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July 12 – Monday Sonatas

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Lutoslawski – Partita, for Violin and Piano

Prokofiev – Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor

Brahms – Sonata No. 2 in A major for Piano and Violin

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Witold Lutoslawski

Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski (1913-94) was a child prodigy, composing music while he was still a young child. He studied piano, violin, and composition at the Warsaw Conservatory. During the Nazi and Soviet eras, he wrote music for radio, film, and theatre, as well as composing children's music and arranging folk-songs. Folk music inspired thematic material in some of his compositions. Eventually, Lutoslawski was able to explore twelve-tone formal techniques, as well as certain aspects of aleatory ("chance") music. Most of his works in the 1970s, '80s, and early '90s were orchestral and with lush, chromatic orchestrations. These included his award-winning Symphony No. 3 (1982) and works for distinguished performers, including Fischer-Dieskau, Mutter, Rostropovich, and Zimerman.

Partita, for Violin and Piano (1984)

Lutoslawski also sometimes wrote chamber music, including a later example in the Partita, for violin and piano (1984). He also often conducted his own works, and the Partita is thus also sometimes heard in a version for violin and orchestra. This work suggests the influence of Baroque era music—and not only in its title. Allusions to Baroque music also appear in certain aspects of the work's rhythms. The work is mainly lyrical, but it also features some comparatively virtuosic or else unusual (e.g., microtonal) elements. The first and third movements include elements in dialogue between the violin and the piano. By comparison, the brief, second movement mainly highlights the two instruments separately. The brief, fourth movement builds into a Finale that features a quick, gigue-inspired main section.

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Sergey Prokofiev

In his early career, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) moved around within various national contexts. As a child prodigy, he attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory and had already composed large-scale works. He was also a leading piano virtuoso and composed a pair of piano concertos just before the First World War. Prokofiev then traveled to London and Paris and after the 1917 Russian Revolution visited the US for two years. In the 1920s, he lived in Paris for a number of years. In the early 1930s, he periodically returned to his native land, where he had a slow-but-steady rise to success with film music and the initially-blacklisted ballet Romeo and Juliet. Prokofiev returned permanently to the USSR in 1935. One scholar has argued that the composer needed the straight-jacket of the Soviet Union in order to have something to fight against. His compositions included film music (such as for Alexander Nevsky, 1938), orchestral music, cantatas and similar works (including Peter and the Wolf, 1936), and solo/chamber music. The latter includes the Piano Sonata No. 6 in A major, (1939-40, performed on July 26). However, his health declined, and the Communist Party also veered against him in his final years as being too "formalist." In an interesting coincidence, Prokofiev died on the very same day as Stalin.

Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor (Op. 80, 1938-46)

Prokofiev wrote his pair of violin sonatas around the same time. Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major (1942-44, performed on July 5) is positive-sounding and neo-classical in nature. Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor is, however, much darker-sounding. It also took the composer much longer to complete than the second sonata. The tense first movement ("At a walking pace") begins with a low-pitched piano theme that is joined by similarly-foreboding violin material (shown). The movement also includes ghost-like cries and wails. The second movement ("Brusquely fast") mainly enacts a harsh and frantic dialogue. The third movement ("At a walking pace") is a pleasant, mysterious dream that eventually gives way to an obsessive motto and a fearful ending. The fourth movement begins with a joyous theme ("Quite fast") and intermittent pizzicato ("plucked") and other effects. However, the tone then shifts ("At a strict walking pace") to something much darker and more intense. The ending also recalls the work's ghost-like first movement.

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Johannes Brahms

German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-97) was the leading 19th-century figure of Classically-inspired Romanticism. Hans von Bülow once joked that Brahms' Symphony No. 1 was "Beethoven's Tenth." The son of a double-bass player, teenaged Brahms made money by playing piano in restaurants, taverns, and brothels. He was then championed as a young man by Robert Schumann, and after Schumann's death he had a long friendship with Clara Schumann. Brahms was very successful as a composer, but he had no comparable successes in his personal life. He died of liver or pancreatic cancer, without ever having gotten married. His works include symphonies, concertos (such as the Violin Concerto in D major, performed on July 16), choral/vocal works (such as the German Requiem), piano music, and chamber works. He also wrote regionally-inspired music, as well as character pieces. His music always follows formal, structural plans, but he never sacrifices emotional content. Brahms' chamber music includes his Trio in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, and Horn (July 23), his Viola (Clarinet) Sonata in F minor (August 2), and his Sonata No. 2 in A major for Piano and Violin.

Sonata No. 2 in A major for Piano and Violin (Op. 100, 1886)

Brahms wrote this work (the "Thun" sonata) in the few days during which he also produced his Cello Sonata No. 2 and his Piano Trio in C minor. He premiered it with violinist Joseph Hellmesberger just before Christmas of 1886. It is mostly a joyous and tuneful work, befitting its quick composition during a pleasant vacation. The lyrical first movement ("Agreeably fast") does, however, include a fairly complex development section. Brahms compresses the work's structure somewhat by combining his slow movement ("At a tranquil, walking pace") and Scherzo ("Fast and lively") into a single, middle movement. Specifically, he alternates among kinder, gentler passages and quicker, more rhythmically-complex episodes. The third movement ("Gracefully quick - Something like a walking pace") is an easy-going rondo, with an especially rich, main melody.

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