Beethoven, Smetana, & Mozart

Beethoven, SMETANA, & Mozart

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LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Piano Trio No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 1, No. 1   
YooJin Jang, violin • Denise Djokic, cello • Tao Lin, piano

BEDŘICH SMETANA
From My Homeland
Sergiu Schwartz, violin • Jeewon Park, piano

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
String Quintet No. 3 in C Major, K. 515
Ayano Ninomiya, Meg Freivogel, violin • Atar Arad, Ivo-Jan van der Werff, viola • Denise Djokic, cello

program notes

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Piano Trio No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 1, No. 1 (1793–1795)

For much of the eighteenth century, piano trios were written with the enjoyment of amateur keyboardists in mind. The string parts, which were often optional and might be taken up by friends or siblings, could supply the pianist with the feeling of playing a concerto with orchestra in the comfort of their own home. Mozart and Haydn began to include more substantial violin lines in some of their trios, but even then, the cello’s role remained largely restricted to doubling the left hand of the piano, helping to sustain longer bass notes when the keyboard’s attack would naturally fade away. It is in this context that Ludwig van Beethoven made a bold statement with the three piano trios he published in 1795 as his Op. 1.

Much of the novelty of these pieces relates to the prominence he gave to the cello. In the Adagio cantabile of the E-flat Trio, Op. 1, No. 1, the instrument sings several splendid duets with the violin. But even in the first movement of this trio, when the cello mostly plays basslines as of old, Beethoven gives melodies and colorful figures to the piano’s left hand. This lends the cello’s low notes a level of expressive independence and harmonic importance that was hitherto only common in string quartets. In another departure from norms of the genre, Beethoven included scherzos or minuets in his Op. 1 Trios, creating four-movement structures akin to those of symphonies, as opposed to the three-movement formats that were typical of sonatas and domestic chamber music.

Beethoven had moved to Vienna in late 1792 in order to study with Haydn, supported by a bursary from the Elector (Archbishop) of Bonn. These studies petered out after a little over a year and Beethoven soon had to make a living as a pianist and as a composer of short keyboard works, incidental music for civic occasions, and other pieces designed to fulfill assorted commissions in exchange for quick income. 

In the Finale of the E-flat Trio, Beethoven writes several rambunctious themes that display a certain lilt and roughness. In these moments, we hear hints of the unpolished, workaday Beethoven — the guy who was penning arias, courtly dances, virtuosic variation sets, and absurdly upbeat mandolin sonatinas while trying to make a name for himself in a new city.

BEDŘICH SMETANA

From My Homeland (1880)

In his final decade, Bedřich Smetana wrote a lot of music inspired by patriotic sentiments, from his ambitious cycle of tone poems, Má vlast (“My Homeland,” 1872–79), to his String Quartet No. 1 (1876), which drew heavily on the melodies and rhythms of Czech folk music. In 1880, he composed two pieces for violin and piano, which he described as “written in a genuinely national manner, albeit with my own tunes,” and grouped them under the heading of Z domoviny (From My Homeland). At first, Smetana wished to publish them with Hugo Pohle of Hamburg, who had recently issued the composer’s Piano Trio in G Minor, but they had disagreements over the fee. Smetana also asked to print the title in both Czech and German and was upset by Pohle’s response: “He informed me in no uncertain manner that he allowed only German titles, that he would not even accept French titles. Czech titles were out of the question. Naturally I immediately took my duets back.” Smetana instead sent the piece to a Czech publisher he worked with regularly, František Augustin Urbánek, and the set came out in January 1881 with a dedication to Prince Alexander of Thurn and Taxis, a violinist and the son of the composer’s landlord.

In his initial pitch to Pohle, he described the pieces as “intended more for domestic use than for the concert hall, though without precluding the latter.” The relationship between violin melody and keyboard accompaniment is indeed rather straightforward in the manner of late nineteenth-century salon miniatures. But the forms of both movements are quite idiosyncratic; the second, in particular, is full of tensely juxtaposed fragments of varying tempos and moods. It is in this regard similar to the writing style in Smetana’s String Quartet No. 2 (1883), in which he wanted to express “the turbulence of music in a person who had lost his hearing,” having himself become deaf in late 1874.

Program Notes by Nicky Swett

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

String Quintet No. 3 in C Major, K. 515 (1787)

The year 1787 was difficult for Mozart in several ways. Although he had arrived in Vienna in 1781, Mozart still struggled to find the steady and fulfilling position he sought within the city’s musical world. He had a few years of lucrative success as a composer-performer, premiering several piano concertos each season, but in 1786–87, he turned his attention to larger-scale operatic collaborations. This resulted in a sudden decline in steady income that could not adequately sustain his lavish lifestyle. Moreover, in April of 1787, Mozart learned that his father’s health had significantly worsened, which caused particular anguish as the younger Mozart was unable to take the time to visit Leopold in Salzburg. On a brighter note, Mozart had recently returned from Prague, where the successful production of The Marriage of Figaro led to the commission of a new opera, which was to become Don Giovanni. And by the end of the year, Mozart at last obtained part-time royal patronage as “chamber composer” to Emperor Joseph II. It was not as grand of a post as Mozart may have hoped for, but it proved sufficient incentive for Mozart to remain in Vienna.

These were the tumultuous circumstances surrounding Mozart’s composition of two string quintets, K. 515 & 516, often considered the summit of his chamber music writing.  Observing the sharp contrasts between the two quintets, commentators frequently draw a comparison between these and Mozart’s Symphonies No. 40 and 41, composed the following year — a comparison bolstered by the respective key signatures of each pair (C Major and G Minor). As though celebrating the addition of a fifth voice to the standard quartet formation, Mozart opens K. 515 with a five-bar phrase pattern, an asymmetrical call and response between the outer voices tightly harmonized by the pulsating inner trio, presaging the many playfully irregular phrases to come throughout the work.

Given the masterful inventiveness and inspired freshness of these quintets, it may seem difficult to fathom that their chief stimulus was likely pecuniary, with Mozart hoping to generate some revenue by marketing the work to amateur ensembles. Their legacy, of course, extends far beyond these immediate needs. Not least, the C Major quintet directly inspired another great C Major quintet (with two cellos, this time), by another Viennese composer, born a decade later: Franz Schubert.

Program Note by Peter Asimov