release. There is some discussion as to whether or not it was originally intended for a two-manual pedal harpsichord rather than the organ, which I think is plausible. Recent research also dates the work to Bach’s time in Arnstadt (1703–1707) when he was clearly influenced by his hearing Buxtehude in Lübeck. The fugue is not a separate entity but rather an integral part of the passacaglia, using the first part of the theme as its subject, along with a persistent countersubject that greatly adds to the culminating excitement. It is refreshing to hear the passacaglia theme break out in different keys rather than simply restating it in the tonic as was the case in the variations. In the last few lines the music comes to a brief halt on a Neapolitan sixth chord (D flat major). As Peter Williams says: ‘Even a Neapolitan sixth can never sound as well as it does at the end of this fugue; theoretically the effect is ordinary, but in its context the chord is magnificent.’ I’m not surprised that d’Albert chose to transcribe this particular work, as I’m sure he had the drama and power to match.

— Angela Hewitt