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54th Dubrovnik Summer Festival
2003
Croatia
LIDIA BAICH
violin
LUCA MONTI
piano
Rector's Palace Atrium
13th August
9.30 p.m.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Sonata for violin and piano in C major, K. 296
Allegro vivace
Andante sostenuto
Rondo (Allegro)
Ludwig van Beethoven:
Sonata for violin and piano No. 4 in A minor, Op. 23
Presto
Andante scherzoso, più Allegretto
Allegro molto
****
César Franck:
Sonata for violin and piano in A major
Allegretto ben moderato
Allegro
Recitativo-Fantasia
Allegretto poco mosso
Violinist Lidia Baich was born in Petersburg; her father was a cellist and her mother comes
form a renowned family of musicians. Her exceptional talent was noticed very early: she was
able to play the piano and harmonize any melody already at the age of two. She began to
study the violin at the age of five and she was eight years old when she won an international
competition; numerous awards followed. Since 1990 she studied at the Vienna Conservatory
with the famous pedagogue Boris Kuschnir. Aged 16, in June 1998 she triumphantly won the
EBU Competition and was awarded Best Young Musician of the Year by the chairmen of the
jury, Lord Yehudi Menuhin. She has since performed in major European concert halls
(Amsterdam, Vienna, Graz, Salzburg, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Moscow, St. Petersburg, etc.),
worked with the most famous orchestras including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
(Lorin Maazel), the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra (Ralf Weikert), St. Petersburg
Philharmonic Orchestra (Jury Temirkanov), the NHK Symphony Orchestra from Tokyo, the
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna
Concertverein (Vladimir Fedosejev), the Vienna Chamber orchestra, etc. She also performed
at the prestigious festivals including the Vienna Festwochen and the Haydn Festival in
Eisenstadt (under the baton of Ádám Fischer. In 2004 she will perform at the Salzburg
Festival and tour Austria, Holland, France and Japan. In Autumn 2002 and in spring this year
she joined the famous Andre Bocceli on the great tour in the USA and Asia. She extensively
records for radio, television and record labels. By the courtesy of the Austrian National Bank,
Lidia Baich performs on the ex Guilet violin from 1723 made by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù.
Italian pianist Luca Monti studied at the Terni Conservatory under Elio Maestosi, at the
Zürich Music College under Jürg von Vintschger and at the Vienna Music College under Noel
Flores. He attended master courses of Vera Gornostaeva, Hans Graf, Vlado Perlemuter,
Harvey Shapiro, Rudolf Buchbinder and Sergio Perticaroli. His technical mastery and
distinctive performing style won him numerous recognitions and awards including those at
the Beethoven Competition in Vienna (1989 and 1993), Casagrande in Terni, Senigallia,
Cantú, the ARAM Rome, etc. He launched his international career in Vienna performing at
the festivals and at the most prestigious concert halls. Followed the performances in Linz,
Hamburg, Rome, Milan, Geneva, New York, Tokyo, Osaka, etc. He performed with the
renowned Croatian (Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra) and Italian orchestras under the baton of
Isaak Karabtchewsky, Federico Mondelci, Walter Kobera, Ottavio Ziino, Jost Meier, Marco
Gatti and Robert Zelzer. He intensively performs as chamber musician: he won the
International Chamber Music Competition in Osaka with the Ison Trio and the Brahms
Chamber Competition in Pörtschach. He played with Julian Rachlin, Thomas Carroll, Kathryn
Krueger, Shkelzen Doli, Esther Haffner and Orfeo Mandozzi (with whom he recorded the
complete works by Édouard Lalo for cello and piano). He often performs in Europe, South
America and Japan. The member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna
Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra he extensively performs on tours
and records for radio and television. The artistic director of the concert seasons of the Italian
Institute in Vienna and the summer master courses in Collepepe, Italy, he is also engaged in
pedagogic work and teaches at the Music University in Vienna.
The output of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) is a huge
synthesis of all the basic musical features of several centuries. By enriching and weaving
together an immense variety of musical factors in his very distinctive way, Mozart equally
opened new ways for musical expression both in form and content. His impeccable technique
achieved an incomparable easiness, which under what seemingly is an unutterable lightness
reaches even the darkest corners of human soul. Psychologically deep and artistically shrewd,
Mozart appears a real specialist in both fields. By enhancing the contrasts within one
movement, he achieved a higher coherence of his concertos, sonatas or symphonies thus
setting the path to Beethoven and his successors.
