Last week, I had two evening sessions of chamber music. Tuesday evening was the Beethoven late C-sharp minor string quartet, Op. 131, and Thursday evening, the Schubert Cello Quintet in C major, D. 956. Before I write about the pieces and my experience with them, a brief digression about one of the difficulties of being an amateur chamber musician.
The problem is trying to find a suitable time to play music when you have a day job. I know this isn't the most sensitive thing in the world to complain about, when there are so many people who don't have jobs who need them. But still, I find it difficult to play music on a work night. We usually start at 7:30pm, and particularly if we're playing a long piece, like the two from this past week, we don't stop playing until past 9:30pm. And then there's the tradition of a snack and conversation afterwards, which is such a part of the whole experience that I hesitate to give it up. And then there's potentially driving home, if I'm not hosting, and then I'm so "up" from the experience that I find it difficult to get to sleep. And when you're my age, going to bed past midnight and getting up at 6am doesn't make for a wonderful work day.
So that's one of the reasons I've been trying to do more playing on weekends. I think that generally works better for me, but it does limit both the amount of time you have to play, and the people you can play with. Still, until I either retire or cut back my work hours, I think that will have to be the best solution. I am eager to hear any suggestions my readers can give me!
On to the pieces. The Beethoven Op. 131 quartet: an amazing piece, and one I don't really feel qualified to say much about. But since when has that stopped me? :-) It is fiendishly difficult, in so many ways, constant tempo changes, for one, but I'll just concentrate on one aspect, the key. C-sharp minor is a very difficult key for string instruments, particularly the viola and cello, since they lose the use of three of their four open strings. For me, that pushes me either to first position with an extended fourth finger to reach G-sharp on the C string and D-sharp on the G string, or half position. Half position is the only way to play a C-harp on the C string, and in a piece in C-sharp minor, you play a C-sharp a lot. And half position makes my brain hurt. :-)
(I am unable to find a good link describing half position. Although I think I would like to read this book, even though I'm somewhat outside the demographic for it. :-)
I wrote above that I lost three of my four open strings playing in C-sharp minor, but that's not strictly true. In the harmonic and melodic versions of the minor scale, you borrow the leading tone from the parallel major. In this case, you replace a B-natural with a B-sharp. And, since B-sharp is enharmonic to C-natural, in effect, for this piece, we replace the C string of the cello and viola with a B-sharp string. :-) And, seriously, by the end of the piece, I was really thinking of that thick piece of silver wound around sheep gut, at the left side of my fingerboard, as my B-sharp string. Listen to the beginning of this performance of the last movement (the actual last movement starts 17 seconds in). The end of the first phrase has the quartet in octaves on B-sharp, and you can hear the open strings of the viola and cello ring!
Because of the pull of this leading tone, it always struck me that C-sharp minor (or major), or, equivalently, D-flat minor (or major) are excellent keys for a string quartet. Too bad they're so difficult to play, and so seldom used. The second Dohnanyi quartet is in D-flat major; I hope to play that someday!
On to Thursday: a bittersweet occasion, the last session with a violinist I've been playing with a lot in the past year, but who's got a great job in another state and so is moving away. She'd asked specifically for the Schubert Cello Quintet, her favorite piece. There had been lots of obstacles in the way of getting this played, but things finally came together, and it was a marvelous evening.
I had been worried about what to play with the Schubert: there aren't that many cello quintets. Brahms wrote one, but destroyed it when he converted the music to his piano quintet. There are lots by Boccherini and Onslow, and ones by Cherubini and Glazunov. I had gotten the parts to the Borodin Cello Quintet on a mistaken recommendation from the second cellist (he was thinking of the famous Borodin Second String Quartet). But in the end, the question of what to play in the same evening with the Schubert Cello Quintet is: nothing. The piece is so long, and so beautiful, that one neither has time nor inclination to play anything else!
