What's the big deal with the Kreutzer Sonata?

Zino Francescatti and Robert Casadesus play the first movement of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, of which our immediate concern is the brief but incredibly potent introduction:


Zino Francescatti, violin; Robert Casadesus, piano. American Columbia, recorded in New York City, Dec. 28, 1949

Zino Francescatti, violin; Robert Casadesus, piano. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Paris, May 13, 1958

by Ken

The video clip featuring the well-established duo of violinist Zino Francescatti and pianist Robert Casadesus (1899-1972), which seems to postdate both their commercial recordings of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, as sampled above, offers us the whole first movement, even though our immediate concern is going to be the minute-and-a-half-or-so Adagio sostenuto introduction, again as referenced above. As a matter of fact, the EMI Casadesus DVD from which the clip is presumably derived included not just the whole of the sonata but also Beethoven's Op. 96, his next and last violin sonata. However, it's useful for us to hear the whole of the Kreutzer's first movement because, as you may recall from last week's post ("Q: What connection is there between these beautiful works by Beethoven and Janáček that have 'Kreutzer Sonata' in their names?") our point of departure is an interesting chamber concert I attended recently at which these two works made up the program.

The program, titled "Liebestod," was the third of five programs in the third season of PhiloSonia, a season dubbed "Literati," which "explores works inspired by literature and poetry." No, there was no Liebestod, just the two, er, "Kreutzer"-themed works:

Leo Tolstoy’s haunting short story “The Keutzer Sonata” places Beethoven’s celebrated work at the center of a scandalous love affair with a tragic ending. PhiloSonia’s third installment pairs the sonata which served as Tolstoy’s inspiration with Janáček’s musical retelling of the work.

The program began with Janáček's First String Quartet (After L. N. Tolstoy's "The Kreutzer Sonata), in which PhiloSonia's enterprising young founder, Stanichka Dimitrova, played second violin, then after intermission stepped out front to play the Kreutzer Sonata itself. As I noted last week, the two works really aren't directly connected: The Beethoven sonata indeed plays an important role in the Tolstoy novella (which seems to me a better description than "short story," though both labels are used), but the Janáček quartet refers only to the Tolstoy story.

Yet somehow the works are connected, and beyond the pleasure of hearing the two works, hearing them paired got a person to thinking. And reading -- I'd never read the Tolstoy, and this seemed the time.


IT'S ALWAYS FUN TO RETURN TO THE KREUTZER SONATA

And you know, we could listen to it in one fell swoop.

BEETHOVEN: Sonata No. 9 in A, Op. 47 (Kreutzer)
i. Adagio sostenuto -- Presto
ii. Andante con variazioni (at 10:53)
ii. Presto (at 24:34)

Fritz Kreisler, violin; Franz Rupp, piano. EMI, recorded 1936

TO BE CONTINUED

#