Four Centuries of Great Music March 26, 2023 Chamber Music That Must Be Programmed Episode 12

Chamber Music Works that Needs to Be programmed Episode 12

Elisabeth JACQUET DE LA GUERRE (1665–1729) - Les Pièces de Clavecin (1687): Suite No. 1 in D minor

A child prodigy, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre was celebrated in her lifetime as both a composer and harpsichordist, an acclaimed musician in the court of Louis XIV, and one of only a few French composers to publish keyboard pieces in the 17th century. Her first book of Pièces de clavecin from 1687 was thought to be lost until musicologist Carol Henry Bates discovered the only surviving copy in the 1980s and published an edition. Only one copy exists as well of her second book of Pièces de clavecin, published in 1707. For this recording, five out of nine movements have been selected from the Suite No. 1 in D minor. Although French Baroque music played on the modern piano is still controversial, Jacquet de la Guerre’s pioneering works deserve to be part of every pianist’s repertoire. Harmonically adventurous, stylised but improvisatory, and astonishingly innovative, these Suites speak to Jacquet de la Guerre’s boundless imagination and prodigious talents at the keyboard.

There are 5 movements in this excerpt:  I. Prélude; IV. Courante II; V. Sarabande; VIII. Chaconne L’inconstante; VI. Gigue

Clara SCHUMANN (1819–1896) - 7 Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann, Op. 20

Clara Schumann composed her Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann, Op. 20 in less than a week in 1853. Written as a present for her husband’s 43rd birthday, the work opens with an F sharp minor theme from the first Albumblatt his Bunte Blätter, Op. 99, followed by seven contrasting variations.  These variations begin almost tearfully, but is far more diverse in mood and texture than Robert’s variations. We hear a chorale, a canon, delicate right-hand filigree and stormy virtuosity – as well as a quotation from Clara’s own Romance] variée Op.3 woven into the pianist’s left hand in the coda. It is, as pianist Benjamin Grosvenor observes, this is “an exceptional work, filled with textural inventiveness and striking harmonic ingenuity”. Clara Schumann had been a prodigious composer in her youth, but with the demands of raising seven children, caring for her mentally ill husband, and her career as a concert pianist, she dedicated herself to promoting her husband’s music rather than her own. This work is one of the last she composed for piano. She presented the piece to Robert Schumann on his birthday with the dedication ‘To my beloved husband on the 8th of June, 1853, this humble, renewed essay by his old Clara.’ It was the last birthday he would spend with his family, before entering a mental asylum in 1854 where he would die.

Germaine TAILLEFERRE (1892–1983) - Partita (1957)

Germaine Tailleferre’s musical talents showed up early in her life – she was composing by the age of eight – but her father strictly forbade her, comparing women composers to prostitutes. Her mother, an amateur pianist, secretly supported her and arranged for an audition at the Paris Conservatory, where Tailleferre flourished as both composer and pianist. Since her father refused to finance her education, she taught piano lessons, and continued teaching throughout her life for financial support. In 1917, Erik Satie heard her music and procaimed her his ‘musical daughter’, and three years later she met the fellow composers who would join her in forming the composers’ collective known as Les Six. She had a long and distinguished career, composing not only piano music, but operas, music for film and ballet, choral works, songs, concertos and chamber music. Her three-movement Partita, dedicated to her daughter Françoise, evokes the neoclassicism of a bygone era.  The 3 movements are:  I. Perpetuum Mobile; II. Notturno; III. Allegramente

Anna BON (1739/40– after 1767) - Keyboard Sonata in B minor, Op. 2, No. 5 (1757) 3 [13:12]

Anna Bon (di Venezia) was one of the few women in the 18th century whose music was published during her lifetime. She received her musical education at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, and began composing at a young age. When she moved with her parents to Bayreuth, she was encouraged and supported by Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia, and it was under Princess Wilhelmine’s patronage that Anna Bon composed and published her Six Keyboard Sonatas, Op. 2 at the age of 18, as court-appointed ‘virtuoso of chamber music’. In 1762, she moved with her family to the court of Prince Nikolaus von Esterházy, where she sang in Joseph Haydn’s ensemble. After her marriage to an Italian singer, she vanishes from the historical record, and that is why 1767, the year of her marriage, is often mistakenly given as her death date.  This sonata is in 3 movments:I. Allegro moderato; II. Adagio non molto; III. Allegro


Marion BAUER (1882-1955): Six Preludes for Piano, Op. 15

Marion Bauer did receive some prominent performances during her lifetime, but even considering the relative neglect women composers faced at that time in the first half of the 20th century, she did not then, nor does she now, get even the attention or frequency of performances that her contemporaries Amy Beach or Ruth Crawford Seeger receive. Her influence during her lifetime lay more in the areas of teaching (with many years on the faculty of New York University and the Juilliard School) and as an organizational leader within the community of composers (for example as a co-founder of the American Music Center and the American Composers’ Alliance).

