Raphael, Lo sposalizio della Vergine (1504)
Haitinkzaal, Amsterdam Conservatorium, Thursday, 11 June, 2009
David Herman
Raphael, Lo sposalizio della Vergine (1504)
(All files are in MP3 formats, live recordings from the Concert)
I would like to thank my piano teacher David Kuyken, for all the things I learned from
him, and all the support I got from him the past five years.
Also I want to thank Marjes Benoist for the first three years of my conservatory study.
I want to thank Jan Wijn, Naum Grubert, Mila Baslavskaja and Willem Brons for the
‘faculty class’ and private lessons I got from them.
I would like to thank Frans van Ruth for the many chamber music lessons, and Martijn Hooning for the private theory and harmony lessons. Also, I would like to thank Willem Wander van Nieuwkerk for helping me to do my Master Research.
It is most common to divide Beethoven’s life and works in three style periods. The first period, running until 1802, Beethoven masters the ‘Classical’ style influenced by Haydn and establishes himself as a virtuoso composer. After writing his famous Heiligenstadt Testament, in which he considers and then rejects taking his life due to his oncoming deafness, his compositional style becomes more personal. This second period, running from 1803-04 (composition of the Eroica symphony) through 1813-14 is usually referred to as his ‘heroic period’. With the basis of a Classical style Beethoven’s music becomes more dramatic and monumental. Beethoven’s third period is marked by his deteriorating deafness, which forced him to quit performing as a pianist. In his personal life we see a gone wrong love affair with a married woman, Antonie Brentano (though the real identity is not certain) and the death of some family members and friends. Beethoven withdrew from public, more and more confining himself to his rooms in isolation. In this period we see more and more a focus on formal and stylistic innovations, and personal subjectivity.
The op.90 piano sonata was written in 1814, and was dedicated to Count Moritz von Lichnowsky. From the 32 piano sonatas Beethoven wrote, the op.90 sonata (sonata nr.27), is a transitional piece between the second and third period, commonly considered to be the first piano sonata of his late period. The sonata is made out of two movements, with a sonata form first movement and a rondo form second movement in the tonic major. The sonata is structurally very strict; the entire piece is build out of a three note motive (G—F-sharp—E) and also opens the entire piece. A common interpretation of the piece is to see it as a struggle between the ‘head and the heart’. The head, a firm and strong gesture, opens the first movement but quickly changes into the ‘heart’, the lyrical side of the piece. We see this shift returning throughout the piece. The second movement is one of the most ‘Schubertian’ pieces Beethoven ever wrote, forming a large contrast in itself with the first movement. Could we see Beethoven’s own struggle in his personal life in this piece, which marked the beginning of his ‘third period’?1
Paris of the 1830’s was a large centre of intellectual and artistic life in Europe, with the ‘salon’, where the most prominent writers, painters and musicians came together, at its centre. Among the famous people visiting these salons were Victor Hugo, George Sand, Delacroix, Chopin, and Liszt. In this setting Liszt was introduced to Marie d’Agoult in 1932, unhappily married with Count Charles d’Agoult, a French cavalry officer. Marie was going to become Liszt’s lover for the next twelve years. At first Liszt and Marie tried to keep their love affair a secret, but this proved to be a difficult task. In order to escape the scandal Liszt and Marie decided to flee to Switzerland, and marked the beginning of the years of pilgrimage, the years 1835-9 of Liszt’s life. During this period Liszt and Marie made visits to famous sites as Lake Walldenstadt and William Tell’s Chapel. These sights, together with Switzerland’s mountains, storms and colors were the inspiration to write what would later become the first ‘Swiss’ volume of the Années de pèlerinage, which, in its present form, was published first in 1955.
The Piece Orage dates from 1854 and was added to the first year of the Années de pèlerinage. Capturing the image of a storm, Liszt wrote this piece based on a poem by Byron:
But where of ye, O tempests! Is the goal?
Are ye like those within the human breast?
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest.
Liszt and Marie d’Agoult resumed their years of pilgrimage after a short return to Paris in 1837. From Switzerland they moved to Italy, eventually to settle in Rome, and later in Lucca and the small fishing village of San Rossore. Liszt became very much inspired by Italian art and literature, and formed the inspiration for his second ‘Italian’ volume of the Années de pèlerinage. Here he wrote the first verions of his three ‘Sonetti del Petrarca’, ‘Sposalizio’, and the ‘Après un lecure du Dante’, commonly known as the ‘Dante sonata’. This period also marked the end of Liszt’s relationship with Marie d’Agoult.
The present form of the second ‘Italian’ year of the Années de pèlerinage was first published in 1861 and was the second version of this cycle.
The piece ‘Sposalizio’ was inspired by a painting of Raphael ‘Lo sposalizio della Vergine’, a painting dating from 1504, to be seen in the Brera Chapel in Milan. The painting represents the engagement of Joseph and Mary.
