PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 11/12
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 8:00PM Pre-Concert Talk given by Scott Burnham at 7:00PM Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall
ALISA WEILERSTEIN, Cello INON BARNATAN, Piano
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 2 for Cello and Piano in G Minor, (1770-1827) Op. 5, No. 2 Adagio sostenuto e espressivo — Allegro molto più tosto presto Presto: Allegro BRITTEN Sonata for Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 65 (1913-1976) Dialogo: Allegro Scherzo-pizzicato: Allegretto Elegia: Lento Marcia: Energico Moto Perpetuo: Presto — INTERMISSION — STRAVINSKY Suite Italienne for Cello and Piano (1882-1971) Introduzione: Allegro moderato Serenata: Larghetto Aria: Allegro Tarantella: Vivace Minuetto e Finale: Moderato — Molto vivace CHOPIN Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor, Op. 65 (1810-1849) Allegro moderato Scherzo: Allegro con brio Largo Finale: Allegro The artists appear by arrangement with Opus 3 Artists. Ms. Weilerstein records for EMI/Angel Classics. Please join us for a reception for the artists in the Richardson Lounge following the performance.
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merican cellist Alisa Weilerstein has attracted attention worldwide for playing that combines a natural virtuosic command and technical precision with impassioned musicianship. The intensity of her playing has regularly been lauded, as has the spontaneity and sensitivity of her interpretations. Following her Zankel Hall recital debut in 2008, Justin Davidson of New York Magazine said: “Whatever she plays sounds custom-composed for her, as if she has a natural affinity with everything.” In September 2011 she was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. The award carries a prize of $500,000 of “no strings attached” support over the next five years and has been dubbed the “Genius Award.” In 2010 she became an exclusive recording artist for Decca Classics, the first cellist to be signed by the prestigious label in over 30 years. She has appeared with all of the major orchestras throughout the United States and Europe with conductors including Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Andrew Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Marek Janowski, Jeffrey Kahane, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, -2-
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Yuri Temirkanov, Osmo Vänskä, and David Zinman. Ms. Weilerstein’s 2011-12 season includes return engagements with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Minnesota and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, and the Hamburg Philharmonic. In November and December 2011 she will tour Australia, appearing with the Melbourne, West Australian and Sydney Symphonies. During this tour period she will make her debut with the Seoul Philharmonic in Korea. In May 2012 she will make her debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. She will also undertake an eightcity recital tour of Europe with pianist Inon Barnatan. This season Ms. Weilerstein has been appointed the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra’s Artist-in-Residence. Her residency, which began last month, includes four orchestral concerts. A major milestone in Ms. Weilerstein’s career took place in May 2010 when she performed Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Daniel Barenboim in Oxford, England for the orchestra’s 2010 European Concert. This concert was televised live to an audience of millions worldwide and also released
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY CONCERTS 11/12
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on DVD by EuroArts. The performance, which followed her Berlin Philharmonic debut with Mr. Barenboim days earlier, was described by Tom Service of The Guardian as “...the most technically complete and emotionally devastating performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto that I have ever heard live...”. Ms. Weilerstein will record this concerto with Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Staatskapelle in April 2012, pairing this work with Elliott Carter’s Cello Concerto, for her debut Decca Classics release.
“I don’t remember a moment in my life when I questioned that I was going to be a cellist.” -Alisa Weilerstein In 2009, Ms. Weilerstein was one of four artists invited by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, to participate in a widelyapplauded and high profile classical music event at the White House that included student workshops and playing for guests including President Obama and the First Family. A month later she was the soloist on a tour of Venezuela with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, led by
Gustavo Dudamel. She has subsequently made numerous return visits to Venezuela to teach and perform with the orchestra as part of its famed El Sistema program of music education. Committed to expanding the cello repertoire, Ms. Weilerstein is a fervent champion of new music. She has performed Osvaldo Golijov’s Azul for cello and orchestra around the world. This piece, originally premiered by Yo-Yo Ma, was rewritten for Ms. Weilerstein for the New York premiere at the opening night of the 2007 Mostly Mozart Festival. She also frequently performs Mr. Golijov’s Omaramor for solo cello. In 2011, Ms. Weilerstein gave the world premiere of a new song cycle for cello and piano by Gabriel Kahane, Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, with Mr. Kahane at the University of California in Santa Barbara and subsequently toured this work to Vancouver, Minneapolis and Bethesda, Maryland. Ms. Weilerstein and Mr. Kahane will perform the New York City premiere of this piece for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in April. Ms. Weilerstein has appeared at major music festivals throughout the world, including Aspen, Delft, Edinburgh, -3-
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Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, Mostly Mozart, SchleswigHolstein, Tanglewood and Verbier. In addition to her appearances as a soloist and recitalist, Ms. Weilerstein performs regularly as a chamber musician. She has been part of a core group of musicians at the Spoleto Festival USA for the past eight years and she also performs with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston.
graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss. In May 2004, she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. In November 2008 Ms. Weilerstein, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was nine, became a Celebrity Advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Tonight’s concert is Ms. Weilerstein’s Princeton University Concerts debut.
Alisa Weilerstein’s love for the cello began when she was just two-and-a-half after her grandmother assembled a makeshift set of instruments out of cereal boxes to entertain her when she was ill with the chicken pox. Alisa, who was born in 1982, was instantly drawn to the Rice Krispies box cello but soon grew frustrated that it didn’t make a sound. After convincing her parents to buy her a real cello when she was four, she showed a natural affinity for the instrument and performed her first public concert six months later. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky “Rococo” Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. Ms. Weilerstein is a
ianist Inon Barnatan has rapidly gained international recognition for engaging and communicative performances that pair insightful interpretation with impeccable technique. Described by London’s Evening Standard as “a true poet of the keyboard”, Mr. Barnatan performs a diverse range of repertoire, encompassing both classical and contemporary composers.
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Since moving to the United States in 2006, Mr. Barnatan has made his orchestral debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Houston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, and -4-
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has performed in New York at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum and Alice Tully Hall. In 2009 he was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, an honor reflecting the strong impression he has made on the American music scene in such a short period of time.
“I started playing rather early. I wasn’t particularly disciplined for the first few years, but starting early and not being disciplined made sure that I still liked playing.” -Inon Barnatan In addition to his American appearances, Mr. Barnatan has appeared as a soloist with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and a tour with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields as a conductor and soloist.
An avid chamber musician, Mr. Barnatan recently completed three seasons as a member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s CMS Two program. In 2009 he curated a festival of Schubert’s late solo piano, songs and chamber music works for the Society, the first musician other than the Society’s Artistic Directors to be invited to program concerts. ‘The Schubert Project’ program has also been performed at the Concertgebouw, the Festival de México, and at the Library of Congress. Other chamber music performances include the complete Beethoven piano and violin sonatas at the Concertgebouw, the Bergen International Festival in Norway, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Delft and the Verbier Festivals and the Lyon Musicades. His rigorous U.S. festival schedule has included a broad range of concerts at the Spoleto Festival USA, the Aspen and Bridgehampton Music Festivals, and the Santa Fe and Seattle Chamber Music Festivals. In 2008 he received the Andrew Wolf Memorial Award in Rockport, awarded every two years to an exceptional chamber music pianist.
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chamber music appearances in New York and a U.S. tour with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In February 2012 he will embark on an eight-city European tour with cellist Alisa Weilerstein, preceded by concerto and chamber performances in Israel, and he will also undertake a three-week concerto and recital tour of South Africa in November. In 2012, Mr. Barnatan will release his second solo recording, Darkness Visible featuring wide-ranging but thematicallyrelated works. Mr. Barnatan’s debut CD of Schubert piano works was released on Bridge Records in 2006. London’s Evening Standard wrote: “The young, Israeli born pianist Inon Barnatan is a true poet of the keyboard: refined, searching, unfailingly communicative... This is musicianship of the highest caliber.” Gramophone recommended the recording in its November 2006 award issue, calling Barnatan “a born Schubertian” and praising the CD’s “sensitivity, poise and focus.” His second CD of works for piano and violin by Beethoven and Schubert with violinist Liza
Ferschtman was described by All Music Guide as “a magical listening experience.” Born in Tel Aviv in 1979, Inon Barnatan started playing the piano at the age of three after his parents discovered he had perfect pitch, and he made his orchestral debut at eleven. His studies connect him to some of the 20th century’s most illustrious pianists and teachers: he studied with Professor Victor Derevianko, who himself studied with the Russian master Heinrich Neuhaus, and in 1997 he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Maria Curcio - who was a student of the legendary Artur Schnabel - and with Christopher Elton. Leon Fleisher has also been an influential teacher and mentor and in 2004 he invited Mr. Barnatan to study and perform Schubert sonatas as part of a Carnegie Hall workshop, an experience that has had a lasting resonance for Mr. Barnatan. In 2006 Mr. Barnatan moved to New York City, where he currently resides in a converted warehouse in Harlem. Tonight’s concert is Ms. Barnatan’s Princeton University Concerts debut.
