Staunton Music Festival has had the great pleasure to feature various historical keyboards at its concerts over the past decade. Often this has been the result of generous loans from private individuals and institutions. Today, we are proud to welcome a new, permanent member into the SMF early keyboard family. Following a successful fundraising campaign, inspired by several lead gifts early in the process, SMF has purchased the 1830 fortepiano situated on stage today. It is a newly-built replica made by Rod Regier of Freeport, Maine, based on Conrad Graf’s Viennese design. We welcome Mr. Regier here today and thank him for his superlative workmanship. (Additional details about the instrument are included in the description above.)

This fortepiano will allow Staunton Music Festival to perform music from a particularly rich period on authentic instruments. It begins its public career in Staunton today with a trifle, the Marche militaire in D Major for four hands, D.733, by Franz Schubert (1797-1828). The D-major march is the first of three in the set and probably the most famous. From the rhythmic prelude to the ebullient main theme, it has been a staple of the piano duo literature since it appeared in 1826. It was likely composed somewhat earlier, at a time when the 20-year-old Schubert still wavered between pursuing music professionally or continuing to struggle as a provincial school teacher. The form is simple ABA, with a more lyrical central Trio section in G major framed by the rousing D major material.

The name of Mendelssohn conjures up images of the brilliant Felix Mendelssohn, precocious pianist and composer, incredibly talented artist, and world traveler, author of the beloved “Italian” and “Scottish” Symphonies, in addition to hundreds of virtuosic piano works, art songs, and chamber works. However, that name should also cast its radiant light on Felix’s older sister Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel (1805-1847). The siblings, separated by four years, grew up together in Berlin and enjoyed the same first-rate education; all of Felix’s teachers were also Fanny’s. And though much of her own compositions were never made public, Fanny did publish several songs under her brother’s name. She wrote numerous works for piano solo and chamber forces both before and after her marriage to artist Wilhelm Hensel in 1829. Both Fanny and Felix died prematurely; the former from a stroke at the age of 41, an event that absolutely devastated her devoted brother. He died barely six months after her.

In 1841 she compiled a series of solo piano works, one for each of month of the year (Das Jahr). They were notated on colored drawing paper and decorated with original illustrations by her husband. Fanny herself described this period in one of her letters:

I have been composing a good deal lately, and have called my piano pieces after the names of my favorite haunts, partly because they came into my mind at these spots, partly because our pleasant excursions were in my mind while I was writing them.

The work devoted to “June” unfolds in a rapturous vein, as the D minor key, rippling arpeggio accompaniment and bel canto melodic arc serve to suggest a “song without words” in the manner made so famous by her brother. The middle section will remind close listeners of Schubert’s famous “Serenade.” Hensel places the melody in the middle voice and uses surrounding chords to suggest a guitar-like strummed accompaniment. She seems eminently assured in such works but claimed never to have the patience or skill to develop larger forms. Sadly, men like her own father felt this was about as far as it was proper for her to go in composition: writing lovely songs and the occasionally impassioned solo piano work. She made only three public appearances and never garnered wider acclaim as a composer.

Things for her brother, of course, were much different. Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) would have a career in music, and his native talent enjoyed the best that education and family money could provide. Felix’s grandfather was the famous philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, which guaranteed a steady stream of intellectuals, artists, and poets passing through the house. The boy’s musical abilities were noted early but not overly stressed. However, once Felix’s talents began translating into earnest and viable compositional outlets, he was placed under the care of a man steeped in “old-school” counterpoint, Carl Zelter. Mendelssohn’s skill in updating Baroque counterpoint to a 19th-century approach toward harmony and large-scale form was due in part to the rigorous training handed down by Zelter. Many of the works written at this time were not published during Felix’s lifetime, but they paved the way for even more skillful efforts in all familiar genres.

