Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Introduction and Polonaise Brillante, Opus 3
Frédéric CHOPIN
Born February 22, 1810, Zelazowa Wola, Poland
Died October 17, 1849, Paris

In the fall of 1829, Chopin–nineteen years old, restless, dissatisfied with his career, and upset by the political troubles in Poland–was sent by his father to spend some time as a guest at the estate of Prince Radziwill in Antonin. Radziwill was a cellist, a composer, and a generous man. More to the point, he had two beautiful teenaged daughters, Wanda and Elise, and Chopin made a happy visit with the Radziwill family. Wanda was a pianist, and–as a gift to Wanda and her father–Chopin composed a polonaise for the two of them to play together. Chopin made his motives clear in a letter to a friend: “I have written an alla Polacca for the violoncello with accompaniment. It is nothing more than a glittering trifle for the salon, for ladies. I wanted Princess Wanda, the daughter of the cello-playing Prince, to learn it. She is still very young–perhaps seventeen–and beautiful.” Presumably father and daughter did play this music that fall, and Chopin wrote a slow introduction for it the following year; the music was published in 1831 under the title Introduction and Polonaise Brillante.

Despite Chopin’s disparagement of this music as “a glittering trifle,” it is considerably more difficult than he makes it sound, and in fact Wanda and her father must have been first-rate musicians if they could manage this piece. As its name implies, a polonaise is of Polish origin. In its original form, it was in triple time and at a moderate tempo, and it could be sung or danced as part of ceremonial processions. By the eighteenth century it had become a dance form, and in his thirteen polonaises for piano Chopin transformed it into a brilliant and fast dance fired by his intense national feelings. Here he makes it a pleasing display piece for cello and piano. A lengthy introduction, full of long runs for the piano, eventually grows quite animated and leads into the Alla Polacca, which Chopin marks Allegro con spirito. Chopin may mark the piano part elegantamente near the start, but soon he is reminding the duo to play con forza and brillante. This is exciting music, and it drives to a grand close.

A number of cellists, dismayed by the youthful Chopin’s writing for an instrument he did not play, have made performing editions of their own. The Polonaise Brillante is frequently heard today in an edition by the great Polish cellist Emanuel Feuermann.

Variations on Non più mesta from Rossini’s
La Cenerentola

This music is of doubtful origin. Legend has it that the 14-year-old Chopin wrote this brief set of variations in 1824 as a present for his father, an amateur flute player. The music remained in manuscript form for over a century and was not published until 1955. But there is no convincing evidence that the manuscript is by Chopin, nor is there any mention of this music in his surviving correspondence. Modern scholarship remains quite suspicious about its authenticity, and in its catalog of Chopin’s works The New Grove Dictionary lists the piece as “Doubtful.”

Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola (“Cinderella”) was premièred in Rome in 1817, and it quickly became an international success. Angelina (Cenerentola) sings “Non più mesta” in the opera’s final scene. The prince is about to bring down punishment on her evil stepfather and stepsisters, but the young heroine intervenes and–in a sign of her new maturity–asks that they be granted mercy. This set of variations for flute and piano offers Rossini’s poised aria theme and four melodic variations. Paganini would later write a set of virtuoso variations on this same theme, but the present set is straightforward and quite compact–the entire piece lasts only a few minutes.

Piano Trio in G Minor, Opus 8

We so automatically think of Chopin as the composer who wrote brief piano pieces in a highly-sophisticated three-part form that it comes as a surprise to learn that he also wrote several works in fairly strict classical form: while still a teenager, Chopin wrote two piano concertos, a piano trio, and a piano sonata. But the young composer quickly recognized that his expressive powers would find clearest expression in freer forms, and he left behind the classical structures that Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven had found so fertile (though it should be noted that Chopin did subsequently write two further piano sonatas, both highly original in their handling of that form).

Chopin composed his Piano Trio in G Minor in 1828-29, completing it when he was 19. Though Chopin will always be remembered for piano music, throughout his life he felt a fondness for the sound of the cello, and he wrote several works for that instrument. The Piano Trio, however, represents the only instance when Chopin wrote chamber music for the violin. His Piano Trio is in the four-movement form that Beethoven and Schubert favored in their trios, but in the Chopin Trio the piano dominates textures and frequently leads the musical argument in ways that it does not in the trios of those earlier masters. The opening Allegro con fuoco gets off to a firm start (Chopin marks it risoluto) as all three instruments stamp out the motto-figure that will function as a first subject. A second idea sings smoothly (the marking is espressivo), and this contrast of the dramatic and gentle will mark the entire movement. The mood lightens somewhat in the Scherzo. Chopin moves to G major, and rather than dancing violently, this scherzo flows smoothly, even in its gently-shaded middle section. The slow movement, marked Adagio sostenuto, gets off to a surprisingly hard-edged beginning, then relaxes into long-limbed melodies, well-suited to the strings. Piano alone launches the lively concluding Allegretto, a movement in which we occasionally hear intimations of the mature Chopin.