Mr. Barnatan’s 2011-12 season appearances include a solo performance as part of the Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series, -5-
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ON TONIGHT’S PROGRAM...
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usical performance, by necessity, is usually a collegial activity, and all of the works on this recital are the fruits of collaborations of gifted performers and master composers. Beethoven met the French cello virtuoso Jean Pierre Duport, King Friedrich Wilhelm II’s director of chamber music, during a tour stop in Berlin in 1796 and composed for him the first two of his five cello sonatas. The Cello Sonata in C Major by Britten, premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival on July 7, 1961, inaugurated a powerful and productive friendship between cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the composer. Stravinsky derived the Suite Italienne (1932) from his score for the 1920 ballet Pulcinella for violinist Samuel Dushkin, for whom he had composed the Violin Concerto in 1930; Stravinsky arranged the Suite Italienne for cello with the help of the great Russian virtuoso Gregor Piatigorsky. (Stravinsky split the royalties from the publication fifty–fifty with Piatigorsky in recognition of his part in the project.) Chopin wrote his Cello Sonata in 1845-1847 for Auguste-Joseph Franchomme, one of France’s finest cellists and one of the composer’s closest friends. The Sonata was the last work Chopin published before his death at age 39; Franchomme was one of the pallbearers at the funeral. ©2011 Dr. Richard E. Rodda
Sonata No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 5 (1796) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
art wins for me friends and respect; what more do I want? This time, too, I shall earn considerable money.” After stops in Dresden and Leipzig, he descended on Berlin, where he met King Friedrich Wilhelm II’s director of chamber music, the French cello virtuoso Jean Pierre Duport. From his uncle, Frederick the Great, Friedrich had inherited both Duport, whom the earlier monarch had engaged as principal cellist of the Prussian court orchestra, and a taste and considerable skill for music. Friedrich developed into an accomplished cellist under Duport’s tutelage, and assuaged his
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eethoven’s first public appearance as a pianist in Vienna, in March 1795, incited enthusiastic audience acclaim, favorable critical reviews and invitations to display his talents to other cities in the German lands. He arranged a concert tour for early the next year and set out for Prague, the scene of some of Mozart’s greatest triumphs, in February 1796, from where he reported to his brother Johann that he was “getting on well — very well. My -7-
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highly developed love of music by ordering the performance of oratorios by Handel and operas by Gluck and Mozart in Berlin, and commissioning six quartets from Haydn (Op. 50) and three from Mozart (K. 575, 589, 590). In addition to a public appearance at the Singakademie, Beethoven also played several times at court, and it was for those events that he composed two cello sonatas for himself and Duport; Artaria published them the following year as Op. 5 with a dedication to King Friedrich Wilhelm. The immense technical challenge of these compositions bespeaks the virtuosity of their first performers. When Duport made his debut at the Concert spirituel in Paris in 1761, at the age of twenty, the Mercure de France reported, “In his hands, this instrument is no longer recognizable. It speaks, it expresses, it renders everything beyond the charm that was thought to be an exclusive property of the violin. The agility of his playing is always accompanied by the most precise accuracy. It seems universally agreed today that this young man is the most singular phenomenon to have appeared among our talents.” Of Beethoven during those early years of his career, his student Carl Czerny recorded that his playing was “brilliant and striking. In whatever company he might chance to be, he knew how to produce such an effect
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upon every hearer that frequently not an eye remained dry, while many would break out in loud sobs; for there was something wonderful in his expression in addition to the beauty and originality of his ideas and his spirited style of rendering them.” The formal architecture of the Op. 5 Sonatas — a large introductory movement followed by two in faster tempos — finds no equivalent in Beethoven’s sonatas for solo keyboard or for violin and piano, and was probably adopted to give prominence to the lyrical capabilities of the cello. The opening Adagio of the Sonata in G Minor, Beethoven’s only large-scale work in that key, couches its lyricism in a vocabulary of dramatic expressions that the composer was to refine further in the Herculean works of the following years: unsettling dotted rhythms, portentous harmonies and sudden dynamic contrasts mark this music as one of Beethoven’s strongest and most prophetic creations of the 1790s. The movement becomes gripped by silences and fragmented gestures before pausing briefly on an incomplete harmony, which provides the gateway to the following Allegro, a thoroughly worked sonata-form essay which heightens the turbulent sentiments of the previous pages. A compact archmotive sung by the cello serves as the main -8-
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theme; the subsidiary subject, a rising phrase entrusted to the piano while the cello intones a single sustained note, is presented in a brighter tonality. Another theme is added before the close of the exposition, and it is this idea that furnishes the material for much of the development section. The full recapitulation of the earlier themes is capped by a developmental coda which adds considerable expressive import to the end of the movement, a sort-of formal counterweight to the long opening Adagio, which is seen in retrospect to have been a greatly extended introduction to the Allegro. The dashing rondo-form finale, based on a theme of Papageno-ish jocularity, is a smashing virtuoso exercise for both participants.
