A Sample of Our Chamber Music Program Notes

Piano Trio in C Major, Hob. XV: 27
by
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

According to most sources, Maria Anna Aloysia Appolonia Haydn was ugly, unpleasant, quarrelsome, jealous, stupid, bigoted, wasteful, unmusical, a sloppy housekeeper and unable to bear children. She was also Haydn’s wife. Little impressed with what Haydn did for a living, she used his manuscript pages to line her cake dishes. It was with her in mind that Haydn wrote one of his better-known short songs: “If in the whole world / One very worst wife there is / How sad it is that each of us / Knows well that she is his.” It would be an understatement to say that he had an unhappy married life.

Hence, when Prince Miklaus Esterhazy died in 1790, Haydn, who had held a position for life (in this case the Prince’s life) as kapellmeister of the Prince’s huge orchestra, jumped at the occasion to leave both his wife and Hungary behind. Arriving in Vienna, he was met by the famous English impresario Johann Peter Salomon, who by means of a very lucrative contract enticed Haydn to visit London, where he was to lead a series of concerts, compose six symphonies, an opera and several other works. When Mozart asked Haydn how at his advanced age he could travel to England speaking no language but German, Haydn replied, “but my language is understood everywhere.” Haydn left with Salomon immediately and arrived in London on New Years Day 1791. Luckily for Haydn, London was then a great melting pot of Europe and home to thousands of French, Germans and Italians displaced by the upheavals of the French Revolution. Haydn’s visit was an unqualified success. He stayed for the better part of the year, enjoyed himself immensely, and was particularly struck by the ladies of London. In his voluminous notebooks, which are preserved, about his time spent in England, he wrote such things as: Miss Brown of Mayfair was charming; a particular pianist, one Mrs. Hodges, the loveliest lady he ever saw: a certain Miss Shaw the most beautiful lady he had ever come across; and so on and so forth. But his favorite by far was Rebecca Schroeter, a widow, who came to him for piano lessons and with whom he lived during his second visit to London. She wrote him numerous love letters, which he dutifully copied into his notebooks. Yet, at the same time, he carried on a rather close “friendship” with the wife of a surgeon. He visited her often, setting several of her love poems to music, until he was unexpectedly discovered one afternoon by the early arrival of her husband, who offered to cut off Haydn’s nose as payment for the “music lessons” his wife had received. Haydn’s notebook recounts, “I shouted, screamed, pounded and kicked until I was able to free myself and hurried out of the house.”

Most scholars believe the piano trio we are to hear today (Hob.XV:27) was one of a set written in 1794, not for the surgeon’s wife, but for Rebecca Schroeter. That it was intended for her only partially explains its conservative nature. While Haydn was an innovator when it came to the symphony and the string quartet, he never moved beyond the realm of C.P.E. Bach when it came to the piano trio. C.P.E. Bach, whose piano works Haydn had closely studied, wrote that the piano sonata or trio was a work “which may equally be played by the piano, solo, or accompanied by violin and violoncello.” And Haydn, unlike Mozart or Beethoven, never went beyond this modest model. As such, his “piano trios,” though tuneful and delightful, were, even in his own lifetime, reactionary. It is unlikely that most were ever intended for the concert stage, and probably none would be performed today with such unequal part-writing if a less well-known name had composed these works. The violin part is never more than ornamental and the cello rarely more than a doubling of the piano bass. Removal of the strings in no way harms his piano trios. Haydn himself never called the works piano trios, but like C.P.E. Bach, titled them “Sonatas for pianoforte with accompaniment for the violin and violoncello.”

This particular trio, as virtually all of the 45 he wrote, is in three movements following a fast-slow-fast pattern, here: Allegro, Andante, and Presto. The first movement shows the very clear influence of C.P.E. Bach in the improvisatory nature of the piano part and the secondary and almost unnecessary string parts.
 

Piano Quartet No.2 in E Flat Major, Op.87, B.162
by
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

We owe this work to the fact that Dvorak’s publisher, Simrock, had been after him for several years to write another piano quartet. Just two years earlier he had penned his magnificent Piano Quintet in A, Op.81. It shows him at the height of his powers. Simrock was therefore anxious to get Dvorak to write something for a broader market. (While we today generally hear more piano quintets in concert, this was not the case in the late 19th century and certainly the home music market was far greater for piano quartets than quintets.) It is hard to believe that this rich work was sketched in all of three days between August 10th and 12th of 1889. The parts were then written out in full by the end of the month and sent to Simrock in early September. He published it immediately, but the first premiere had to wait for almost a year. Writing to a friend a short while later, Dvorak remarked that the “melodies just surged upon me,” and anyone who listens to this music cannot help but marvel that it came so easily for him. It is interesting to note that while Dvorak was well into his “nationalistic” period, the listener will find little if any Czech or other Slavic melody in this piano quartet, which mostly speaks in the language of Central European (read German) Romanticism.

The first movement, Allegro con fuoco, begins energetically with a unison statement in the strings from which the rest of the movement is constructed. To this the piano responds before the strings take off again with a more lyric version. The second subject brings a change of mood when the viola introduces a deeply felt melody. The music, however, presses ahead with plenty of steam and energy. The conclusion features an interesting interplay between 1st violin and viola as they bow snippets from the opening theme in tremolo.

