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Brahms Sonata for 2 pianos 路 Haydn variations Eleonora Spina Michele Benignetti
Sonata for Two Pianos in F minor Op.34bis The year 1864 was a breaking point for the Brahms household in Hamburg. Brahms’s father, Johann Jakob, insisted he could no longer care for his aging wife (who, at 73, was going blind) and oft-ill daughter, whom he considered a malingerer. Brahms attempted to act as a peacemaker but to no avail. The next years proved to be some of his leanest as he did his best to provide for his mother, sister, and father. Mirroring the struggles in his family life, Brahms found it difficult to give form to his “Sonata for Two Pianos.” The work was originally conceived as a string quintet but underwent several transformations before settling on its final form. Violinist Josef Joachim, Brahms’s friend and advisor, deemed the piece too weighty for strings, so the first transformation occurred when Brahms, ever the perfectionist, destroyed the original score and rescored it for duo piano. Brahms premiered this two-piano version in Vienna alongside Carl Tausig without much success. Increasingly perplexed and feeling the need to get away from Hamburg in order to compose, he decided to move for the summer to the fashionable resort town of Baden-Baden, where he stayed at an apartment near the home of his close friend Clara Schumann. Unfortunately, Clara found his new sonata unconvincing. As David Brodbeck notes in his book Brahms Symphony No.1, she wrote of the work, “It is no sonata but rather a work whose ideas you could – you must – scatter over the entire orchestra as if from a horn of plenty! Right from the first time I played it I had the feeling of its being an arrangement.” The final result – the Op.34a piano quintet – was a hybrid of the two. However, Brahms had always had a soft spot for the two-piano version of the work and chose to publish this in its own right in 1871 as Op.34bis. He dedicated the work to the music-loving Princess Anna of Hesse and in return was lavishly gifted the manuscript of Mozart’s Symphony No.40 in G Minor. Several influences pervade Op.34bis. The sonata was composed just after Brahms shelved the opening movement of his first symphony. As a result, it has numerous 2
orchestral qualities and echoes from the symphony itself. Traces of Schubert, a composer for whom Brahms had increasing admiration, can also be heard throughout the work. The first movement is in sonata-allegro form. The opening theme is in F minor and begins with both pianos in unison. This initial statement then develops into a fiery and rich reincarnation of itself. The second theme, a tritone down, begins in C-sharp minor with a driving bass ostinato, which introduces an unsettling semitone motive, perhaps an echo of the chromatic second theme in his first symphony. This theme is developed through the remainder of the work. C-sharp minor gradually finds its way to its parallel major, D-flat. It moves briefly through F-sharp minor, and then lingers in F major before finally resolving back to F minor to conclude the movement. The second movement is in ternary form. Its primary theme hearkens back to traditional Slavic tunes with their melodies in thirds, syncopated accompaniment, and modal mixture (also a characteristic of Schubert). In addition, one can hear vestiges of Schubert’s posthumous B-flat Major Piano Sonata, particularly in the opening. The third movement is a scherzo with a brief trio. Over a pizzicato-like repeated note in the bass, the opening theme eases into what Bernard Jacobsen describes in his 1977 biography of Brahms as a “dialogue between the demonic and the grandiose.” Paralleling the opening movement of his first symphony, the scherzo is in C minor and begins in 6/8 (although it alternates between this and 2/4 no less than 13 times!). The finale is in rondo form and displays a panoply of richly varied textures. The eerie opening theme displays Brahms’s dexterity in counterpoint and continues to play with the semitone motive introduced in the first movement. In a final grand gesture the second theme is transformed and contrapuntally layered over the rondo theme. The finale comes to a close with a thrilling extended coda.
