CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
András Schiff

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 2:00 PM

“His approach to [Beethoven’s] works [is] at once aristocratic and probing.”—New York Times

With this concert, András Schiff completes his highly acclaimed complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, performed in the order of their composition. For Schiff, each of these works “is a masterpiece of individualization and character” that requires a very distinct interpretation. These last three sonatas—composed during the final seven years of Beethoven’s life—are rich in harmonic structure and intricate counterpoint, while still adhering to classical form.

András Schiff, Piano

BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

Program Notes:

Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Opp. 109, 110, and 111
András Schiff in conversation with Martin Meyer

Martin Meyer: Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas, composed between 1820 and 1822, stand as a kind of testament or legacy for posterity, and right up to our time their reception has been correspondingly respectful. Why this deep—and, it would seem, occasionally almost mystical—admiration?

András Schiff: Because both on the analytical and the emotional plane we can hear that the composer once again conceived of creating something extraordinary, and did indeed create it. Beethoven’s drafts and sketches show us that he didn’t just proceed chronologically: Some of the ideas for the individual sonatas overlap, which strengthens the significance of the triptych. Once again, in three works of very different—and yet also occasionally analogous—content, problems of the genre are examined and surmounted with revolutionary solutions.

All the same, some of the Bagatelles, Op. 119 and Op. 126, came after the last sonatas—as did the monumental “ Diabelli” Variations, whose humorous and dance-like structure undermines the notion of the farewell to the piano, as presented in the second movement of Op. 111, in cryptic fashion.

That’s true. And yet, on the one hand the “Diabelli” Variations are as much an expression of speculative profundity as they are of wittily virtuosic explorations of a theme that is in itself harmonically naïve; and, on the other hand, we can ascertain many connections between individual forms and genres within the late works—the six late string quartets, for instance, could be mentioned, but especially the Missa solemnis, whose metaphysical shadow also falls across certain moments in the last three sonatas. In short, Beethoven’s late years show us that thought and feeling create a unity that far transcends specific details.

At the same time, the works in question display a greatly heightened individuality of events. The Op. 109 Sonata ends with a large-scale variation movement forming the main weight of the work; Op. 110 concludes with a fugue; and in Op. 111 the composer makes an unexpected return to a two-movement form.

The two-movement form of the C-Minor Sonata is absolutely intentional: Any supposition that it could have anything to do with a torso lacking a conclusion is absurd. That’s something that Thomas Mann in his novel Doktor Faustus recognized better than certain academics, when he expressly philosophized about the second movement’s air of leave-taking. As is well known, Beethoven had already written two-movement sonatas, and he was familiar with the similar designs by Haydn, which could have served as his model. As a general point about the individualization you mentioned, it needs to be seen against the background of an extremely polyphonic late style. In addition, in contrast to the Classical sonata-movement scheme, it is the through-composed whole, taken as a synthesis of individual fragments and variations, that dominates. But that’s something we can already hear to a certain extent in Mozart, if we think, for instance, of the unorthodox design of the A-Major Sonata, K. 331.

Beethoven had presented groups of three works ever since the beginning of his sonata output. He was always concerned with drawing out a full spectrum of the most varied characters. But in the case of the last three sonatas, the framework isn’t only ruptured because the works carry individual opus numbers. It becomes much more difficult to assign a specific profile to Op. 109–111.

There is indeed a difficulty here—not only for the listener, but also for the performer. Whereas the character of the so-called “Tempest” Sonata, Op. 31, No. 2, or its neighbor, the G-Major Sonata, Op. 31 No. 1, can be described with relative ease—dramatic and elegiac , or witty, ironic and scherzo-like, respectively—the last three sonatas resist a generalized description of that kind. It’s true that like all the previous sonata triptychs they consist of two sonatas in the major and one in the minor, but that’s the limit of what they have in common.

It seems that contrasts in internal structure are taken to an extreme: Beethoven shows himself as a dramatist of the unexpected. You could even say that everything obeys an uncompromising aesthetic—one that is no longer primarily concerned with piano sonority.

