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Sir ANDRÁS SCHIFF, piano

HAYDN Sonata No. 60 in C Major, Hob.XVI:50 Allegro Adagio Allegro molto

BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109 Vivace, ma non troppo; Adagio espressivo; Tempo I Prestissimo Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung (Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo)

I N T E R M I S S I O N

MOZART Sonata in C Major, K. 545, Sonata facile Allegro Andante Rondo: Allegretto

SCHUBERT Sonata in C Minor, D. 958 Allegro Adagio Menuetto: Allegro Allegro

8 pm Friday, March 6 The Folly Theater

This concert is underwritten, in part, by Irv and Ellen Hockaday

This concert is underwritten, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts

The Master Pianists Series is underwritten, in part, by the Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation

t h e m u r i e l m c b r i e n k a u f f m a n m a s t e r p i a n i s t s s e r i e s

Additional support is also provided by:

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This evening’s recital presents masterworks by the greatest composers of the high classic era. Each of these four sonatas represents the composer’s most mature view of the keyboard and its possibilities. Haydn’s last three piano sonatas, including the one on tonight’s program, date from his second trip to London in the mid-1790s. Mozart composed K.545 in C major in the summer of 1788, the same time he was working on what proved to be his final three symphonies. Only two solo keyboard sonatas would follow it, K.570 in B-flat Major and K.576 in D Major. By coincidence, the Beethoven and Schubert works that Mr. Schiff plays are also part of final trilogies. Both are early 19th-century compositions. While adhering broadly to classical models, Beethoven’s Op. 109 and Schubert’s C Minor Sonata peer into the dawning age of Romanticism, particularly in their harmonic explorations. Ironically, both Mozart and Schubert were young – 32 and 31, respectively – when they composed these astounding pieces. Hearing this music reminds us how richly their genius flowered at such a tender age. Conversely, we must be grateful that Haydn and Beethoven lived as long as they did, so that each of them could achieve the glories of his later style. Sonata No. 60 in C Major, Hob.XVI:50 Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Haydn composed his last three piano sonatas for Therese Jansen, a pupil of Muzio Clementi who was much admired for her technical skill and musicianship. Haydn also composed three superb piano trios for her. Collectively, those trios and sonatas are his most technically demanding piano works. The C Major Sonata is a classic example of Haydn’s monothematicism. The witty opening gesture generates nearly all the material of the first movement, including the second theme and much of the transitional material. Haydn’s imagination and inventiveness in embellishing this simple material is marvelous to hear. From the sparest of means, he expands the idea, first in big rolled chords, then in all manner of variants and decoration.

p r o g r a m n o t e s

HOW MANY HAYDN SONATAS?Exactly how many keyboard sonatas Haydn composed is a bit of a sticky wicket. For one thing, he didn’t always use the term ‘sonata.’ He often labeled his early multi-movement pieces Divertimento or Partita. He first used the term ‘sonata’ in 1771 and adopted it regularly from the mid-1770s. Different editions and listings of his sonatas use conflicting numbering. For example, the Universal Urtext Edition edited by Christa Landon comprises sixty-two sonatas, but the Hoboken catalogue lists only fifty-two. (Landon includes some spurious works and allows for sonatas that have been lost or that only survive in fragments.) By the 1780s, Haydn was famous throughout Europe and his music was popular with both amateur and professional pianists. Greedy publishers issued works by other composers labeled as music by Haydn, knowing it would sell. In his old age, Haydn attempted to clarify what music was indeed his, but he complicated matters further by repudiating some early works, dismissing them as “not worth preserving.” The German publisher Gottfried Christoph Härtel first attempted a complete edition of Haydn’s keyboard works in 1799. That publication, Oeuvres complettes de Joseph Haydn, eventually comprised twelve volumes that included piano trios, duets for piano and violin (some of which were arranged from solo piano pieces) and songs. Thirty-four pieces in Härtel’s edition were what we would call sonatas, and that ‘official’ number persisted for most of the 19th century. Scholars in the early 20th century developed an authenticated, standard number of 52 sonatas. While Haydn scholarship continues to grapple with issues of chronology, authenticity, and accurate editions, no one disputes the stature of the last three sonatas, the English Sonatas, identified today as Hob.XVI:50-52.

