SOLO CELLO SUITE, NO 1, OP. 72Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Canto primo: Sostenuto e largamente—Fuga: Andante moderato—Lamento: Lento rubato—Canto secondo: Sostenuto—Serenata: Allegretto pizzicato—Marcia: Alla marcia moderato—Canto terzo: Sostenuto—Borone: Moderato quasi recitative—Molto perpetuo e Canto quarto: Presto(The movements are played without pause.)

CELLO SONATA IN F MAJOR, OP. 6Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Allegro con brioAndante ma non troppoFinale: Allegro vivo

:: intermission ::VIOLIN SONATA IN A MINOR, OP. 105Robert Schumann (1810-1856)/Arr. Ben Capps

Mit leidenschaftlichem AusdruckAllegrettoLebhaft

SONATA IN A MAJOR FOR CELLO AND PIANO César Franck (1822-1890)

Allegretto ben moderatoAllegroRecitativo—Fantasia: Ben moderatoAllegretto poco mosso

11june

Satur

day

8 PM

Ben Capps, cello

Vassily Primakov, piano

the program

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 23

WEEK

2

Pre-concert talk with Dr. Elizabeth Seitz, 7 PM

SOLO CELLO SUITE, NO. 1, OP. 72Benjamin Britten (b. Lowestoft, United Kingdom, November 22, 1913; d. Aldeburgh, United Kingdom, December 4, 1976)

Composed 1964; 23 minutes

The profound personal and professional affinity between the composer Benjamin Britten andthe cellist Mstislav Rostropovich led to a singular partnership of the British composer andhis Russian muse. In the fall of 1960 Benjamin Britten had gone to Royal Festival Hall withDmitri Shostakovich to hear the London premiere of that composer’s first cello concerto.After the concert, Shostakovich saw to it that Rostropovich and Britten—each heretofore relatively unknown to the other—would meet for the first time.

Britten, ecstatic about the cellist’s performance, was thrilled when Rostropovich invited thenewly-met composer to write a cello piece for him. Unaware that this ebullient cellist

habitually issued such an invitation to composers, Britten accepted. Thus was bornnot only Britten’s Sonata for Piano and Cello in C major, the first of five extraordinaryworks that he ultimately composed for Rostropovich, but also a unique and lastingfriendship.

Benjamin Britten’s three suites for cello solo constitute truly profound tributes to hisregard for Mstislav Rostropovich. The suites present challenges of the highest order,requiring of the performer and instrument the most demanding musical and technical

cunning and imagination. Certainly, one cannot consider the suites without reference to thesix solo cello suites—similarly challenging—composed two centuries earlier by J. S. Bach.Britten’s awareness of them is a matter of record.

Rostropovich’s physique and performance style received the composer’s careful consideration.His large hands, long fingers, strength, and endurance were important factors in Britten’schoices, else the suites, including Suite No. 1, would be significantly poorer in pizzicato (left-and right-hand), harmonics, polyphony, drones (the “Bordone” of the Suite No. 1), perpetualmotion, and above all, double, triple, and quadruple stops. The cello is notoriously challengingin this last category, as the size and arrangement of the strings over the bridge, and the sizeand shape of the bow, make the playing of multiple stops infinitely more difficult than on aviolin, for instance.

A significant feature of the Suite No. 1, the four Cantos, reflects Britten’saffinity for the human voice. In literary terms, a canto is understood asa major section of a poem, and in musical terms the word “canto”relates to the Latin word “cantare” [to sing]. Up to this time Brittenhad composed overwhelmingly for voices—opera, solo song, choruses.given Rostropovich’s special feeling for vocal repertoire, Brittenprovided rich lyrical material, not only in the four Cantos, but also inthe Lamento, the Serenata, and the Bordone (the drone).

Hearing the Suite No. 1 challenges the listener because of thecomplexity of the writing and the emotional range of the music. Thesheer adventure of hearing such stunning music in a live performanceis its own reward.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

24 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM

Britten and Rostropovich hada long friendship based onthe highest personal andprofessional regard forone another.

Rostropovich made recordings of thefirst two of Britten’s solo cello suites,leaving a lasting standard forperformances of the pieces. When asked,late in his life, why he had not recordedSuite No. 3, the cellist replied: “Thatwas a mistake. I have three musicalgods—Shostakovich, Prokofiev, andBritten. …I was devastated whenBritten died, so I stayed away from thethird suite for awhile, but then I gottoo busy with other things and I simplynever got around to recording it.This is one of my regrets in life.”

CELLO SONATA IN F MAJOR, OP. 6Richard Strauss (b. Munich, June 11, 1864; d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen, September 8, 1949)Composed 1883; 26 minutes

As a student working under the influence not only of his professors, but also of his father,Franz, the principal hornist of the Munich Court Orchestra, Richard Strauss composed ahandful of works for small instrumental ensemble. After those apprentice years, the concerthall and opera house got his full attention.

During the decade 1877-87—the years of his teens and young manhood—Strauss wrote afew chamber music pieces that he eventually deemed suitable for publication: two pianotrios, a string quartet, a sonata for violin and piano, a piano quartet, and this sonata for celloand piano. He began composing the Cello Sonata at the age of seventeen, revised it over atwo-year period, and completed it at age nineteen.

The Sonata gained immediate and positive critical attention upon its premiere on December8, 1883, in a performance by the Czech cellist Hanuš Wihan, to whom it was dedicated. (Wihanwas also the dedicatee of Dvor�ák’s Cello Concerto.) Later that month, Strauss himselfexpressed great pleasure in the Sonata upon his own performance of it with the cellist Ferdinand Böckmann in Dresden. He wrote to his mother, “My sonata pleased the audiencegreatly, and they applauded most enthusiastically. I was congratulated from all sides.”

