Violin Sonata in G, Op 78 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
1. Vivace ma non troppo; 2. Adagio – più andante - adagio come prima;
3. Allegro molto moderato.
It is characteristic of Brahms’ rigorous self-criticism that his first published violin sonata should have appeared only after he had drafted and discarded at least four others. He wrote it during the summer of 1879, which he spent at Pörtschach, overlooking the Wörthersee in southern Austria.
The first movement is headed simply ‘vivace’ (lively) in Brahms’ original manuscript. Later he added his typically circumspect ‘ma non troppo’ (but not too much). The little rhythmic figure which launches the gently lilting opening theme is to be a recurrent feature of all three movements. It also features, less obviously, in the soaring, waltz-like second theme, marked ‘con anima’ (with spirit) in the violin part. The mood becomes darker and more restless in the central section, pointing to the elegiac tone of the second movement.
This opens with a pensive, song-like theme for the piano which is then taken over by the violin. As the first section ends, a heavy, march-like tread starts low on the piano, pervading the movement’s entire central section; the dominant rhythm is the opening figure from the first movement considerably slowed down. In his book on Brahms, Malcolm Macdonald suggests – though acknowledging that there is no evidence to support the idea – that this section uses material from the discarded original slow movement from the Violin Concerto completed the previous year.
Writing to his friend Theodor Billroth, Brahms dropped a fairly broad hint as to the stimulus behind the finale. After claiming it was “not worth playing through more than once”, he said that it needed “a nice soft rainy evening to give the proper mood”. This was an allusion to two of his songs, ‘Regenlied’ (Rain Song) and ‘Nachklang’ (Echo), Op 59 nos 3 and 4, in which the sound of rain on the window evokes, first, childhood memories, then the tears with which it is compared. Both songs open with the same melody, and this becomes the opening theme of the sonata’s finale, together with the pattering figure in the piano part. Once again, the rhythmic pattern from the start of the first movement sets the music in motion and runs through much of it. The wistful, almost nostalgic, mood is unmistakeable even without knowledge of the music’s origin in the songs. The opening theme of the adagio reappears in the central episode, and again in the closing section, when the movement finally turns to G major from the G minor in which it opened.
Mythes, Op 30 Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)
1. La fontaine d’Aréthuse; 2. Narcisse; 3. Dryades et Pan.
In 1910, Szymanowski made the first of several visits to Italy and Sicily. It kindled an interest in Mediterranean cultures which was intensified four years later by a major journey in which he also explored Northern Africa. Together with his discovery of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky, his contact with Mediterranean and, particularly, Arabic cultures hastened a growing disenchantment with the late German romantic style which had been such a strong influence in his early years.
Mythes was written in March-June 1915. Szymanowski wrote the violin part in close collaboration with his friend the violinist Paweł Kochánski, and together they evolved what the composer recognised as “a new mode of expression for the violin, something in this respect completely epoch-making”. The work is dedicated to Kochánski’s wife Zofia.
It is the first of the overtly impressionistic works of Szymanowski’s middle years. As applied to music ‘Impressionism’ can be a slippery concept, if not downright misleading (Debussy, for one, was deeply suspicious of it). But if we forget any idea of misty vagueness and think, more precisely, of instrumental and harmonic colour used as important expressive and structural devices in their own right, then the term can be a useful one. The writing in Mythes makes enormous technical demands on both players, but these are used for expressive effect, not virtuoso show.
‘The Fountain of Arethusa’ is the most popular piece in the set, often played separately. The Greek myth tells the story of Arethusa’s escape from the attentions of the river god Alpheius; taking refuge in the island of Ortygia she is changed into a fountain. The music begins with a soft flickering figure on the piano, marked ”delicate, murmuring, flexible”, which suggests both shimmering heat and trickling water, over which the violin enters with its seductive, high-lying melody. After an impassioned and agitated climax the opening music returns and eventually dies away.
‘Narcissus’ is the slow movement of the set. It tells the story of the youth who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool, a moment that would seem to be suggested by the languid second theme begun by the violin and echoed by the piano. Eventually he is turned into a flower.
The scherzo-like final piece is the most obviously programmatic. The dryads are wood nymphs dancing to the god Pan’s reed-pipe, represented by an unaccompanied passage in harmonics for the violin. Pan begins a solo dance, slowly at first but gradually becoming faster and wilder. As this reaches its climax the nymphs fall exhausted, and Pan’s pipe is heard receding into the distance.
Valse-scherzo, Op 34 Pyotr Il’ych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
This engaging short piece, originally for violin and orchestra, was written early in 1877, the year before Tchaikovsky composed his Violin Concerto. Like the Concerto it was written for Yosif Kotek, a young violinist, recently graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire, who attended Tchaikovsky’s music theory classes there, and to whom the composer felt strongly attracted. References in a couple of subsequent letters suggest that the orchestration may be at least partly Kotek’s work.
© Mike Wheeler, 2011