Robert Schumann offered a glowing review of Chopin’s Piano Trio when it was published in 1833, memorably proclaiming: “Is it not as noble as possible, more enthusiastic than the song of any poet, original in detail as in the whole, every note life and music?” Yet this music has not held its place in the repertory and is seldom performed today. Hearing this trio reminds us that the very young Chopin was still looking to the past as he began his musical journey. And within that context, it is remarkable to learn that once the Piano Trio was complete, he considered a surprising re-instrumentation. In the summer of 1830 he wrote to a friend: “Last Saturday I tried the trio, and, perhaps because I had not heard it for so long, was satisfied with myself. ‘Happy man,’ you will say, won’t you? It then struck me that it would be better to use the viola instead of the violin, as the first string predominates in the violin, and in my trio it is hardly used at all. The viola would, I think, accord better with the cello.” But Chopin did not make that change–he published the trio in its original form for violin, cello, and piano, and it is in that form we hear it today.

Grand Duo Concertante on Themes from Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable

Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le diable was premièred in Paris on November 21, 1831, and promptly became a smash hit–it had over a hundred performances in its first three years alone. Based on an ancient Norman legend, the opera told a tale of demonic spirits, supernatural events, and the battle for human souls, and its tunes became vastly popular with audiences and with other composers, who wrote a series of pieces based on those melodies. Among those caught up in the excitement was Liszt: he took Wagner to see the opera in Paris and later wrote a piece for piano that he called Réminiscences de Robert le diable.

The 21-year-old Chopin had arrived in Paris only two months before the première of Meyerbeer’s opera, and like so many others, he fell under its spell. The following year Chopin and the young French pianist Auguste Franchomme collaborated on a piece for cello and piano based on themes from Robert le diable, which they published in 1833 under the title Grand Duo Concertante. We do not normally think of Chopin as a composer much interested in this sort of fashionable virtuosity, and apparently he felt the same way: he quickly moved on to a different kind of music and chose not to include the Grand Duo Concertante on the official list of his works.

This collaborative music, so atypical of Chopin, has never enjoyed much popularity, and Chopin’s biographer Herbert Weinstock has suggested that Chopin supplied the general structure of the piece, while Franchomme was responsible for the cello part. After an imposing and rather lengthy introduction for the piano alone, the cello enters quietly, and soon the two instruments embark on a series of episodes at different tempos. At first these are lyric, but as the Grand Duo approaches its conclusion, the music gathers energy and rushes to a rather extroverted close.

Chopin may have gone on to write quite different music, but he remained good friends with Franchomme. He dedicated his final published work, the Cello Sonata, to Franchomme, and the two men played it on Chopin’s final Paris recital, which took place in February 1848.

Sonata in G Minor for Piano and Cello, Opus 65

Chopin’s Cello Sonata (1845-46) dates from the troubled final years of his life; it was in fact his last published work. Chopin wrote little music for instruments other than piano, but he appears to have had a special fondness for the cello, for he wrote three different works for cello and piano. Composing the Cello Sonata was particularly difficult for a composer unaccustomed to writing for anything but piano. In a letter to his sister, Chopin said: “I write a little and cross out a lot. Sometimes I am pleased with it, sometimes not. I throw it into a corner and pick it up again.” The Cello Sonata has not won a wide following, and one of Chopin’s biographers had gone so far as to describe it as nothing but “immense wildernesses, with only here and there a small flower.”

Yet this interesting and rewarding music shows a little-known side of Chopin. The sonata is remarkable for the concentration of its material: much of the music of the first movement grows out of the cello’s opening statement, and certain theme-shapes appear in all its movements. Some believe that the Cello Sonata suggests the course Chopin’s music might have taken, had he not died at age 39 of tuberculosis.

The sonata is in four movements. The Allegro moderato opens with a brief introduction by the piano, and when the cello enters it borrows some of the melodic shape of the introduction for its main theme. The mood of this music is mercurial: it is by turns agitated, noble, dramatic, and gentle. The structure here is unusual as well, for Chopin shortens the recapitulation and drives the movement to the two sharp concluding chords. The Scherzo, much lighter in texture, is derived from material in the first movement. It rushes ahead on short phrases that contrast with the long lines of the wonderful trio section: here Chopin’s soaring melody rocks along gracefully before the movement concludes with a brief reprise of the scherzo. The Largo is relatively short (only 27 measures long), but this gorgeous music is the expressive center of the sonata. The cello’s wistful main idea, marked cantabile and dolce, sings gracefully above the piano’s steady accompaniment, grows to a climax, and falls away to the quiet close. The vigorous Finale derives much of its energy from Chopin’s contrast of triplet and dotted rhythms. A solemn march-like passage provides a measure of contrast before this extended movement comes to its close on a più mossocoda.