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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