– L.S.©2014



Haydn was knowledgeable about the mechanics of instruments. He was eager to explore new developments in English pianos. This sonata calls for ‘open pedal’ in one passage, by which Haydn intended sopra una corda – a pedal to quieten the sound. The device was not yet available on his Viennese piano, but in this sonata he took advantage of the new English invention. The technical demands of the first movement are legion: chains of parallel thirds, extended octave passages and a generally dense texture. These traits attest to Jansen’s command of the piano – and indicate that Haydn also wanted to maximize the beefier sound possible with the larger English pianos. While the rhetorical argument of the sonata is concentrated in the opening Allegro, the central Adagio in F major is also impressive. Haydn apparently wrote this movement in Vienna (Artaria published it there in June 1794) and decided to incorporate it into the C Major Sonata. The structure is like a free fantasia, with intricate rhythmic detail and dramatic dynamic contrasts that foreshadow Beethoven. Haydn concludes the Sonata with an Allegro molto that pushes the idea of a minuet to the edge of a scherzo. His use of silences, sudden stops and starts, and anticipation of “wrong” key changes all fulfill the promise of humor in the first movement’s initial motive. Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) The year 1820 was emotionally chaotic for Beethoven. In the autumn of 1819 he had been removed as guardian of his adolescent nephew Karl, forcing him to relinquish custody to his sister-in-law Johanna. Beethoven appealed the decision in early January 1820. Three months later, he was reappointed co-guardian with Hofrat (Privy Councilor) Karl Peters, tutor to the children of Beethoven’s patron Prince Lobkowitcz.

Resolution of that difficult situation seemed to break a compositional logjam. Still, the Op. 109, E Major Piano Sonata was the only significant piece Beethoven completed in 1820. He interrupted work on the Missa Solemnis when the Berlin publishing house of A. Schlesinger wrote to request three new piano sonatas. The commission restored Beethoven’s productivity, which he would sustain nearly unabated until his death in 1827.

India Ink drawing of Franz Joseph Haydn (from a painting of Haydn by John Hoppner)

by George Sigismund Facius, 1800

This sonata followed the oversized Hammerklavier, Op. 106, of 1817-18. In contrast to that notorious finger-buster and cry of outrage, Op. 109 is filled with intimacy and warmth, and only the second movement gives us a brief flash of fury. Yet all of those qualities have their balance. Beethoven never strayed far from his architectural instincts. He chooses a much smaller-scale work in keeping with the understated mood that permeates most of the sonata. And his intellect is present in the sonata’s clear sense of formal organization and its contrapuntal devices.

The first movement is surprisingly brief: an economical four minutes. In discussing this sonata, William Kinderman writes of Beethoven’s ‘intense interest at this time with parenthetical structures that enclose musical passages within contrasting sections.’ That translates to interruptions and startling shifts between animated music and adagio sections. The effect is not unlike a Baroque fantasia, resulting in a sense of improvisation.

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Such flexibility in his treatment of sonata form is a noteworthy trait of the late sonatas, paving the way toward the late quartets and his romantic piano music.

Beethoven’s scherzo is even more concise: barely two and one-half minutes of resolute, angry, disruptive music. Surprisingly, this prestissimo is a taut sonata-form structure. Beethoven is setting us up. Having ascertained that he has our full attention, he moves to the emotional heart of the sonata, a set of double variations marked mit der innigsten Empfindung (with innermost feeling). If we were not certain that this was the centerpiece of the sonata, sheer length would persuade us. The finale is more than twice as long as the previous two movements combined. More to the point is that it is a profound meditation, initially serene, presently ecstatic. The theme moves like a sarabande, another connection to Baroque thinking, as is Beethoven’s reliance on a variety of contrapuntal devices. Biographer Marion Scott has noted the influence of Bach in the sonata’s emphasis on counterpoint as a variation tool.

Charles Rosen, in his landmark book The Classical Style, offers a more philosophical insight to Beethoven’s approach.

In many of the late variation sets (opp. 109, 111, 127, etc.) there is a progressive simplification as the variations proceed — not of the texture but of the conception of the underlying theme. . . Beethoven tends to simplify as the texture becomes more complex. For this reason, his late variations give the impression that they are not so much decorating the theme as discovering its essence.

The six variations that follow Beethoven’s heartfelt theme span a universe of emotions, capitalizing on the expressive contrast of which the piano is capable. First is a slow waltz that preserves the dignity of the theme. Among the variations that follow are a playful virtuoso Allegro vivace (Var. III) and a distinctly Bach-like Allegro ma non troppo (Var. V).