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Variations on a Theme by Haydn Op.56b “St. Anthony Variations” Brahms was in dire need to clear his mind by the summer of 1873. He had been embroiled in a drama concerning a festival organized to raise money for a memorial to honor his late friend Robert Schumann. Temporarily removing himself from this tense situation, he moved to Tutzing, a town near Munich nestled in the foothills of the German Alps. This proved to be an excellent decision as Brahms was exceptionally productive both socially and compositionally during his summer stay. While there he made many friends who became enthusiastic supporters of his art. He also completed his Op.51 string quartets, Op.59 songs, and both the orchestral and two-piano versions of the Haydn Variations. Although written first, the duo piano version of the variations was published as Op.56b and today is not as well-known as the orchestral version Op.56a. Also known as the St. Anthony Variations, this distinctly neo-classical work is based on a theme from an earlier wind ensemble piece called “Chorale St. Antoni.” Although this piece was credited to Haydn in Brahms’s day, contemporary scholars believe this to be an erroneous attribution. Today the origin of Chorale St. Antoni remains unclear. The jaunty, march-like theme begins with a repeated ten-measure passage in B-flat major, comprised of two five-measure phrases. The formally interesting and patriotic undertones of the theme were likely attractive to Brahms, the latter appealing to the ardent German patriot in him. During this period of his life he produced many overtly patriotic works, perhaps reflecting the current political situation as Germany had recently become a united nation. Brahms treats each of the eight variations, which run from less than a minute to four minutes apiece, as a separate character piece. The first variation, indicated as “andante con moto,” displays rhythmic contrast by using two-against-three rhythms, a favorite of Brahms. The second variation, in the parallel minor, is intensely dark with its jarring subito dynamics. In marked contrast, the third variation, back in the 4
major key, is pleasant and flowing, characterized by a constant stream of eighth notes. The fourth continues with the steady eighth-note rhythm in a tragic and subdued manner. A frenzied fifth variation is followed by a slightly tamer sixth, though an insistent rhythmic motive carries on throughout. A seventh variation contains graceful Siciliano rhythms. The serpentine eighth variation is built upon inversion and canonic imitation. By pairing the variations, Brahms creates the sensation of a multi-movement work, or mini-sonata complete with its own small coda. The finale is by far the most complex variation, displaying a mastery of counterpoint seldom encountered in Romantic music. The previous winter, Brahms had set a rigorous schedule for himself, writing counterpoint exercises for several hours each morning. After months of study, he felt the training was useless and lamented in a letter to Clara “Still it’s somewhat tragic when, in the end, one gets to be cleverer than useful.” Little did he know that he was about to produce “some of the most miraculous counterpoint Brahms ever wrote,” according to Brahms biographer Styra Avins. In the finale Brahms sets the theme as a repeating five-measure ground bass, with variations in the upper voice, not unlike the passacaglias and chaconnes of the early eighteenth century. In the words of essayist Michael Beckerman, the original theme has now been transformed (after being varied 19 times) from a “charming little theme” to something of “triumph and grandeur.” © Ali Snow
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Eleonora Spina and Michele Benignetti are two compelling talented young musicians that coming from differents experiences as soloist whose sensitive interpretation has been praised by audiences and critics alike. Both musicians, brilliantly graduated from some of the most prestigious European Music Institution such as Hogeschool voor de kunsten (Codarts) in Rotterdam and the Ecole Normale “A. Cortot” in Paris, are prize-winners in solo competition including 2014 Yamaha Music Competition, 2007 Scriabin International Piano Competition in Paris and 2012 Carlo Vidusso International Piano Competition. Their musical education has been marked by significant studies with renowned Professors including Enrico Pace, Chantal de Buchy, Aquiles Delle Vigne, Franco Scala, Roberto Plano, Nelson Delle Vigne –Fabbri and Walter Bozzia. Eleonora Spina and Michele Benignetti partnership’s as piano duo began on 2013 and immediately obtains positive consents. Actives as performer in concerts venues throughout Europe, the piano duo, on June 2014, receive by acclamation the prestigious Diplôme Supérieur d’Exécution at the Ecole Normale de Musique “A. Cortot”, with the mention “A l’Unanimité”, on June 2014. They won several prizes in important competitions for piano duo including Pietro Argento International Music Competition, Best Chamber Music Performance Award at the London Piano Masters, “F. Chopin” International Piano Competition in Rome, Treviso International Music Competition, “Rovere d’Oro” International Music Competition. 6
Their interpretation has been also influenced by many master class that they have attended in Europe such as: Royal College of Music in London, with Stefanina Passamonte, Roustem Saitkoulov, Hiro Takenouchi, Pedro Casals, Simon Callaghan and Jan Loeffler, Conservatory “G. Cantelli” of Novara, with Professor Alberto Miodini and with Genova&Dimitrov Piano Duo at the International Academy and Festival “March Music Days” in Ruse (Bulgaria). Invited as jury members at the last edition of Pietro Argento International Piano Competition in Italy, on July 2014 they recorded for Brillant Classic Records their first disc about the Complete Works for Two Pianos of J. Brahms. Michele and Eleonora are currently studying with Maestro Enrico Pace (First Prize Liszt International Piano Competition in 1989) at the International Music Academy of Pinerolo, in Italy. www.michelebenignetti.com
Special Thanks to Mr Giovanni Iannantuoni of Yamaha Music Europe (Branch Italy) and Maestro Walter Bozzia for their invaluable contribution during the realisation of this recording.
Recording: 24-25 July 2014, Chiesa Santa Chiara Nuova, Lodi, Italy Recorded by: Treehouse Lab. snc Sound engineer: Daniele Valentini Editing: Daniele Valentini Recording producer: Daniele Valentini Pianos: Yamaha Music Europe Piano technician: Giampiero Terravazzi Photos: Benedetto Matteo Spina Cover image: Johann Wilhelm Frey, Stadtansicht aus Wien. Courtesy Dorotheum - & © 2015 Brilliant Classics
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