the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.

Dubravka Tomi, pianoThe Folly Theater8 pm Friday, April 10

HAYDN Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob.XVI:52 Allegro Adagio Finale: Presto

BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53, Waldstein Allegro con brio Introduzione : Adagio molto Rondo: Allegretto moderato; Prestissimo

I N T E R M I S S I O N

CHOPIN Fantaisie in F Minor, Op. 49

Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 1

Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2

Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22

This concert is underwritten, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts

The Master Pianists Series is underwritten, in part, by the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation

t h e m u r i e l m c b r i e n k a u f f m a n m a s t e r p i a n i s t s s e r i e s

Additional support is also provided by:

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Sonata in E-flat Major, Hob.XVI:52 Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

If you think of Haydns keyboard works as well-mannered, thin-textured galant pieces suitable for student pianists, you might want to regroup. This late E-flat Major sonata is big, brash, and aggressive. Its dramatic chordal opening demands attention. Only the most gifted student pianists could master this sonatas technical challenges. Two principal factors affected the metamorphosis in Haydns keyboard writing: English fortepianos and the German-born pianist Therese Jansen. Although Haydns principal instrument was the violin, he could make his way around the keyboard instruments and was a competent pianist. When he arrived in London in the 1790s, his acquaintance with keyboards centered on Viennese harpsichords and fortepianos. Like Paris, London was a center of innovative piano manufacturing. Haydn was delighted with the new English instruments, particularly those made by the firms of Longman & Broderip and Broadwood. Their fuller sonority and capacity for rapid repeated notes influenced his keyboard writing throughout the 1790s. Eventually he ordered a Broadwood piano for his use in Vienna. Haydn met Therese Jansen during his first trip to London and admired her playing. He composed at least two (and probably all three) of his last solo sonatas for her, and later dedicated three piano trios to her as well. They apparently became good friends, for he served as a witness at her wedding to Gaetano Bartolozzi in London in May 1795. If the E-flat Major sonata is any indicator, Miss Jansen (as she is identified in Haydns correspondence) must have had a formidable technique. The sonata bristles with big chords, extended phrases in parallel thirds, rapid repeated notes, octave passages, crossed hands, and brisk passage work demanding evenness of touch. Dynamics change rapidly. One needs both pianistic control and a responsive instrument.

The sonatas three movements are startlingly different in character, warranting wholesale gear-shifting to accommodate the musics personalities. The first movements heroic opening is an outgrowth of the French overture. That, and the theatrical gestures that follow, make a statement that this is decidedly public music. The second movement, the Adagio, is in the astonishing key of E Major, a key that has four sharps as opposed to the three flats of the outer movements in E-flat Major*. This movement requires an interpreter who can meld rhythmic precision with intense expressivity. Rhythms are complex and detailed, sometimes with florid ornamentation that foreshadows Chopinesque flights of fancy. Haydn uses unisons effectively, their unexpected spare sound adding to the eloquence. The finale is Haydn at his wittiest, teasing us even as to what key we are in at the beginning (he settles back iton E-flat Major). Repeated notes, sudden stops, and broken chords that dart between the two hands add to the sparkle. Power, delicacy, and moments of lingering expressivity all manifest themselves in this sonata. The boldness of its harmonic relationships and the blazing celebration of high classic technique mark it as perhaps Haydns greatest keyboard composition.

Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53, Waldstein Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Count Ferdinand Ernst Joseph Gabriel Waldstein (1762-1823) was a Bohemian nobleman who joined the Teutonic Order in his twenties. He served the Elector Maximilian Franz, Grand Master of the Order, for much of his early career, working as a diplomatic envoy. Maximilian Franz was the youngest son of the Austrian Emperor Franz I and became Archbishop and Elector of Cologne and Bishop of Mnster in 1784.

