In 18th-century London George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) enjoyed an unrivaled position as both composer and theater impresario.  Still, in the margins of his professional activities, he found time for his efforts in instrumental genres.  For example, Handel would typically introduce instrumental works, such as organ concertos and concerti grossi, into his operas and oratorios as a way to “test the waters.”  He never wrote his organ concertos with a traditional performance in mind, and their initial performances came in the 1730s as “incidental music” during his oratorios. During the Covent Garden premiere of Esther in 1735, Handel actually performed two new concerti. The second of these is a four-movement concerto for organ and strings in G minor, published later as Op. 4 No. 3.

The opening Adagio doesn’t appear to be an organ concerto at all, as the solo episodes are in fact given to a beautiful duet for violin and cello.  However, the second movement foregrounds the organ soloist in a big way, and this is where Handel would have shined.  By far the largest movement of the four, this Allegro revels in syncopated rhythm and dazzling fingerwork.  The latter two movements, pairing a brief Adagio with a charming Gavotte finale, were recycled from a recorder sonata (also in G minor) that Handel penned about 20 years earlier.  Under the extreme time pressure of producing Esther and other operatic stage productions, such self-borrowing became standard operating procedure for Handel.

Like the Italian madrigalists or the Viennese classical generation of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, the French harpsichordists stand as a coherent school of interconnected musicians. Foreigners brought outside infleunces and later composers translated its distinctive features (evocative, poetic titles and highly refined, ornamental keyboard figures) into very different settings. But dozens of practicioners were all born, trained, and active in France between about 1620 and 1760.

In French music history, Couperin carries the same prestige as Bach does in Germany. The Couperin name dates back to the 14th century, and it was producing musicians by the mid-1500s. This dynasty was plucked from relative obscurity by virtue of a chance meeting in 1650 when a talented 25-year-old musician, Louis Couperin (ca. 1626-1661), happened to perform in front of the king’s own harpsichordist. That good fortune changed Louis’ life: He relocated to the capital city, began composing in earnest, and had ample opportunity to perform for the most influential patrons of art.  Couperin is best remembered today for free, vibrant preludes are written in a unique notation without measure lines.

Acclaimed in his own way, Louis would eventually be overshadowed by his nephew, François Couperin (1668-1733), nicknamed “The Great.” François grew up surrounded by music and famous musicians. Upon his father’s death, the young boy continued lessons with Jacques Thomelin, music director at the royal chapel. That post passed to François in 1693, and he would soon attain the highest musical job at Louis XIV’s court: official organist and composer to the king, commanded with organizing and playing both solo and chamber music concerts for the king’s pleasure. This meant offering weekly chamber concerts for most of his remaining years. François continued the family’s significance in harpsichord music, compiling four massive volumes of keyboard works and writing a major treatise on performance practice.

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s (1683-1764) legacy has cast a long shadow over French music history. Very little is known of Rameau’s early life except that he came from a musical family in Dijon, traveled for a time in Italy, and had his first professional jobs as an organist. Better documented is his career after 1722, when he settled in Paris, brought forth his profoundly influential Treatise on Harmony, and began working as a theater composer. Success in opera followed a few years later, though Rameau continued to work in smaller, private genres.  He published two significant volumes of harpsichord music in 1724 and 1728. Rameau’s keyboard works often refer directly to the world around him: people he knew, things he saw, places he visited.

In the mid-1780s, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) stood at the pinnacle of his craft. From child prodigy and royal pet, he had matured considerably to shed the bonds of his Salzburg servitude. Mozart worked now in Vienna as a freelance musician, writing works for stage, orchestral hall, and intimate chamber settings. He quickly observed that financial independence lay in public performances and publications. Thus between 1782 and early 1786 he created an astounding set of fourteen piano concertos, dwarfing his output in other forms. The only other substantial concentrated effort centered on a set of six string quartets, the so-called “Haydn” Quartets, that forever changed the genre. It may not have occurred to him, or even to his publishers, but one could combine elements of both genres – piano concerto and string quartet – in the form of the piano quartet.