I really don't have that much to say about such a famous piece. Well, okay, I have two things to say. First, as I've mentioned before on this blog, one of the things that I find both fun and amusing about playing quartets are the times when the cello goes up high with a melody, I as the violist am always to be found, growling out the bass on my C-string. So, I think to myself, with two cellos in the room, that won't happen, right? Think again! Listen to the beautiful duet between the two cellos that forms the first statement of the second theme in the first movement of the Schubert, and, if you can tear your ears away from the melody, see if you can pick out the pizzicato bass line from the poor, lone viola. (You can catch it at 1:50 here).
The other thing I finally got while rehearsing for this reading was the very end of the last movement. As so often happens with Schubert, he oscillates between major and minor, but the last three notes of the piece are all five players: C, D-flat grace note, C. D-flat isn't in either C major or C minor, and I've never understood what it's doing there. But in my practice, I noticed that the slow movement starts in E major, moves to F minor for the middle section (a semitone higher), and then back to E major for the recap (with a tiny move back towards F minor again just before the end). And the Scherzo is in C major, while its trio is in D-flat major (again, up a semitone and back). So in a sense, the last three notes of the piece are echoing the entire second and third movements, a kind of Schenkerian analysis in miniature! I don't know how much sense that actually makes, but it's enough to make me completely happy with the ending.
A very successful sendoff for my violinist friend, someone I met "cold-calling" from the ACMP list. So let that be a lesson to all of you: blow the dust off your instrument, join the ACMP, and invite people from the list to play music with you! Don't be afraid! Not everyone will be compatible, but some will be, and then you can have a great deal of fun!
Showing posts with label Schubert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schubert. Show all posts
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Quartets: Schubert G major, Mendelssohn unpublished, Mozart "Hoffmeister"
Last Sunday I continued the experiment of having morning chamber music, and I have to say, I do like the experience of playing the viola while awake. :-)
Since it was morning, I suggested we start with the Schubert G major string quartet, D. 887. This is Schubert's last string quartet, and I think an absolutely beautiful work (I know, I say that way too often, but still!) It feels to me that it doesn't get played that often, and I think there's an obvious reason for that: it's a perfect example of what Schumann called "himmlische Länge" (heavenly length). This is one long string quartet, and tiring: it's filled with tremolos which can take significant energy to play. I had thought this might be the longest string quartet ever written, but apparently it doesn't crack the top five.
In this quartet, you get lots of what you'd expect from Schubert: abundant modulation, and flipping back and forth between major and minor modes. And gorgeous melodies! But I think my favorite moments are in the second movement, where the first violin and viola share a two-note interpolation that remains fixed as the entire quartet modulates further and further away. One example is around 2:20 in the YouTube clip: see if you can hear what I'm talking about. It always sends shivers down my spine!
Next, I got another piece crossed off my life-list, the Mendelssohn String Quartet in E-flat major, written in 1823, when Mendelssohn was about 14 years old, but not published until well after his death. Even though it's on both the recordings I have of the complete Mendelssohn string quartets (Melos and Pacifica), it's not included in the standard Peters Edition parts, and was therefore difficult to find. I finally had to order it from Ourtext in the UK (a wonderful place if you're looking for obscure chamber music, by the way: very cheap, even with international shipping)
And I think it was worth getting and playing. It's uneven; the final movement is a fugue, which, while it has its moments, feels very much like a student exercise. But the other three movements are fine, particularly the slow movement, about which the first violinist remarked, "he already had that lyrical thing down, didn't he?" And through the miracle that is the rampant copyright violation on Youtube, you can listen to the entire quartet yourself. :-)
We probably should have stopped at that point, but no one said "no", and everyone was playing so well that I was reluctant to move on to lunch. We finished with the Mozart "Hoffmeister" Quartet in D major, K.499. This was definitely "a quartet too far", though: we were dragging by the end. But Mozart is always a delight to play. But, as sometimes happens, I wanted to ask Mozart, who often played viola in quartets, what fingering he could possibly recommend for certain passages. Either Mozart had very large hands, or a very small viola. :-)
Since it was morning, I suggested we start with the Schubert G major string quartet, D. 887. This is Schubert's last string quartet, and I think an absolutely beautiful work (I know, I say that way too often, but still!) It feels to me that it doesn't get played that often, and I think there's an obvious reason for that: it's a perfect example of what Schumann called "himmlische Länge" (heavenly length). This is one long string quartet, and tiring: it's filled with tremolos which can take significant energy to play. I had thought this might be the longest string quartet ever written, but apparently it doesn't crack the top five.
