GMCD 7326/27 You can order this CD in our E-Shop under Instrumental/Piano Reviews ***Sound Clips***	VIOLIN SONATAS SCHAEUBLE REGER HINDEMITH FURTWANGLER Bettina Boller voilin Walter Prossnitz piano

Contents:

DDD 2:04:31 – Recorded in the Alte Kirche in Boswil, Switzerland – 19-21 August 2007 (CD1) and 21-23 November 2007 (CD2)

Along with the string quartet, the concept of sonata for stringed instrument and piano is a product of the central European musical evolution par excellence. This is not to claim, of course, that sonatas for violin and continuo did not exist before, say, Telemann, or especially Haydn, for the products of the great Italian violin-making school of the late 17^th and early 18^th-centuries naturally demanded a repertoire to play. None the less, the application of the evolved sonata-style, coincidentally with its more regularly encountered application to the symphony or string quartet outside of the solo keyboard sonata or adopted concerto first movement, was not an Italianate invention; it was the product of the broader Germanic school, stemming in essence from the pioneering works by Johann Sebastian Bach. 

By the time the thirty year period in which the four works in this collection were written, which we shall discuss in chronological order of composition, Sonatas for keyboard with violin as a genre were established in a line of masterpieces stemming from Bach and Handel, alongside the virtually contemporaneous major Italians, to Haydn and Mozart, then through Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, until the Sonata in C minor by Max Reger, completed in April, 1915 - the first in our group - appeared. This was just over a year before Reger’s all-too-short life came to an end (he died in May 1916 at the age of 43), and thus concluding a remarkable series of nine such works by him that had begun with the Sonata Opus 1, which had appeared in 1893.  

The C minor Violin Sonata (the only such work by Reger in that key) is in four movements: I - Con passione  II – Largo  III – Scherzo: Vivace  IV – Andantino con Variazione (a theme with nine variations), and it is the finale which is by far the longest. Although at the time of his death Reger was still a relatively young man, he had completed an enormously prolific output (he reached Opus 146, and many of those numbers account for more than one work) and for an approach to tonality that was on the one hand rooted in the evolved classical-romantic tradition, and on the other came to be expressed in a constant state of flux, in that his approach to the relationships of certain keys to the tonic did not always follow classical precepts.  

Reger himself was well aware of his approach to tonality, which he discussed – though in a comparatively short form, in his textbook Supplement to the Theory of Modulation, translated by John Bernhoff and published in 1904. Curiously, Reger wrote to his friend Karl Straube, ‘[with this work] now begins the free, Jena style in Reger.’ With this he meant more than only a stylistic change – he also related to his house-move to his first villa of his own in Jena in April 1915 and to his first period as an independent musician after his employment as music director of the Meiningen court orchestra; these were reasons why Reger discribed himself ambiguously as a ‘Freiherr’ (baron). The style in this work is certainly ‘freer’ than he was wont to employ, in that his approach to structure and tonal relationships marked not so much sudden changes of direction but had evolved to what has been well described (by William E Grim) as ‘a settled maturity’ with regard to the organic structural cohesion of the work in question.

We can certainly discover that aspect of Reger’s in the C minor Violin Sonata, although the emotional aspect of the music – especially in the first movement – is anything but settled, as we may see from the tempo indication, Con passione. But this is not wholly true of the movement for the opening idea is soon contrasted with a very different second theme; the passion returns, and the music oscillates this way and that, constantly shifting until the more eruptive first theme appears to have the last word. In the second movement, Largo, it is the more lyrical mood (as we might expect) that carries the main emotional basis of the music. Although a climax is reached, it does not wholly disturb the underlying sense of repose which returns more settled than before.  The Scherzo, in a gentle 3/4 pulse, is equally free from passion, in the purely emotive sense. It is a delicately-scored dance-like movement that recalls aspects of Reger’s Ballett-Suite for orchestra, Opus 130, contrasted with a somewhat slower, lyrical idea; music whose emotion is very directly expressed, before the dance returns, almost coquettish in character.