Certainly. If you think of the Op. 109 Sonata, its floatingly lyrical beginning would never lead you to suspect that it would be shattered by the following Prestissimo, with its absolutely demonic outbursts. The A-flat Major Sonata, Op. 110 starts out with astonishing simplicity, both in its melodic phrases and their accompaniment. On the other hand, the scherzo, with its references to two popular tunes, bursts out wild und lustig (wildly and merrily), as Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze has it, and the slow movement’s arioso song of mourning embraces worlds of indescribable grief. Or Op. 111: The opening movement reminds us of Dante’s Inferno, while the Arietta’s variations strive ever higher towards paradise. But such literary descriptions in themselves simplify the very complex harmonic and rhythmic interrelationships.

In addition, the time spans of the three works are extremely concentrated: the performance time for all three sonatas is less than 90 minutes.

That makes their interpretative unfolding all the more demanding! Each one of the sonatas is far shorter than the average act of a Wagner opera; but if I may say so, there is in my opinion far more in this music. It’s true, though, that Wagner valued the sonatas highly, and may well have learned a thing or two from them.

Let’s go into details. What are the challenges that have to be met in the E-Major Sonata, Op. 109? Where are the work’s crucial moments and turning points?

On the one hand, a great deal—and especially the wonderfully song-like opening—sounds as though it’s being improvised. On the other hand, the material is worked out down to the smallest detail, as can already be gleaned from the many performance indications and directions in the piece. To translate all this into the reality of sound and time spans is almost impossible. All the same, any impression of pedantry must be avoided: The text should unfold of itself, as though spontaneously. The main theme breaks off after only eight bars, and the pulse is taken over by the second theme—Adagio espressivo—which, with its bold harmonic developments venturing as far afield as D-sharp major, shows quite a different face. What’s needed, then, is a “synthetic” manner of thought and hearing that embraces both aspects of the material at once.

The opening movement’s main theme is related to the finale of the G-Major Sonatina, Op. 79, with the same ascending and descending series of intervals featuring in both works. Is the composer quoting himself?

We can’t be that sure about his intentions, but the harmonic sequence is indeed exactly the same, and Beethoven was of course fully aware of it. Yet the effect of the theme in Op.109 is much more floating and poetical, and furthermore we hear a subtle kind of polyphony. On both the contrapuntal and the modulatory level this evolves in the development section, which does without using the second theme altogether, into something more dramatic, although the music—and the pianist needs to take note of it!—unfolds largely in piano. Only from bar 42, following the sforzato-piano accents, does Beethoven indicate a crescendo. Eventually the reprise flows into a truly radiant forte, and the intervals between treble and bass expand to enormous proportions. This is the pure late style.

Motivically, as a “general denominator” we hear the interval of the third, which had already characterized fundamental aspects of the material and structure in the “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Op. 106.

In Op. 109 the third fulfils a much less commanding or “proclamatory” role, although it is almost omnipresent. It provides for various ambiguities, particularly in the play of light and shade between major and minor, as we hear above all in the coda. Moreover, the fact that the chorale implicit in the main theme is only expressed in static chords in the coda strengthens the music’s emotion. It finally ends without a firm conclusion, with the last fermata anticipating the storm of the prestissimo to come. It’s precisely this sense of pushing forwards in the domain of time that signals cyclical composition of a kind we can already experience in Mozart’s C-Minor Fantasy, K. 475, for example.

This second movement rushes by in utmost haste and agitation—as though everything that has preceded it has to be thrown into great turmoil?

The dramaturgy certainly alters the landscape to an extreme degree, and we can understand why audiences of the day must have found it disturbing. The cut goes very deep, as we can already infer from the dynamic markings: while the first movement dies away piano, the prestissimo immediately begins with a fortissimo blow. Even the later turns to piano show a restless motion, in which it’s nevertheless important for the 6/8 bar to remain perceptible as such. To play it as a sort of “devil’s ride” could obscure the subtle variations Beethoven creates within the overall sonority. For example, when he prescribes a legato in bar 19, it implies that what comes before it should be played non legato. And the same principle of a reading based on the overall context governs the tempos, too.