In this quartet, you get lots of what you'd expect from Schubert: abundant modulation, and flipping back and forth between major and minor modes. And gorgeous melodies! But I think my favorite moments are in the second movement, where the first violin and viola share a two-note interpolation that remains fixed as the entire quartet modulates further and further away. One example is around 2:20 in the YouTube clip: see if you can hear what I'm talking about. It always sends shivers down my spine!
Next, I got another piece crossed off my life-list, the Mendelssohn String Quartet in E-flat major, written in 1823, when Mendelssohn was about 14 years old, but not published until well after his death. Even though it's on both the recordings I have of the complete Mendelssohn string quartets (Melos and Pacifica), it's not included in the standard Peters Edition parts, and was therefore difficult to find. I finally had to order it from Ourtext in the UK (a wonderful place if you're looking for obscure chamber music, by the way: very cheap, even with international shipping)
And I think it was worth getting and playing. It's uneven; the final movement is a fugue, which, while it has its moments, feels very much like a student exercise. But the other three movements are fine, particularly the slow movement, about which the first violinist remarked, "he already had that lyrical thing down, didn't he?" And through the miracle that is the rampant copyright violation on Youtube, you can listen to the entire quartet yourself. :-)
We probably should have stopped at that point, but no one said "no", and everyone was playing so well that I was reluctant to move on to lunch. We finished with the Mozart "Hoffmeister" Quartet in D major, K.499. This was definitely "a quartet too far", though: we were dragging by the end. But Mozart is always a delight to play. But, as sometimes happens, I wanted to ask Mozart, who often played viola in quartets, what fingering he could possibly recommend for certain passages. Either Mozart had very large hands, or a very small viola. :-)
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Schubert Arpeggione Sonata, D821
Last Saturday I got a chance to play the Schubert "Arpeggione" Sonata for the first time. One of the interesting things about having been a violinist who didn't really pick up the viola until after the end of my formal training is that I missed out on a lot of the standard viola literature, and the Arpeggione Sonata is one of those pieces.
It's really funny how the Arpeggione Sonata is one of the staples of the viola literature, since it wasn't even written for the viola. Schubert composed the piece for a new instrument, the arpeggione, which went in and out of fashion so fast that this sonata is pretty much the only piece for it. The arpeggione is tuned like a guitar, with six strings and frets, but is bowed like a cello.
It's fascinating how carefully Schubert considered the strengths and weaknesses of the arpeggione in writing this piece. The keys of the movements (A minor, E major, A major) work very well for the strings of the instrument. The biggest drawback of the arpeggione is that, with six strings, the bridge has to be quite flat, and so it's very difficult to play loudly without hitting more than one string. Schubert avoids this problem by having almost the whole piece marked "piano" or "pianissimo", except when there are double stops, or when the notes are to be played on the highest string (therefore making it easier to avoid hitting another string by mistake).
All this, of course, is lost when you play the piece on the viola. Those keys aren't particularly good for the viola, and there's no need to play quietly all the time! Not to mention that the viola can't actually play as low as the arpeggione, so some passages have to be taken up an octave.
Still, it's a beautiful piece, filled with those amazing Schubert melodies. But I want to talk about the beginning of the second movement, the first four notes of the viola in particular.
When I was a kid, I had the companion book to Leonard Bernstein's television broadcasts about music. I didn't see any of the shows at the time; this was back when you had to watch what they were showing on television (how barbaric that seems now). But the book was fascinating, and I remember one lecture in particular, The Infinite Variety of Music. This discussed how much composers can get out of four notes: sol-do-re-mi, in that order, or, as Bernstein puts it, "How Dry I Am". It's a wonderful exploration: well worth watching. And here, in the slow movement of the Arpeggione Sonata, the same four notes! Maybe Schubert wasn't as original as we suppose. :-)
It's really funny how the Arpeggione Sonata is one of the staples of the viola literature, since it wasn't even written for the viola. Schubert composed the piece for a new instrument, the arpeggione, which went in and out of fashion so fast that this sonata is pretty much the only piece for it. The arpeggione is tuned like a guitar, with six strings and frets, but is bowed like a cello.
