CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Andrew Manze
Richard Egarr

Zankel Hall
Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Andrew Manze, Violin
Richard Egarr, Piano

BACH Violin Sonata in C Minor, BWV 1017
PARRY Violin Sonata in D Major

MOZART Violin Sonata in F Major, K. 376
SCHUBERT Sonata in A Major, D. 574, "Duo"

Encore:
SCHUBERT FRANZ SCHUBERT Allegro Moderato from Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor, D. 408

Sponsored by Smith Barney

Program Notes:

By Andrew Manze

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Sonata No. 4 in C Minor, BWV 1017
Born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach; died July 28, 1750, in Leipzig.

Composed about 1720, the Sonata in C Minor was first performed at Carnegie Hall on November 12, 1933, with Jascha Heifetz, violin, and Arpad Sandor, piano.

Bach’s six sonatas for violin and harpsichord, composed around 1720, were some of the earliest of his chamber pieces to be enjoyed and performed widely during the 19th-century renaissance of interest in his music. This was perhaps for the simple reason that the keyboard part was obbligato (i.e., fully written out) rather than continuo (improvised from a figured bass line), which made pianists’ lives easier. Of the six, the C-Minor Sonata was the one violinists most frequently opted to play, perhaps for the simple reason—violinists are often simple souls!—that the violin carries the tune in both slow movements. The Largo is reminiscent of the haunting aria Erbarme dich, “Have mercy on me, O Lord,” which follows Peter’s denial in the St. Matthew Passion. The Adagio is a conversation between the violin and itself, each strong phrase echoed or mirrored by a softer one, while the keyboard provides a Schubertian background. The Allegros show clearly why Bach and his sons referred to these pieces as trios despite the fact that there are only two musicians involved. The three “voices” are violin, keyboard left hand, and keyboard right hand. Each is equally responsible for the music’s flow and for what one might call its democracy, where harmony and conflict are carefully balanced in perfect counterpoint. (Note the etymology of counter- rather than con-point!)

The Manze-Egarr duo has long been performing this sonata with baroque violin and harpsichord. Although we have no way of knowing how Bach would have reacted to today’s ubiquitous, big black pianos, we know he was fascinated by the new-fangled fortepiano and certainly owned one towards the end of his life. Using updated equipment serves to remind us that many of the great composers became familiar with Bach’s music via the piano.


HUBERT PARRY Sonata in D Major for violin and pianoforte
Born February 27, 1848, in Bournemouth; died October 7, 1918, in Rustington, Sussex.

Composed in 1888–89, Parry’s Sonata in D Major receives its Carnegie Hall premiere tonight.

Sir Hubert Parry, as he was to become, was arguably the most important figure in English musical life in the last decades of the 19th century. “The head of our art [i.e., music] in this country” (Elgar), his star was in the ascendant during the glory years of Victorian England and the heyday of Empire. His Third Symphony was the most performed symphony in England for many years—aptly enough its nickname is the “English”—so it may seem surprising that few music lovers are nowadays knowingly familiar with Parry’s music. I say knowingly because much of the population regularly sings itself hoarse with Parry’s “Jerusalem” at sporting occasions, school assemblies, and The Last Night of the Proms.

Parry’s importance extended beyond his own compositions. He was Director of the Royal College of Music, contributed numerous seminal articles to the first Grove Dictionary of Music, and wrote important monographs about uncharted musical dark ages, such as the 17th century. He also produced one of the first biographies in English of that dimly known figure, J. S. Bach. So Parry would be doubly proud—and amazed, no doubt—to find himself sandwiched in this program between such objects of veneration, Bach, Mozart, and Schubert. His presence this evening is, however, far from an empty, musicological gesture of antiquarian, patriotic interest. This is fine music, under the sway of Brahms and Schumann while resisting the influence of Wagner and Liszt; distinctive, expressive, and emotional without being self-indulgent; pathos without bathos; in a word, English.


WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Sonata in F Major, K. 376
Born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria; died December 5, 1791, in Vienna.

Composed in 1782, the Sonata in F Major was first performed at Carnegie Hall on December 6, 1937, with Yehudi Menuhin, violin, and Ferguson Webster, piano.

K. 376 was composed during 1782, a pivotal year for Mozart. Having lost his Salzburg court position in disgrace the previous year, Mozart was forced to move to Vienna and, to use modern parlance, go freelance. His main source of income at first was through teaching the daughters of rich families. The fee was essential, of course, but the concomitant lunches came in useful as well. One such lady pupil was Josepha Auernhammer, whom Mozart lampooned mercilessly in letters home in an attempt to humor his father. Though her playing “is enchanting,” he said, “she is heavy like a peasant wench and sweats to make you sick.” The truth is that Fraulein Auernhammer was the closest Mozart came to having a star pupil. She was even rather sweet on her teacher, and the two were good enough friends for Mozart to dedicate his Op. 2 to her, a set of six violin sonatas, which includes K. 376.