Scholarly and artistic exchanges across the Iron Curtain were instituted, one of which brought Mstislav Rostropovich to London’s Royal Festival Hall in September 1960 to give the first performance in England of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. Shostakovich was in attendance, and he invited Benjamin Britten to observe the concert from his box. Britten told his Russian colleague that “this was the most extraordinary cello playing I’d ever heard,” and he welcomed the chance to meet Rostropovich after the concert. Rostropovich had already formed a high opinion of Britten as one of the most approachable of contemporary composers, and he later admitted that he “attacked Britten there and then and pleaded with him to write something for the cello.” Rostropovich’s wife, the brilliant soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, once said that her husband is “a man with a kind of frantic motor inside him; once Rostropovich has made up his mind to do something, no force on earth could stop him,” and Britten (who was immediately dubbed “Beninka”) promised that he would write a sonata as long as “Slava” would premiere it with him at the Aldeburgh Festival the following summer. (“Rostropovich got his works by bullying me,” Britten said.) All was agreed (neither man being fluent in the other’s
Sonata in C Major, Op. 65 (1960-61) Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) Premiered on July 7, 1961 at the Aldeburgh Festival by cellist Mstislav Rostropovich with the composer as pianist.
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oseph Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953 marked the end of an era. He was replaced as head of the Soviet government by Nikita Khrushchev, who three years later attacked Stalin’s rule and declared a policy of “peaceful coexistence” with the West. -9-
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language at that time, they communicated in a fractured common tongue they came to call “Aldeburgh Deutsch”), the required permissions for the visit were obtained from the Soviet authorities, and the new sonata was completed the following February, the first purely instrumental composition that Britten had written in a decade. The Sonata in C, premiered by “Slava” and “Beninka” at Aldeburgh on July 7, 1961, inaugurated a powerful and productive friendship between cellist and composer. In 1964, Britten composed for Rostropovich the Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, and conducted its premiere at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on March 12th; he later added three unaccompanied cello suites (1965, 1967, 1971) to Slava’s solo repertory. From 1978 to 1991, Rostropovich served as an artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival, and some of Britten’s last musical thoughts went into a choral setting, left unfinished at his death, of Edith Sitwell’s poem Praise We Great Men (which she dedicated to him in 1959) intended for Rostropovich’s inaugural concert as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. in 1977. For a tribute to Britten published on his fiftieth birthday (November 22, 1963, a day saddened by the news of President
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Kennedy’s assassination), Rostropovich wrote, “Every day your music is played is a holiday for music in general…. When you and I are no longer here, millions of ordinary people will still be celebrating your birthdays — your 125th, 150th and 200th birthdays. I foresee these jubilees, and congratulate you in advance — you and your music.” The Cello Sonata’s opening movement (Dialogo) takes as its main theme an anxious, fragmented melodic idea built entirely from half- and whole-steps. This thematic germ cell is expanded and made more continuous in the agitated transition section, but the music again becomes quiet for the second theme, which comprises smooth phrases in cello and piano that flow in opposite directions. Both motives are transformed in the development section. The recapitulation of the main theme, calmer and in longer notes than at the beginning, is entrusted to the piano, with the cello murmuring a cross-string accompaniment in the background. The contrary-motion second subject returns briefly and quietly before the cello recalls the main theme in its original form in the coda. The Scherzopizzicato is mysterious and evanescent, a kind of haunted nocturne. The deeply felt Elegia is introspective and subdued in
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its outer portions but rises to a passionate climax at its center. The grotesque Marcia is perhaps an allusion to the militaristic state whose restrictions Rostropovich challenged throughout his career. Britten wrote that the concluding Moto Perpetuo, in a free rondo form, is “now high and expressive, now low and grumbling, now gay and carefree,” not unlike the man for whom it was written.
