7 minute read
Zlatomir Fung & Richard Fu (Live Stream
ZLATOMIR FUNG, cello & RICHARD FU, piano
This performance will be available to stream on-demand until December 1, 2020.
SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 2021 · 11:30 AM & 2:30 PM
THE BAKER-BAUM CONCERT HALL
FAURÉ Cello Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Opus 109
(1845-1924)
Allegro Andante Allegro commodo BERGER Selections from Duo for Cello and Piano
(1862-1918)
I. Poco adagio II. Allegro moderato BEETHOVEN Sonata for Pianoforte and Cello in A Major, Opus 69
(1770-1827) Allegro ma non tanto
Allegro molto
Adagio cantabile; Allegro vivace Zlatomir Fung, cello; Richard Fu, piano
Program Notes by Eric Bromberger
Born May 13, 1845, Pamiers, France Died November 4, 1924, Paris Composed: 1917 Approximate Duration: 19 minutes
Fauré and Debussy might seem at first quite different as men and composers: one was quiet and restrained, classical by training and inclination, while the other was a revolutionary, fiery and anti-establishment. Yet their final years (they died within six years of each other) show some surprising parallels. Both men suffered physically (Fauré from deafness, Debussy from cancer); both were terribly distressed by World War I; and both turned to chamber music, the most intimate and disciplined of forms, during their difficult final years. Debussy embarked on a cycle of six sonatas (he completed only three), while Fauré wrote six major chamber pieces in the last seven years of his life.
Fauré composed his Cello Sonata No. 1 in 1917, just as Debussy was completing his final work, the Violin Sonata. It is hard not to believe that some of the anguish of the war years makes its way into these works, and the Fauré sonata in particular is austere and somber. Gone are the lush sounds and harmonies and the “tunefulness” of Fauré’s early music; in their place is a lean sonority, an abstract manner, and a refusal to rely on instrumental color or overt gestures.
The very beginning of the opening Allegro brings an unusual sound—a percussive piano part that will pound quietly throughout the movement; this percussive beginning quickly gives way to a lyric main idea, followed by a dolce second subject. Throughout, the mood is somber, and Fauré makes his argument subtly. The coda is impressive: both cello and piano take up the quiet, percussive strike that has underpinned much of the movement, and on this sound the music drives to its close.
One of the most striking features of the Andante, in G minor, is the simplicity of its themes: the cello sings its gentle song over a quiet triplet accompaniment, then repeats it quietly. Some of the same mood extends to the finale, Allegro commodo, where the singing main idea is marked con grazia and once again Fauré accompanies the cello with a quietly rippling piano line. An unusual feature of this movement is Fauré’s setting the cello and piano in unison in some passages; the coda, with its crescendo chords, is one of the most striking of these. Selections from Duo for Cello and Piano ARTHUR BERGER
Born May 15, 1912, New York City Died October 7, 2003, Boston Composed: 1951 Approximate Duration: 12 minutes
Arthur Berger was many things over the span of his 91 years: pianist, composer, teacher, critic, and theoretician. Trained originally at New York University and Harvard, Berger studied briefly with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, then returned to the United States and taught at Mills College in Oakland. After four years there, he made abrupt change, moving to New York City and serving for ten years as music critic for the New York Sun and the Herald-Tribune. Then in 1953 he went back to teaching, first at Brandeis and finally at the New England Conservatory, where he taught into his mid-eighties.
Very early in his career Berger met Aaron Copland, and the two remained friends for life. Berger was one of the original members of Copland’s Young Composers Group and advocated strongly for their progressive ideas about music and politics. Berger was heavily influenced by Stravinsky’s neo-classicism, and in the early 1950s he became interested in serial composition at just the same time that Stravinsky took up that technique. Berger wrote extensively about serial music and incorporated many of its procedures in his own music, though he managed to sustain a tonal base in that music. In his review of the Duo for Cello and Piano heard on this program, Milton Babbitt described Berger as a “diatonic Webern,” and that has become the standard phrase to describe Berger, though it might not offer the best approach to his music.
Berger composed the Duo for Cello and Piano in 1951, a crucial moment for him. He was in his late thirties, he was nearing the end of his tenure as critic for the Herald Tribune, and he was becoming interested in serial procedures, including the use of pitch cells. The Duo is in two movements that total about twelve minutes, and listeners may at different moments detect the major influences on Berger’s music: Copland, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg. The two movements—one slow, the other somewhat faster—are built on a quite specific sonority: clean, clear, angular, spiky. That sonority is almost pointillistic: the piano plays with a sharp staccato, and the cello part is often played pizzicato. All this may make the Duo sound cerebral and threatening, but this is instantly attractive music, graceful, full of rhythmic energy, and always on the edge of dancing. In fact, the Duo would probably make an ideal score for dancers.
Born December 16, 1770, Bonn Died March 26, 1827, Vienna Composed: 1807-08 Approximate Duration: 15 minutes
The year 1807 found Beethoven extremely busy. During the previous year, he had composed his Fourth Piano Concerto, Fourth Symphony, the three Razumovsky Quartets, and the Violin Concerto, and now he pressed right on, completing the Coriolan Overture in March 1807 and continuing work on his Fifth Symphony. He paused to write the Mass in C Major, then completed the symphony in the fall and began a cello sonata, which he finished early the following year. Beethoven dedicated the sonata to his longtime friend Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein, who not only handled the composer’s financial affairs but was also a skillful amateur cellist. The first public performance—on March 5, 1809—was given by two distinguished performers who were also friends and colleagues of Beethoven: pianist Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann and cellist Nikolaus Kraft.
The Cello Sonata in A Major is a remarkable work. Given its proximity in time to the Fifth Symphony, one might expect the sonata to be charged with that same molten energy. Instead, it is characterized by nobility, breadth, and a relaxed quality that have made it—by common consent— the finest of Beethoven’s five cello sonatas. Beyond issues of content, this sonata is notable for Beethoven’s solution to a problem that has plagued all who write cello sonatas—how to keep the two instruments balanced. He keeps the cello part in the rich mid-range of that instrument, and while the piano is an active co-participant, it is never allowed to overpower or bury the cello.
The Allegro ma non tanto opens with an unusual touch: all alone, the cello plays the movement’s poised main theme and is joined by the piano only after the theme is complete. Beethoven marks both entrances dolce, and while there is plenty of energy in this lengthy sonata-form movement, that marking might characterize the movement as a whole (characteristically, the marking at the beginning of the development is espressivo). The second movement—Allegro molto—is a scherzo with a syncopated main idea and a doublestopped second theme (also marked dolce). These alternate in the pattern ABABA before a brief coda rounds the movement off; the very ending is a model of ingenuity and understatement. There is no slow movement in this sonata, but the final movement opens with an extended slow introduction marked Adagio cantabile before the music leaps ahead at the Allegro vivace. This is not the expected rondofinale but another sonata-form movement. It is typical of this sonata that the opening of the fast section is marked pianissimo, and throughout the movement Beethoven reminds both players repeatedly to play dolce.
This sonata may come from the same period as the Fifth Symphony, but its graceful mix of nobility and restraint makes it seem a far different work. Doubtless it brought relief to its composer, and it continues to bring joy to audiences today.