The next movement in g minor, Lento, consists of five brief tonal sketches, each with its own mood. The structure grows out of the first and longest sketch, a yearning love song sung by the cello. This is followed by the violin playing a more quiescent melody to a subtle accompaniment in the other voices. Then the piano gives forth with a reflective, short, and somewhat uncertain interlude, which is immediately followed by a very powerful and stormy section performed by all four instruments. The fifth and final sketch is a kind of responsion led by the piano and answered by the strings. It is related to the earlier piano theme. It is quieter and more hopeful in mood. All five sketches are repeated but with a few modifications.

The third movement, marked Allegro moderato, grazioso, begins with a scherzo-like minuet in 3/4 time based on a German peasant dance.The middle or trio section has Middle Eastern sounding motif, unusual for Dvorak. The jiggly theme is made even more lively by the restless triplet accompaniment. Each of these sections is repeated twice, with the conclusion being a restatement of the first section.

In the finale, Allegro ma non troppo, the style initially resembles the first movement in that the opening theme is direct and at first played by all without much interplay. However, this quickly changes, and the different voices are soon bobbing and weaving, in and out, responding to each other. The music just brims with energy, and lyrical tonal ideas burst forth one after the other. The main theme is in e minor and the second in G flat. The music only returns to the tonic of E flat toward the end of the movement in the recapitulation section after a series of fantastic modulations. With several climaxes along the way, the music finally builds to one of his most exciting endings.

Piano Quartet No.1 in g minor, Op.25
by
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Brahms began work on his first (as well as his second) piano quartets sometime around 1857-58 while in the employ of Prince Leopold of Detmold. However, no one saw the score until July 1861, when Brahms sent Clara Schumann a first draft of both. Her letters to Brahms provide illumination into the much larger stage of his artistic development. Hers are not the letters of an eighteenth century maitresse couching her criticisms delicately in the language of noblesse. Brahms was lucky to have a talented friend who always told him the truth. Clara wrote him with almost masculine frankness, for example: “There is much in the (first) movement of the g minor quartet that I like, and much that I care for less. The first part seems to me too little g minor and too much D major, and I think that owing to the lack of the former it loses in clarity.”

In September of the same year, Brahms, eager for helpful criticism, wrote to his friend Joseph Joachim: “I am very curious to know what you are going to say about my quartets. It frightens me to think of all the places I wanted to improve in them.” Joachim's answer on October 2nd was couched politely and carefully in the gentlest of prose. He praised the quartets in many ways but hedged: “I would rather hear them first and then talk over the details with you.” Brahms, characteristically direct, even brusque, replied: “Your letter is much too friendly. I shook my head continually while I read it. Just let me know your exact opinion; do not wait to hear or even to become accustomed to the pieces.” Joachim's letter of October 15 was highly critical of the first movement but highly praised the gypsy finale.

The first public performance of this work took place in Hamburg on November 16, 1861, with Clara Schumann as the pianist. Clara’s diary reveals as much concern over the quartet as though it had been her husband's. “I was frightfully nervous, it may have been anxiety about the Quartet, which I have so much at heart. The fiddlers scratched away or slept, although I put my whole heart into it. The last movement took the audience by storm.” But not the Hamburg critics who wrote coolly of it in the papers the following day. The following year in Vienna, when Brahms performed it with the famous Hellmesberger String Quartet, it was warmly received by audience and critics alike.
 

The first movement, Allegro, has had extremely different affects on famous musicians and critics. Neither Joachim nor Clara Schumann liked it but Donald Tovey, perhaps the most respected critic during the first half of the 20th century, wrote it was the most impressive tragic composition since the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The first subject is only four measures long, of which the first measure, consisting of four quarter notes, contain the seeds of tragedy with their sense of yearning and resignation. The second theme is more lyrical and tender. In the development section, the forlorn atmosphere of tragedy returns, and in the coda it rises to the level of painful outcry before softly dying away.

Brahms originally called the Intermezzo, allegro ma non troppo, a scherzo but the mood of the music, despite the pulsing triplets in the cello, is too mysterious and sad for such a characterization. The muted strings begin alone and entirely present the first theme before the piano joins in. Written on a large scale, one rarely encounters an intermezzo of this breadth, but the fecundity of ideas justifies the size. There is a contrasting trio after which the entire first section is repeated but this time with a coda.

In the Andante con moto which follows, Brahms’ ideas almost cry out for orchestral treatment rather than just a piano and three strings as he creates an enormous structure of form and sound that seems to go beyond the possibilities of just four instruments. Of particular note is the very interesting middle section, Animato, which has a martial quality to it; one can almost hear the snare drum, timpani, trumpet and trombones, piccolos and bass drums.

The Rondo all Zingarese has made the greatest impression upon both audience and player alike. The opening theme is a lively dance, a gypsy Csardas. Development of a new idea is followed by a return to the principal subject and an episode of distinctly Hungarian character. A quieter section provides a brief respite before the subject returns and the movement sizzles its way to a brilliant, dizzying end.

Program Notes by R.H.R. Silvertrust © 2003