Suite Italienne (1932) Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
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ate in 1930, Willy Strecker, co-owner and director of the prestigious German publishing house of Schott, suggested to Igor Stravinsky that a violin concerto might make a welcome addition to the catalog of his music. Strecker told Stravinsky that the violinist Samuel Dushkin was willing to offer technical advice for the project. The composer was, however, somewhat reluctant to accept the proposal because of his lack of confidence in writing for the violin as a solo instrument and his concern that Dushkin might be one of those performers interested only in “immediate triumphs ... [through] special effects, whose preoccupation naturally influences their taste, their choice of music, and their manner of treating the piece selected.” He agreed to meet the
young violinist, however, and their first encounter proved to be warm and friendly. Stravinsky recalled that he found in his new colleague, “besides his remarkable gifts as a born violinist, a musical culture, a delicate understanding, and — in the exercise of his profession — an abnegation [of selfish interest] that is very rare.” Their initial contact blossomed into sincere friendship, and the Violin Concerto was composed eagerly during the first months of 1931. So successful was the premiere of the new Concerto on October 23, 1931 in Berlin (the composer conducted) that Stravinsky and Dushkin received invitations to present the piece all over Europe, from Florence to London to Madrid. This resulting series of concerts made Stravinsky realize, however, that a good performance of the Concerto demanded both a first-rate orchestra and an adequate number of rehearsals, circumstances which could not be taken for granted in all cities, so for a subsequent tour with Dushkin he devised several recital pieces for violin and piano that would enable them to play almost anywhere without difficulty. The centerpiece of the tour program was the Duo Concertant of 1931-1932, but to round out the concert, together they arranged excerpts from some of his ballets, including The Firebird, The
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Fairy’s Kiss, Petrushka and The Nightingale. (Dushkin extracted the violin parts from the orchestral scores; Stravinsky made the piano arrangements.) The best known of this set of transcriptions is the Suite Italienne, derived from Stravinsky’s luminous score for Pulcinella, the 1920 ballet based on works of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (17101736), a musical meteor who flashed briefly across the Italian artistic firmament during the early years of the 18th century and created several important instrumental and operatic pieces that laid the foundations of the Classical style. In 1932, Stravinsky, with the help of the virtuoso Gregor Piatigorsky, arranged the Suite Italienne for cello and piano. The idea for Pulcinella originated with Serge Diaghilev, the legendary impresario of the Ballet Russe, who suggested the music of Pergolesi to Stravinsky. The composer, perhaps with Diaghilev’s help, selected from Pergolesi’s works several movements from the trio sonatas and arias from two operas. To these he added several musical bits by other composers. In general, he kept the bass lines and melodies of his models intact, but added to them his own spicy harmonies and invigorating rhythmic fillips. Stravinsky’s role in Pulcinella, however, was far more than that of simply
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transcriber or arranger. He not only created a cogent work of art from a wide variety of previously unrelated pieces, but he also gave a new perspective to both his own and Pergolesi’s music. “Pulcinella,” he recalled in Dialogues and a Diary, “was my discovery of the past — but it was a look in the mirror, too.” With this music, Stravinsky found a manner in which to apply earlier styles and techniques to his own compositional needs, a discovery that was to provide the inspiration for his works for the next thirty years. “Music about music” is Eric Salzman’s perfect phrase describing the essence of Stravinsky’s aesthetic during the ensuing three decades. The plot of Pulcinella was based on an 18th-century Neapolitan manuscript of commedia dell’arte plays. Stravinsky provided the following synopsis: “All the local girls are in love with Pulcinella; but the young men to whom they are betrothed are mad with jealousy and plot to kill him. The minute they think they have succeeded, they borrow costumes resembling Pulcinella’s to present themselves to their sweethearts in disguise. But Pulcinella — cunning fellow! — had changed places with a double, who pretends to succumb to their blows. The real Pulcinella, disguised as a magician, now resuscitates his double.