Mozart composed his Sonata for violin and piano in C major in Mannheim on 11th March
1778. It was his departure day from the city and the sonata was a farewell gift dedicated to his
favourite pupil Theresa Pierron, the 15 years old daughter of his landlord Serarius, the advisor
of the court chamber. The piece was first published in Vienna in 1781.Although the role of
the violin in this sonata is far more significant than in Mozart’s earlier pieces of the kind, it is
still obvious that the piano could remain sufficient by itself for the development of the
musical story. The piano part is plethoric through all three movements and occasionally
requires a distinctive virtuosity. However, due to the persistent thematic and figurative
collaboration of the violin, the piece is considerably reinforced both in the expression and
colour. The first movement resounds with a decisive theme of a military march, the second
one is a markedly punctuated solemn ode, while the final, third movement is a vivid,
temperamental rondo.
Sonatas for violin and piano occupy a prominent place in the chamber output of Ludwig van
Beethoven (1770-1827). Mostly occasional, the writings came out with in mind some famous
virtuoso or at a commission by some prominent personality, which at the same time defined
the bravurosity of the solo score and a general appeal of the cluster. By construction, the
sonatas come close to the double-concerto, lacking orchestral accompaniment. Yet, all the 10
sonatas impose high demands upon both performers. The premieres never happened in an
intimacy of a private home, but under the light of the concert stage; therefore they had to
demonstrate not only the quality of the players but also the inventiveness and richness of the
composer’s spirit.
The Fourth Sonata in a minor, Op.23 was written in 1800, at the same time as the Piano
Sonata Op.22 and the Spring Violin Sonata Op.24. The pregnant first movement in fast 6/8
metre should stand at the end of the sonata, rather than at its beginning. Skipping the
customary slow introduction, the Sonata arrests the listener’s attention by a storm of
emotions. The dialogue of the instruments heats up towards the end of the development. The
bipartite second movement consists of two diverse matters: of a seducing playful first and of a
strict counterpoint with pathetic trills and punctuated rhythm drawing upon the Baroque as the
second. Not virtuous at all, the Sonata ends in an ascetic yet demanding speech depraved of
any effects. However, this movement also has its weak point: the appearance of the Adagio
brings a lonely stream of declamation. Since the main part of the movement, which constantly
reappears, is divided by the genuinely diverse episodes, the entire sonata finale presents a
distinctively understood rondo. Its sound will remain equally stern, occasionally unbearably
gloomy till the end of the sonata.
Like Cherubini or Fauré, so did French composer and organist of Belgian descent César
Franck (1822-1890) remain in the shade of his more aggressive contemporaries for a long
time. Franck took the side of a small group of authors who asked a public pardon for their
noisy escapades, senseless virtuosity, shallow drama and mere effect. Simple, human and
natural, his word remains as suggestive without aiming to find its expression in a powerful
sound or in quantities of sentimentality. Franck revives the old traditional forms in his own
way, with peace and depth, hermetically yet richly. Chromatics gives a special appeal to his
melody which indeed may remind of Wagner, however original and only his own. His
harmony is refined and noble and, although not as courageous as the harmony of Debussy, it
undoubtedly presents an interesting renewal of the French harmony in the second part of the
19th century. Sonata for violin and piano in A major is perhaps Franck's most popular piece.
The capital work was completed in 1886 with a dedication to the Belgian violin virtuoso
Eugène Ysaÿe. Almost the whole of the first movement makes a majestic introduction, its
musical substance being detached, rather than present and dynamic. The main melody is
typically his – deeply lyrical, recognizable already in the chromatic chords preceding it. The
standard treatment of the cycle form and the relevance and thematic priority of the first
movement are here translated into the second movement in which arrays of piano passages, in
the company of wreaths of violin melodies, build themselves like pearls into the necklace of
the sonata form. Instead of a meditative slow movement, there is a violin rhapsody merged
with a piano fantasy of an improvisational nature. The end comes in the form of a Rondo of
brilliant imitation technique and use of both instruments, a blend of a concise rhythm with
impressive melodic elements. The effect of its very end is enhanced by a short reminiscence
on the melody from the preceding movement before the very closing.
D. Detoni