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August 2 – Monday Sonatas

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Debussy – Violin Sonata

Janáček – Violin Sonata

Brahms – Viola Sonata in F minor

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Claude Debussy

French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918) successfully combined modernism with sensual melodies and colorful orchestrations. His style musically parallels the "layer"-oriented Impressionist movement of the visual arts. He was musical Impressionism's leading example—although he actually resisted the term. His unusual choices of scales (whole tones, non-standard modes, etc.) and harmonies (extended chords and sonorities, parallel chords, etc.) were revolutionary. As a student at the Paris Conservatory, he taught music lessons to the children of Tchaikovsky's former patroness. While still a student, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome for his cantata The Prodigal Son. In his twenties, Debussy became interested in non-Western music as an antidote to the large-scale Wagnerian tendencies that were still prevalent in mainstream compositional academia. Somewhat later, he became friends with various leading French intellectuals, such as the symbolist Mallarmé, Satie, and Chausson. Such associations led to his highly-successful orchestral piece Prelude to the afternoon of a faun (1894) and to his opera Pelléas and Mélisande (1895-1902). Debussy's first wife attempted suicide, but he later had a quite happy marriage to a singer, as well as a daughter to whom his Children's Corner piano suite (1908) is dedicated. He was a leading artistic figure in France in the first fifteen years of the 20th century. He composed many important works, such as the orchestral piece The Sea (1905), French art songs, and the piano Préludes and Etudes (1910-15). He also wrote music criticism and performed internationally. He died of colon cancer near the end of World War I.

Sonata for Violin and Piano (1916-17)

This work was supposed to be the third in a series of six chamber sonatas. However, it ended up being the last work Debussy completed before his death. The composer was not entirely happy with it, but it nonetheless successfully combines aspects of the violin sonata tradition (i.e., relatively "abstract") with influences from folk-style dances and violin playing. The first movement ("Fast, full of life") is quite melodic and smooth in character, with numerous held notes and shifting rhythms. Despite the marking, though, it is hardly "fast." Due to the soft, laid-back nature of the opening movement, the composer did not find it necessary to include a sonata's usual slow (second or, sometimes, third) movement. The second movement is an Intermezzo ("Imaginative and light"). It has a dance-like quality and, half-way through, a quite chromatic melody. The third movement Finale ("Very animated") gave the composer the most trouble. Initially, the violin reprises the opening theme of the first movement, with similarly-familiar accompanying figures. Then, the violin breaks out into a kind of unaccompanied frenzy. The movement contains many striking soft moments, but it also ends quite forcefully and in a major key (G major, instead of the work's frequent use of G minor).

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Leoš Janáček

Czech (Moravian) composer Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) initially pursued a variation of central-European Romanticism. After his first opera, however, he began to pursue an interest in Moravian folk music. Like other Eastern European musicians, he worked tirelessly as a teacher, conductor, and collector of folk music. Such music strongly influenced his eventual compositional style. In particular, he frequently made an effort to follow the rhythmic patterns of the Czech language. Janáček's music often features busy, repetitive patterns that he contrasts with more starkly-stated melodies and other material. His opera Jenůfa (1904) masterfully explores his mature compositional approach, applied to a compelling story involving jealousy and murder. The work was successfully staged in Prague in 1916 and established the composer's national and international renown. He was already in his sixties by then, but the opera's success gave him renewed energy, as did the founding in 1918 of Czechoslovakia and his affection for a much-younger, married woman. He wrote four late operas, including The Cunning Little Vixen (1924) and The Makropoulos Affair (1926). Around the same time, he wrote the profoundly-spiritual, pan-Slavic Glagolitic Mass (1926). Despite the cultural reasons for his drive to create mainly vocal and operatic works, Janáček also wrote a small body of chamber works, including the Violin Sonata. He also founded the Brno Organ School (later renamed the Brno Conservatory), directed the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, taught at the State Conservatory of Prague, and was involved in numerous music festivals.

Violin Sonata (1914-15)

Janáček mainly wrote this work just before his breakthrough operatic success of 1916. However, it was not premiered until several years after World War I, in 1922. It is a concise work, based on the types of short motives and fast tempo changes he also worked with in his main body of folk- and language-influenced vocal/operatic works. In a related matter, the work is also quite expressive. The first movement ("With motion, but not severely") begins with an intense, ascending solo-violin phrase. This is followed by a lyrical melody that is accompanied by tremolos in the piano. The development grows towards an anguished cry. The second movement Ballade ("With motion") is melodic and folk-like, accompanied by arpeggios in the piano. The third movement ("Fairly quick") is an intense and highly-compact Scherzo. The fourth movement Finale ("Very slowly") is unusually remote and resigned for a work's closing movement. The middle of the movement builds up considerably, but its opening aesthetic then returns to end the work quite bleakly.

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Johannes Brahms

German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-97) was the leading 19th-century figure of Classically-inspired Romanticism. Hans von Bülow once joked that Brahms' Symphony No. 1 was "Beethoven's Tenth." The son of a double-bass player, teenaged Brahms made money by playing piano in restaurants, taverns, and brothels. He was then championed as a young man by Robert Schumann, and after Schumann's death he had a long friendship with Clara Schumann. Brahms was very successful as a composer, but he had no comparable successes in his personal life. He died of liver or pancreatic cancer, without ever having gotten married. His works include symphonies, concertos (such as the Violin Concerto in D major, performed on July 16), choral/vocal works (such as the German Requiem), piano music, and chamber works. He also wrote regionally-inspired music, as well as character pieces. His music always follows formal, structural plans, but he never sacrifices emotional content. Brahms' chamber music includes his Sonata No. 2 in A major for Piano and Violin (July 12), his Trio in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, and Horn (July 23), and his Viola (orig., Clarinet) Sonata in F minor.

Viola Sonata in F minor (Op. 120, No. 1, originally for clarinet, 1894)

This work is one of four late compositions that Brahms composed for the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. The others are the Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano; the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings; and Sonata No. 2 of Op. 120. The first movement of Sonata No. 1 in F minor ("Passionately quick") is intense and makes use of notes in a quite high register. It ends, however, in a gentler style ("Sustained and expressive"). The second movement ("At a walking pace, but a bit slowly") is quite reflective. The third movement ("Gracefully quick") is dance-like and fast. The fourth movement ("Lively") is quick and high-spirited. Brahms also made viola versions of both sonatas. However, many people feel that the works function better in the original clarinet versions. (You may wish to weigh in on this by also listening to the clarinet version.)

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