Mendelssohn composed his Sextet in D Major for piano and strings in spring 1824, having just passed his 15th birthday. It is a large-scale work, containing four movements and lasting about 30 minutes in performance. Today we hear the third and fourth movements, a Minuet and Allegro vivace. Overall the work benefits from the addition of a second viola to the standard strings (violin, viola, cello, and bass). This drops the average pitch range a bit lower, making space for the glittering piano to sing forth. It’s possible the added viola allowed Mendelssohn himself to take part in the performance – he was an able violist – though one would expect he had himself in mind when composing the piano part.

The Minuet in D Minor opens with agitated material in the piano, answered in the strings. The two groups maintain separate operations until gradually coming to greater overlap later in the movement. The charming F major Trio is hardly very sophisticated or profound music. For once the piano takes a subsidiary role to the strings, only providing glittering decorative arpeggios to round off their gestures. The Finale is dominated entirely by the piano; it introduces both main themes and signals the transitions in this sonata-allegro form. Mendelssohn increases the technical demands, including pages of arpeggios and scales in double thirds. This is not to say the strings are superfluous. They provide a fuller harmonic picture and contrasting texture; they intervene to keep things moving when the piano stalls amid virtuosic episodes; and they initiate a striking recall, just near the close, of the Minuet theme. Some commentators note that the feel also suggests a scaled-down piano concerto rather than a scaled-up piano quartet. Despite his youth, Felix had already composed (but never published) five concertos, so this was not unfamiliar ground for him.

After arriving on the scene as gifted child pianist, Robert Schumann (1810-1856) revealed a passion for literature sparked, no doubt, by being the son of a bookseller. In 1821 he left home to begin studying law in Leipzig, though he spent more time socializing with poets and composers. He maintained the façade of being a law student for nearly ten years before he openly pursued his musical ambitions both as pianist/composer and as critic. A founding editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Schumann combined rare musical insight with a lifelong passion for letters to create witty, progressive essays. Another passion emerged at this time, however, that brought Schumann both great joy and great pain. He had fallen in love with 16-year-old Clara Wieck, daughter of his Leipzig piano teacher. Forbidden to meet by Clara’s father, the lovers secretly pledged themselves to each other in Shakespearean fashion. Herr Wieck never acquiesced, but Robert and Clara did marry in 1840 without his consent and after much legal wrangling.

The effect on Schumann was immediate. During 1840 alone, he wrote over 130 songs, including several multi-song collections, Dichterliebe (texts by Heine) and Frauenliebe und –leben (texts by Chamisso). These sets essentially define the modern idea of a “song cycle,” which involves direct key relationships between successive songs, musical allusions or recollections from one song to another, and – critically – a chronological progression of action over the course of the poems. In May 1840, with Clara as his muse, Robert was deeply engrossed in composing another set entitled Liederkreis or Song Cycle, which he referred to as his “most romantic music yet.”

Unlike the other cycles, Liederkreis lacks strong tonal and motivic inter-song linkages. Instead, the set offers twelve vignettes on related poetic tropes (bird song, castles above the Rhine, the wanderer in nature, the nostalgia of distance in time and place). Most of the songs are strophic, feature doubling of the voice in the piano, and characterized by a quiet, lyric mood. One might point out a few highlights, such as the pleading 2-3 suspensions in song 5, or the hymn-like repose of song 9. Between song 7, where Schumann’s heavy accompaniment and antique final cadence depict literal castles in the air, and the bright, galloping rhythm of the hunt in song 11 lies a gulf overcome less by dramatic progress than by a complete shift of attention. Where all looked bleak just moments before, song 12 closes the set with the most energetic material of all. “She is yours, she is yours” quotes the text.

Schumann picked and chose from volumes of Joseph Eichendorff’s poetry to fashion the Liederkreis, and you can hardly blame the happy husband for giving pride of place at the end to such unbridled joy. Surely he saw himself as the wandering knight; attaining Clara’s hand liberated his heart . . . and his pen.

During the 19th century, a tradition emerged for adapting or transcribing large concert works – symphonies, opera overtures, and arias, for instance – for performing forces that could be found in any small town or fit into a private home. Franz Liszt spent a great deal of time traveling through Europe performing solo piano recitals composed of his symphonic transcriptions, including all nine by Beethoven. This was not a new practice. Even during Beethoven’s life, his symphonies could be found in versions for smaller ensembles.

