18/12/2010 Prokofiev-Schumann-Brahms
PROGRAMMA - PROGRAMME
Sofia Gubaidulina (1931)
Chaconne voor piano solo
Chaconne pour piano seul
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Sonate voor cello & piano in Do Opus 119
Sonate pour violoncelle & piano en do majeur Opus 119
PAUZE/PAUSE
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Märchenerzählungen Op.132 (1853)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Trio Opus 115 in la klein voor klarinet, cello & piano (1891)
Trio Opus 115 en la mineur pour clarinette, violoncelle & piano (1891)
DATUM & PLAATS - DATE & LIEU
18 december 2010 – 20u15 – Auditorium Maene, Argonnestraat 37, 1060 Sint-Gillis
18 décembre 2010 – 20h15 – Auditorium Maene, Rue d’Argonne 37, 1060 Saint-Gilles
ARTIESTEN - ARTISTES
Alice Di Piazza – piano – piano
Wim Voet – klarinet - clarinette
Stijn Kuppens – cello - violoncelle
SPECIAL GUEST: Erik Pirotte
PROGRAM NOTES
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) – Märchenerzählungen Op.132 (1853)
1. Lebhaft, nicht zu schnell
2. Lebhaft und sehr markiert
3. Ruhiges Tempo, mit zartem Ausdruck
4. Lebhaft, sehr markiert
Unlike the earlier Märchenbilder (Fairy Pictures), in which individual pieces evoke specific associations, the Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tales) have no direct reference to any narrative or underlying program. The work was composed October 9-11, 1853, not long before Schumann’s final mental breakdown and suicide attempt. Nevertheless, the music is concise and light-hearted, the four movements linked by a recurring motive. It is one of Schumann’s most organically conceived works. Schumann originally wrote the piece for clarinet, viola, and piano, but the first edition, published in 1854 by Breitkopf & Härtel, offers a choice of violin or clarinet.
Throughout the highly condensed, four-movement work is a sense of increasing agitation. The most intriguing aspect of the Märchenerzählungen is the “kernel” of music from which much of the piece is derived. This appears early in the first movement, “Lebhaft, nicht zu schnell” (Lively, not too fast), which begins with a legato phrase in the viola that tends to move upward. A contrasting idea ensues that is detached and generally moves downward—this becomes the kernel of the rest of the piece. A song without words, the movement features an excellent blend of the instruments and intense development of the first theme. In the second movement, “Lebhaft, sehr markiert” (Lively, very accentuated), the kernel appears in numerous short outbursts in the opening segment of the movement that distort the kernel by presenting it in a fast, triplet rhythm. This movement is more clearly ternary in form, with a great change of mood in the elegant middle section. The third, slow movement, “Ruhiges tempo mit zartem Ausdruck” (Calm tempo with delicate expression), has a much more lyric, idyllic feel than the previous movements and features an important accompanimental figure in the opening measures that is an augmented version of the kernel. Furthermore, this figure, and thus the kernel, informs much of the melodic material of the movement, especially in a duet for the clarinet and viola. The Finale, “Lebhaft, sehr markiert,” opens with powerful chords and seems, at first, unrelated to the previous sections. The melody, however, is a dotted-rhythm version of the kernel. The same idea also returns, augmented in the slow middle section of the Finale.
Although the movements are similar in form to the three-part character pieces found in Schumann’s other works, the sections of Märchenerzählungen are rhapsodic in structure and tempered with an awareness of Viennese, Classical-era rhetoric.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) – Trio Opus 115 in la klein voor klarinet, cello & piano (1891) – Trio Opus 115 en la mineur pour clarinette, violoncelle & piano (1891)
1.Allegro
2.Adagio
3.Andante grazioso
4.Allegro
The Clarinet Trio is the first of four chamber works inspired by the principal clarinetist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, Richard Mühlfeld. Brahms had been aware of Mühlfeld’s artistry since the 1880s, for the Meiningen Orchestra had played his Second Piano Concerto and premiered his Fourth Symphony. It was in 1891, however, that Brahms, while on a week-long stay at the Meiningen court in March, asked Mühlfeld to perform privately for him. Apparently Brahms was impressed, and in November he returned to Meiningen with two new works in hand—the Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114, and the Quintet for clarinet and strings, Op. 115.
The Trio is a typical example of the restrained and concentrated style of Brahms’ later works. It is in the typical four-movement form, and offers nothing remarkable or unusual except in its polished workmanship and Romantic warmth. There is no question that this work, as with the later sonatas for clarinet, was written with that instrument in mind—the alternative of the viola was added by the first publisher. Regardless, the clarinet plays almost a subordinate role to the cello, weaving contrapuntal inner parts as often as it takes the main melodic material.
In the first movement, Allegro a fairly straightforward sonata form grows out of a simple rising arpeggio and descending scale that grow into a complex contrapuntal web that is sustained throughout. A particularly sensitive use of color and registral combinations between the instruments characterizes the second-movement Adagio; the entire movement is constructed of subtle rearrangements of two basic ideas. The third movement is marked Andantino grazioso. The main section of this typical dance form is a lovely and nostalgic Viennese waltz, while the trio section is an Austrian Ländler, the forerunner of the waltz, replete with yodeling clarinet. This short and exciting rondo finale (Allegro is in Brahms’ typical gypsy idiom, with its mixture of three-against-four rhythms and colorful minor-mode harmonies. It is the only movement of the Clarinet Trio that could be considered virtuosic, and it ends the work decisively.
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