Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos, K. 448
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg
Died December 5, 1791, Vienna

Mozart wrote almost no music for two pianos, and for obvious reasons. He lived and worked in an era before the solo piano recital, and virtually the entire market for piano music was domestic. In the final decades of the eighteenth century, there were enough homes with a keyboard instrument to make such music profitable, but there were almost none with two instruments. It would take an unusual set of circumstances for a composer to write music for two pianos, and such a set of unusual circumstances led to the creation of the Sonata in D Major.

When Mozart made his break from the Archbishop of Salzburg and moved to Vienna in the summer of 1781, he needed to establish himself in his new city. There were three ways a musician could do that – as teacher, as composer and as performer – and Mozart did all three: he took students, he published music and he gave concerts. One figure in Vienna was involved with him in all three of these.

Josepha von Aurnhammer was one of Mozart‘s first piano students in his adopted city. She was quite a good pianist, and while he discouraged her romantic interest in him, Mozart was happy to have her as a student and a colleague. He often performed with her, he dedicated to her the set of six violin sonatas he published soon after his arrival in Vienna and he wrote the Sonata in D Major for the two of them to play together, completing it in November 1781 (the Köchel number 448, by the way, is misleadingly high and suggests a later date of composition; the revised catalog number is K.375a).

The Sonata in D Major is Mozart‘s only work in this form. It is also terrific music, and Alfred Einstein is almost rhapsodic about it, saying that “the art with which the two parts are made completely equal, the play of the dialogue, the delicacy and refinement of the figuration, the feeling for sonority in the combination and exploitation of the different registers of the two instruments – all these things exhibit such mastery that this apparently ‘superficial‘ and entertaining work is at the same time one of the most profound and most mature of all Mozart‘s compositions.”

That last phrase may be extravagant, but the verve and high spirits of this music sweep all before them. Beyond its high spirits, this sonata is notable for Mozart‘s careful attention to sonority: this can range from the most delicate writing in the slow movement, where over murmuring accompaniment the music sings gracefully in the pianos‘ ringing high registers, to thunderous effects in the outer movements: the hammered octaves in the development of the first movement are particularly impressive.

There is a real pleasure about this music. One feels that Mozart must have enjoyed writing and enjoyed playing it (he and Josepha are known to have given frequent performances). It is easy to understand why.

Piano Sonata in A-flat Major, Opus 110
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Born December 16, 1770, Bonn
Died March 26, 1827, Vienna

The years 1813 through 1820 were exceptionally difficult for Beethoven. Not only was he having financial difficulties, but this was also the period of his bitter legal struggle for custody of his nephew Karl. Under these stresses, and with the added burden of ill health, Beethoven almost stopped composing.

Where the previous two decades had seen a great outpouring of music, now his creative powers flickered and were nearly extinguished. Not until 1820 was he able to put his troubles, both personal and creative, behind him and marshal his energy as a composer. At the end of May 1820 he committed himself to writing three piano sonatas for the Berlin publisher Adolph Martin Schlesinger; these would be Beethoven‘s final sonatas. Although he claimed he wrote them “in one breath,” their composition was actually spread out over a longer period than he expected when he agreed to write them.

The Sonata in A-flat Major, completed in December 1821, shows some of the most original touches in a group of sonatas that are all distinguished for their originality. The first movement, Moderato cantabile molto espressivo, is remarkable for its lovely and continuous lyricism. Beethoven notes that the opening is to be played con amabilità, and that spirit hovers over the entire movement. The essentially lyric quality of this movement is underlined by the fact that the second theme grows immediately out of the first: the opening idea has barely been stated when the second seems to rise directly out of it. By contrast, the bluff Allegro molto is rough and ready; it is a scherzo with a brief trio section full of energy and rhythmic surprises.

The long final movement is of complex structure: it performs the function of both adagio and finale, yet even these elements are intermixed with great originality. The main theme of the Adagio, marked Arioso dolente, arches painfully over a steady chordal accompaniment before Beethoven introduces a fugue marked Allegro, ma non troppo. After a brief working-out, the fugue comes to a halt and the Arioso theme returns. This time, however, Beethoven has marked it Ermattet, klagend (exhausted, grieving), and here the music seems almost choked and struggling to move. Yet gradually the music gathers strength and the fugue returns, but this time Beethoven has inverted the theme and builds the fugue on this inversion. The sonata ends with a great rush upward across five octaves to the triumphant final chord.

Piano Quintet in A Major, Opus 81
ANTONIN DVOŘÁK
Born September 8, 1841, Muhlhausen, Bohemia
Died May 1, 1904, Prague

Universally acclaimed as one of Dvořák‘s finest works, the Piano Quintet comes from the summer of 1887, between the composition of two of his greatest symphonies: the Brahmsian Seventh (1885) and the lyric Eighth (1889). Dvořák was 46 at this time, and the Quintet shows the hand of a master at every instant. This is tremendously vital music, full of fire, sweep and soaring melodies. Written at Dvořák‘s summer home at Vysoká, in the forests and fields of Czechoslovakia, the Quintet comes from one of the composer‘s periods of intense nationalism, and he employs characteristic Czech musical forms in the middle movements. The Quintet also takes much of its character from the sound of the viola. Dvořák was a violist, and in the Quintet the viola presents several of the main ideas, its dusky sound central to the rich sonority of this music.

The cello has the lyric opening idea of the Allegro, ma non tanto. This undergoes some surprising transformations, both thematic and harmonic, before the viola introduces the pulsing second theme. This movement, in sonata form, is built on sharp contrasts: the music ranges from delicate effects to thunderous climaxes before closing on a triumphant restatement of the second theme.

The second movement is a dumka, a form derived from an old Slavonic song of lament. Dvořák moves to the relative minor (F-sharp minor) for this movement, and he makes an effective contrast of sonorities in the first few moments: in its high register, the piano sounds glassy and delicate; far below, the viola‘s C-string resonates darkly against this. This powerful opening gives way to varied episodes: a sparkling duet for violins that returns several times and a blistering Vivace tune introduced by the viola. The somber opening music returns to bring the movement to its quiet close.

Dvořák notes that the brief Molto vivace is a furiant, an old Bohemian dance based on shifting meters, but – as countless commentators have pointed out – the meter remains unchanged throughout this movement, which is a sort of fast waltz in ABA form. The dancing opening gives way to a wistful center section, which is in fact a variant of the opening theme. The Finale shows characteristics of both rondo and sonata-form movement. Its amiable opening idea – introduced by the first violin after a muttering, epigrammatic beginning – dominates the movement. Dvořák even offers a deft fugato on this tune as part of the development before the music races to the powerful close of one of this composer‘s finest scores.