Aronowitz Ensemble - Magnus Johnston violin, Nadia Wijzenbeek violin, Lily Francis viola, Tom Hankey viola, Guy Johnston cello, Marie Macleod cello, Tom Poster piano.

Chausson: Concerto in D Major for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21
Haydn: Divertimento in C Major for 2 violins, cello and piano Hob XIV:3

Programme Notes

Concert in D for violin, piano and string quartet, Op 21
Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)

1. Décidé – calme - animé ; 2. Sicilienne. Pas vite; 3. Grave; 4. Finale. Très animé

Chausson was a late starter musically, and it was only in 1879 that he began his formal musical education, when he enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire at the age of twenty-nine. He quickly came under the influence of César Franck and the circle who gathered round him, though he was never officially one of Franck’s students.

His first mature compositions are full of Franck’s influence, but his music began to be enriched by a more classical eighteenth-century outlook. He took to consciously using older musical forms, even adopting French baroque tempo markings. It is in this light that this unique work must be considered. To 18th-century French composers such as François Couperin and Rameau the term concert indicated simply an instrumental work in several movements. In no sense of the word is Chausson’s work a concerto – neither a violin concerto nor a double concerto for violin and piano - but a piece of true chamber music.

Chausson dedicated it to the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who took part in the first performance in Brussels in 1892. The première gave him his first taste of real success. As he wrote in his diary: “Never have I had such a success! I can’t get over it. Everyone seems to love the Concert. Very well played, with wonderful moments, and so artistically executed! I feel light and joyful, something I haven’t been for a long time. It’s done me good and has given me courage. I believe I’ll work with more confidence in the future.”

The turbulent first movement is dominated by the three-note figure hammered out, twice, at the start, and the point of departure for both the tranquil passage that follows and the vigorous opening theme of the main body of the movement.

Though the work as a whole is far from being baroque pastiche, the second movement does share the graceful lilting rhythm of the eighteenth-century dance from which it takes its title. There is no contrasting central section. Instead the music moves in a single arc to its forceful climax, before sinking back to its graceful conclusion.

Just as the first movement is dominated by its three-note figure, so the third is underpinned by various forms of the chromatic figure heard dipping and rising low on the piano at the start. The passionate central climax begins more abruptly than that of the Sicilienne, returning eventually to the sombre quiet in which the movement began.

The finale’s vigour and drive comes as the perfect counterbalance, full of springy rhythms, and moments when the mood becomes lighter, even playful. Particularly impressive is the final section, marked ‘très vif’ (very lively) in which Chausson sustains the growing excitement without resorting to empty rhetoric. No wonder he was pleased with his achievement.

Divertimento in C, Hob XIV:3
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

1. Allego moderato; 2. Menuet; 3. Finale: Allegro molto

Haydn, like his contemporaries, used the title ‘divertimento’ for an instrumental work, of any kind, involving one player per part. It did not imply a lightweight, entertainment piece, as it did later, but could be applied to anything from a piece for solo keyboard to music for wind band. The term gradually dropped out of use in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, and Haydn himself rarely used it after about 1780.

One exception is a set of six works for keyboard, two violins and bass that Haydn composed sometime in the mid 1760s and sent to the London publisher William Forster in 1784. The Divertimento in C from this group is an example of the composer at his most elegant and refined, with its brisk, but not too energetic outer movements, and its graceful central movement – not a semi-rustic knees-up like those found in found in some of his symphonies and string quartets, but a real courtly minuet.

 © Mike Wheeler, 2010