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At the very moment when the young men, thinking they are rid of their rival, come to claim their sweethearts, Pulcinella appears and arranges all the marriages. He himself weds Pimpinella, receiving the blessing of his double, who in his turn has assumed the magician’s mantle.” Though the Suite Italienne is a sort of vest-pocket version of the original ballet, it fully captures the wit, insouciance and joie de vivre that place this music among the most delicious of all Stravinsky’s creations.
Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65 (1845-1847) Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
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uguste-Joseph Franchomme was just beginning to establish his reputation as one of France’s finest cellists when Chopin settled in Paris in September 1831. Franchomme was born in Lille in 1808 (making him Chopin’s senior by two years), and he studied at that city’s music school
before moving to Paris to continue his education at the Conservatoire. He played in the orchestras of the Paris Opéra and the Théâtre Italien following his graduation, and he was named solo cellist of the Royal Chapel in 1828. He also established an important series of chamber music concerts in Paris with pianist Charles Hallé (who founded Manchester, England’s principal orchestra in 1858) and violinist JeanDelphin Alard (the teacher of Sarasate), and he was appointed to the Conservatoire faculty in 1846. He was an important force in the musical life of Paris until his death in 1884. Franchomme was a close and trusted friend of Chopin. He played in Chopin’s concert at the Salle Pleyel on February 21, 1842, after which the pianist was not seen again in public performance for six years. They travelled together, corresponded when apart, performed regularly in the city’s salons, and even collaborated on a showy Grand Duo Concertante for Cello and Piano on themes from Meyerbeer’s
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Robert le Diable for their joint appearances. Franchomme handled Chopin’s financial affairs when illness sapped the composer’s strength at the end of his life, and he served as his pallbearer (with Meyerbeer, Delacroix and Pleyel) for the sorry cortege to Père Lachaise in October 1849. It was for Franchomme that Chopin wrote his Sonata for Cello and Piano, the last of his works published during his lifetime. The Cello Sonata was begun in the summer of 1845 at Nohant, George Sand’s country villa near Châteauroux in the province of Berry. The liaison between the sensitive composer and the flamboyant writer had been deteriorating for the previous two years, and the serialized publication during the spring of 1846 of her novel Lucrezia Floriani, with its not always flattering portrayal of Chopin, exacerbated their differences. He returned to Nohant that summer, and tried to work on the Sonata amid the icy atmosphere blown in upon the family’s squabbles. “I write a little and cross it out,” Chopin fretted in a letter to his sister. “Sometimes I am pleased with it, sometimes not. I throw it into a corner, and then pick it up again.” The score was still unfinished when he left Nohant in November, for what proved to be the last time, and it was only completed the following year, shortly before
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the score was published simultaneously in Paris (by Brandus) and Leipzig (Breitkopf und Härtel) in October. During his remaining two years, Chopin completed only three mazurkas, three waltzes and (perhaps) one song. The F-Minor Mazurka (Op. 68, No. 4), believed to be his last musical thought, was notated for him by Franchomme. Franchomme gave the premiere of the Sonata with Chopin at the composer’s concert of February 16, 1848 in the Salle Pleyel. Though the program (which also included several solo pieces by Chopin and a Mozart trio with Franchomme and Alard) was greeted rapturously and Chopin’s playing acclaimed, the event took its toll on his frail health. Charles Hallé left this poignant account: “[During preparations for the concert], Chopin had been growing weaker and weaker to such a degree that sometimes, as when we dined at a friend’s house, he had to be carried upstairs to rest.... On our arrival [for the concert], we found him hardly able to move, bent over like a half-opened pen-knife, and evidently in great pain. We entreated him to postpone the performance, but he would not hear of it. Soon he sat down at the piano, and, as he warmed to his work, his body gradually resumed its normal position, the spirit
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having mastered the flesh.” The concert proved to be Chopin’s last public appearance in Paris, though he struggled through a few concerts that summer during a tour of England and Scotland. The Sonata opens with the presentation of the richly harmonized main theme first by the piano and then by the cello. The music rises through a transition of considerable passion before quieting for the second theme, a flowing cello melody for which the piano provides a busy accompaniment. Since the development is built entirely upon the main
subject, Chopin omitted that theme from the formal recapitulation and proceeded directly to the lyrical complementary theme. Vigorous figurations close the movement. The Scherzo contrasts hobgoblinish music in its outer sections with a soaring melody at its center. The Largo is a tender, wordless song for the cello. The rondo-form finale was inspired by the tarantella, the vehement Italian dance whose exertions are said to purge the body of the tarantula spider’s deadly poison.
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