NINETY-FOURTH SEASON
Sunday, March 30, 2025, at 3:00
Chamber Music Series
Julia Fischer Violin
Jan Lisiecki Piano
MOZART Violin Sonata No. 10 in B-flat Major, K. 378
Allegro moderato
Andantino sostenuto e cantabile
Rondo: Allegro
BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24 (Spring)
Allegro
Adagio molto espressivo
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo
INTERMISSION
SCHUMANN Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 121
Very slow—Lively
Very lively
Quiet, simple
Moving
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
COMMENTS by Richard E. Rodda
WOLFGANG MOZART
Born January 27, 1756; Salzburg, Austria
Died December 5, 1791; Vienna, Austria
Violin Sonata No. 10 in B-flat Major, K. 378
COMPOSED 1779
Mozart’s first published compositions were a gaggle of juvenile sonatas for piano and violin: he wrote K. 6–9 in Paris in 1764 (he was eight); K. 10–15 in London during that same year (these were issued with an optional part for cello so they could be played as trios); and K. 26–31 in the Hague two years later. He then did not return to the form until 1778, when he was inspired by a performance in Mannheim of “six duets for clavicembalo and violin by [Josef] Schuster,” as he reported to his father. Realizing the potential sales of such works to the large market of musical amateurs, he added, “I shall write six myself in the same style.” He actually composed seven piano and violin sonatas during his tour to Mannheim and Paris and added eleven more of them to his catalog during his years in Vienna. Whereas the early sonatas follow the rococo convention of an almost dispensable violin line (the violin was considered
the accompanying instrument in those early classical-era days), the later ones show a greater equality and independence of the instrumental parts. This stylistic characteristic was recognized in the April 4, 1783, edition of Cramer’s Magazin der Musik in a review of the sonatas K. 376–380 and K. 296, recently published in Vienna:
These sonatas are unique of their kind. Rich in new ideas with traces of their author’s great musical genius. Very brilliant and suited to the keyboard. At the same time, the violin accompaniment is so ingeniously combined with the clavier part that both instruments are constantly kept in equal prominence so that these sonatas call for as skilled a violinist as a clavier player.
The Sonata in B-flat major, K. 378, was probably composed in Salzburg early in 1779, soon after Mozart returned from his difficult and disappointing trip to Paris. He found a ready demand for such works among Vienna’s music lovers when he moved to that city
this page: Wolfgang Mozart, portrait sketched and engraved by Edmé Quenedey (1756–1830). Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France | opposite page: Ludwig van Beethoven, engraving by Johann Joseph Neidl (1776–1832) after a portrait by Gandolph Ernst Stainhauser von Treuberg (1766–1805), 1801
two years later, so he composed two additional piano and violin sonatas (K. 376 and K. 377) and had the three pieces published by Artaria along with K. 296, written in Mannheim in 1778, as his op. 2. (Such numbering was arbitrary—this volume was the third “op. 2” Mozart had issued.) The set was dedicated to his keyboard student Josepha Auernhammer, whose father, economic councillor Johann Michael Auernhammer, had sponsored a concert of Mozart’s music at his home on November 23, 1781. An advertisement for the publication appeared in the Wiener Zeitung of December 8, 1781, noting that the music was written “by the sufficiently well-known and
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Born December 16, 1770; Bonn, Germany
Died March 26, 1827; Vienna, Austria
celebrated Herr Wolfgang Amadée Mozart.” The sonatas retained their popularity during Mozart’s lifetime and were reissued by Boyer of Paris in 1785 and by Artaria in 1787.
The charming B-flat sonata is disposed in three movements: fast–slow–fast. The opening Allegro is filled with the conversational lyricism and limpid grace that mark the most delightful of Mozart’s chamber creations. The second movement is a lovely song largely entrusted to the violin. The finale, in the rhythm and spirit of a minuet, is a rondo with a chuckling episode near the end that resembles the whirling Italian tarantella.
Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24 (Spring)
Beethoven arrived in Vienna in November 1792 with the blessing of Joseph Haydn and a letter of introduction from Count Ferdinand Waldstein of Bonn. Armed with such credentials and preceded by his reputation as a fiery pianist exactly in tune with the fashionable romantic sensibilities of the time, Beethoven quickly made himself
known in the palaces and salons of the city’s aristocracy, whose numbers in the relatively safe Habsburg Imperial City had been swelled by the recent influx from Italy, France, and elsewhere in the wake of the revolutionary fervor loose in the land. Beethoven’s patrons of those early years were from among the most important families in Europe: Prince Joseph Lobkowitz, Count Andreas Razumovsky, Count Moritz von Fries, Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, and even Habsburg’s Archduke Rudolf. His most important supporters after his
arrival were Prince Karl Lichnowsky and his wife, Princess Christine, who provided him with an apartment in their home for two years. “[They] treated Beethoven as a friend and brother and induced the entire nobility to support him,” reported the composer’s student Carl Czerny.
Count von Fries, seven years Beethoven’s junior, was one of Beethoven’s most devoted patrons, providing him with a regular stipend until he tumbled into bankruptcy in 1825 following the Napoleonic upheavals; the Seventh Symphony of 1813 was dedicated to him. Fries’s Vienna palace in the Josefplatz was designed by one of the architects of Schönbrunn, the emperor’s suburban summer residence, and housed an elegant private theater that was the site of frequent musical presentations. In April 1800, Fries hosted what developed into a vicious piano-playing competition between Beethoven and the visiting German virtuoso and composer Daniel Steibelt (1765–1823), and Beethoven won in a unanimous decision. Following that victory, Beethoven composed for Fries two sonatas for violin and piano (opp. 23 and 24) and the String Quintet, op. 29, whose dedications the count eagerly accepted.
The two sonatas for violin and piano Beethoven composed for Count Fries in 1800–01—the passionate A minor (op. 23) and the pastoral F major (op. 24, appropriately subtitled Spring)—were apparently conceived as a contrasting but complementary pair, perhaps intended to be performed together. (Beethoven headed the manuscript of
the F major piece Sonata II, and originally instructed the Viennese publisher T. Mollo to issue the two works under the single op. 23. An apparent engraver’s error, however, caused the two violin parts to be printed in different formats— one upright, one oblong—making printing in a single volume awkward, so the sonatas were reissued separately with individual opus numbers.)
The Sonata in F major, op. 24, one of Beethoven’s most limpidly beautiful creations, is well characterized by its vernal sobriquet. The opening movement’s sonata form is initiated by a gently meandering melody first chanted by the violin. The grace-note-embellished subsidiary subject is somewhat more vigorous in rhythm and chromatic in harmony but maintains the music’s bucolic atmosphere. Wave-form scales derived from the main theme close the exposition. The development section attempts to achieve a balance between a downward striding arpeggio drawn from the second theme and flutters of rising triplet figures. A full recapitulation and an extended coda based on the flowing main theme round out the movement. The Adagio is a quiet flight of wordless song, undulant in its accompanimental figuration and delicately etched in its melodic arabesques. The tiny gossamer scherzo is the first such movement Beethoven included in one of his violin sonatas. The finale, a rondo that makes some unexpected digressions into distant harmonic territories, is richly lyrical and sunny of disposition.