The immediate inspiration for Mozart’s two piano quartets, K. 478 and 493, lay in a commission from publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister. The two were fellow freemasons, and Hoffmeister requested several piano quartets from his friend. The E-flat Quartet, K. 493, contains three equally balanced movements, each projecting elements of sonata form and each conventional in its own way. But the shimmering, facile surface belies the fact that Mozart is taking great liberty with the conventions of classical form. For instace, he opens with a typical closing gesture: rumbling piano chords and a momentary harmonic move toward the subdominant key. Indeed, the passage mirrors what we will eventually hear at the close of the exposition minutes later. Second, Mozart quickly follows it with two very contrasting themes – one martial in topic, the other contrapuntal. Thus, only seconds into the work, we have been presented with numerous musical ideas. Such superfluity will mark the remainder of the opening Allegro movement.

The second movement, a Larghetto in A-flat major, continues trends set out in the first movement. It opens as a simple song for solo piano, answered by the strings and piano in conversation. But what makes the movement interesting is how Mozart departs from these conventional cues. For one thing, the strings clearly break out of their traditional supporting role to become fully-fledged partners, at times given entire phrases without the piano involved. Moreover, Mozart takes many opportunities to shift the conversation onto other topics, as it were, using deceptive and elided cadences to set up and then deny harmonic expectations. These gestures allow a simple song form to grow into something more spontaneous, more discursive, and probably more natural.

This brilliant Rondo finale proves how well Mozart absorbed two developments brought about by the great Haydn: the equality between all four musicians, and deft musical comedy. The main theme itself makes no pretense to sophistication, but that makes it all the more charming when it recurs (twice) following chromatic transitions back to E-flat major from other keys. Here again the harmonic rug-pulling and pregnant pauses only delay – never thwart – the return of our cheery main theme. In between, Mozart as the consummate pianist steps forward in strings of pearlescent scales. Hoffmeister wanted lighter music for amateur audiences. The tone in K. 493 seems to acquiesce, but the formal and harmonic hijinks show Mozart in full command, writing music as enjoyable to play as to hear.

INTERMISSION

Professor of composition at James Madison University, Jason Haney has presented numerous works over the last decade at Staunton Music Festival. In 1996 Haney was commissioned by harpsichordist Corey Jamason, who was enthusiastic about expanding the rather limited modern repertoire for his instrument. In writing Mareas for cello and harpsichord, Haney attempted to avoid any references to Baroque or Neoclassical styles and to treat the harpsichord like any other instrument. Haney continues:

I took the sounds of the harpsichord at face value and tried to employ their full expressive potential rather than allow any traditions of registration to color my writing for the instrument. For instance, using the 4’ strings alone is possible on the two-manual harpsichord and occurs at the end of this piece, but it was not something that a composer of the 18th century would have typically done. The cello writing is by turns lyrical and dramatic, and though it often stands in sharp contrast with the harpsichord, the two instruments may also blend quite effectively.

The title of this piece was taken from a poem by Pablo Neruda and means “tides.” Though there are no directly programmatic associations between the poem and the music, certain images of Neruda’s resonate with aspects of the work. For instance, “el ritmo verde que en lo más oculto/ levantó un edeficio transparente” (the green rhythm which at its most secret/set up a tower of transparency), is suggestive of the texture of the coda: high harmonics in the cello accompanied by an ostinato in the highest registers of the harpsichord. The piece is in one movement and lasts about twelve minutes.

As a teenager Robert Schumann (1810-1856) revealed the literary aspirations one might have expected from a bookseller’s son. But upon his father’s death, the boy was steered toward a more practical profession (law) at universities in Leipzig and Heidelberg. Truth be told, Schumann spent more time socializing with poets and composers, learning more about love than law. Robert passed in and out of several romantic relationships with all the heart-on-sleeve fervor of Byron. By the end of 1835 his devotion settled on young Clara Wieck, daughter of his Leipzig piano teacher. Clara herself was a formidable pianist and composer. Forbidden to meet by Herr Wieck, the pair eventually married in 1840 after much legal wrangling.

The effect on Schumann was immediate and profound. During his so-called “Year of Song” (1840), Schumann wrote over one hundred lieder. But just as these youthful labors started to bear fruit, mental illness cast a pall over Robert’s world. He displayed manic behavior and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1843. In 1850 the entire family moved to Düsseldorf, where Robert hoped a change of scene and new employment would help restore his health and bring some financial stability. Sadly, neither outcome was achieved, and he was compelled to resign in 1853 due to mental illness. A few months later he attempted suicide, was rescued, and spent the last two years of his life in a sanatorium.