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* Our annotator makes an important observation here. The choice of a key for a composer is akin to the choice of a color for a painter. In music, each key has its own particular color and characteristics which establishes the atmosphere of a work. In the E- flat major sonata, Haydn puts us on high alert that he is moving from one world to another. The development section of the first movement foreshadows the astonishing key of the second, we would never believe that Haydn will actually devote an entire movement to this interloper of a planet until we hear it. In all of his 55+ piano sonatas, Haydn never repeats this radical a change of keys between movements again. -Cynthia Siebert

the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.

Count Ferdinand von Waldstein by Antonn Machek, circa 1800

Beethoven met Count Waldstein in 1788, when the Elector summoned the Count to Bonn to be knighted. Both the Elector and the Count were cultured men and passionate about music. Waldstein was among the first to recognize the teenage Beethovens prodigious talent and potential. He and the young composer socialized frequently in Bonn, and Beethoven wrote music for a ballet that the Count presented for Carnival season. Beethoven also composed variations for one piano, four hands on a theme by Waldstein, WoO 67. When Beethoven moved to the Austrian capital in 1792 to study with Haydn, Waldstein famously wrote to him, You are now going to Vienna in fulfilment of your long-held wish. . . . As a result of unceasing effort, you will receive Mozarts spirit from Haydns hands.

Waldstein is best remembered today as the dedicatee of this C Major Piano Sonata, which is identified universally by his surname. The dedication is something of a mystery in Beethoven scholarship. Waldstein served in the British army from 1795 to 1805, and is not known to have had any contact with Beethoven in 1803 and 1804, when Beethoven composed his Opus 53. The sonata is one of the triumphs of Beethovens so-called heroic decade and one of the great middle-period piano works. He was inspired in part by the gift of a new piano by the French instrument maker Sebastian rard in 1803, which had an extended upper range. Bold pianistic innovations in the Waldstein reflect his experimentation with that keyboard, particularly in the high register. All three movements of the sonata open pianissimo, and the designation pp (pianissimo, very soft) appears frequently throughout the score. The pulsing C Major chords that open the Allegro con brio are more gesture than melody; it is Beethovens subsequent little fillips of commentary seemingly throwaway motives-that will provide essential material for his development section. The second theme is a grand, chorale-like idea in the distant key of E Major (with four sharps), rather than the conventional modulation to G Major (with only one sharp), which one would expect in a sonata in C Major (no sharps). He expands the chorale theme with triplets that usher in a series of closing themes organically related to the opening idea. Such ingenious surprises abound throughout the first movement. Beethovens original slow movement was an Andante in F Major. He rethought the pacing and balance of the sonata and withdrew that movement, eventually publishing it independently as the popular Andante favori, WoO57. His replacement for the Waldstein is marked Introduzione: Adagio molto. It is the one of many middle period slow movements in which he proceeds directly to the finale. (Connecting the last two movements became a favorite device. Beethoven would do the same in the Appassionata and Les Adieux Sonatas, the A Major Cello Sonata, the Fifth Symphony, the Violin Concerto, and the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos.)

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This Introduzione is shorter than the Andante favori, but has more emotional depth. The music asks profound questions, moving in spare textures through a series of startling modulations. We are not quite certain whether this is a free-standing slow movement or an eloquent preface to the finale: a bridge between two mighty C Major shores. When the delicate arpeggios of the Allegretto moderato return us to the home tonality, Beethovens rondo theme feels like a ray of sunlight. His episodes introduce elaborate left hand passage work and extensive right hand trills. The atmosphere is elated, even ecstatic, clearly foreshadowing the transcendent world of the late sonatas and quartets. A prestissimo coda in double time brings the Waldstein to a jubilant close. Fantaisie in F Minor, Op. 49 Frdric Chopin (1810-1849)

The Fantaisie is one of a kind. Critics often group it with Chopins four Ballades, but the Fantaisies relationship to them is really peripheral. Unique among Chopins works, its only analogues are the Berceuse, Op. 57 and the Barcarolle, Op. 60, each one unique in its own way. This work is an incomparable jewel. The Fantasie, Op 49 should not be confused with the flashy Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. Posth. 66: deservedly popular, but a work of lesser depth and polish. This extraordinary Fantaisie, which must be considered one of Chopins