Between 1825 and 1835, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) arranged the first seven of Beethoven’s symphonies for his preferred chamber scoring: piano, flute, violin, and cello. Hummel shared many similarities with Beethoven: both were brilliant pianists and composers, both studied with Haydn for a time, and they lived as friendly contemporaries in Vienna. Despite some typically harsh judgments made about Hummel during his life, Beethoven requested that his funeral arrangements include Hummel as a featured guest performer. The performance today of the first movement from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 begins as Hummel’s quartet version before transitioning to finish for full orchestra.

From the very beginning, there are two remarkable things about Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony in F Major, called the “Pastoral.” The first is that this spacious, pastoral-inspired symphonic meditation took shape simultaneously with the taut, teleological Fifth Symphony. Where modern listeners might resist the extreme contrast of hearing both works side-by-side, Beethoven’s expansive creative mind found it possible to juggle both works simultaneously. Second, Beethoven chose to amplify – not replace – conventional Italian tempo markings (such as Allegro, Andante, etc.) with German phrases. Thus the opening movement, marked Allegro ma non troppo, is further defined by Beethoven to represent “Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande” (the awakening of cheerful feelings on arriving in the country). Obviously such revealing remarks push this work into the realm of program music.

The first movement opens with placid tonic and dominant harmonies in F major. Abundant thirds between high woodwinds help paint the serene, rustic simplicity. Things become more interesting as the development begins, where an initial move to the subdominant key (B flat major) yields unexpectedly to D major (the modified submediant, for those keeping score!). D major turns out to be the dominant of G, which emerges and then itself yields unexpectedly to E major. These third-related modulations do not just excite theorists; such changes are like aural special effects, suggesting shafts of sunlight that burst suddenly through the clouds. There is no preparation, no process of transition – just a moment of revelation. It passes in an instant. The quality of Beethoven’s thematic material may make it hard to recall such a minor detail once the recapitulation has revisited the main theme in a dulcet F major. But I encourage you to listen for such nuances in Beethoven’s music.


INTERMISSION


Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony was premiered at a massive benefit concert that took place days before Christmas 1808. The four-hour program, held in the unheated Theater an der Wien, also included premieres of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a concert aria, selections from his Mass in C Major, and closed with a Fantasy for Piano, Orchestra, and Chorus. The Choral Fantasy, Op. 80 (1808) is primarily an instrumental work, creating the feel of a piano concerto. Yet its culmination with full chorus points toward the defining shape of the Ninth Symphony. In addition, the Fantasy’s main theme bears an obvious similarity to the “Ode to Joy” melody, as if the earlier work provided a kind of trial run of its expressive possibilities for the later symphony of 1824. Beethoven himself noted the kinship, saying that he approached the choral finale of the Ninth “in the same way as my pianoforte fantasia with chorus, but on a far grander scale.”

As originally conceived, the Fantasy did not begin with a substantial, four-minute piano solo. Beethoven would have improvised it in the moment, only putting the notes to paper after the premiere. It introduces the tempestuous C-minor key – a favorite tonality for Beethoven – before veering off into a series of chromatic flourishes and rippling arpeggios. Stalled on the dominant chord of G major, the music builds to new life in the low strings with a motive calling out for contrapuntal elaboration. Shortly after, bright horn calls signal a new mood, and the turn to C major ushers in the work’s primary theme. While the singers patiently await their entrance, the pianist and orchestra revel in numerous variations developed across multiple keys and musical styles. Like the Ninth Symphony, voices eventually enter first as soloists before filling out to a massive, powerful conclusion involving the entire ensemble. Beethoven invited a colleague to pen an “Ode to Music” – a heartfelt call for human unity through art – to fit the music he had already written. For the composer’s close friends who bravely stayed to the end of the marathon concert, the Fantasy’s rousing message would have warmed their hearts, though such sentiments did little to warm their frozen fingers and toes.

© Jason Stell, 2024