But her music is well worth rediscovery; among those Americans writing piano works in the first half of the 20th century she occupies a middle ground between the very tonal, Romantic style of the German-trained composers like Foote, versus the more radical mavericks like Henry Cowell or Leo Ornstein. Much of this can be attributed to a couple of extended stints of study in France; Bauer in fact was the very first in a long line of American composers who went to study with Nadia Boulanger, and like her contemporary Charles Griffes, was clued in to some of the directions new music in France was taking in those pivotal first couple of decades of the 20th century.

For example, echoes of the harmonic sensibility of Debussy or Ravel can be heard in the second and fifth of Bauer’s Preludes. From a very different perspective, Bauer also seems to have known her Scriabin, if the sixth and final Prelude of the set, with its propulsive and passionate mood, is any indication. Others in the set show Bauer’s keen ear for intriguing textures, for example the opening Prelude written for the left hand alone, or the third prelude, a whirlwind for the two hands written in unison two octaves apart, the tonality somewhat adrift until the final and rather shocking D Major cadence. With performers of the present day beginning to truly mine the repertoire of underrepresented composers of the past, we are fortunate that Marion Bauer’s music (in many different genres) is being brought to light once more.


Samuel BARBER (1910-1981) - Piano Sonata, Op. 26

Arguably one of the pinnacles of the American piano literature, Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata was so successful that within the first year of its premiere by Horowitz, performances were given by many pianists of importance, including Rudolf Firkusny, Daniel Pollack, and Van Cliburn. Commissioned by the League of Composers in celebration of their twenty-fifth anniversary, this work was written with Horowitz’s pianism in mind.

Hans Tischler writes that “the fusion of contemporary technique with that of the past three centuries – of twelve-tone technique … sonata form, passacaglia and fugue … stamps Barber’s Piano Sonata Op. 26 as a classic of our times.”

The powerful and dramatic opening movement, marked Allegro energico, explores both grand and intimate soundscapes.

The elfin second movement, marked Allegro vivace e leggero, breezes by quickly.

The third movement, a dirge marked Adagio mesto, is one of Barber’s most tragically felt slow movements, with constant sighs permeating throughout. Based entirely on two twelve-tone rows, Barber’s inherently musical approach to this Schoenbergian technique keeps its serialism hidden to the listener. In a letter to his uncle, Sidney Homer, Barber mentioned that he planned for this movement to be the work’s finale.

Upon presenting Horowitz the three completed movements, Horowitz proposed that Barber write “a very flashy” fourth movement. Many years later, Barber recounted how he wrote the finale in an interview:

“And then came a period when I couldn’t think of what to do with the fourth movement, and Mrs Horowitz called me up and said, “the trouble with you is you’re stitico” – it means constipated – that’s what you are, a constipated composer.” That made me so mad that I ran to my studio and wrote that fugue in the next day.”  The finale is marked Fuga: Allegro con spirito.

Fannie Charles DILLON: 8 Descriptive Pieces, Op. 20: No. 2, Birds at Dawn

Fannie Charles Dillon was a composer in the first half of the 20th century was born in Denver, studied with Leopold Godowsky in Berlin, and settled in Los Angeles.  Dillon describes this piece as “a description of the bird ensemble to be heard at earliest dawn, any morning of springtime, in the highest altitudes of the Sierra Madre Mountains of California.”

Teresa CARREÑO: Un rêve en mer (A Dream at Sea) – Étude-méditation

We have heard a piece by Teresa Carreño previously.  She was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and her prodigious talent showed up early: she started composing at age six, and made her New York début at the age of eight. While her concert career as a pianist spanned more than half a century and included performing for Presidents Abraham Lincoln (at age nine) and Woodrow Wilson (at age 63), founding an opera company in Caracas, touring the world in sold-out halls, and recording early piano rolls, her career as a composer was short-lived: most of her more than 70 works, including chamber music, vocal and choral compositions, and a copious amount of piano music, date from before she turned 20. She composed Un rêve en mer (‘A Dream at Sea’) when she was 15, which is all the more remarkable considering the expressive depth and nuance of this piece.

Fanny MENDELSSOHN-HENSEL (1805–1847) Vier Lieder, Op. 8 (1846)

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and her brother Felix grew up as child prodigies. While they were both encouraged to compose, only Felix was allowed to publish his work and perform in public. Although Fanny continued to compose for salons and private concerts, her father scolded her if her music was too ‘ambitious,’ and advised her to prepare herself for domesticity and marriage. In 1829 she married the artist William Hensel, and continued to compose privately. 1846, the year of her Vier Lieder (‘Four Songs’) for piano, was her most prolific, in part because she had met a young pianist who expressed enthusiasm about her work. She uses the word Lieder here in the same way as Felix in her Songs Without Words: to signify that they are lyrical works for piano. After her death in 1847, at the age of 41, the publisher Breitkopf and Härtel started to distribute her music, beginning with her Vier Lieder, Op. 8.  She actually wrote 3 sets of 4 songs without words.  The four songs are:  I. Allegro moderato; II. Andante con espressione; III. Larghetto; IV. Presto, Wanderlied