"Out-of-body" Beethoven, part 2: Is one of these three string-trio slow movements even more special than the other two?

BEETHOVEN: String Trio in G, Op. 9, No. 1:
ii. Adagio ma non tanto e cantabile (key: E major)

Itzhak Perlman, violin; Pinchas Zukerman, viola; Lynn Harrell, cello. EMI, recorded live at the 92nd Street Y, New York City, June 6-7, 1990

BEETHOVEN: String Trio in D, Op. 9, No. 2:
ii. Andante quasi allegretto (key: D minor)

Itzhak Perlman, violin; Pinchas Zukerman, viola; Lynn Harrell, cello

BEETHOVEN: String Trio in C minor, Op. 9, No. 3:
ii. Adagio con espressione (key: C major)

Itzhak Perlman, violin; Pinchas Zukerman, viola; Lynn Harrell, cello

"[These three] extraordinary slow movements in the key of E major [from the Piano Trio in G, Op. 1, No. 2; the String Trio in G, Op. 9, No. 1; and the String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2] . . . share an almost out-of-body quality, and it’s inspiring to wonder what this beautiful tonality must have meant to Beethoven."

-- David Finckel, in "Making the most out of chamber music coaching," from The Strad newsletter, Jan. 21, 2025

by Ken

The David Finckel quote, of course, is a pickup from last week's first installment of "'Out-of-body' Beethoven?," wherein we took advantage of this linkage of three Beethoven slow movements in E major, offered as an example of the kind of musical context he can offer to students as part of one of his most enjoyed yet enormously complex activities: coaching chamber music. I thought it would be fun as well as instructive to listen to David F.'s three E major slow movements -- along with two stringless ones I added, from the Op. 90 and Op. 109 Piano Sonatas.

For me there was no question that David F.'s trio of slow movements have something special in common. One thing I wanted to do was listen to what assorted performers have heard in them, to get some idea of how we might think about that special "E major quality." I also wanted to hear those movements in the context of the works they're part of, to get a sense of the kinds of use Beethoven made of that special quality (or qualities). And we're still going to attempt to do both of those things.

I'm still plugging away at that next step. Meanwhile I thought it would be interesting just to set one of those E major movements against alongside some comparable slow movements, which is what we've done above. The G major Trio, Op. 9, No. 1, is part of a set of three, and above we've heard the same performers play the slow movements of all three.

I suspect that for many of us, even the most confirmed Beethoven-philes, the string trios don't figure prominently in our listening. I'm always reminded when I have occasion to return to them (the three trios of Op. 9 were preceded by a six-movement Trio in E-flat, Op. 3, and the five-movement Serenade in D, Op. 8), I'm reminded that they're not only potentially more entertaining but more substantial than I remembered. It's generally pointed out that the trios were in some sense a preparation for the creative force that Beethoven would unleash in the Op. 18 set of six string quartets. Already I think it's fair to say that the three slow movements of Op. 9 are pretty gorgeous.

If the Adagio ma non tanto e cantabile of Op. 9, No. 1 were in E minor, it would be in the parallel minor key of the first movement's G major, but it's not in E minor, it's in E major. (We have this same relationship in the Op. 1, No. 2 Piano Trio.) In the remaining trios the slow movement is in the parallel minor or major of the first. The nervous tension of the D minor of Op. 9, No. 2 is a striking contrast to the D major of the first movement, while the C major of the harmonically ambiguous Adagio con espressione of Op. 9, No. 3 is about as un-C-majory a C major as I can think of.


AS A REMINDER, HERE ARE THE PERFORMANCES WE HEARD OF THE OP. 9, NO. 1 "ADAGIO MA NON TANTO E CANTABILE"

Thinking of the "snorting and grunting" Brahms's "inwardly restless and propulsive" piano playing

Jacqueline du Pré (1945-1987) and husband Daniel Barenboim play the third-movement Allegro passionato of the Brahms F major Cello Sonata, the movement we heard in this week's preview.

by Ken

For this week's preview I seized on a quote included by the program notes for the performance of Brahms's Second Cello Sonata I heard recently, with the fine young cellist Dmitry Kouzov, in British pianist-conductor-professor Ian Hobson's 14-concert New York series of "The Complete Solo Piano and Chamber Music with Piano of Johannes Brahms," under the general title Brahms: Classical Inclinations in a Romantic Age. (There are still two concerts remaining in the series: a viola-and-piano evening this Tuesday, which I'm going to, and a final solo-piano program on Thursday.)

The quote was from a letter written to Brahms by the pianist Elisabeth von Herzogenberg shortly after the composer gave the first public performance of this sonata in Vienna with the artist for whom it was written, Robert Hausmann, the cellist of the great violinist Joseph Joachim's string quartet and an enthusiastic exponent of Brahms's First Cello Sonata, writtten more than 20 years earlier. (The solo parts of the great Double Concerto were written with Joachim and Hausmann in mind.) Von Herzogenberg had herself been playing the sonata with Hausmann, and this portion of her letter was included in the little book containing program notes for all 14 concerts. Since the introduction, and only the introduction, is credited to Paul Griffiths, I'm assuming that all the annotations are by Professor Hobson, but I don't see any credit to that effect, so I'm referring to the author as "Ian Hobson Annotator" (IHA).