The first movement, by turns dramatic and lyric, is cast in sonata form based on multiplethemes. Strauss’s lyrical gift emerges particularly in the cello, an instrument ideally suitedto sing through registers that emulate the human voice, from the baritone through thesoprano ranges. The vocal character of the work is especially remarkable in the secondmovement, Andante non troppo, with an emotional range that reveals the cello’s uniquecapacity for expressive singing and dynamic contrasts. The sonata concludes with a capriciousAllegro vivo whose forward drive is enlivened by surprising key changes. Strauss foundroom in the Finale for lyricism and humor, and the sonata concludes with youthful bravura.

VIOLIN SONATA IN A MINOR, OP. 105Robert Schumann (b. Zwickau, June 8, 1810; d. Endenich, near Bonn, July 29, 1856)Adapted for cello by Ben CappsComposed September 1851; 18 minutes

Robert Schumann, although still relatively young, was nearing the end of his life as a composer before he attempted to write works for solo violin. Between 1851 and 1853 hewrote five violin compositions, including a concerto. In 1854 Schumann was admitted to amental asylum at Endenich, where he spent the rest of his life, dying there in the summerof 1856.

Schumann composed his first violin sonata quickly, starting and finishing it within five daysin September 1851. At the time he was the conductor of the Düsseldorf Musikverein andwas inspired to write the A-minor sonata by the artistry of his concertmaster, WilhelmJoseph von Wasielewski (1822-1896), who had come to Düsseldorf at Robert’s invitation. Upon the completion of the A-minor sonata, Wasielewski and Clara Schumann gave a private performance of the new work. The following spring Clara was at the piano for the public premiere of the sonata, with Ferdinand David, friend and colleague of FelixMendelssohn and concertmaster of the Leipzig gewandhaus Orchestra, as the violinist.

35TH SEASON | ROCKPORT MUSIC :: 25

Rostropovich and Brittenafter a concert. BenjaminBritten wrote five major celloworks for Rostropovich, allinspired by the Russian cellist’sunique facility with theinstrument and his uninhibitedmusicality: Sonata forPiano and Cello in C major(1961), Symphony forCello and Orchestra(1963), Suite No. 1 forCello in G major (1964),Suite No. 2 for Cello inD major (1967), and SuiteNo. 3 for Cello in C major(1971).

Richard Strauss at the timehe introduced the CelloSonata, a work of his late teens.

The Violin Sonata in A minor is an intimate work, with restless energy and searching phrasestraded between the two instruments. Although technically demanding, its extensive passagesof rapidly moving figures seem more agitated than virtuosic.

Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck [with passionate expression] lives up to its title. The violin’sopening statement in A minor is interrupted and taken up by the piano in a new key, and the twoinstruments continue, restlessly, to trade the theme, modulating to other keys, throughout themovement.

The Allegretto is an interlude in the style of so many of Schumann’s short piano pieces andsmaller chamber works. Tender folk-like melodies alternate with saucy figures in a freelydistributed tempo rubato. Two light pizzicato chords finish this gentle rondo.

The impassioned mood of the first movement returns for the A-minorfinale, Lebhaft [lively]. Both instruments propel the music on rushingswirls of sixteenth notes in a traditional sonata form. The main themeof the first movement reappears briefly, but the piano and violin reassertthe Lebhaft’s energetic principal motif and they bring the sonata to avigorous conclusion.

SONATA IN A MAJOR FOR CELLO AND PIANOCésar Franck (b. Liège, Belgium, September 10, 1822; d. Paris, November 8, 1890)Composed 1886; 28 minutesThe Belgian-born César Franck composed the Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano for the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Franckpresented it to Ysaÿe and his bride on the occasion of their marriageon 29 September 1886.

His colleague, the cellist Jules Delsart (1844-1900), transcribed the Violin Sonata as aSonata for Cello and Piano. Delsart had been a pupil of the great French cellist AugusteFranchomme and succeeded his teacher as the principal professor of cello at the Paris Conservatoire.

In his transcription of the Violin Sonata, Delsart retained the key of the piece, A major. Delsartconcentrated his efforts on adapting the violin line in such a way as to create a work thatsounds completely natural and idiomatic for the cello. A cello’s voice encompasses a nearlyfour-octave range, as does the violin’s voice, essentially one octave higher than the cello.Delsart was able to assign Franck’s violin part to the cello by transposing most of it down anoctave, leaving occasional passages in their original violin octave, which the cello can easily play.

Like many of Franck’s compositions, the Sonata in A major is built upon a germ of a musicalidea, a motto theme, which provides structural unity by appearing in every movement. Thegenerative musical germ of the Sonata in A appears in the first four bars of the piece. Writtenin 9/8 measure, the theme rocks gently (“molto dolce”) in intervals of thirds and fourths,gradually gaining momentum toward a climax that sends the piano into a grand statement of Franck’s second theme. These two thematic elements recur in various guises throughoutthe sonata, which has rightly earned a permanent place in the chamber music repertoire asone of the most beloved—and challenging—sonatas for a string instrument and piano.

Notes on the

programby

Sandra Hyslop

26 :: NOTES ON THE PROgRAM

The French cellist Jules Delsart, who transcribed the César Franck ViolinSonata with the approval of the composer

BEN CAPPS ON SCHUMANN AND FRANCK

I based my transcription of the Schumann Violin Sonata on the Urtextscore, transposing it down one octave.I leave the piece as is. I hope that thedarker tones and virtuosic passage workbecome even more vivid on the cello.

Although I am playing the Jules Delsarttranscription of the Franck Sonata, Ihave made a handful of changes basedon my reading of the original violinversion. These changes make the piecemore difficult on the cello, but alsomore musically exciting.