94770 Kozeluch Keyboard Sonatas 2CD_BL2 v7_. 06/11/2014 12:07 Page 2
Leopold Kozeluch 1747–1818 Complete Keyboard Sonatas – Volume 1 Compact Disc 1
75’15
Compact Disc 2
70’34
1 2 3
Sonata No.1 in F Op.1 No.1 (PXII:8) I. Allegro molto II. Cantabile III. Rondeau: Presto
6’34 9’33 3’57
1 2 3
Sonata No.5 in A Op.2 No.2 (PXII:12) I. Moderato II. Andante III. Allegretto
8’57 7’17 3’43
4 5 6
Sonata No.2 in E flat Op.1 No.2 (PXII:9) I. Allegro II. Poco adagio III. Allegro
6’36 6’41 5’39
4 5
Sonata No.6 in C minor Op.2 No.3 (PXII:13) I. Largo – Poco presto – Largo II. Allegretto
8’55 3’27
7 8 9
Sonata No.3 in D Op.1 No.3 (PXII:10) I. Allegro con brio II. Poco adagio III. Rondeau: Prestissimo
6 7 8
Sonata No.7 in D (PXII:14) I. Allegro moderato II. Menuetto – Trio – Menuetto III. Rondeau: Allegro
4’36 3’52 2’32
Sonata No.4 in B flat Op.2 No.1 (PXII:11) 10 I. Allegro 11 II. Adagio 12 III. Allegretto scherzando
5’46 9’07 4’01
8’21 4’40 3’51
Sonata No.8 in F Op.5 ‘La Chasse’ 9 I. Allegro molto 10 II. Andante con variazioni 11 III. Rondeau: Presto
11’41 10’57 4’08
Jenny Soonjin Kim fortepiano
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Kozeluch, champion of the fortepiano The music of Leopold Kozeluch has slowly but steadily been attracting modern attention. While the Bohemian composer’s name still is not quite on the tip of most music connoisseurs’ tongues, it may be before too long, if the recent upsurge in scholarly writings, critical editions and period-instrument performances of his music is any indication. Such renewed interest seems long overdue, for although it is undeniably true that Kozeluch’s reputation was ultimately eclipsed by the legacies of the towering figures Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, accounts by contemporaneous writers clearly attest to his having been held in the greatest esteem in Vienna during his lifetime, ranking even higher than Mozart as a musician. Kozeluch was born in Velvary, Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic), in 1747. He studied composition in Prague with his cousin Jan Antonin Kozeluch and with the Czech composer and pianist František Xaver Dušek. After composing ballets and other stage works there during the 1770s, he moved (in 1778) to Vienna, where he became a successful teacher and, in 1785, founded a music publishing house. Although in 1781 he had refused an offer to serve as court organist to the Archbishop of Salzburg – where he would have succeeded Mozart – in 1792 he accepted an appointment as Hofmusik Compositor and Kammer Kapellmeister to the imperial court, immediately succeeding Mozart in that capacity, and retaining the post until his death in Vienna in 1818.1 Kozeluch can be regarded as a pioneer of a compositional style both musically and technically suited to the fortepiano, and his championing of this instrument even led him to discourage the use of the harpsichord. (Nevertheless, the title pages of the published sonatas through to No.37 refer to them as being for harpsichord or fortepiano.) Some of his contemporaries praised him for this: ‘The vogue of the fortepiano is due to him [Kozeluch]. The monotony and the muddled sound of the harpsichord could not accommodate the clarity, the delicacy, the light and shade he demanded in music; he therefore did not accept students who failed to show sympathy for the fortepiano as well, and it seems that he has no small share in the reformation of taste in keyboard music.’2 Although both Mozart and Beethoven criticised Kozeluch’s playing, his compositions – which include numerous keyboard concertos and symphonies, chamber pieces with keyboard instrument, several operas, oratorios, cantatas and many sacred works – were highly influential. Kozeluch also composed no fewer than 50 keyboard sonatas that are noteworthy for their variety, complexity and
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beauty. The English music historian Charles Burney affirmed their quality, writing: ‘[Kozeluch’s] style is more easy than that of Emanuel Bach, Haydn or Mozart; it is natural, graceful and flowing, without imitating any great model, as almost all his contemporaries have done. His modulation is natural and pleasing, and what critics of the old school would allow to be warrantable. His rhythm is well phrased, his accents well placed, and harmony pure.’3 The majority of Kozeluch’s keyboard sonatas, including those recorded on this album, were originally published in Vienna under the composer’s supervision; many were also presented by publishers in London and Paris. No autographs of Kozeluch’s keyboard sonatas survive. The present recording follows, in both text and order, the superb new edition of these works by the late English scholar and musician Christopher