7 minute read
Yefim Bronfman (Live Stream
PRELUDE 6:30 PM
Webinar lecture by Kristi Brown Montresano
This performance will be available to stream on-demand until May 19, 2021.
YEFIM BRONFMAN, piano
WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2021 · 7 PM
THE BAKER-BAUM CONCERT HALL
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata in D Major, Opus 10, No. 3
(1770-1827)
Presto Largo e mesto Menuetto: Allegro Rondo: Allegro DEBUSSY Suite bergamasque
(1862-1918)
Prélude Menuet Clair de lune Passepied CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Opus 58
(1810-1849) Allegro maestoso
Scherzo: Molto vivace
Largo
Finale: Presto non tanto Yefim Bronfman, piano
Program Notes by Eric Bromberger
Born December 16, 1770, Bonn Died March 26, 1827, Vienna Composed: 1797-98 Approximate Duration: 22 minutes
Beethoven composed the set of three piano sonatas that make up his Opus 10 in 1797-98, and they were published in Vienna in 1798. The set is dedicated to Countess von Browne, wife of Johann Georg von Browne, one of the composer’s early patrons in his adopted city. Beethoven had established his reputation in Vienna as a pianist, and while he was now trying to widen his compositional scope (he was working on his first set of string quartets at this same time), he was still writing primarily for piano: his first ten opus numbers include seven piano sonatas, and during this period he actually wrote several more that would be published later.
The Sonata in D Major—in four movements rather than the expected three—is universally regarded as the finest of Beethoven’s early sonatas. Not only is it music of enormous energy, but its lengthy slow movement shows signs of a new emotional depth. All by itself, the marking for the first movement—Presto—is remarkable, and the very beginning makes clear the sweep of this music: the first theme—in octaves—strides boldly upward across two octaves. The second subject arrives immediately in the unexpected key of B minor, and the development treats both these ideas before the movement drives to a powerful close on a flow of seemingly non-stop energy.
The real distinction—the real glory—of this sonata lies in its slow movement. Again, Beethoven’s marking is unusual: Largo e mesto (“slow and sad”). Beethoven seldom used the marking Largo and almost never marked a movement mesto, and this is music of a dark intensity, surprising from so young a composer. The movement, in D minor, moves slowly over the steady tread of its 6/8 meter. The middle section introduces new material, but the solemn pulse of the beginning continues, even in the movement’s murmuring closing moments. The ending feels numb, seeming to collapse on halting, uncertain chords. The clearest indication of this movement’s importance comes in its length: this slow movement takes up nearly half the length of the sonata.
Beethoven marks the third movement Menuetto, and it feels almost innocent after the Largo. The syncopated opening idea tumbles along happily, while the trio pushes forward on flying triplets. The concluding Allegro is a rondo based on a remarkable opening idea. This theme feels earthbound at first: it reaches upward in short phrases, then suddenly takes wing. That impression of energy pent up and striving to break free will characterize the entire finale, which cascades to its close with a suddenness that both surprises and pleases.
Suite bergamasque CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye Died March 25, 1918, Paris Composed: 1905 Approximate Duration: 34 minutes
The creation of this set of four pieces remains shrouded in a certain amount of mystery. In 1890, when Debussy was 28 and virtually unknown, he composed four brief pieces for piano but did not publish them. He came back to this music fifteen years later, in 1905. By this time, Debussy had become famous (or infamous): in the intervening years he had composed Prélude à l’aprèsmidi d’un faune, the String Quartet, Pelléas et Mélisande, and La Mer. Now he composed two new piano pieces, L’isle joyeuse and Masques, and intended to publish them along with the four pieces from 1890, but eventually he thought better of this plan. He published the new pieces separately, and he revised the earlier set and published it in 1905 under the title Suite bergamasque. How much of this music is the work of an unknown music student in Paris and how much of it is the work of the established and sophisticated composer he had become by 1905? No one is sure.
The title is just as elusive. Bergamasque in one sense refers to something old or antique, but Bergamo is also the traditional home of Harlequin of the commedia dell’arte, a dramatic form to which Debussy was much drawn. In his Suite bergamasque, Debussy set out consciously to evoke the keyboard music of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, and three of the movements of Suite bergamasque are in forms that come directly from that music. The opening Prélude springs to life with a great flourish and then often has an improvisatory air, as if the pianist might be making it up on the spot. It contrasts a flowing, elegant opening idea with a quiet and falling second subject, and Debussy drives the movement to a forceful close. The Menuet is not in the minuet-and-trio form of Haydn and Mozart, nor does it even look back to the earlier French minuet. Instead, it evokes the graceful spirit of that formal
dance form. Debussy’s marking is pianissimo et très délicatment, and its many grace-notes, triplets, and runs evoke the “archaic” sound of the clavecin or harpsichord.
The great exception in the Suite bergamasque is its third movement, which does not look back to an earlier keyboard style. Clair de lune has become so familiar as an impressionistic portrait of moonlight that it is surprising to learn that in its earliest version this music had nothing to do with moonlight. In 1890 Debussy had originally titled this piece Promenade sentimentale, and the music acquired its familiar name only when it was revised in 1905. This music fully deserves its popularity, no matter how over-familiar it may have become—Debussy’s fluid rhythms, haunting melodies, and delicate shading continue to work their hold on listeners (and pianists).
Debussy rounds off the suite with the Passepied, which was originally a sailors’ dance from Brittany (its title means “pass-foot”). In its original form, a passepied was in triple meter, but Debussy’s movement is in duple meter throughout. Beneath the crisp staccato of the left hand (which is heard in almost every measure), the right hand lays out two ideas: the sharp-edged opening theme and a more flowing second. For all its elegance, this movement is extremely difficult for the performer, and it ends beautifully, with a falling shimmer of eighth-notes that wink out on two final chords marked triple piano.
Born February 22, 1810, ˙ Zelazowa Wola, Poland Died October 17, 1849, Paris Composed: 1844 Approximate Duration: 27 minutes
Chopin wrote the Piano Sonata in B Minor, his last largescale composition for piano, during the summer of 1844, when he was 34. He composed the sonata at Nohant, the summer estate in central France he shared with the novelist George Sand. That summer represented a last moment of stasis in the composer’s life—over the next several years his relationship with Sand would deteriorate, and his health, long ravaged by tuberculosis, would begin to fail irretrievably. Dedicated to Madame la Comtesse Emilie de Perthuis, a friend and pupil, the Sonata in B Minor was published in 1845. Chopin himself never performed it in public.
Chopin’s sonatas have come in for a hard time from some critics, and this criticism intensifies to the degree that they depart from the formal pattern of the classical piano sonata. But it is far better to take these sonatas on their own terms and recognize that Chopin—like Beethoven before him—was willing to adapt classical forms for his own expressive purposes. The Sonata in B Minor is a big work—its four movements stretch out to nearly half an hour. The opening Allegro maestoso does indeed have a majestic beginning with the first theme plunging downward out of the silence, followed moments later by the gorgeous second subject in D major, marked sostenuto. The movement treats both these ideas but dispenses with a complete recapitulation and closes with a restatement of the second theme. The brief Molto vivace is a scherzo, yet here that form is without the violence it sometimes takes on in Beethoven. This scherzo has a distinctly light touch, with the music flickering and flashing across the keyboard (the right-hand part is particularly demanding). A quiet legato middle section offers a moment of repose before the returning of the opening rush.
Chopin launches the lengthy Largo with sharplydotted rhythms, over which the main theme—itself dotted and marked cantabile—rises quietly and gracefully. This movement is also in ternary form, with a flowing middle section in E major. The finale—Presto, non tanto—leaps to life with a powerful eight-bar introduction built of octaves before the main theme, correctly marked Agitato, launches this rondo in B minor. Of unsurpassed difficulty, this final movement—one of the greatest in the Chopin sonatas— brings the work to a brilliant close.
