vox 9080

GUIOMAR NOVAES I

MOZART: Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major, K.331

MOZART: Piano Sonata No. 15 in C Major, K.545

MOZART: Piano Sonata No. 5 in G Major, K.283

MOZART: Rondo in A Minor, K.511

PRO MUSICA SYMPHONY VIENNA — HANS SWAROWSKY, conductor

MO

ZA

RT

: S

onatas Nos.

11, K 331; 15, K

. 545; 5, K. 283; R

ondo, K.5

11

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sonata no- 11 in A major, K- 331 Playing Time; 16' 24"

sonata no. 15 in C major, K- 545 Pjaying Time; 11' 35"

sonata no. 5 in G major, K. 283 playing Time 19' 16"

rondo in A minor, K. 511 Playing Time: 9' 05"

GUIOMAR NOVAES, piano

There was a time when Wolfgang Amadeus (or Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus, as he was christened) might have been mistaken for any ordinary child — but that was before he could walk. At that stage, like other curious infants, he'd crawl to his father's harpsichord, hoist himself up and slap down a fistful of keys at random. Music-minded parents sometimes regard similar behavior in their offspring as evidence that another Mozart is in the making. Wolfgang's own father, how¬ ever, was preoccupied with teaching the ABC's of virtuosity to Nannerl Mozart, aged seven. Only when the baby began playing thirds, joyfully, did Leopold realize that something unusual was afoot. At three he could learn easy pieces by heart in half an hour; under Leopold's astute and diligent tutelage he was com¬ posing his own at five. Naturally it was some time before his hand could span the octave. That limited him to an extent.

When Leopold exhibited his two prodigies on a grand tour of Europe, one of the attractions was that Wolfgang could "completely cover the keyboard or manual with a cloth and play upon the cloth as if he had ihe keyboard

before his eyes." — An impressive demonstration, but hardly meaningful. At any rate this manual and digital dexterity, so early acquired, stood Wolfgang in good stead for the rest of his life. It had to. Piano-playing was the one craft he had to fall back on when composing proved unprofitable. And the music he wrote for the clavier, beginning with the earliest pieces carefully set down and preserved by his father, provide something like a continuous record of Mozart's growing skill and maturity as a virtuoso. A few of these works, like the A Minor Rondo, reveal his inmost thoughts and feelings. In the rest Mozart is the polished soloist and inspired improviser, an artist with music in his fingers as well as his head. Playing was second nature to him, as we may imagine. To those who heard him it seemed like child's play. "My God!" exclaimed a fellow pianist after watching him, "how I have to sweat and torment myself, and all for no applause; for you, my friend, it is a mere bagatelle.

"Ah yes," said Mozart, "I had to labor once in order not to show labor now."

The sonatas hold up a mirror to Mozart's effortless style at the keyboard: plain, but not easy; full of life and motion, but not to be rushed. Tempo (the amateur's favorite self-indulgence) was some¬ thing Mozart watched like a hawk. Then as now, pianists tried to set speed records with his music; higher velocities and greater acceleration were something even Orpheus had to contend with among

his pupils. After one memorable encounter, Mozart wrote home:

"Vogler dashed through my sonata. He played the first movement Prestissimo, the andante allegro and the rondo prestissimo with a vengeance. . . At such speed the eyes cannot follow, nor the hands grasp, the music. The hearers (and I mean those worthy of the name) can say nothing more than that they have seen music and clavier playing. You can imagine it was all the more unendurable because I did not dare say to him: Much too quick.Moreover it is much easier to play rapidly than slowly; you can drop a few notes without anyone noticing it. But is it beautiful? At such speed you can use

the hands indiscriminately, but is that beautiful?"

The only proper procedure, Mozart concluded, was to play in the correct tempo, each note expressive and tasteful, and thus "create the impression that the performer composed the piece." One has to

admit that was easier for a Mozart than for most.

The little G Major Sonata numbered. 283 in Kochel's catalogue is the work of the 18-year-old

Mozart, and belongs to the first group of six intended for a Bavarian patron — if that's the word for him, since the fee he promised was never paid. Though at the time he enjoyed the enviable reputation of being able to play at sight anything that was put in front of him, Mozart was encountering unforseen difficulties finding a place in the sun. No longer a rounder kind, but still unable to shoulder a man s responsibilities in the world, he visited city after city in hopes of being asked to stay on as royal, ducal or otherwise courtly musicus. But tne sign reading "Help Wanted: Genius" never materialized.