In other words, concerning the markings the performer constantly has to have their opposite in mind, and to think of their earlier and later significance during the course of the piece?

Exactly. That’s what makes an interpretative reading of Beethoven’s piano sonatas so fascinating, as well as so difficult. As far as the psychology of the movement is concerned, it’s dominated by a profound despair that also makes itself felt, for instance, in the passages where the bass line descends chromatically. The very short development section allows the music’s energetic forces to revolve mysteriously around themselves, with a pedal-point tremolo on the note B-natural for nine bars, and then another on C for four bars. The polyphonic sequences that follow break the motive material down into increasingly smaller sections—and here Beethoven reveals himself as a master of abstraction, in manner that later composers could not match. The movement ends abruptly with three chords in crotchets (quarter-notes) that are to be played in a dry staccato, which I interpret with the strong down-bow of a stringed instrument in mind.

The variation movement brings the sonata to a close in a completely different mood: partly lyrical and cantabile, partly hymn-like—like a process of purification that is reluctant to come to an end.

If I had to name my favorite movement in all 32 sonatas it would be this one, and it has been that way since my childhood. Beethoven probably never composed anything for piano more heartfelt and full of feeling. And yet once again we can admire the craftsmanship on a structural level, from the third motifs, through the rhythmic transitions, to the trills of the last variation which elevate the sonority into the realm of the unreal. The theme itself has the aspect of a sarabande, or a solemn dance—which doesn’t mean that the tempo should be overly slow. And the fact that the theme returns with full expressive weight at the end, albeit in a slightly altered form, reminds us of the “Goldberg” Variations, so we may wonder if Beethoven actually knew Bach’s work.

How would you describe the individual variations in a nutshell?

The first one has operatic traits, particularly in the way the upper line is increasingly separated from the accompaniment in the bass. Beethoven’s Broadwood piano probably couldn’t convey any more than a faint idea of what he had in mind. The second variation, on the other hand, sounds like a mosaic, with fragments of the theme emerging in a pointillistic fashion designed, of course, to remind us of the work’s beginning. Variation 3, which unfolds in an Allegro vivace, departs still further from its thematic model, and actually introduces new material in the nature of a character-variation. On top of that, it assumes the function of a scherzo, so to speak. And the fourth variation introduces a four-part counterpoint, but it’s done with unusual tenderness and warmth, even where Beethoven ventures a fortissimo.

The fifth variation, on the other hand, transforms the sonority into something more muscular, and resumes the style of the fugal sections from the finale of the Op. 101 Sonata.

It’s a specific homage to Bach. Its Alla breve time-signature indicates decisiveness and the fugal technique is as though chiseled out of granite, producing a marked contrast both to the fourth variation and to the penultimate one that follows. The latter diminishes the note-values into increasingly shorter units, yielding the impression of a dissolution of time and melody, in a manner that we hear again in the Arietta of Op. 111. The trills mark the culmination of this process: they are deeply expressive, while the figuration in 32nd-notes delineates the harmonic spectrum. When the theme returns, it clearly forms an ending, yet at the same time the simple triad in the right hand suggests open-endedness. After a conclusion of that kind, applause should really not be allowed.

The opening of the next sonata, Op. 110, in A-flat Major, is similarly imbued with feelings of warmth and lyricism. But that feeling of restfulness doesn’t last for long: Once again, the mood is broken by a quick second movement that introduces an element of danger.

The first movement—a Moderato cantabile molto espressivo, for the opening of which the composer even adds the rather rare marking of con amabilità—breathes an atmosphere of calm and relaxation, even in the development section (once again it is kept short), where the modulations roam in the minor. The poetic key of A-flat major, which we are familiar with from Op. 26, yields a correspondingly soft sonority. After the four-voiced opening, Beethoven develops a wonderful aria over the simplest imaginable accompaniment. Then comes a series of cascading 32nd-notes descending and rising far up into the treble, in which the dots placed above every fourth note don’t really indicate a staccato, but a slight stress. Later (from bar 32 onwards) an element of improvisation should make itself felt.