It's fascinating how carefully Schubert considered the strengths and weaknesses of the arpeggione in writing this piece. The keys of the movements (A minor, E major, A major) work very well for the strings of the instrument. The biggest drawback of the arpeggione is that, with six strings, the bridge has to be quite flat, and so it's very difficult to play loudly without hitting more than one string. Schubert avoids this problem by having almost the whole piece marked "piano" or "pianissimo", except when there are double stops, or when the notes are to be played on the highest string (therefore making it easier to avoid hitting another string by mistake).
All this, of course, is lost when you play the piece on the viola. Those keys aren't particularly good for the viola, and there's no need to play quietly all the time! Not to mention that the viola can't actually play as low as the arpeggione, so some passages have to be taken up an octave.
Still, it's a beautiful piece, filled with those amazing Schubert melodies. But I want to talk about the beginning of the second movement, the first four notes of the viola in particular.
When I was a kid, I had the companion book to Leonard Bernstein's television broadcasts about music. I didn't see any of the shows at the time; this was back when you had to watch what they were showing on television (how barbaric that seems now). But the book was fascinating, and I remember one lecture in particular, The Infinite Variety of Music. This discussed how much composers can get out of four notes: sol-do-re-mi, in that order, or, as Bernstein puts it, "How Dry I Am". It's a wonderful exploration: well worth watching. And here, in the slow movement of the Arpeggione Sonata, the same four notes! Maybe Schubert wasn't as original as we suppose. :-)
Sunday, March 25, 2012
String Quartets: Ravel Quartet in F; Schubert "Death and the Maiden"
Friday evening I had string quartets at my house. One of the violinists had requested the Ravel quartet; the other Death and the Maiden. That made for a challenging and long evening, even though we started at 7pm rather than my more usual 7:30pm start time, and even though I didn't try to sneak in one of the few remaining quartets in my Haydn Project. :-) But a very satisfying evening of music!
One of the side effects of playing lots of chamber music for strings is that, if you're not careful, you can easily end up living on a diet of German music, leavened only by music strongly influenced by the German style, like Dvorak. Don't get me wrong: I love German composers. But every now and then, it's great to hear something completely different, and Ravel is a perfect example of that.
The Ravel Quartet in F is, in form, completely in the standard string quartet mode: sonata form first movement, scherzo second movement, slow third movement, fast, driving finale. But from a purely aural point of view, it sounds absolutely nothing like a Haydn quartet. It's filled with impressionistic effects: tremolos, fast arpeggios, shimmering, unstable harmonies, extremes of register, complex, shifting rhythms; in short, every color you could imagine from the string quartet palette. Just listen and you can't help but notice the departure from the German model. Of course, all those effects make it very difficult to play. I can't say we played it well, but it was, shall we say, recognizable. And fun!
One comment here: we played from the International Edition, and it was just horrible. As far as I can tell, just a reprint of the original French edition, with misprints galore. For example, two eighth notes just missing from the viola part, third movement four measures before the end. (Checking with the score, an A before the B-flat quarter note, and an A-flat after). And some of those complex, shifting rhythms could be much more clearly notated. Can anyone recommend a better edition of this quartet? Or I'll have to do one myself in my copious free time. :-)
After the Ravel, Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet. Oh, what an amazing piece! I don't know what I can say about it that hasn't already been said. Just go listen to it. (And thanks again to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for their amazing collection of free chamber music recordings from their concerts!)
Well, maybe I can say two things. First, I can only echo Schumann's remark about another piece fo Schubert's music : "himmlische Länge" (heavenly length). But after 9pm on a Friday after a long work week, perhaps more accent on the "Länge" than the "himmlische". :-)
Second, I just learned from reading the Wikipedia article about this piece that it's very likely that Schubert himself played the viola part at the premiere. Yet another reason why violas are the center of the universe. :-)
One of the side effects of playing lots of chamber music for strings is that, if you're not careful, you can easily end up living on a diet of German music, leavened only by music strongly influenced by the German style, like Dvorak. Don't get me wrong: I love German composers. But every now and then, it's great to hear something completely different, and Ravel is a perfect example of that.
