Kavakos & Pace

A Wealth of Expression and Form

Works for Violin and Piano by Brahms, Skalkottas, and Enescu

Michael Horst

When 53-year-old Johannes Brahms arrived at the lovely Lake Thun, not far from Berne, for his first visit in 1886, he had no idea that the place would inspire him to write a slew of new chamber music works and songs. Even during that first Swiss summer, he composed the Cello Sonata in F major Op. 99, the Violin Sonata in A major Op. 100, and the Piano Trio in C minor Op. 101, in addition to songs such as Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer and Wie Melodien zieht es mir. One work, on the other hand, remained a torso during that first visit, reaching completion only during Brahms’s third summer in Thun in 1888: the Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor Op. 108. The finished work does not betray this passing of time; its entire conception reveals the mastery of a mature composer using his rich means of expression to meld similar and contrasting elements into one whole.

A notable aspect of this sonata—especially its two outer movements—is that Brahms was clearly aiming for concerto - like brilliance. One possible explanation might be the work’s dedication to the great piano virtuoso and conductor Hans von Bülow, a friend of Brahms. Grand gestures dominate, especially in the first movement’s expansive violin theme. This melody is anchored by an exceedingly agitated piano accompaniment. Indeed, the entire sonata is marked by a certain nervous forward propulsion and by contrapuntal movement—in marked contrast to its sunnier sibling, the Sonata in A major. In the development, an unexpectedly archaic note is struck by the pedal point on the dominant A, held for 46 measures and resulting in tension-filled moments of dissonance. It returns in an abbreviated form toward the end of the Allegro movement, which then comes to a close in bright D major.

The following Adagio is the calm center of the Sonata, with a melancholy, songful melody in the violin that then returns an octave higher with a denser accompaniment from the piano, culminating in a sequence of poignant descending thirds. The scherzo (in 2/4) flits by nervously; the dance-like rhythm seems more important here than the melodic line.

In the finale, marked “presto agitato”—quite unusual for Brahms—the composer once more pulls out all the stops: again, the concerto-like give and take between the protagonists is the movement’s most striking characteristic. Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, the composer’s trusted and expert friend, was reminded by this movement of Guido Reni’s famous Aurora fresco in Rome, a reproduction of which hung on the wall of Brahms’s study: “It has what the finale needs above all: the highest degree of spirited energy. Like the steeds of Aurora in that wonderful picture it races along, and repose is only found in the ever so conciliatory, solemnly beautiful second theme.” Such major-key moments, however, can contain the tempestuous restlessness only for a short while, and with rich piano chords and expressive passages in the violin, the Sonata finally draws to its dramatic close, once more in a minor key.

Greek-born Nikos Skalkottas was not only a composer with a voice genuinely his own. He began his musical career as a highly talented violinist: at the early age of 17, he graduated from the Athens Conservatory, then continued his studies in Berlin thanks to a scholarship. In his violin compositions, as in many of his other works, he adapted the strict rules of dodecaphony established by his revered teacher Arnold Schoenberg according to his own ideas. Not surprisingly, works for violin run through his entire output, beginning with a solo sonata the 21-year-old composed in Berlin in 1925. This was followed towards the end of the 1920s by two sonatinas for violin and piano, and by another pair written in 1935–7, after he was forced to return to Greece. During the 1940s, Skalkottas composed not only another sonata, but also duets for violin and viola, one of them in the form of a double concerto with wind orchestra. At the end of his life, after World War II, we find the two “Little Suites” for violin and piano that can be considered Skalkottas’s violinistic testament. Shortly afterward, the composer died in Athens, at the age of only 45.

The term “Little Suite” should not be misunderstood as a diminutive; the virtuoso demands of the violin part leave nothing to be desired. On the other hand, the Skalkottas expert Kostis Demertzis explains that the two suites were “born of the aesthetic challenge of rendering simple and easily understood musical content by means of twelve-tone technique”. With a view to the earlier period, the composer thereby created “works of searching”—a search that, sadly, could not be continued due to his untimely death. Indeed, the suites are characterized by a remarkable mixture of clear structure and imaginative execution. Basically, Skalkottas adheres to the principles of dodecaphony, but he chooses to give his rows a different order, thereby opening the field to greater variation.

In the first movement of the Little Suite No. 1, which bears the heading “Dance – Preludio,” the melody is quite tonal and rhythmically tight, accompanied by chords that provide the notes missing from the twelve-tone row. This principle also dominates the second movement, “Greek Folk Song,” whose elegiac, seven-note theme is repeated in very different exposures—the other five notes are again given to the piano. The movement is brilliantly lightened by the manner in which Skalkottas varies and ornaments this theme, intensifying it by means of double stops—then thinning it out in the final passage by driving it up into the flageolet range. The finale is a more straightforward affair: again, we are struck by the tonal grounding of the melody, which only the accompaniment takes into atonal spheres. This movement as well is characterized by the concentration with which Skalkottas formulates his musical ideas, succinctly yet flexibly.

