Download Mendelssohn, Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58

PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. MICHAEL FINK
COPYRIGHT 2009. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Mendelssohn, Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58
Among Romantic composers, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was one of the few
interested in creating chamber music. Following the Octet for Strings, with which he made his
mark at the tender age of 16, Mendelssohn produced several lasting masterpieces for string
quartet and strings with piano. Interestingly, he had little interest in violin sonatas, but he
composed four works for cello and piano: a set of variations, two full sonatas, and a “Song
without Words.” Mendelssohn’s initial interest in the cello stemmed entirely from his younger
brother Paul’s study of the instrument, beginning apparently in the late 1820s. The first cellopiano work, Variations Concertantes, Op. 17, comes from 1828. The B-flat Sonata followed ten
years later and is contemporary with Mendelssohn’s only violin sonata.
Mendelssohn’s attention again turned to the cello in 1842, when he had an opportunity to
compose for Count Mateusz Wielhorski, a Polish-Russian nobleman and accomplished amateur
cellist. He owned a Stradivarius cello and had been the dedicatee of Schumann’s Piano Quartet,
Op. 47.
Certain ideas in the Cello Sonata in D Major sprang from other music. However,
Mendelssohn adapted these with great mastery and charm. For example, the main theme of the
first movement is strikingly close to that of the “Italian” Symphony. The bounding melody
against the excited repeated notes contains that same sunny, exhilarating impulse as the
symphony’s opening, yet the darker color of the cello and the percussive attacks of the piano
bring to this music something unique.
2
Elfin magic in the second movement resembling music from A Midsummer Night’s
Dream is no accident. Mendelssohn was working on that score while also composing the cello
sonata. In the heart of the movement, however, the composer turns to a lyrical romantic melody
for the cello. When the puckish scherzando ideas return, he makes them more spiky and dynamic
than before.
As before, the third movement uses existing music as a springboard for something quite
original. Here, the inspiration is J.S. Bach. (Commentator John Horton even connects the
movement to “Es ist vollbracht” from Bach’s St. John Passion.) Mendelssohn’s massive, organlike opening chorale leads to a free cello arioso. This, in turn, he answers with a flowing coda in
the piano.
The finale is both dramatic and exuberant, and Mendelssohn plays with our emotions in
the mood swings of the movement. In this final “act” of the sonata, the piano and cello share the
spotlight more equally than before. In a sense, this is a friendly competition using amicable,
congenial musical material as the playing field. In all, it provides an athletic final touch to a work
that balances nostalgia with refreshing originality.
Juon, Suite in C Major for Piano Trio, Op. 89
Since Glasnost of the 1980s and the subsequent cultural connections between Russia and
the West, several lesser-known Russian composers have come to our attention. Works by early
20th-century composers such as Paul Juon (1872-1940) have found their way onto American
concert stages and have often brought with them provocative and refreshing musical
personalities. Juon was apparently prominent in his own day, having studied composition with
Arensky and Taneyev, and being a fluent violinist besides. For the majority of his career, he
taught at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. In addition to his compositional activities, he
3
published German translations of writings by Tchaikovsky and Arensky. He also wrote two
music theory books of his own.
The great majority of Juon’s music is instrumental — either chamber or orchestral. He
composed the Suite for Piano Trio in 1932, one of his last chamber works. In general, Juon’s
style had been conservative, earning him the nickname, “the Russian Brahms.” Nevertheless,
around the time of the Suite, he was experimenting tentatively with newer idioms. For example,
the Suite’s first movement has a Bartókian-primitive flavor. The puckish, quasi-heroic quality of
the second may remind us of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Straight out of the expanses of the Russian
landscape comes the dark opening of the third movement, and its folksong style reflects the
peasantry of that locale. The penultimate movement brings us back into Bartók’s orbit and an
often dissonant stretching of tonality; yet at moments, Juon show us a glimmer of grand
Viennese waltzes. Neo-classicism sparks the finale, melding sounds by Stravinsky, Les Six, and
1930s Bartók.
Each of these engaging movements has a distinct “character” or personality of its own.
Yet, the composer unified them all through one structural detail: Every movement ends with a
short, quiet epilogue, a kind of reflective summing-up that rounds out the movement in a most
original, unique way.
Schumann, Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44
During his most productive periods, Robert Schumann frequently composed clusters of
works of a single musical type. In his “chamber music years” (1842-43), for example, Schumann
wrote all of his string quartets and several works for piano and strings. During a particularly
creative two-month period, Schumann “invented” the piano quintet by composing his E-flat
4
Piano Quintet, Op. 44, also completing the Piano Quartet, Op. 47, in E-flat as well. Each of these
works required only five days to sketch and another two weeks to complete. Both were written
between October and November of 1843.
In this music, the relationship of piano to strings is unbalanced. Unlike the lighter piano
parts in works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Brahms, the piano is king with Schumann.
Listeners may even have the impression that the E-flat Quintet is an extension of Schumann’s
solo piano music, since the strings so often double the piano part or oppose it as a block. Also,
due to a lack of practical experience with strings, Schumann’s thematic material (however
sublime) sometimes appears in a weak or ineffective range of an instrument.
The themes and their working out are a different matter. In the first movement,
Schumann presents three virile yet warm themes. The development section is like a chamber
concerto for piano that concentrates on the first, very striking theme. The recapitulation presents
a modified re-working of all the material.
The second movement is a study in contrasting characters. The opening theme is a
funeral march in a minor key, after which the sweeter second theme comes as something of a
release before reverting to the march. The Agitato section — again, concerto-like — flows back
into the second theme, and the movement ends with a reprise of the lugubrious first theme.
Scales abound in the heavy Scherzo. The flowing first Trio section is a remarkable canon
between the first violin and viola. The powerful second Trio is related only distantly to the
Scherzo but has a concerto-like flair.
As did Beethoven, Schumann reserves his maximum energy for the finale. The Germanic
stamping-dance main theme nearly dominates the movement. We understand the reason for this
5
when at last the first movement’s main theme returns for a double fugue with the finale theme.
This crowns the entire work and gives impetus to an exciting ending.