Download the PROGRAM - Rockport Music

Saturday
11
june
Ben Capps, cello
Vassily Primakov, piano
8 PM
Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM
SOLO CELLO SUITE, NO 1, OP. 72
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Canto primo: Sostenuto e largamente—
Fuga: Andante moderato—
Lamento: Lento rubato—
Canto secondo: Sostenuto—
Serenata: Allegretto pizzicato—
Marcia: Alla marcia moderato—
Canto terzo: Sostenuto—
Borone: Moderato quasi recitative—
Molto perpetuo e Canto quarto: Presto
(The movements are played without pause.)
CELLO SONATA IN F MAJOR, OP. 6
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Allegro con brio
Andante ma non troppo
Finale: Allegro vivo
:: intermission ::
VIOLIN SONATA IN A MINOR, OP. 105
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)/Arr. Ben Capps
Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck
Allegretto
Lebhaft
SONATA IN A MAJOR FOR CELLO AND PIANO
César Franck (1822-1890)
Allegretto ben moderato
Allegro
Recitativo—Fantasia: Ben moderato
Allegretto poco mosso
35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 23
WEEK 2
the program
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
SOLO CELLO SUITE, NO. 1, OP. 72
Benjamin Britten (b. Lowestoft, United Kingdom, November 22, 1913;
d. Aldeburgh, United Kingdom, December 4, 1976)
Composed 1964; 23 minutes
The profound personal and professional affinity between the composer Benjamin Britten and
the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich led to a singular partnership of the British composer and
his Russian muse. In the fall of 1960 Benjamin Britten had gone to Royal Festival Hall with
Dmitri Shostakovich to hear the London premiere of that composer’s first cello concerto.
After the concert, Shostakovich saw to it that Rostropovich and Britten—each heretofore
relatively unknown to the other—would meet for the first time.
Britten, ecstatic about the cellist’s performance, was thrilled when Rostropovich invited the
newly-met composer to write a cello piece for him. Unaware that this ebullient cellist
habitually issued such an invitation to composers, Britten accepted. Thus was born
not only Britten’s Sonata for Piano and Cello in C major, the first of five extraordinary
works that he ultimately composed for Rostropovich, but also a unique and lasting
friendship.
Britten and Rostropovich had
a long friendship based on
the highest personal and
professional regard for
one another.
Benjamin Britten’s three suites for cello solo constitute truly profound tributes to his
regard for Mstislav Rostropovich. The suites present challenges of the highest order,
requiring of the performer and instrument the most demanding musical and technical
cunning and imagination. Certainly, one cannot consider the suites without reference to the
six solo cello suites—similarly challenging—composed two centuries earlier by J. S. Bach.
Britten’s awareness of them is a matter of record.
Rostropovich’s physique and performance style received the composer’s careful consideration.
His large hands, long fingers, strength, and endurance were important factors in Britten’s
choices, else the suites, including Suite No. 1, would be significantly poorer in pizzicato (leftand right-hand), harmonics, polyphony, drones (the “Bordone” of the Suite No. 1), perpetual
motion, and above all, double, triple, and quadruple stops. The cello is notoriously challenging
in this last category, as the size and arrangement of the strings over the bridge, and the size
and shape of the bow, make the playing of multiple stops infinitely more difficult than on a
violin, for instance.
Rostropovich made recordings of the
first two of Britten’s solo cello suites,
leaving a lasting standard for
performances of the pieces. When asked,
late in his life, why he had not recorded
Suite No. 3, the cellist replied: “That
was a mistake. I have three musical
gods—Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and
Britten. …I was devastated when
Britten died, so I stayed away from the
third suite for awhile, but then I got
too busy with other things and I simply
never got around to recording it.
This is one of my regrets in life.”
24 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM
A significant feature of the Suite No. 1, the four Cantos, reflects Britten’s
affinity for the human voice. In literary terms, a canto is understood as
a major section of a poem, and in musical terms the word “canto”
relates to the Latin word “cantare” [to sing]. Up to this time Britten
had composed overwhelmingly for voices—opera, solo song, choruses.
given Rostropovich’s special feeling for vocal repertoire, Britten
provided rich lyrical material, not only in the four Cantos, but also in
the Lamento, the Serenata, and the Bordone (the drone).
Hearing the Suite No. 1 challenges the listener because of the
complexity of the writing and the emotional range of the music. The
sheer adventure of hearing such stunning music in a live performance
is its own reward.
CELLO SONATA IN F MAJOR, OP. 6
Richard Strauss (b. Munich, June 11, 1864; d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, September 8, 1949)
Composed 1883; 26 minutes
As a student working under the influence not only of his professors, but also of his father,
Franz, the principal hornist of the Munich Court Orchestra, Richard Strauss composed a
handful of works for small instrumental ensemble. After those apprentice years, the concert Rostropovich and Britten
after a concert. Benjamin
hall and opera house got his full attention.
Britten wrote five major cello
works for Rostropovich, all
inspired by the Russian cellist’s
unique facility with the
instrument and his uninhibited
musicality: Sonata for
Piano and Cello in C major
(1961), Symphony for
Cello and Orchestra
(1963), Suite No. 1 for
The Sonata gained immediate and positive critical attention upon its premiere on December Cello in G major (1964),
8, 1883, in a performance by the Czech cellist Hanuš Wihan, to whom it was dedicated. (Wihan Suite No. 2 for Cello in
D major (1967), and Suite
was also the dedicatee of Dvorák’s Cello Concerto.) Later that month, Strauss himself
No. 3 for Cello in C major
(1971).
expressed great pleasure in the Sonata upon his own performance of it with the cellist
During the decade 1877-87—the years of his teens and young manhood—Strauss wrote a
few chamber music pieces that he eventually deemed suitable for publication: two piano
trios, a string quartet, a sonata for violin and piano, a piano quartet, and this sonata for cello
and piano. He began composing the Cello Sonata at the age of seventeen, revised it over a
two-year period, and completed it at age nineteen.
