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Violin Sonatas: Beethoven and Brahms

Date
Date
Friday 31 October 2014, 1.05pm - 1.55pm

Clive Brown (violin) Miaoyin Qu (piano)

During the first half of the twentieth century a revolution both in violin and piano playing occurred. Traditions that had been handed down throughout the nineteenth century were swept away on the wave of Modernism. To many artists of the generation coming to maturity at the beginning of the twentieth century the practices of the nineteenth century were suspect simply because they were associated with a past from which they wanted to distance themselves. During the course of the twentieth century musicians came increasingly to believe that going beyond what was explicitly conveyed by the notation was an offense against the composer’s intentions, and the spread of recording made performers increasingly aware of the discrepancy between what was written in the score and what was actually played. Rhythmic freedom, as well as practices (such as piano arpeggiation and dislocation of the hands), or violin portamento, which had been integral to expressive musical performance since the late eighteenth century, were gradually eliminated, while the growing preference for a violin tone coloured by continuous vibrato soon destroyed the role of vibrato as an expressive ornament, sparingly used on individual notes. In this concert we shall attempt to get as close as possible to the performing practices of the periods in which the music was written.

Beethoven’s Violin Sonata op. 12 no. 3, composed in 1798, has its own powerfully distinct personality, calling for strongly characterised performance in which contrasts and changes of mood play a major role. The first movements of op. 12 no. 3 is brilliant, playful, and urgent by turns; the slow movement an expansive and deeply felt Adagio; while the high-spirited Finale brings the sonata to an exhilarating conclusion.

Brahms’s two Sonatas op. 120 nos. 1 and 2 were originally composed for clarinet and piano, but the composer himself decided to publish them also as a violin sonata. He made many adaptations to suit them perfectly to the violin and even made significant changes to the piano parts. Despite their magnificent qualities as violin sonatas, they are very rarely played in that form. They is far more frequently heard as a viola sonatas, although the composer himself wrote to his friend the violinist Joseph Joachim: ‘I'm afraid, as viola sonatas, the two pieces are very awkward and unpleasant.’ The mood of the F minor Sonata ranges from the gently melancholic first movement, through the dreamily contemplative second and good-natured dance-like third movements, to the spirited and humerous exuberance of the F major Finale.

Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, School of Music, University of Leeds