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Born June 8, 1810; Zwickau, Germany
Died July 29, 1856; Endenich, near Bonn, Germany
Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 121
COMPOSED 1851
In September 1850, the Schumanns left Dresden to take up residence in Düsseldorf, where Robert assumed the post of municipal music director. He was welcomed to the city with a serenade, a concert of his works, a supper, and a ball. Though he had been cautioned a few years before by his friend Felix Mendelssohn that the local musicians were a shoddy bunch, he was eager to take on the variety of duties that awaited him in the Rhenish city, including conducting the orchestra’s subscription concerts, leading performances of church music, giving private music lessons, organizing a chamber music society, and composing as time allowed. Mendelssohn’s advice notwithstanding, he found the players acceptable and plunged into his work with energy and enthusiasm. Surprisingly, this busy, new situation had a salutary effect on Schumann’s creative work, and within months, he had composed the Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, an overture to Schiller’s The Bride of Messina, many songs and choral
works, a large cache of chamber and piano pieces, the Rhenish Symphony (inspired by a trip upstream on September 29 to Cologne’s awesome cathedral) and the Cello Concerto, started an oratorio on the subject of Martin Luther (never finished), and revised his D minor symphony of 1841 as the Symphony no. 4.
Despite Schumann’s promising entry into the musical life of Düsseldorf, it was not long before things turned sour. His fragile mental health, his ineptitude as a conductor, and his frequent irritability created a rift with the musicians, and the orchestra’s governing body presented him with the suggestion that, perhaps, his time would be better devoted entirely to composition. Schumann, increasingly unstable though at first determined to stay, complained to his wife, Clara, that he was being cruelly treated. Proceedings were begun by the orchestra committee to relieve him of his position, but his resignation in 1853 ended the matter. By early the next year, Schumann’s reason had completely given way. On February 27, he tried to drown himself in the Rhine, and a week later, he was committed to the asylum in Endenich, where he lingered with fleeting moments of
above: Robert Schumann, daguerreotype by Johann Anton Völlner, 1850. Hamburg, Germany
sanity for nearly two-and-a-half years. His faithful Clara was there with him when he died on July 29, 1856, at the age of forty-six.
Though Schumann’s tenure in Düsseldorf proved difficult and ended sadly, he enjoyed there one of his greatest outbursts of creativity—nearly one-third of his compositions were written in the city. His two sonatas for violin and piano (A minor and D minor) were composed in a rush during the autumn of 1851 (September 12–16 and October 26–November 2; the G minor piano trio was written during the interim between them), after he and Clara had returned from a tour to Bonn, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Switzerland (Clara reported that the Alpine views drew cries of rapture from her husband), Brussels, and Antwerp, where Robert adjudicated a choir contest. Robert was eager to hear the new sonatas when they were completed, so he enlisted the recently appointed concertmaster of the Düsseldorf orchestra, Wilhelm Wasielewski (later the composer’s biographer), to read through them with Clara at a private soirée at the Schumann house before the end of the year. Clara premiered the D minor sonata on October 29, 1853, in Düsseldorf with Joseph Joachim, her first appearance with the violinist who was to become her most frequent recital partner for the rest of her career.
Aslow introduction, juxtaposing bold, declamatory chords and short, quiet phrases opens the D minor sonata. The principal theme of
the first movement comprises a broad strain in widely spaced intervals and a short rising arpeggio, which are traded conversationally between the participants. Contrast of mood and thematic material is provided by the subsidiary subject, a long, lyrical, arching melody. The main theme is recalled to close the exposition. The expansive and dramatic central section shows that Schumann, in his later years, had evolved into a fine craftsman of thematic development while retaining the romantic passion of his youth. A full recapitulation of the exposition’s themes and a feverish coda close the movement. The scherzo is dynamic and fully scored for the piano, qualities that influenced the young Johannes Brahms, who was to meet (and come under the indelible sway of) Schumann two years after this sonata was written. The scherzo’s impetuous progress is twice interrupted by trios of a more subdued nature. The third movement is a set of richly textured variations on a simple, chorale-like tune presented by the pizzicato violin at the outset. A variation in quicker tempo recalls the theme of the scherzo to lend unity to the work’s overall structure. The expressive urgency of the opening movement returns with the finale, a tightly reasoned sonata form, which turns from the anxious region of D minor to end the sonata in the triumphant parallel major key.
Richard E. Rodda, a former faculty member at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, provides program notes for many American orchestras, concert series, and festivals.