The movement culminates in the radiant sixth varia-tion, which re-establishes the serene opening tempo.

By means of an extended pedal point trill, introduced as an inner voice, then transferred from left hand to right, Beethoven somehow suspends us in midair. The extended gesture lifts us, bird-like, aloft to the realm of the sublime. Our heavenly destination is the restatement of the theme, now layered with significance because of the journey we have completed. Listeners familiar with Bach’s Goldberg Variations may sense a connection to that work in Beethoven’s reprise of the theme with reinforced octaves in the bass. Opus 109 reveals a distinctly private side of Beethoven. He achieves a spiritual ecstasy that clearly paved the way for the glorious heights of the late string quartets.

Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1819



Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (artist unknown)

Sonata in C Major, K. 545, "Sonata facile"Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (1756-1791) What is a world famous virtuoso like András Schiff doing playing a piece that Mozart described as “for beginners?” This C Major Sonata has become a cliché: played regularly on student recitals, labored over in living rooms, a parody of itself with its foursquare phrases, Alberti bass accompaniment, and scale patterns. At the same time, it is the apogee of structural purity and classical elegance in Mozart’s keyboard music.

Musicians often observe that Mozart is too easy for children and too difficult for adults. This sonata is an excellent example demonstrating that aphorism. The very things that Mozart deemed essential for a budding young pianist to master are exceptionally difficult to execute well. Scale passages and arpeggios must be even and smooth. The left hand Alberti bass – broken triads in a repetitive pattern – should anchor harmonic movement and rhythmic flow, without distracting from the melody it supports.

From 1784, Mozart maintained a catalogue of his new compositions. On 26 June 1788, he entered several recently completed works, including a new symphony in E-flat Major (we know it as No. 39, K. 543) and a piece he called “eine kleine Klavier Sonate für Anfänger” (a little piano sonata for beginners). That assessment has been translated into Italian as Sonata facile and, in French, Sonate facile.

Mozart was remarkably consistent in his piano sonatas. All are in three movements. With the exception of the A Major Sonata, K. 331, which opens with variations, they begin with a sonata allegro form movement. (See page 125 in the Glossary for a diagram of the Sonata Allegro form) The slow movements tend to be in ternary form and share a cantabile character. Most of Mozart’s finales are lighter and fast, either a sonata or a rondo or some combination thereof.

Unlike his piano concerti, which are virtuoso works, many of the solo keyboard sonatas were intended for domestic study and entertainment. Mozart clearly conceived the C Major Sonata as a teaching piece. It avoids black keys for the most part, and is not brilliant in its technical demands. The scale is miniature compared to his more ambitious sonatas.

Yet no beginner could play it. A gifted student might require at least one year of study before attempting a work of this complexity. The opening Allegro demands exceptional evenness of scale technique and rhythmic control. Mozart’s Andante has galant grace.. Listeners familiar with the composer’s operas will hear a resemblance to Don Ottavio’s aria “Dalla sua pace” in Don Giovanni. The finale is cheerful and unclouded: a suitable conclusion to this piece. Rest assured: the sonata is not easy. More to the point, its performance in the hands of a master is a thing of beauty. Sonata in C Minor, D. 958 Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)

In March 1827, the Austrian pianist and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel traveled with his pupil Ferdinand Hiller from Weimar to Vienna. The purpose of the trip was to see Beethoven before he died. During their stay, they dined frequently at the home of Katharina von Lászny, a music-loving friend who had settled in Vienna. On one of those evenings, the guests included Franz Schubert, who had just turned 30.

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Hummel did not know much about Schubert or his compositions, but was most impressed with what he heard that evening. Schubert played some original piano pieces and accompanied several singers in his Lieder. Despite the difference in their ages and reputations - Hummel was 49, established, and famous – the two men hit it off well and Hummel was generous in his praise of Schubert’s music.

Gratified by the older man’s enthusiastic response, Schubert planned to dedicate three keyboard sonatas to Hummel. In a letter to his Leipzig publisher Heinrich Probst dated October 2, 1828, he wrote: “I have composed, among other things, 3 sonatas for piano solo, which I should like to dedicate to Hummel.” Seven weeks later he was dead.

A year after Schubert’s untimely death, the Viennese publisher Anton Diabelli purchased the manuscripts of three keyboard sonatas from Schubert’s brother Ferdinand. Either unaware of the treasure he had acquired or preoccupied with other business dealings, he sat on them for a decade. When Diabelli finally published the sonatas in 1839, Hummel had also died. Diabelli engraved the dedication to Robert Schumann.

The three sonatas crown Schubert’s achievement as a composer for the piano: the C Minor Sonata that concludes this program, the A Major Sonata D. 959, and the B-flat Major Sonata D. 960. He finished all three in September 1828. In that same month, he also finished the String Quintet in C Major, D.956, and several songs in the Schwanengesang cycle. His productivity is all the more astounding considering his declining health. Contemporary accounts from his friends and associates report that Schubert suffered in September from chronic headaches and dizziness.

Although all three of the final piano sonatas have found a place in the repertoire, the C Minor is less frequently performed than the other two, perhaps because of its character. If the A Major Sonata may be summarized as lyrical and flowing and the B-flat Major as contemplative, the C Minor is stormy, tempest-tossed, occasionally violent. Indeed, it is almost unrelieved in its tragic mien throughout its four movements.

Schubert clearly had Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor on an Original Theme, WoO 80 in his mind’s ear when composing the Sonata’s aggressive opening Allegro. However, the parallels go beyond the shared key of C minor, a classic ‘heroic’ key for Beethoven. Schubert’s harmonic progression, triple meter, rhythmic pattern, and thematic outline all bear a strong resemblance to Beethoven’s.

The opening is powerful: big chords, decisive rhythms, and a dramatic descending scale that will recur at key moments. Schubert pays attention to his transitional material, moving with grace to a gorgeous theme in E-flat Major that is as serene as the opening theme is tortured. He does not stay calm for long, and his variants on the E-flat Major theme wander to a couple of distant key centers, hinting at the adventurous development section that lies ahead.

Franz Peter Schubert by Wilhelm August Reider, 1875



What makes the later works in a composer’s output exceptional and worthy of special attention? It seems perhaps obvious to think that a late style would emerge when a composer reaches an old age and that it would be the result of a lifetime of experiences, a tremendous creative maturity, and the particular wisdom that comes with advanced years. For composers who die young, though, late-style works appear at a relatively early chronological age—Schubert was just 29 when he wrote his final three piano sonatas, and Mozart didn’t live to see his thirty-sixth birthday. Factors other than a long life, therefore, can be associated with a late style.

The noted music theorist Joseph N. Straus, in his book Extraordinary Measures: Disability in Music, views late works as “stories of disability” in which composers are “narrating their fractured minds and bodies.” (p. 82) This stance certainly applies to the composers represented on tonight’s program. Haydn lived well into old age and experienced its attendant physical challenges, while Beethoven became emotionally exhausted after the protracted and hostile custody battle for his nephew that he eventually won in 1820. Mozart experienced a tremendous decline in both health and finances in 1787, and Schubert suffered intolerably from syphilis in his final years.

Straus identifies six descriptors that can be applied to late works: 1) introspective, 2) austere, 3) difficult, 4) compressed, 5) fragmentary, and 6) retrospective. (Extraordinary Measures, p. 34) The eminent literary theorist and cultural critic Edward W. Said in his final book, aptly titled On Late Style, offered further attributes:

“anachronism and anomaly” (p. xiii), “intransigence, difficulty, and unresolved contradiction” (p. 7), and, in the case of Beethoven, giving “an impression of being unfinished.” (p. 10) When listening to late-style works, and when performing them, these characteristics certainly come to the fore.

Many compositions, especially those created according to the classical paradigms of the late eighteenth century, tend to exude unity, order, and reason. Late-style works offer something else. Tensions do not need to be resolved, fragmentation and non-congruence exist on equal terms with cohesion and accord, and only what is necessary need be present—nothing is extraneous.

Late musical works stretch human limits both physically and intellectually. These pieces often include fiendishly difficult passages and require formidable technique. They are also virtuosic in terms of musical processes. One discovers extraordinary fugues, novel harmonies that challenge the very essence of tonality, and astonishing sets of variations in which the composer looks at the same musical idea from previously unimagined perspectives and vantage points.

Finally, late-style works defy time. They look backward to centuries of musical developments and absorb the past into the present. Likewise they presage the future in redefining musical elements and reimagining previously accepted musical processes, forms, and genres. These are pieces to be savored, contemplated, and admired as sublime artistic statements from the mature and sometimes troubled minds of their creators.