The Six Songs Op. 107 (1851) were some of only 20 songs he produced in Düsseldorf. The set focuses on unrequited love – though Clara remained completely devoted to her husband at the time. The first song depicts Ophelia, rejected by Hamlet and staring despondently (not unlike Schumann himself two years later) into the water. Schumann favors a pure and simple melodic line combined with a repeated falling motif in the piano. Harmonically, the shifts between E minor and G major allow the music to suggest moments of hope amid prevailing gloom. It is followed by a more animated song in B minor, marked by striking chromatic gestures that capture the heroines vacillating emotions. Schumann closes the set with a beautiful song in C major. By this point, the rejected lover has seemingly moved on; the tone of resignation recalls Schubert, where solace in nature becomes the only cure for unrequited love. Musically speaking, Schumann creates a subtle tension between the duple rhythms of the vocal line and the continuous triple rhythms in the piano. The latter offers an undulating backdrop – could water again be suggested? – to the seemingly self-assured confidence of the voice.

Schumann originally aspired to be a professional pianist. Not surprisingly, therefore, he attempted several piano concerti early in his career, but each essay came to naught. He wrote only solo piano compositions throughout the 1830s before shifting gears to focus on lieder in 1840. Then, with that genre somewhat sated, he turned to orchestral projects in 1841. Combining grand symphonic forms with the lessons learned from earlier unfinished concertos, Robert set pen to paper in four furious days of creativity in May 1841 to produce a Phantasie in A Minor for piano and orchestra. Even the most adoring devotee of Schumann probably won’t recognize the title, but this Phantasie is none other than the opening movement of his Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54.

As a single movement work, the Phantasie received its premiere in August 1841 with Schumann’s wife and muse Clara as piano soloist. They undertook minor revisions over the next few years, but still the composer remained unsatisfied. Only after Clara urged him to expand the scope did Robert append two additional movements to create the Piano Concerto as we know it today. However, this summary does not fully credit the role Clara played in the concerto’s gestation. Already a master pianist, Clara was still just 16-year-old Clara Wieck when she composed her own A-minor Piano Concerto in 1835. Robert helped her complete the orchestration and may have helped himself to a bit of inspiration and melodic borrowing.

In his Phantasie, Schumann’s opening gesture pulls no punches. A single orchestral blast sets the piano in motion for a jagged, chordal cascade across the keyboard. According to most commentaries, this initial idea captures the vigorous, extroverted side (which he called “Florestan”) of Schumann’s self-diagnosed split personality. It is immediately answered by the lyrical, introverted voice of “Eusebius” played by the woodwinds. Much of the movement then pits these impulses against each other, while also generally following sonata form. To be more precise, Florestan contributes a great deal of motion and energy, whereas the Eusebius thematic kernel – a simple descending idea of three pitches – offers a fruitful source from which Schumann will cultivate later passages.

As the exposition comes to a grand conclusion, Schumann quickly transitions from the second main key (C major) to set up A-flat major for the ensuing development. This is all nominally correct, except that the development presents itself as an entirely new, independent section – almost a new movement. The tonal change is striking, and Schumann’s rapturous combination of sweeping arpeggios below the Eusebius melody usher in a very intimate conversation. Florestan abruptly interrupts this idyll with his fortissimo angular theme, signaling a second stage in the development.

Concerto movements from Mozart onward nearly always culminate with a dazzling, virtuosic solo cadenza quite near the end, and Schumann stays true to form here. Of course, we hear touches of the main theme and all manner of pianistic fireworks. We also hear faint glimpses of skipping, chordal themes that became hallmarks of Schumann’s spiritual heir, Johannes Brahms. As a youth Robert dreamed of becoming the Paganini of the piano, but it was not to be. He never had the “chops” that Clara did, and she was surely the ideal person to present this magical movement to the public. Her own concerto helped inspire it, her love for Robert drove his creative passion to completion, and her brilliant technique could deliver all of its power and poetry at the successful premiere.

Jason Stell, © 2025