The development section introduces contrapuntal leanings, emphasized by the music’s spaciousness. A remarkable feature in the recapitulation is the way in which the key of E major emerges, and is led back into the home key after a few bars by a chromatic descent in bare octaves. The coda allows the piece to end very gently and delicately—though three bars before the end the rising fourths of the finale’s fugue theme are hidden in the right-hand part.

Beethoven’s tempo for the impetuous second movement is Allegro molto, introducing—as in the Op. 109 Sonata—a strong contrast.

Absolutely. And yet what we have here is not so much demonically agitated energy, as boisterous anger, humorously underlined by the popular tunes. This isn’t tragic music, and only a ritardando extending over three bars in the second half of the main section sounds like a hesitant, and perhaps even plaintive plea, before two fortissimo hammer blows return us to the music’s original character.

The trio section, with its syncopated rhythm and its eighth-note figuration tumbling repeatedly down, is pianistically notoriously tricky.

It most certainly is. And if the performer has to work hard on them, he might find consolation in the fact that the composer himself labored on them for a long time before he knocked them into shape, as his many sketches show. However, the coda leaves us in limbo: the F-major chord held by the pedal forms a mysterious question-mark and increases the tension of the transition to the Adagio ma non troppo.

This Adagio is one of the greatest confessional moments in all Beethoven. Of its biographical background we know that only shortly before, the composer had recovered from a serious illness.

That may help explain the incredibly subjective role of events in it. But much more important is what Beethoven assimilates at the same time into the objective form of a sonata movement that ventures into absolutely new territory. The introductory bars are followed by a free recitative, whose rhetorical quality is not bound either to a meter or a bar line. Furthermore, the tempo changes here more or less the whole time, until we reach the threshold where the famous Klagende Gesang, or Song of Mourning, begins. This sounds like a the aria “Es ist vollbracht” from Bach’s St. John Passion.

Which can then no longer conceal the sufferings of soul, spirit and body—a moving “De profundis”?

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, the Klagende Gesang or Arioso dolente, with its 12/16 bar—which, incidentally, shouldn’t be taken too slowly—leads with curious steadfastness to its resolution: It dissolves into bare octaves, in order to stride out after the fermata into the 6/8 metre of the first part of the fugue. A-flat minor lightens into A-flat major, and time is transformed wholly organically into brightness and light, in an aspect of convalescence, if you like. The three-part fugue already attests to this through its texture, which is both transparent and contrapuntally strictly maintained. The rising fourth governs the process, which leads through various modulations.

And which is nevertheless interrupted! Beethoven goes back to the Arioso once more, this time even with the psychological marking of Ermattet, klagend (weary, lamenting)—as though the fugue hadn’t yet gathered sufficient strength.

This is another of the bold innovations that characterize the sonata. The reprise of the arioso is of course more intense, with the despair raised to a higher level, and full of hopelessness. As far as the agogics of its performance are concerned, as occasionally in Mozart and later often in Chopin, the two hands should hardly ever go down together in strict time. Only the chord struck ten times deep in the bass, like bells or the chiming of a clock, gradually creates new light—a G major that paves the way for the inversion of the fugue theme, at first like a hard-won plateau. The contrapuntal events are expanded by augmentations and diminutions, in which it should be noted that the quicker note-values, progressively increasing from dotted quarter-notes, to eighth-notes, 16th-notes, and 32nd-notes, are not intended to convey a quicker tempo.

From bar 168, where the 16th-notes are “drawn out” by 32nd-notes, most pianists play noticeably faster.

Wrongly so! Charles Rosen, in opposition to Alfred Brendel, correctly demonstrated that the tempo direction of Meno allegro in the passage in question compensates for the more flowing notation. Throughout the six fold diminution with regard to the “tempo primo” the argument still runs on familiar tracks, until the appearance of the original fugue subject in octaves in the bass confirms the whole process. After that, everything strives heavenward, and we seem to be hearing a whole orchestra with the fugue acquiring the force of a celestial chorale in which, as Alfred Brendel this time aptly says, the music breaks out of the chains of its tribulations thus far. And in contrast to Op. 109 and Op. 111, this penultimate sonata finally ends with an uplifting and radiant fortissimo.

We come to the definitive end of Beethoven’s sonata output. With its two strongly contrasted movements, Op. 111 sets a monumental seal on the series. But in what way?

If we think of the sonata from the viewpoint of the Arietta, as its form would demand, then it has to be preceded by a movement that conjures up the power of fate once again. And the introductory Maestoso, with its diminished-seventh gestures, already seems to lift heavy weights. Like the angry bass entries in Mozart’s C-Minor Fantasy, for instance, the music here demands a sense of outcry and drama. And the trill eruptions on the G deep in the bass, forming a pedal-point transition to the Allegro con brio ed appassionato, are like an earthquake.

The Allegro is peppered with unison passages, though the dramatic structure is enhanced though contrapuntal episodes. In addition there are the many “obstinate” sforzati—the aggressive mood is unmistakable.

We could also mention the wide intervals between the highest treble register and the deep bass, or the fact that the consolatory second subject in A-flat major is allowed so little time to unfold. Because shortly after it another fortissimo unison passage puts paid to the momentary calm. This, incidentally, is a homage to Mozart’s Sonata in A Minor, K. 310, where the same figuration appears in the closing stages of the opening movement. Quite unusually, Mozart gave the piece the heading of Allegro maestoso: the death of his mother was the motivating force behind the outburst of suffering. In the development section Beethoven treats the main theme fugally, while the second subject plays no part, and the coda echoes the preceding atmosphere of shock in the manner of an “after the storm”, quite similarly to the coda in the first movement of the “Tempest” Sonata, Op. 31, No.2, which likewise disappears quietly.

The Arietta is headed Adagio molto semplice e cantabile, and it resolves all the preceding conflicts in a variation movement of transcendent resonance.

The theme is, in a manner of speaking, not unique: it surfaces again with the same melodic intervals in the “Diabelli” Variations. But of course the mood of the two is worlds apart. As far as the tempo is concerned, we have to “parse” the heading: that’s to say, not Adagio molto, but Adagio plus molto semplice e cantabile. A good many performers play it almost unbearably slowly, as if that in itself were a guarantee of profundity. The following variations inhabit a sound-world of very subtly organized polyphony. Like, for example, in the slow movement of the “Appassionata,” Beethoven writes progressively smaller note-values, but it’s important for the 9/16 bar to be audible as such, as it provides the basic pulse for all the later accelerations.

Can one divide the variation movement into individual stages?

The first three variations, with their increase in movement I’ve already mentioned, certainly belong together. Whereas the first sounds like a lullaby, and the second broadens the polyphonic space, the third shows the strongest rhythmic energy. It’s true that there’s no break after that, but through a gradual increase in fluidity the music acquires a murmuring quality, with the chords on the second beat seeming like sighs. The leggiermente rising scales then reach up into the metaphysics of the other-worldly, so to speak; and at the end, before the appearance of the trills and double-trills, the variation form appears to dissolve. And of course since it leaves the home tonality for the region of E-flat major, this great moment forms one of the landmarks of the whole piece. Here, in the enormous intervals between treble and bass of bars 118–119, time really stands still. What comes afterwards is a swan-song, a farewell, and at the same time an ascent to the stars, as Thomas Mann so memorably described it. The long trills of the ending are to be understood as expressive and motivic, and when fragments of the theme’s beginning are finally heard we have experienced a sort of cosmic world-journey. The last right-hand chord, a simple C-major chord, floats away—but where to?

Translation: Misha Donat

András Schiff, Piano
András Schiff was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1953 and started piano lessons at the age of five with Elisabeth Vadász. Subsequently, he continued his musical studies at the Ferenc Liszt Academy with Professor Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág, and Ferenc Rados, and in London with George Malcolm. Recitals and special cycles such as the major keyboard works of J. S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Bartók form an important part of Mr. Schiff’s activities. In 2004 he began a series of performances in Europe exploring the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in chronological order—a project recorded live for ECM New Series, to be released in eight volumes through 2008.