For its freshness and spontaneous charm this is the best-known of the fledgling sonatas. The Allegro still has the outlines of a sonatina; the sonata-form Andante is warmed by that kind of glowing, thoughtful melody which Schubert was to make a Viennese trademark; in the impulsive Presto he quite outdid himself in the sparkle of his development section. Kochel 283 dates from 1774: three years later Mozart again took to the road. From Mannheim, his mother reported progress and great expectations:

"Wolfgang is highly regarded everywhere . . . here they have pianofortes everywhere and he knows how to handle these so incomparably that nobody has ever heard the like; in a word, everybody

who hears him says that his equal is not to be found." The following spring, mother and son set out for Paris in high hopes of conquering the world

capital of culture. Their timing was poor. The opera-conscious French were embroiled just then in the bitter feud between the followers of Gluck and the adherents of Niccolo Piccini and were not to be distracted by any Austrian pianist. "People make compliments and that's all" he wrote home in disgust. "I'm ordered for such and such a day. I play; then it goes 'Oh, c'est prodige, c'est inconcevable, c est

etonnantl' And with that, Goodbye." At the home of a duchess he was kept waiting for what seemed like hours in an icy, unheated

anteroom, then obliged to play with frozen fingers (while seething in his soul) "on a miserable ailing piano for an audience of so many chairs, tables and walls", since the company was unwilling to pay

attention. Suddenly, after a short illness, his mother died. It was the first great tragedy of his life. He

remained a few more weeks, alone and in a gray despair; then made his way homeward by slow coach and a roundabout route. He left the sonatas he'd composed in Paris in the hands of a local publisher without waiting to see them through the press. They were his diary of the months in France, the musical form of his experiences: among them the poignant a minor remembrance, and another major

tribute, recalling his mother's favorite song: "Rejoice O My Heart, And Banish Pain . . ."

Most celebrated sonatas have only one "popular" movement, or only a single theme, that remains fixed in the public memory. But it would be hard to say which movement of Kochel 331 exerts the more powerful hold on music-lovers' affections — the opening Theme (which Max Reger borrowed for orchestral use) and its extraordinary Variations, or the final Rondo "Alla turca". The tender Minuet, too, belongs to Mozart's best-known keyboard inspirations. That a sonata achieves such stem-to-stern renown is rare enough; what is even more unusual is the absence of any movement in sonata-form. The "Turkish" Rondo (which could be played with a janissary attachment designed to color the clavier tone with a tremulous twang) follows the rococo French fashion for things Eastern — in porcelains,

gardens, plays, operas and architecture.

The little C Major Sonata, Kochel 545, is sometimes thought to be one of Mozart's childhood pieces: it has a child-like air about it, or what the Shakers called "the gift to be simple." Actually, of course, it came into being when Mozart was at the height of his powers, in the same summer of 1788 that produced the three great symphonies -— the 39th, the "G Minor" and the "Jupiter." The sonata has a far more modest purpose. It is inscribed "for beginners", but as countless beginners have discovered, it remains one of the most difficult Mozart sonatas to interpret successfully. Its parts are scaled down to doll-house proportions — an Allegro that comes close to being the apotheosis of the Alberti bass; an Andante that gives the impression of a rondo design, but is really in ternary form; an old-style Rondo briefly touched, in the canonic opening, with the spirit of the old artificer Bach.

Writing for his own fluent piano technique, Mozart was capable of pouring much more into the rondo form. The greatest of his independent rondos, in A Minor, Kochel 511; is charged with the kind of intensity and drama that led Heinrich Heine to the conclusion that "where words leave off, music begins."

From her childhood Guiomar Novaes, who was born in Brazil revealed a great talent for the piano, appearing when only seven years of age in public concert in Sao Paulo, a city of her native land.

After several years of study she evinced such exceptional talent that she was sent to Europe to

perfect her art at the Paris Conservatoire, where very shortly after her arrival she took first prize among the large number of contestants representing many nations of the world. In the first examination she played Schumann's Carnaval and Chopin's Third Ballade. Her interpretation and techni¬ que so impressed the jury that at the second examination she was requested by Faure, Debussy and Moszkowski to repeat the Ballade. The verdict of the jury was unanimous, and Novaes. was placed under the tuition of Isidore Philipp, the eminent pianist and pedagogue. At the end of her second year she received a Premier Prix du Conservatoire, was offered engagements to play in France, Eng* land, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, and was enthusiastically received everywhere.

After a visit to her home in Brazil, Novaes was on the point of returning to Europe, but she came to America instead.

Thus the legend of Guiomar Novaes has become a reality in this country too. Her amazing art has qrown apace with the years of her maturity and today she is one of the world's greatest pianists. ■.

NOTES BY FRED GRUNFELD

© 1955 Vox Productions, Inc., New York 19, N. Y. For best results, use a Diamond Point Stylus with ,001 radius.

DEM. Side 1 Band 2

For those with Wide Range Equipment, it is advised to compensate for the RIAA Curve, (

Printed in VS,Ac

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Son

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11, K

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; 15

, K

545

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283; R

ondo

, K

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