Mozart’s newfound freedom might account partly for this sonata’s joie de vivre, as might the fact that he was lodging with the Weber family, to his father’s chagrin. A few years earlier, Mozart had fallen in love with the eldest Weber daughter, Aloysia, who rejected his advances. This time the younger Constanza stole his heart, and he hers, and they married with his father’s grudging, eleventh-hour blessing.

Op. 2 has a conventional title for the time which reads oddly today: “sonatas for the harpsichord or pianoforte with the accompaniment of a violin.” That the harpsichord is listed before the piano reflects the fact that many private homes would still have had old harpsichords rather than a piano in 1782. That the violin is listed last goes some way to explaining why many violinists have avoided this great music. In early Classical sonatas it is admittedly the case that the violin merely accompanies the piano. Mozart’s mature sonatas, however, are true chamber music, a partnership of equals. At the opening of K. 376, for example, the first three chords are shamelessly orchestral in tone. The piano then proceeds as the “soloist” in two phrases that the violin supports with long notes. The roles are reversed in the third phrase. This sense of orchestral color and concerto-style solo/tutti interplay runs throughout the sonata. The violinist’s contribution extends far beyond mere program notes!


FRANZ SCHUBERT Sonata in A Major, D. 574, “Duo”
Born January 31, 1797, in Vienna; died there November 19, 1828.

Composed in 1817, the Sonata in A Major was first performed at Carnegie Hall on October 23, 1926, with Toscha Seidel, violin, and Emanuel Bay, piano.

“Anyone who has seen [Schubert] of a morning occupied with composition, aglow, with his eyes shining and his speech changed, like a somnambulist, will never forget the impression.”
—Josef von Spaun, lifelong friend

This sonata, his fourth and last for violin, was composed only just over a year after his three so-called “Sonatinas”, in August 1817, a watershed moment in Schubert’s life when he came of age as a man and truly found his own voice as a composer. Gone is the reliance on Mozart as a model, gone the nods towards Beethoven. His first paid commission, the cantata Prometheus (now lost), was such a success that he was emboldened to quit the teaching post in his father’s school, move away from home to live in central Vienna and suspend his lessons with Salieri. The arrival in town of Rossini’s company was giving him all sorts of new ideas and, meanwhile, songs kept pouring from his pen, amongst them miniature masterpieces such as “Der Tod und das Mädchen” and “Der Wanderer.” These in turn brought him an important new friend, interpreter, and ambassador, the well-known baritone Johann Michael Vogl, with whom Schubert performed his songs, both musicians often squinting at a newly finished, ink-damp manuscript. There were problems, however. With no secure income and dependent on the hospitality of his friends, Schubert was forced to give up the hope he had been entertaining of marriage (to a singer, Therese Grob), his first and, as far as we know, last thought in that direction.

Amidst such change, the A-Major Sonata is a carefree, radiant work. The opening Allegro glides along like an endless, wordless song and the remaining three movements are in triple time, as if Schubert cannot restrain the urge to dance. He brings a newfound lyricism to the harmonic progressions and melodies which we now take for granted as being Schubertian but which must have sounded novel in 1817. Take, for example, the slow chromatic scale which starts the Trio so ambiguously. As one of his friends put it, Schubert was “a heaven-inspired clairvoyant who, as it were, simply shook the most glorious things out of his sleeve.”

Copyright © 2007 by The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Andrew Manze, Violin
Through his work as conductor, violinist, and broadcaster, Andrew Manze has become known for the energy and insight he brings to a remarkable range of music. As a conductor he has a particularly wide range of expertise from the Baroque through the Classical periods, as well as 19th- and 20th-century repertoire. As a violinist he specializes in music from 1610 to 1830. He also teaches, edits, and writes about music, and broadcasts regularly on radio and television.

After reading Classics at Cambridge University, Mr. Manze studied the violin with Simon Standage and Marie Leonhardt. He was Associate Director of the Academy of Ancient Music from 1996 to 2003, and Artistic Director of the English Concert from 2003 to 2007, succeeding the founder Trevor Pinnock in this role. Since the 2006–07 season he has been Principal Conductor of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra in Sweden, and also holds the title of Artist in Residence with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

As a guest conductor Mr. Manze is in rapidly growing demand throughout Europe and the US. He has regular engagements with a number of leading orchestras including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and NDR Hannover. In 2006–07 he made his debut with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and the Northern Sinfonia, and in 2007–08 he will conduct the City of Birmingham Symphony, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and Munich Philharmonic for the first time.