Ferdinand Böckmann in Dresden. He wrote to his mother, “My sonata pleased the audience
greatly, and they applauded most enthusiastically. I was congratulated from all sides.”
The first movement, by turns dramatic and lyric, is cast in sonata form based on multiple
themes. Strauss’s lyrical gift emerges particularly in the cello, an instrument ideally suited
to sing through registers that emulate the human voice, from the baritone through the
soprano ranges. The vocal character of the work is especially remarkable in the second
movement, Andante non troppo, with an emotional range that reveals the cello’s unique
capacity for expressive singing and dynamic contrasts. The sonata concludes with a capricious
Allegro vivo whose forward drive is enlivened by surprising key changes. Strauss found
room in the Finale for lyricism and humor, and the sonata concludes with youthful bravura.
VIOLIN SONATA IN A MINOR, OP. 105
Robert Schumann (b. Zwickau, June 8, 1810; d. Endenich, near Bonn, July 29, 1856)
Adapted for cello by Ben Capps
Richard Strauss at the time
he introduced the Cello
Sonata, a work of his
late teens.
Composed September 1851; 18 minutes
Robert Schumann, although still relatively young, was nearing the end of his life as a
composer before he attempted to write works for solo violin. Between 1851 and 1853 he
wrote five violin compositions, including a concerto. In 1854 Schumann was admitted to a
mental asylum at Endenich, where he spent the rest of his life, dying there in the summer
of 1856.
Schumann composed his first violin sonata quickly, starting and finishing it within five days
in September 1851. At the time he was the conductor of the Düsseldorf Musikverein and
was inspired to write the A-minor sonata by the artistry of his concertmaster, Wilhelm
Joseph von Wasielewski (1822-1896), who had come to Düsseldorf at Robert’s invitation.
Upon the completion of the A-minor sonata, Wasielewski and Clara Schumann gave a
private performance of the new work. The following spring Clara was at the piano for
the public premiere of the sonata, with Ferdinand David, friend and colleague of Felix
Mendelssohn and concertmaster of the Leipzig gewandhaus Orchestra, as the violinist.
35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 25
Notes
on the
program
by
Sandra Hyslop
The Violin Sonata in A minor is an intimate work, with restless energy and searching phrases
traded between the two instruments. Although technically demanding, its extensive passages
of rapidly moving figures seem more agitated than virtuosic.
Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck [with passionate expression] lives up to its title. The violin’s
opening statement in A minor is interrupted and taken up by the piano in a new key, and the two
instruments continue, restlessly, to trade the theme, modulating to other keys, throughout the
movement.
The Allegretto is an interlude in the style of so many of Schumann’s short piano pieces and
smaller chamber works. Tender folk-like melodies alternate with saucy figures in a freely
distributed tempo rubato. Two light pizzicato chords finish this gentle rondo.
BEN CAPPS ON SCHUMANN AND FRANCK
I based my transcription of the
Schumann Violin Sonata on the Urtext
score, transposing it down one octave.
I leave the piece as is. I hope that the
darker tones and virtuosic passage work
become even more vivid on the cello.
Although I am playing the Jules Delsart
transcription of the Franck Sonata, I
have made a handful of changes based
on my reading of the original violin
version. These changes make the piece
more difficult on the cello, but also
more musically exciting.
The impassioned mood of the first movement returns for the A-minor
finale, Lebhaft [lively]. Both instruments propel the music on rushing
swirls of sixteenth notes in a traditional sonata form. The main theme
of the first movement reappears briefly, but the piano and violin reassert
the Lebhaft’s energetic principal motif and they bring the sonata to a
vigorous conclusion.
SONATA IN A MAJOR FOR CELLO AND PIANO
César Franck (b. Liège, Belgium, September 10, 1822;
d. Paris, November 8, 1890)
Composed 1886; 28 minutes
The Belgian-born César Franck composed the Sonata in A major for
Violin and Piano for the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Franck
presented it to Ysaÿe and his bride on the occasion of their marriage
on 29 September 1886.
His colleague, the cellist Jules Delsart (1844-1900), transcribed the Violin Sonata as a
Sonata for Cello and Piano. Delsart had been a pupil of the great French cellist Auguste
Franchomme and succeeded his teacher as the principal professor of cello at the Paris
Conservatoire.
The French cellist Jules
Delsart, who transcribed
the César Franck Violin
Sonata with the approval
of the composer
In his transcription of the Violin Sonata, Delsart retained the key of the piece, A major. Delsart
concentrated his efforts on adapting the violin line in such a way as to create a work that
sounds completely natural and idiomatic for the cello. A cello’s voice encompasses a nearly
four-octave range, as does the violin’s voice, essentially one octave higher than the cello.
Delsart was able to assign Franck’s violin part to the cello by transposing most of it down an
octave, leaving occasional passages in their original violin octave, which the cello can easily play.
Like many of Franck’s compositions, the Sonata in A major is built upon a germ of a musical
idea, a motto theme, which provides structural unity by appearing in every movement. The
generative musical germ of the Sonata in A appears in the first four bars of the piece. Written
in 9/8 measure, the theme rocks gently (“molto dolce”) in intervals of thirds and fourths,
gradually gaining momentum toward a climax that sends the piano into a grand statement
of Franck’s second theme. These two thematic elements recur in various guises throughout
the sonata, which has rightly earned a permanent place in the chamber music repertoire as
one of the most beloved—and challenging—sonatas for a string instrument and piano.
26 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM