Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonata for Solo Violin in C Major, BWV 1005 The Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin (BWV 1001–1006) form a set of six works composed by Johann Sebastian Bach: three sonatas in four movements and three partitas consisting of dance-based movements. The complete set was first published in 1802 by Bote and Bock. These three partitas and three sonatas for solo violin follow the same general pattern: they start with preludes which are elaborate in ornamentation and have frequently modulating (sometimes chromatic) ) harmonies. These serve as introductions to the fugues that follow in each case. The latter represent special challenges in an unaccompanied work where a single violin has to play all the voices. After these two more “serious” movements, the third and fourth movements are “lighter”: in each case, a melodious instrumental aria is followed by a finale in perpetual motion, where the rapid 16th-notes serve as vehicles for considerable harmonic and structural intricacy. Each sonata realizes this basic pattern in a different way. In this work (the only one of the three written in a Major key), the opening “Adagio” focuses on a rhythmic idea rather than on an ornamental one. The fugal second movement includes a lengthy middle section in a non-contrapuntal, figurative style. The “Largo” is dominated by a single uninterrupted melodic line, while the finale introduces a dance-like rhythmic pattern to break up the monotony of the steady 16th-note motion. Ludwig Van Beethoven: Sonata No. 3 in A Major for Cello and Piano, Opus 69 The Cello Sonata in A Major is a remarkable work. Given its proximity in time to the Fifth Symphony, one might expect the sonata to be charged with that same molten energy. Instead, it is characterized by nobility, breadth, and a relaxed quality that have made it–by common consent–the finest of Beethoven’s five cello sonatas. Beyond issues of content, this sonata is notable for Beethoven’s solution to a problem that has plagued all who write cello sonatas–how to keep the two instruments balanced. He keeps the cello part in the rich mid-range of that instrument, and while the piano is an active co-participant, it is never allowed to overpower or bury the cello. The Allegro ma non tanto opens with an unusual touch: all alone, the cello plays the movement’s poised main theme and is joined by the piano only after the theme is complete. Beethoven marks both entrances dolce, and while there is plenty of energy in this lengthy sonata-form movement, that marking might characterize the movement as a whole (characteristically, the marking at the beginning of the development is espressivo). The second movement–Allegro molto–is a scherzo with a syncopated main idea and a double-stopped second theme (also marked dolce). These alternate in the pattern ABABA before a brief coda rounds the movement off; the very ending is a model of ingenuity and understatement. There is no slow movement in this sonata, but the final movement opens with an extended slow introduction marked Adagio cantabile before the music leaps ahead at the Allegro vivace. This is not the expected rondo-finale but another sonata-form movement. It is typical of this sonata that the opening of the fast section is marked pianissimo, and throughout the movement Beethoven reminds both players repeatedly to play dolce. La Jolla Music Society, 2007 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Trio No. 4 in E Major, K. 542 Vienna, July 1788 Dearest Friend and Brother in the Order, Amid my toils and anxieties I have brought my affairs to such a pass that I must needs raise a little money on these 2 pawnbroker’s tickets. I implore you by our friendship to do me this favor, but it must be done instantly. Forgive my importunity, but you know my circumstances. Ah, had you but done as I asked you! If you do it even now, all will go as I wish.... excerpts from two letters from Mozart to Michael Puchberg Mozart composed his last three symphonies and his last three piano trios in the same year. The present work, dated June 22, 1788, is the first of the final three. Only four days later Mozart completed his Symphony No. 39 in E-flat (K. 543), and within six weeks he brought to completion No. 40 in G minor (K. 550) and No. 41 in C major (K. 551, the “Jupiter”); the two remaining trios came along in mid-July and late October. While those final symphonies represented the highest level to which that form had yet been raised, the trios were offered as music designed for amateur performers. There is nothing condescending in the writing, however, or the slightest lowering of Mozart's always high standards; indeed, when they were first offered to the public the trios were compared unfavorably with those by various now-forgotten contemporaries, on the grounds that they were “too demanding,” “unapproachable,” and even “bizarre.” To be sure, there was a good deal about them that was virtually without precedent: first of all, their sheer substance, and, no less conspicuously, a change in the status of the stringed instruments. While so many piano trios of this period seem to be little more than solo pieces for the piano with occasional embellishment by the violin and cello, Mozart gave the string instruments more substantial material, more equal footing with the piano, generous helping of concertante material, thereby producing a rarity in its time: a piano trio with more or less equal prominence for the strings. He was so pleased with this one in E major that he immediately suggested to his friend and fellow Freemason Michael Puchberg (whom he was forever hitting up for loans) that they perform it at his house, and in early July he sent the work to his sister in Salzburg, asking her to play it for Michael Haydn, the great Joseph Haydn's brother, who was in service to Mozart's own former employer, the Prince-Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. Mozart himself took this trio with him on the German tour in which he apparently introduced his new symphonies; there is a record of his performing it at the Saxon court. Some 60 years later it became a favorite of another pianist-composer, Frédéric Chopin. E major was a key Mozart sometimes used in his operas to support images of the unusual of the supernatural; he hardly ever used it in his instrumental works, but in this trio it seemed to suit him well for something new in the way of harmonic adventurousness. The two outer movements are striking for their melodic content and (in the finale especially) the concertante writing for each of the three instruments. The central Andante grazioso, in a French rondo form which Mozart used frequently in earlier works, also exhibits a great deal of imagination in its harmonic and contrapuntal treatment; from the Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein and to more than a few others, it has provoked comparisons with the pastoral idylls of Watteau. The Kennedy Center Chamber Players, May 2004