IHA tells us that just over a week after the Vienna premiere, on November 24, 1986, von Herzogenberg wrote to Brahms "with an appreciation that is valuable not least for what it tells us about the composer's piano playing":

The piece is so greatly compressed; how it surges forward! The concise development is so exciting, and the augmented return of the first theme is such a surprise! Needless to say, we reveled in the beautiful warm sounds of the Adagio, and especially at the magnificent moment when we find ourselves again in F-sharp major, which sounds so marvelous. I'd like to hear you yourself play the scherzo, with its driving power and energy (I can hear you snorting and grunting in it!). No one else would succeed in playing it as I imagine it: agitated without rushing, legato, yet inwardly restless and propulsive.

I ACTUALLY MEANT TO TALK ABOUT A WORK ON
A LATER PROGRAM, THE C MINOR PIANO QUARTET

Preview: Brahms in snorting-and-grunting mode

Note: I don't know how I managed to not schedule this post for posting last night, when it appeared on DownWithTyranny, but here it is. -- Ken


[A]

[B]

[C]


"I'd like to hear you yourself play the scherzo, with its driving power and energy (I can hear you snorting and grunting in it!). No one else would succeed in playing it as I imagine it: agitated without rushing, legato, yet inwardly restless and propulsive."

-- from a letter to Brahms by pianist Elisabeth von Herzogenberg,
who had been playing the composer's new piano-and-cello sonata

by Ken

The music is the third movement of Brahms's Second Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, and the quote from Elisabeth von Herzogenberg's letter to the composer comes from the program notes for Ian Hobson's 14-concert New York series (which concludes this week) of the complete Brahms solo and chamber works involving the piano. More from the letter and from and about the sonata and the Hobson series in this week's Sunday Classics post.

As the annotator who quoted von Herzogenberg's letter notes, it's "valuable not least for what it tells us about the composer's piano playing." And I thought that you might enjoy listening to tonight's performances "cold," to see how our three very different pianists stack up against our letter-writer's imagining of the way Brahms would have played this music. (Not to worry, the performers will all be identified in a moment.)


WONDERING WHO OUR PIANISTS (AND CELLISTS) ARE?
HERE THEY ARE AGAIN, NOW PROPERLY IDENTIFIED

Preview: A haunting little piece that tells us less than we would think about its composer's roots

Max Bruch (1838-1920)

by Ken

You might think that the haunting brief Adagio (8:53 in the Piatigorsky-Ormandy recording, 9:56 in the Starker-Dorati) we're hearing tonight, based on one of the most solemn of Hebrew chants, is a product of its composer's deeply felt heritage. as Paul Affelder explained in his note for the Starker-Dorati-Mercury recording, this is far from the case.

It is a sort of musical compliment to Max Bruch's long devotion to folk music that what is considered one of his most representative works should have sprung from an alien tradition. Along with his First Violin Concerto, Kol Nidrei, an "Adagio for violoncello based on a Hebrew melody," is today the most frequently heard composition by a composer who was a contemporary of Brahms, but who survived him by almost a quarter of a century. The traditional Hebrew chant has been treated with such conviction, however, by this Lutheran grandson of an eminent German clergyman, that it is more familiar to concertgoers than his earlier Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei (Op. 37).

Bruch had a lifelong devotion to folk music and became somewhat of an authority on Geman, Russian, and Swedish music, some of which he drew upon in his Songs and Dances (Op. 63 and Op. 79). His Adagio on Celtic Melodies and better-known Scottish Fantasy (Op. 46) explore yet other sources, and his deep interest in folk art might well have influenced Vaughan Williams when that celebrated folklorist stuied with him.

International in his travels as in his musical interests, Bruch was serving as conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society at the time he composed Kol Nidrei. It received its first performance, however, at a concert of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on October 20, 1881.

For the basis of his composition, Bruch quite literally drew upon what is regarded as one of the most sacred of Hebrew melodies, customarily chanted on the even of the Day of Atonement. This prayer, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia explains, serves to annul "all vows made in any form whatsoever during the course of the year, insofar as they concern one's own person."

The personalized solemnity of the original melody is most appropriately paralleled by the timbre of the solo cello, which intones it first, unadorned. Variations expand on the original theme and lead to a secondary subject, pronounced by the orchestra first, this time, and then assigned to the solo instrument. The original theme is recalled as the work concludes in a somber mood.

BRUCH: Kol Nidrei (Adagio on a Hebrew melody), Op. 47


János Starker, cello; London Symphony Orchestra, Antal Dorati, cond. Mercury, recorded July 1962

Gregor Piatigorsky, cello; Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded Dec. 28, 1947


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

If Kol Nidrei is Bruch's second-best-known work, the best-known surely is his G minor Violin Concerto. We'll be listening to it.

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