CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Christian Tetzlaff
Leif Ove Andsnes

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 8:00 PM

Christian Tetzlaff, Violin
Leif Ove Andsnes, Piano

JANÁČEK Violin Sonata
BRAHMS Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108

MOZART Violin Sonata in F Major, K. 377
SCHUBERT Rondo in B Minor, D. 895, "Rondo brillant"

Encores:
SIBELIUS Danse champêtre No. 5 from Cinq danses champêtres, Op. 106
SIBELIUS Danse champêtre No. 2 from Cinq danses champêtres, Op. 106
RAVEL Perpetuum mobile from Sonata for Violin and Piano

Program Notes:

LEOŠ JANÁÈEK (1854–1928)
Sonata for Violin and Piano

Some dozen years younger than his compatriot Antonín Dvoøák and an exact contemporary of John Philip Sousa, Moravian composer Leoš Janáèek is best known for his opera Jenufa (1904), which reflects his interest in translating the contours and rhythms of the Czech language into musical gestures. His engagement with folklore and traditional songs informs all of his music, but the Sonata for Violin and Piano owes to a more modern inspiration: the tumult of World War I. As the composer himself revealed, “I could just about hear sounds of the steel clashing in my troubled head.” What Janáèek heard was the mobilization of Russian troops: sketches for the sonata bear the date August 1, 1914—the day Germany declared war on Russia (Janáèek supported the Slavs.) Actually, however, the second movement ballada predates the war, and the composer worked on the sonata even beyond the conflagration, revisiting and revising the piece up to its premiere in 1922.

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)
Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108

Brahms’s Third Violin Sonata belongs to a trio and a quartet: it is the third of his sonatas for violin (and the only one with four movements), and one of four chamber works begun in summer 1886 while the composer was in Switzerland (the others being the Second Violin Sonata, Second Cello Sonata, and Third Piano Trio). Musicologist Walter Frisch has noted the extreme economy of these late chamber works: despite falling in four movements, for example, this violin sonata occupies a mere 20 minutes. It reveals Brahms’s investment in traditional form and harmony, structure and development, at a time when other composers in the so-called “New German” School—Franz Liszt the chief among them—instead explored more discursive musical styles, narrative genres, and chromatic harmonies. Brahms’s music is no less affecting, however, for its sophisticated formal logic.

The first Allegro movement follows the established pattern of a classical sonata-allegro form even as the character of the music is entirely Romantic: the tone is expansive, impassioned, and stormy; the ideas restless and vigorous. A first theme in the home key of D minor is introduced in the upper reaches of the violin above an unsettled piano accompaniment; this contrasts with the second theme’s more stable major mode, presented by the piano and then echoed by the violin.

After a decisive cadence, both themes are fragmented, varied, and reworked in the middle section of the movement, the development. A seething tension builds as the piano repeats a single low pitch—known as a pedal point, akin to the pedal held down by an organist’s feet—that seeks some resolution, pulling inexorably back toward the home key. D minor returns with the first theme in the recapitulation; however, as is typical of his developmental style, Brahms continues to explore his musical ideas even in a section that would usually present a complete restatement and simple confirmation. Here, however, the rhythms and shapes of the two themes provide fodder for endless invention. The entire movement closes quietly and serenely in the major mode.

The Adagio develops and varies a single, song-like melody. At the emotional highpoint of the movement, the violinist performs double-stops that produce gut-wrenching chords. The emotion slows saps, but the mood remains melancholic. The more concentrated middle movements are capped off by a generous gallop of a finale with the Presto agitato. Consistent with the principles of rondo form, themes are introduced, return, disappear, and reappear in various guises. Even the more tender moments possess a driving intensity and a fiery energy.


WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)
Violin Sonata in F Major, K. 377

Three of the six “Auernhammer” sonatas (K. 376, 377, and 379), dedicated to the gifted amateur violinist Josepha von Auernhammer, were composed at a crucial moment in Mozart’s career. Having moved to Vienna in March 1781, Mozart was quite literally kicked out of the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg (dubbed the “Arch-Oaf” by the composer) in May. He had hoped to secure a position of patronage in Vienna, preferably at the Imperial Court, but instead found himself a working stiff, composing for hire. These three sonatas, written in summer 1781, were the first important chamber pieces penned by the newly freelance composer; as such, they constituted his resumé for employment.

The first Allegro movement is a sonata-allegro form seemingly favoring the first theme and its brash blur of triplets. The second Andante movement is a set of variations in a minor key that culminates in the fourth variation; the final Tempo di Menuetto is a rondo. In a 1783 review of the six sonatas, a critic praised the pieces as “rich in invention, well suited to each instrument … evidence of the composer’s great musical genius.”

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
Rondo in B Minor, D. 895, “Rondo brilliant”

Schubert wrote his Rondo in B Minor in October 1826 for Czech pianist Karl Maria von Bocklet and violinist Josef Slawjk. At the time one of the most popular forms on Viennese concert programs, the rondo made a fitting entrée for these two virtuosi into the musical life of the capital.

This is no simple showpiece, however—a weighty work that reflects Schubert’s compositional skills as much as the talents of his performers. The rondo begins with a slow introduction, the sharply dotted rhythms in the piano recalling the style of a Baroque French overture, so named for composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. The stately opening procession leads to a more lyrical section; the introduction ends with a return of the dotted rhythms in the piano and melds seamlessly into the main Allegro.

The rondo itself falls into a familiar series of related episodes capped by a coda. The first theme in the violin is a jaunty line best recognized by its opening rhythms: short-long, short-long, with a flurry of repeated notes accompanied by chords broken between the pianist’s right and left hands. An initial presentation of the theme leads quickly to the second episode, which is more lyrical, before the rondo theme returns. The piano accompaniment grows ever more challenging, and the pianist comes to the fore as an equal partner just a few minutes into the Allegro. The rondo tests the stamina of both performers in this bravura dialogue.

Schubert himself attended the first performance of the piece and must have been pleased enough: in 1827, he dedicated the Fantasy in C (D934) to Slawjk, who gave its premiere with Bocklet again at the piano.