The Beethoven Sonata Project in its entirety continues this season at Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles’s Disney Hall, San Francisco’s Symphony Hall, and Ann Arbor’s Hill Auditorium. Individual recitals are also slated for Chicago, North Carolina, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Princeton, and Washington, DC.

In 1999, Mr. Schiff created his own chamber orchestra, the Cappella Andrea Barca, for a seven-year series of the complete Mozart piano concertos, taking place at the Mozartwoche of the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum in Salzburg. The group, consisting of international soloists, chamber musicians, and close friends, toured North America during the 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 seasons in a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. The six concerts included 12 of the Mozart piano concertos, chamber music and symphonies.

Mr. Schiff has annual engagements with the Philharmonia Orchestra, London, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe as conductor and soloist. He is a regular visitor as conductor and soloist with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Budapest Festival Orchestra, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted Bach’s B-Minor Mass and Haydn’s Creation with the London Philharmonia and was conductor and soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on a critically acclaimed tour of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Since childhood he has enjoyed playing chamber music, and, from 1989 until 1998, he was artistic director of the internationally renowned Musiktage Mondsee chamber music festival near Salzburg. In 1995, together with Heinz Holliger, he founded the Ittinger Pfingstkonzerte in Kartause Ittingen, Switzerland. In 1998, Mr Schiff started a similar series, entitled Hommage to Palladio at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. From 2004 to 2007 he was artist in residence of the Kunstfest Weimar. In the 2007–2008 season he was pianist in residence of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Mr. Schiff has established a prolific discography, including recordings for Teldec (1994–1997), London/Decca (1981–1994), and, since 1997, ECM New Series. Recordings for ECM include the complete solo piano music of Beethoven and Janáček, a solo disc of Schumann piano pieces, and his second recording of Bach “Goldberg” Variations. He has received several international recording awards, including two Grammy Awards for Best Classical Instrumental Soloist (Without Orchestra) for the Bach English Suites, and Best Vocal Recording for Schubert’s Schwanengesang with tenor Peter Schreier; in addition, for the 49th annual Grammy Awards, he was nominated for Best Classical Album (Without Orchestra) for the second volume of his Complete Beethoven Sontata recordings for ECM. In 2009, Mr. Schiff will release an all-Schumann disc on the EMI label.

Among other honors, Mr. Schiff was awarded the Bartók Prize in 1991 and the Claudio Arrau Memorial medal from the Robert Schumann Society in Düsseldorf in 1994. In March 1996, Mr. Schiff received the highest Hungarian distinction, the Kossuth Prize, and in May 1997 he received the Leonie Sonnings Music Prize in Copenhagen. He was awarded the Palladio d’Oro by the city of Vicenza, and the Musikfest-Preis Bremen for “outstanding international artistic work” in 2003. Mr. Schiff has received two awards in recognition of his Beethoven Performances: In June 2006, he became an Honorary Member of the Beethoven House in Bonn, and in May 2007 he was presented with the renowned Italian Prize, the Premio della critica musicale Franco Abbiati, in recognition of his Beethoven sonata cycle. In October 2007, Mr. Schiff was honored by the Royal Academy of Music with the institution’s prestigious Bach Prize, sponsored by the Kohn foundation; the annual prize is awarded to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the performance and/or scholarly study of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

In 2006, András Schiff and the music publisher G. Henle began an important Mozart edition project. In the course of the next few years there will be a joint edition of Mozart’s piano concertos in their original version, to which Mr. Schiff is contributing to the piano parts, the fingerings, and the cadenzas where the original cadenzas are missing. In addition, in 2007 both volumes of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier were edited in the Henle original text with fingerings by Mr. Schiff.

András Schiff has been made an Honorary Professor by the Music Schools in Budapest, Detmold, and Munich. In 2001, Mr. Schiff became a British citizen; he resides in Florence and London and is married to the violinist Yuuko Shiokawa.