CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The MET Chamber Ensemble

Weill Recital Hall
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 5:00 PM

The MET Chamber Ensemble
James Levine, Artistic Director and Piano
Daniel Barenboim, Piano
Lisette Oropesa, Soprano
Sasha Cooke, Mezzo-Soprano
Matthew Plenk, Tenor
Shenyang, Bass-Baritone

SCHUBERT Sonata in C Major for Piano Four Hands, D. 812, "Grand Duo"
BRAHMS Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 52
BRAHMS Neue Liebeslieder Op. 65

Perspectives: Daniel Barenboim

Program Notes:

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
Sonata in C Major for Piano Duet, “Grand Duo,” Op. 140 (D. 812)

The Sonata in C Major received its first Carnegie Hall performance in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on November 13, 1967, with Marcia Klebanow and Johanna-Maria Fraenkel, piano.


Schubert spent the summer of 1824 in Zseliz, Hungary, as music master to the children of the Esterházy family, a position he had held six years earlier. Recuperating from a venereal infection, he was initially miserable away from his Viennese friends. By August, however, he was able to report to Moritz von Schwind that “I am still well, thank goodness, and should be quite comfortable here, if only I had you, Schober, and Kupelwieser with me.” He added, “I have composed a grand sonata and variations for four hands, which latter are having a great success here; but as I do not wholly trust the Hungarians’ taste, I leave it to you and the Viennese to decide.”

Though the variations were published the following spring, the sonata would not appear in print until 1838, after Schubert’s death, with the subtitle “Grand Duo” added by the publisher. Some musicians were inclined to view the “Grand Duo” as a draft for a symphony: Robert Schumann, for one, heard “string and wind instruments, tuttis, a few solos, the mutter of drums; and my view is also supported by the broad symphonic form.”

Eventually, in 1855, Schumann’s friend, the great violinist Joseph Joachim, bit the bullet and orchestrated the “Grand Duo,” associating it with reports that Schubert had composed a symphony in the Austrian resort town of Gastein during the summer of 1825, of which the “Grand Duo” manuscript might represent a piano reduction. However, that hypothesis (which would seem to conflict with Schubert’s own description of the work, quoted above, as a “grand sonata”) has found little support in recent years, while the Grand Duo in its original garb continues to attract duo-pianists.

The first documented performance of the Grand Duo took place on December 18, 1859, at the Vienna Musikverein; the pianists were Karl Meyer and Eduard Pirkhart.

I. Allegro moderato (C major, Alla breve). The modest opening phrase is gradually expanded, both melodically and dynamically. Scales in triplets, wide dynamic contrasts, double-dotted rhythms, repeated notes, and sforzando octaves dominate the later phase of the exposition. The development fragments these materials and juxtaposes them in dramatic ways.

II. Andante (A-flat major, 3/8). A gently flowing melody alternates with staccato scales and repeated notes, a pattern probably inspired by the corresponding movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2.

III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace (C major, 3/4); Trio (F minor, 3/4). The influence of Beethoven’s more explosive scherzos is evident here. The Trio’s main section juxtaposes a treble melody echoing (albeit a bit freely) the Grand Duo’s opening phrase, above a syncopated inner voice and a bass line.

IV. Allegro vivace (2/4, Più lento; Più lento; Tempo I; Più mosso). A “horn call” from the “second” pianist sets off a splendidly energetic bustle of rising and falling scales, plus occasional fanfare-like climactic gestures and, eventually, a “surprise” ending.


JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833–1897)
Liebeslieder, Op. 52; Neue Liebeslieder, Op. 65

Liebeslieder received its Carnegie Hall premiere on March 11, 1909, with the Musical Art Society conducted by Frank Damrosch. (For this performance, the four-hand piano accompaniment was transcribed for string orchestra by Friedrich Hermann.) Neue Liebeslieder received its Carnegie Hall premiere on December 14, 1915, with the Musical Art Society, Frank Damrosch, conductor, and Herbert Fryer and James Friskin, piano.


Recording his first impressions upon opening the score of Brahms’s Love Songs: Waltzes for four voices and piano duet, Op. 52 (published in 1869), the critic Eduard Hanslick came close to chortling:

“Brahms and waltzes! The two words stare at each other in positive amazement on the elegant title page. The earnest, silent Brahms, a true younger brother of Schumann, and just as North German, Protestant, and unworldly as he—writing waltzes!”

Hanslick exaggerated: He surely knew that Brahms had published a set of waltzes for piano duet (Op. 39) two years earlier. Another relevant precedent came from Schumann (Brahms’s relationship to whom was greatly more complex than suggested by Hanslick’s term of “younger brother”); the older composer had written a set of Spanish Love Songs for four vocal soloists with piano; though Brahms’s collection received a formal public premiere in Vienna on January 5, 1870, its principal destination was not the concert platform but rather the bourgeois homes of Central Europe, where groups of families and friends would frequently gather round the piano to sing. In the days before recordings, the sale of such Hausmusik in printed form was a primary source of income for publishers (and composers). The great success of Op. 52 stimulated a sequel: The New Love Songs were completed in 1874 (some of them had been written earlier, possibly originally intended for the first set), published in 1875, and first performed in Mannheim on May 8 of that year.

With one exception, the texts are drawn from Polydora, an anthology of folk poetry assembled and translated by one G. F. Daumer. The earlier set focuses on examples from Hungary, Poland, and Russia, but the second is more inclusive, extending to the Near East, Spain, and even Malaya. However, the musical language throughout is that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, usually closer to the folkish Ländler than the urban waltz. (Writing to a younger colleague who was arranging orchestral accompaniments for some of the songs, the composer said: “The tempo is actually that of a Ländler: moderate.”) Brahms being Brahms, not far below the enterprise’s vernacular surface lurks considerable sophistication of harmony, rhythmic treatment, and texture—and also variety of sonority: the vocal scoring alternates solos, duets, and trios with the full quartet (the second collection has more solos).

To conclude the second set, Brahms turns to a poem by Goethe, broadening the waltz meter to 9/4 (three 3/4 measures forming a spacious super-measure), as the poet calls on the Muses to cease portraying the sorrow and joy of love; thus Brahms bids farewell to this particularly engaging genre.

—David Hamilton

Copyright © 2008 by David Hamilton