Andrew Manze records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA and has released an astonishing variety of CDs. His latest release is of Handel arias and scenes for tenor with Mark Padmore and the English Concert. His recent recording of Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 3–5 with the English Concert was voted Disc of the Week by BBC Radio 3’s CD Review, Disc of the Month by Classic FM Magazine, and Orchestral Choice by BBC Music Magazine. Other recordings with the English Concert include Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, concertos from Vivaldi`s little-known Viennese La cetra, and a recently unearthed Biber mass. These are in addition to the string of award-winning discs Mr. Manze made with the Academy of Ancient Music.

His long-standing collaboration with Richard Egarr has won great acclaim. Their recordings have won the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Gramophone Award, and a 2003 Grammy nomination, and include sonatas by Bach, Handel, and Biber. Mr. Manze and Mr. Egarr’s most recent recording, of Mozart’s 1781 violin sonatas, has been similarly well received. Gramophone praised “a manner of performance that is at once vigorous and laid back, unforced but forthright. Notable characteristics include seemingly effortless fiddle-playing style . . . an ingredient that Manze and Egarr display in abundance is imagination.”

Mr. Manze is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and a Visiting Professor at the Royal College of Music, London, and has contributed to new editions of sonatas and concertos by Mozart and Bach published by Bärenreiter and Breitkopf and Härtel.

Richard Egarr, Piano
Richard Egarr is one of the most versatile musicians of his generation. He has worked with all types of keyboards and performed repertoire ranging from 15th-century organ intabulations to Dussek and Chopin on early pianos and to Berg and Maxwell Davies on modern piano. He is in great demand as a soloist and chamber musician, as well as a conductor.

Mr. Egarr began his musical training as a choirboy at York Minster, at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, and later became an organ scholar at Clare College Cambridge. His study with Gustav Leonhardt further inspired his work in the field of historical performance.

As a conductor, Richard Egarr has presented a wide range of repertoire, from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to John Tavener’s Ikon of Light. He has worked with specialized ensembles and modern orchestras alike. Recent guest productions include Handel’s Esther, Acis and Galatea, Alcina, Messiah, L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and dramatic Handel opera arias with soprano Emma Bell and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, as well as Haydn’s Creation, Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Bach’s B-Minor Mass, Telemann’s St. Matthew Passion, and Stokowski arrangements with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

During the 2006–07 season Mr. Egarr directed a staged version of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, a production that will be revived in 2008. His debut at the Flemish Radio Orchestra (conducting Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique) prompted a new invitation for next season. He also led the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Bach’s Matthew Passion (with the Dutch Bach Society, and, in a staged version, at Glyndebourne).

Richard Egarr is director of the Amsterdam-based Academy of the Begijnhof. This year he was appointed as Christopher Hogwood’s successor as Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music.

As soloist, Mr. Egarr has performed extensively in the major music festivals throughout Europe and Japan. He toured the US in 2006 with Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations to great critical acclaim. He has also appeared as orchestral soloist, recently with the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra, with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, and with the Netherlands Wind Ensemble.

In chamber music, Mr. Egarr forms an “unequalled duo for violin and keyboard” (Gramophone) with violinist Andrew Manze. They have toured Europe and North America with music from the Stylus Phantasticus and late Baroque. They have recently turned to later repertoire with performances of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Hubert Parry.

Richard Egarr records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA. His solo discs include works by Frescobaldi, Gibbons, Couperin, Purcell, J. S. Bach, and the complete recording of the keyboard works of Johann Jakob Froberger. Recent recordings include Per Cembalo Solo (Gramophone Editor’s Choice), Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, and a disc featuring fantasies and rondos by Mozart. Many of his numerous and exciting recordings with violinist Andrew Manze have been awarded with international prizes, including violin sonatas by Rebel, Pandolfi (Gramophone Award), Handel (Grammy Nomination), Bach, Corelli (Prix Caecilia), Biber’s “Rosary” Sonatas, (Edison Award) and Mozart’s “Auernhammer” Sonatas. With the Academy of Ancient Music he recorded the complete Bach harpsichord concertos. Upcoming issues include solo keyboard music by Louis Couperin; Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I; and (with the Academy of Ancient Music) Handel’s Concerti Grossi Op. 3 and the Organ Concertos Op. 4 and 7.