The ‘Tre sonetti di Petrarca’ were originally written for voice and piano, but its transcriptions for piano solo date from the same time. The ‘Sonetto 123 del Petrarca’, the last one of the three, is based on the following sonetto written by Petrarca:2
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L’vidi in terra angelici costumi E celesti bellezze al mono solo, tal che di rimembrar mi giova e dole, è quant’io miro sogni, ombre e fumi; |
I beheld on earth angelic grace, and heavenly beauty unmatched in this world, such as to rejoice and pain my memory, which is so clouded with dreams, shadows, mists. |
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e vidi lagrimar que’ duo bei lumi ch’àn fatto mille volte invidiaal sole, et udi’ sospirando dir parole che farian gire i monti stare i fiumi. |
And I beheld tears spring from those two bright eyes, which many a time have put the sun to shame, and heard words unered with such sighs as to move the mountains and stay the rivers. |
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Amor, seno, valor, pietate e doglia Facean piangendo un più dolce concento D’ongi altro, che nel mondo undir si soglia, |
Love, wisdom, excellence, pity and grief made in that plaint a sweeter concert than any other to be heard on earth. |
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ed era il cielo a l’armonia si intento, che non se vedea in ramo mover foglia: tanta dolcezza avea pien l’aere e ‘l vento! |
And heaven on that harmony was so intent that not a leaf upon the bough was seen to stir, such sweetness had filled the air and winds. |
The ‘Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus’ consists of twenty movements and presents more than two hours of music when played as a whole cycle. The work forms a theological ‘gaze’ into the childhood of Jesus, the pieces want to reflect upon this and show a deeper Christian symbolism. All the pieces from the cycle present their own ‘regard’ on Catholic themes like the angels, the Virgin and the Father, the stars, the cross, time and silence.
The cycle opens with the ‘regard de Père’—the ‘gaze’ on the Father—represented by the principle theme of the entire work, the ‘Thème de Dieu’, the Theme of God. This theme will return in many transformations throughout the entire work, always reflecting back upon the Father. We can find other themes which return throughout the cycle, like the ‘Thème d'accords’, the Theme of Chords, and the ‘Thème de joie’, the Theme of Joy. All of the pieces from the cycle are accompanied by a small text, giving a symbolical and structural reference to the pieces, partly explaining Messiaen’s way of composing.
The work was dedicated to the pianist Yvonne Loriod, Messiaens second wife. Like Clara and Robert Schumann, the pianism of Yvonne played a large role in the development of Messiaens pianistic style. The cycle was completed in 1944, during WWII.
The fifteenth piece, ‘Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jésus’, has the following text accompanying it:
A chaque communion, l’Enfant-Jésus dort avec nous près de la porte; puis il
l’ouvre sur le jardin et se précipite à toute lumière pour nous embrasser…
(At each communion, the Infant Jesus sleeps with us at the door, then he opens it onto the garden and rushes to any light for us to kiss…)
Thème de Dieu en berceuse. Le sommeil—le jardin—les bras tendus vers l’amour—
le baiser—l’ombre du baiser. Une gravure m’a inspiré, qui représente l’Enfant-Jésus
quittant les bras de sa Mère pour embrasser la petite soeur Thérèse. Tout ceci est
symbole de la communion, de l’amour divin. Il faut aimer pour aimer ce sujet et cette
musique voudraient être tendres comme le Cœur du ciel, et il n’y a rien
d’autre.
(Theme of God in lullaby. Sleep—the garden—arms stretched to love—the kiss—the shadow of the kiss. I was inspired by an engraving, representing the Infant Jesus leaving his mother's arms to embrace little sister Theresa. This is a symbol of the communion, of divine love. One should love to love this subject and this music is aimed to be as tender as the heart of heaven, and there is nothing else.3)
Many of Franck’s mature and best works were written around the end of his life; among them are his piano quintet (1879), the ‘variations symphonique’ (1885) and his two major piano works, the ‘prélude, aria et finale’ (1886) and the ‘prélude, choral et fugue’’ (1884). As organist-pianist Franck was very much influenced by music of Liszt, Wagner, Beethoven and Bach. In these mature works Franck started to work more and more with small motives which developed during a piece to form phrases and melodies. His rich harmonic language continued the path of Liszt and Wagner, but formed a different ‘non-German’, but ‘French’ world of colors, we could later see developed further in music of Ravel and Debussy. This way of composing can be found in the ‘prélude, choral et fugue’.
Being the creator of two times twenty-four preludes and fugues, Bach was one of the largest inspiration for the writing of his ‘prélude, choral et fugue’. The beginning of the prelude immediately starts with a motive referring to the famous B-A-C-H theme, a melody made out of Bach’s name. In the prélude we can hear all the motivic material, among them the seuftzer motive, which will form the basis for the entire piece, and eventually will find its most complete form in the fugue theme.
By adding a choral in the middle of the prelude and fugue, Franck adds an extra face to the work. The choral represents divinity, the belief in the Catholic Church, and is the most present in the choraltheme itself. The prelude and fugue on the other hand represent the suffering of mankind. At the end of the piece, the theme of the fugue appears to be combinable with the choral theme surrounded by the motivic coloring material of the prelude. We hear the entire piece coming together, and with that we can hear divinity and belief overcoming mankind’s suffering.4
David Herman, May 2009