–Dr. William Everett ©2014

ON LATE STYLE WORKS

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b i o g r a p h y

Everything about the second movement speaks of late Schubert: sudden modulations, relaxed exposition, mini-variants on themes, and chromatic alterations that take surprising turns even when we hear them a second time. Schubert’s harmonic invention finds new territory in a chromatic theme introduced in the development section. Never losing his narrative momentum, he drives the movement forward in ways both delicate and inevitable. The recapitulation and coda are all the more effective for his skill.

Such a movement requires contrast and relief. Schubert provides it in the third movement with a modified rondo in A-flat Major. His pace is relaxed, though the episodes wander far afield harmonically and have considerable drama. They are barely controlled explosions; the returns of the A-flat Major section are not without their dark moments. Though he ends peaceably in a variation on the opening theme, Schubert clearly does not want us to forget that this is a very serious sonata.

Thus we have no lighthearted Scherzo, but rather a somber Minuet with irregular phrase lengths where silences are as important as the music. We are meant to think. Schubert is reinforcing the overall tragedy of the sonata. His Trio is a Ländler, a salute to Schubert’s Austrian roots and his connection to the sturdy, simple melodies of country folk.

The last movement, the Finale, is perhaps the most amazing of all: a galloping tarantella that, like the first movement, calls to mind Beethoven. In this case, it is the Beethoven of the Kreutzer Sonata finale, or perhaps that of the Piano Sonata Op. 31, No. 3 – but this finale is much darker than either of those works. Actually, it is closer in spirit to Schubert’s own finale to the Death and the Maiden String Quartet, sharing that intense drama. Insistent rhythm drives this movement, which is closer to an expanded sonata form than the rondo it initially appears. It is a minefield for any pianist to learn, let alone to memorize.

Overall, the C Minor Sonata is a brooding work on a grand scale. Here is a different side of the Schubert we thought we knew – and more of him to love.

Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2014

Found a word or phrase that you are unfamiliar with? Check out our extensive Glossary beginning on page 118 to discover the meaning.

Sir ANDRÁS SCHIFFSir András Schiff is world-renowned and critically acclaimed as a

pianist, conductor, pedagogue and lecturer. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1953, he started piano lessons at age five with Elisabeth Vadász. He continued his musical studies at the Ferenc Liszt Academy with Professor Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados, and in London with George Malcolm. In June 2014, he was awarded a KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the 2014 Birthday Honours. Having recently completed The Bach Project throughout the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 concert seasons, North America prepares for The Last Sonatas, a series of three recitals comprising the final three sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. The Last Sonatas takes place over the course of the next two seasons with the complete series slated for New York’s Carnegie Hall, San Francisco’s Symphony Hall, Los Angeles’s Disney Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Washington Performing Arts’ Strathmore Hall, The Vancouver Recital Society and University Musical Society of The University of Michigan. Further recitals are scheduled in Napa, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Scottsdale and Kansas City. In October 2015, the San Francisco Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic host this versatile artist in a series of concerts with orchestra and chorus – Sir Schiff’s first performances in North America on the podium and at the piano with chorus, orchestra and soloists. In his role as lecturer, Sir Schiff has put together a round table forum to be presented by New York’s 92nd Street Y, addressing the pianist’s belief that it is the responsibility of every politically-informed artist to speak out against racial injustice and persecution. Violinist Gidon Kremer and author David Grossman join the dialogue. As pedagogue, he partners with 92Y and SubCulture for “Sir András Schiff Selects: Young Pianists” – a three-concert series in February & March curated by Sir Schiff introducing rising young pianists Kwouk-Wai Lo, Roman Rabinovich and Adam Golka. Sir András Schiff has established a prolific discography, and since 1997 has been an exclusive artist for ECM New Series and its producer, Manfred Eicher. Recordings for ECM include the complete solo piano music of Beethoven and Janáček, two solo albums of Schumann piano pieces, his second recordings of the Bach Partitas and Goldberg Variations, The Well Tempered Clavier, Books I and II and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations recorded on two instruments: The Bechstein from 1921 and an original fortepiano from Vienna 1820 – the place and time of the composition.

For more information visit: www.andrasschiff.com Sir András Schiff appears courtesy of Kirshbaum Demler and Associates

Recordings are available on the Decca/London, Teldec/Warner and ECM lables

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