Hogwood.4 The first four sonatas (CD1) consist of three movements, fast–slow–fast, with homophonic, cantabile-style central movements in the subdominant key. Sonatas Nos. 5 and 6 (CD2) deviate from this formula in that they open with slow movements (Sonata No.6, with only two movements, begins with one that has a tripartite structure, slow–fast–slow). Sonatas Nos. 7 and 8 (CD2) have unusually imaginative central movements – one a minuet with trio, the other a set of theme and variations – and No.8, subtitled ‘La Chasse’, evokes a hunt with clear allusions to horn calls in the first movement. The musical interest of all these works lies mainly in the subtly different emotional shadings of each, in the ingenious use of many types of devices, and in the sheer beauty of the melodic material; Kozeluch’s themes, while skilfully constructed and developed, still have a deceptively simple quality that makes them all the more memorable, if not haunting. The works are written in a variegated and expressive galant style, the composed material punctuated by periodic fermatas that invite extemporisation. They share many similar characteristics that demonstrate the ingenuity of a composer who seems to have worked with uncommon ease and fluidity. All of the expected devices of the period are in evidence here – abundant sequences, rapid passage-work, written-out chordal arpeggiations, broken-chord accompaniments, parallel thirds/sixths, dotted/triplet/appoggiatura figures, repeated notes, tremolos, octave doublings, sudden dynamic contrasts and expressive chromaticism – but in the hands of Kozeluch, as in those of all fine composers, they produce a musical whole that seems far greater than the sum of its parts; and, as in the creations of all geniuses, there is a profundity that cannot be explained merely by description of the processes at work. Robert Zappulla
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Jenny Soonjin Kim
1 Poštolka, M. ‘Kozeluch, Leopold’ in Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press. Last accessed 22 March 2014 [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ccl.idm.oclc.org/subscriber/article/grove/music/15446]. 2 Von Schönfeld, J.F. Jahrbuch der Tonkunst von Wien und Prag (1796), pp. 34–35 (facsimile ed., Munich and Salzburg: Otto Biba, 1976). Citation and English translation in Komlós, K., Fortepianos and their Music: Germany, Austria, and England, 1760–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 59–60. 3 Burney, C. ‘Kozeluch, Leopold’ in Rees, A. (ed.), The Cyclopaedia: or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature (London, 1802–1819), Vol.20, p.1771. Cited in Hogwood, C. (ed.), Leopold Kozeluch: Complete Sonatas for Keyboard Vol.1 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2010), pp. VII–VIII. 4 Ibid.
Recording: 9–10 December 2013 (CD1) & 17–18 March 2014 (CD2), Kresge Chapel, Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, CA, USA Producer: Robert Zappulla Sound engineer & editing: Marek Szpakiewicz Fortepiano: Michael Walker, Neckargemünd, Germany, 1987, after Anton Walter, Vienna, 1795; range FF–g’’’, tuned at A=430 Fortepiano technician: Curtis Berak Cover image: The Town Square in Velvary by Karel Liebscher (1851–1906) Artist photo: photocom & 2015 Brilliant Classics
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Jenny Soonjin Kim is a faculty member at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, where she teaches fortepiano and piano. She has performed in major venues in Europe, Asia and North America, and has recorded major keyboard works ranging from Bach to Schoenberg. Dr Kim has earned degrees from Seoul National University (BA, Music Performance), the Mozarteum in Salzburg (Diploma, Piano), the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (MM and Graduate Certificate, Piano Performance), the University of California, Los Angeles (Diploma, Music Management and Merchandising) and Claremont Graduate University (DMA, Historical Performance Practices/Keyboard Studies). Her keyboard teachers have included Stewart Gordon, Nakho Paik, Dennis Thurmond and Robert Zappulla.
Recording venue and instrument This album was recorded on the campus of Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California, in December 2013 (CD1) and March 2014 (CD2) in the magnificent Kresge Chapel, designed by Edward Durell Stone and completed in 1965. The fortepiano used for these recordings is owned by Claremont Graduate University and was built by Michael Walker in Neckargemünd, Germany, in 1987. It is modelled after an instrument built by Anton Walter in Vienna, Austria, in 1795. The chapel and instrument were both provided gratis for these recordings.
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