The theme which forms the basis for the variations of the finale returns us to the ‘settled maturity’ of which William Grim wrote. At first, the theme appears almost too self-contained to permit wide variation, but as the music unfolds, the composer’s almost limitless resource reveals a consistent sense of organically evolving invention. The nine variations follow one another with admirable fluency; this is true chamber-music writing; at no time could we mistake the music in any other guise than violin and piano. The final variation, Adagietto, brings this wonderful Sonata to a serene conclusion, all passion spent. The first performance was given in Dortmund on October 6^th 1915, by Ewald Becker with Reger himself at the piano, after a private performance in Reger’s Jena villa on July 25th, by Gustav Havemann and Reger himself.

In 1915, of course, Germany was at war, and while Reger was unfit for military service, Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) found himself in the Kaiser’s Army in 1917, but his musical gifts (he was at that time a professional violinist and had begun to compose) ensured that he did not fight at the front. Much later in life, with his reputation as a composer (and, also, violist – to which instrument he changed) firmly established, Hindemith turned to conducting (not only his own works, but also works e.g. by Max Reger). Amongst the music he conducted publicly were pieces by Reger, but for Hindemith, his own compositional style was established very much in the 1920s, as a reaction against the late-Romantic masters, especially Richard Strauss and Mahler. Hindemith was above all a practical musician, one of the very few to appear on disc in four roles: as violist, pianist, conductor (of other composers’ music as well as his own) and composer. Of course he was one of many musician-composers, quite similar to Max Reger who frequently gave 120 concerts a season from October to May. 

Hindemith composed a great deal of music, including four Sonatas for violin and piano (irritatingly, he did not number them!). The Sonata in E major of 1935 is the third, and comes in complete contrast to the large-scale works by Reger and by Furtwängler in our collection – certainly with regard to its playing-time, for the two movements of the work take less than eleven minutes to perform. This is not to say that Hindemith at this time tended to concentrate on quite short pieces, for 1935 saw him complete his full-scale operatic masterpiece Mathis der Maler in seven scenes, a work that landed composer (and the then conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler, who wished to perform the Symphony Hindemith had extracted from the opera) in no little trouble with the Nazi authorities. The E major Sonata may have been undertaken as a complete compositional contrast to the demands of the large opera; in any event, it begins with a slow introduction, outlining a gently rocking theme that is mused over. Despite the brevity of the movement a surprisingly wide yet organic set of variants evolve. The second movement concerns deeper emotions at first, at once contrasted by a scherzando section before the character of the opening theme returns, rising to a more passionate outburst, in turn heralding a brief finale-like coda, to end the work with all doubt cast aside. The Sonata was first performed in Geneva in 1935.

It is only in quite recent times that attention has been paid to the compositions of Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954), whose great achievements as a conductor, both in the concert hall and the opera house, continue – more than fifty years after his death – to overshadow his original music. Another factor which has possibly lain behind the reluctance of musicians to programme Furtwängler’s works is the extreme length of many of them. For example, apart from his symphonies and the Symphonic Concerto for piano and orchestra (all of which are on the largest scale), the two violin sonatas he composed in the late 1930s are amongst the longest such works ever written.

As a child, as his widow Frau Elisabeth said, Wilhelm Furtwängler was (like Mozart) writing music before he was able to write letters. It would seem, therefore, that he was not only destined for a musical career, but also one devoted to original composition. Indeed, even after he had become world-famous as a conductor, Furtwängler always considered himself to be a composer first. 

Furtwängler’s violin sonatas are broadly contemporaneous. They were written in 1935 and 1938/39, and it may safely be considered that the broader elements of sonata form (in chamber and in orchestral music) lay at the heart of his original compositions. Over forty years previously, in the 1890s, Furtwängler had written two student violin sonatas, and although these were withdrawn it is clear that the genre was within his creative makeup from the beginning. Yet a recreative personality as strong as that of Furtwängler’s could not be expected, at the age of 50, to adhere to the confines of strict classical sonata form. Thus it is in the first Sonata, in D minor, we encounter a work of almost one hour in duration, of Brucknerian length and scale. Interestingly, Furtwängler himself regarded both violin sonatas to be symphonies in chamber-music instrumentation, and at one time even considered writing orchestral versions of them.     