The Ravel Quartet in F is, in form, completely in the standard string quartet mode: sonata form first movement, scherzo second movement, slow third movement, fast, driving finale. But from a purely aural point of view, it sounds absolutely nothing like a Haydn quartet. It's filled with impressionistic effects: tremolos, fast arpeggios, shimmering, unstable harmonies, extremes of register, complex, shifting rhythms; in short, every color you could imagine from the string quartet palette. Just listen and you can't help but notice the departure from the German model. Of course, all those effects make it very difficult to play. I can't say we played it well, but it was, shall we say, recognizable. And fun!
One comment here: we played from the International Edition, and it was just horrible. As far as I can tell, just a reprint of the original French edition, with misprints galore. For example, two eighth notes just missing from the viola part, third movement four measures before the end. (Checking with the score, an A before the B-flat quarter note, and an A-flat after). And some of those complex, shifting rhythms could be much more clearly notated. Can anyone recommend a better edition of this quartet? Or I'll have to do one myself in my copious free time. :-)
After the Ravel, Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet. Oh, what an amazing piece! I don't know what I can say about it that hasn't already been said. Just go listen to it. (And thanks again to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for their amazing collection of free chamber music recordings from their concerts!)
Well, maybe I can say two things. First, I can only echo Schumann's remark about another piece fo Schubert's music : "himmlische Länge" (heavenly length). But after 9pm on a Friday after a long work week, perhaps more accent on the "Länge" than the "himmlische". :-)
Second, I just learned from reading the Wikipedia article about this piece that it's very likely that Schubert himself played the viola part at the premiere. Yet another reason why violas are the center of the universe. :-)
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Schubert, String Trio No. 1 in B flat, D471
Sunday evening I had a very special chamber music treat. I've mentioned on this blog that I go most Sunday nights to my friend's house for dinner with him and his family, board games with his kids, and then violin sonatas (we're working our way through the Mozart sonatas for a second time). But my friend is also a cellist, and his nearly ten-year-old son is a rapidly advancing violinist (almost done with Book Four of Suzuki, if I recall correctly). A couple of months ago, his parents thought to give him a gift of a chamber music session with me and his father, and asked me to pick the piece. I chose Schubert's single movement String Trio No. 1 in B flat, D471. I'd heard it at a Chameleon Arts Ensemble concert a few months previously, and thought that it was the right length and character for this purpose.
Sunday evening we had our first run through of the piece, and it was a wonderful musical experience. My young friend has all the makings of an excellent musician (I'd expect nothing less, knowing his father!) Confident, attentive, musical, a joy to play with! I hope to do so again often in the months and years ahead.
And I think the piece I chose was just right. It was a bit of a stretch for my young friend, both technically (going up to fifth position in one place), but also musically. The Suzuki books concentrate almost exclusively on folk songs and Baroque music, so Schubert's early Romantic harmonic vocabulary initially confused him greatly, particularly in the development section. But he practiced the piece a lot, and surmounted the technical difficulties, as well as implanting Schubert earworms into his entire family. (I have a friend who says the only way to get a Schubert melody out of your head is with another Schubert melody!)
Sunday evening we had our first run through of the piece, and it was a wonderful musical experience. My young friend has all the makings of an excellent musician (I'd expect nothing less, knowing his father!) Confident, attentive, musical, a joy to play with! I hope to do so again often in the months and years ahead.
And I think the piece I chose was just right. It was a bit of a stretch for my young friend, both technically (going up to fifth position in one place), but also musically. The Suzuki books concentrate almost exclusively on folk songs and Baroque music, so Schubert's early Romantic harmonic vocabulary initially confused him greatly, particularly in the development section. But he practiced the piece a lot, and surmounted the technical difficulties, as well as implanting Schubert earworms into his entire family. (I have a friend who says the only way to get a Schubert melody out of your head is with another Schubert melody!)
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