The Suite No. 2 has other formal accents. The opening movement is rather rhapsodic in character: a recitative-like introduction (Poco lento) is followed by a dance movement (Moderato mosso), which is broken up several times by passages with a freer rhythm. The material of the second movement is particularly original, as Skalkottas constructs a lengthy theme from broken thirds, which he then subjects to many variations in the following. At times, these thirds are complemented by seconds, forming an uninterrupted line; then, at the exact center of the movement, Skalkottas stacks the thirds on top of each other by means of double stops in the violin. The final movement appears heartily direct, providing the violinist with another opportunity to display full virtuoso abilities.

It is one of the great inconsistencies of music history that George Enescu has almost completely disappeared from the concert stage—except in his homeland of Romania— and has only gradually returned to the collective musical consciousness in recent years, thanks mainly to CD productions. As far as talent is concerned, it doesn’t seem excessively daring to compare him to Mozart or Mendelssohn: at the early age of seven, the young Enescu was admitted to study at the Conservatory in Vienna in 1889 as the youngest violinist ever (which required a special permit), and after graduation at the age of 14, he was sent on to Paris, where he received composition lessons from Massenet and Fauré. When he was 20, Enescu composed his Romanian Rhapsodies, which brought him instant fame; he founded a piano trio and a string quartet, gave concerts as a violinist, conducted increasingly in Europe and America, taught—and managed to be an excellent pianist at the same time.

Throughout his life, his work was centered in Paris and Bucharest; only during the years of communist dictatorship after 1948 did Enescu avoid his homeland. Musically, his close relationship with Romania is obvious, not least in the Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor of 1926, which bears the descriptive subtitle “Dans le caractère populaire roumain.” For Enescu, pointing out this “Romanian folk character” was important, as he explained in 1928: “I don’t use the word ‘style’ because that implies something made or artificial, whereas ‘character’ implies something given, existing from the beginning… In this way Romanian composers will be able to write valuable compositions whose character will be similar to that of folk music, but which will be achieved through different, absolutely personal means.”

The composer no longer considered the approach of using original melodies and clothing them in orchestral garb as suitable—a method he had blithely employed in the Romanian Rhapsodies. The mature Enescu was concerned with making his compositional handwriting and process audible—by means of appropriation of Romanian folk music. This metamorphosis is also found in the Third Violin Sonata: none of its themes is based on an original Romanian melody; instead, the entire piece is imbued with the spirit of what characterizes this music. This includes the blurring of the boundaries between major and minor through the use of chromatic modes, a predilection for quarter-tones, and the extensive use of augmented seconds, so typical for much of the music of the Balkans. But the composer clearly goes beyond this: the nervous rhythms of the first movement reflect 20th-century avant-garde practice, while the dance rhythms of the last movement defy any practical application. The wealth of violinistic ornamentation is reminiscent of the opulence of art nouveau architecture—as the young Enescu would have experienced it around the turn of the century in Vienna and Paris.

Enescu noted even the minutest interpretational details in his score—among them the many fluctuations in tempo and expressivity that already lend the opening passage something of an improvisational character. This is music that knows no development, that revolves around itself. Many passages are to be played “senza rigore” (without a strict measure). Enescu makes ample use of the instruction “lusingando” (languorously), several times we find “lamentoso,” then “patetico.” Portamenti of all kinds obscure clear intonation; the many syncopations in the rhythm create inner tension. Formally, however, Enescu hews to a clear structure: the “melancholy” beginning is followed by a pointedly rhythmic theme, then the movement returns to the “languorous” sphere, before the piano reverts once again to a rhythmically clearer structure, while the violin— “molto espressivo pensieroso”—continues its musical introspection until the gently fading final measures.

The second movement leads the listener into very different sound worlds: above a single high note in the piano, repeated as an ostinato, the violin sings a dolorous melody in the flageolet range. The French pianist Alfred Cortot, Enescu’s duo partner in Paris, felt reminded of the “mystery of Romanian summer nights”: “below, the silent, endless, deserted plains; above, constellations leading off into infinity…” Gradually, the musical fabric grows denser, with the piano focusing on the bass regions and thereby offering the necessary foundation. In a rare concurrence, both instruments soar in emphatic unison before the violin returns once again to the melody of the beginning, now employing a mute, and runs through all the facets of grief— “lusingando,” “tremolando dolente,” “estatico,” “nostalgico”—all the way to into silence.

For the finale, Enescu writes a dance movement of great rhythmical refinement; once again, the syncopations are taken to extremes. A rhapsodic central passage of the violin above insistent piano chords delivers some calm and relief, but the wild dash through Romanian rhythms quickly resumes. Towards the end, all this pathos is concentrated and brought to its conclusion with great expressivity, massive tremoli in the piano, and resounding double stops—all communicated to the performer with the most detailed instructions. Yehudi Menuhin, Enescu’s most famous student, summed up this idiosyncrasy: “I know of no other work more painstakingly edited or planned. It is correct to say that it is quite sufficient to follow the score for one to interpret the work.”