The first performance took place in at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on March 4^th 1937 by Hugo Kolberg and Furtwängler, repeated a few days later in Berlin. The premiere marked the first time a work of Furtwängler’s had been performed publicly since 1915, and it was also the first of his compositions to appear in print (from Breitkopf und Härtel, Leipzig). The programme for March 4^th also included Mozart’s G major Sonata K 379 and Beethoven’s A major Sonata Opus 30 No 1: Kolberg was the leader of the Berlin Philharmonic at that time. This was a busy period for Furtwängler as conductor, for on March 25^th he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Queen’s Hall in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and spent much of the summer at Bayreuth, directing Parsifal and a complete Ring cycle. In October, in Munich, Edwin Fischer gave the first performance of Furtwängler’s Symphonic Concerto for piano and orchestra in Munich, with the Berlin Philharmonic and the composer conducting.

Although (or perhaps because) the first Sonata is on the largest scale, having its structural origins in the world that came to an end in 1914, its emotional expression is straightforward and easy to follow. The first movement, for example, could almost stand alone as a single-movement work; around 11-13 minutes into the movement a stunning extended climax is reached, and from that point onwards the music does not merely die down but is further developed in a new way, yet not so as to lose the thread of the symphonic argument, for that climax is reached again, after which a variant of the more feminine second subject gradually winds the music down to the closing, consoling bars. Such deeply musical sustained writing is contained in the three remaining movements, ending with a truly wonderful peroration which at last coalesces the opening chords of the finale before a consolatory and moving coda ruminates over the material of the composition, alluding to the ideas from which the entire Sonata has sprung, before a short burst of energy brings the piece to a strong conclusion. Although Furtwängler’s D minor Sonata is by far the longest work in this collection, its consistencies of style and of musical argument hold the attention throughout.      

One year after the premiere of Wilhelm Furtwängler’s D minor Sonata in 1937 it was clear that any hopes of staging Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler in Germany would have to be abandoned. In the event, it was to the Swiss city of Zürich that that honour fell, conducted by Robert F. Denzler, on May 28^th 1938. The result was a considerable success – seven years later, as the Second World War moved inexorably to its end in Europe, it was to Switzerland that Wilhelm Furtwängler was able to escape with his family from Germany, having been warned that he was to be arrested as an outspoken critic of the Nazi government – paradoxically, in Switzerland, at first he was regarded as a Nazi, and although he was able to conduct concerts in Geneva and Lausanne for the Suisse Romande, a planned concert in Zürich was cancelled. But in Switzerland, now a refugee under a political cloud (from which he was eventually exonerated), and the European war at an end, Furtwängler could muse over his art, and his fate, and consider the music of the country which had, effectively, saved his life.

Amongst the most active of Swiss composers at that time was Hans Schaeuble (1906-1988). Following his powerful Hymnus für Orchester Opus 29, which came almost as an outspoken paean of thanksgiving, Schaeuble’s Violin Sonata No 2 Opus 31 of 1946, in comparison with the vast canvas of Furtwängler’s D minor Sonata, is of more customary length. Of the four composers in our collection, Schaeuble is the least-known figure, but what cannot be denied is that this Sonata is fully worthy to stand alongside the other three Sonatas. It is a finely-written composition, and an interesting structural feature is that each of the four movements is longer than its predecessor. This is a difficult concept for a composer to bring off satisfactorily, yet Schaeuble is highly successful in achieving his aim. The first movement might appear at first to be little more than a brief Praeludium, but it is much more than that – here is a musical exordium, the violin’s initial falling phrase at once inverted and expanded, and, as the work progresses, we sense that it is from this tiny cell that the rest of the material of the Sonata is derived. Thus we are drawn into a growing organism, but this is to be no short-breathed work, for as we enter the finale what might seem to be another musical prelude leads at once to a faster second section – here is all activity, the violin line and right hand of the piano intertwined as fascinating musical embroidery, subtly reinforcing the organic nature of this masterfully-composed work, its derivations from that initial idea exposed with a profoundly satisfying sense of completion. Robert Matthew-Walker © 2009

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