Brightmusic Chamber Ensemble

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), Sonata for Cello and Piano in D major, Op. 102, No. 2

Beethoven had problems: dysfunctional childhood, health issues, hearing loss—and his choice of occupation.  A deaf musician would be expected to find another job.  In a self-deprecating mood, the composer once said, “Beethoven can write music, thank God, because he can’t do another thing on earth.”  He lacked a basic education and couldn’t even multiply or divide.  Music was all he knew.  But he would overcome crushing adversity throughout his life to become one of the most influential composers in history.  During the last decade of the 18th century, the young composer was still under the inescapable influence of Haydn and Mozart and was achieving his goals.  He had established his reputation as a brilliant concert pianist and a serious composer, but he was slowly coming to the realization that he was losing his hearing.  By the time he wrote his last cello sonata in 1815, his deafness—and his isolation— were nearly complete.  He would never hear much of what he had written, instead “hearing” his masterpieces in his head.

Beethoven’s fifth and final sonata for cello and piano was written at the very beginning of his “late” compositional period after several “dry” years of diminished output as he descended deeper into silence.  His music was undergoing major stylistic changes, becoming more complex, expressive and introspective; it was now fully Romantic. The three-movement sonata begins with a simply-stated first movement, with the piano and cello sharing duties.  The second movement, the centerpiece of the work, is a somber blend of the simple and the profound—a hallmark of Beethoven’s late works. It then launches without a pause into the energetic last movement that begins with another feature of Beethoven’s late works:  a fugue.  The piece underwent multiple revisions and refinements before it was published the following year.  With this sonata he emerged from his “dry period” and would go on to write some of the most celebrated works in Western music. 

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), Trio in D minor for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, Op. 120

Gabriel Fauré, one of the foremost French composers of his time, was also a pianist, organist and a teacher.  Some of his students included Maurice Ravel, George Enescu, Florent Schmitt and the renowned pedagogue Nadia Boulanger.  He is best known for his small-scale works, especially his Pavane and Clair de Lune.  Fauré served as director of the Paris Conservatoire and as organist at some of France’s most prestigious cathedrals, including L’église de la Madeleine, posts which afforded less time for composition. He suffered from increasing deafness the last 20 years of his life, and like Beethoven before him, his later works became more complex, introspective and impassioned. The Grove Dictionary describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, noting that his harmonic and melodic innovations influenced later generations.   

Fauré’s haunting Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, his only trio and his penultimate work, is another chamber piece by a deaf composer following a period of ill health.  Originally conceived for clarinet, cello and piano, it was first published as a standard piano trio (violin, cello and piano). The violin part was later transcribed for clarinet.  Completed in the composer’s 78^th year, the simplicity and beauty of this autumnal gem made it an instant standard in the French chamber music repertoire.

Max Reger (1873-1916), Sonata in B-flat major for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 107

German composer Max Reger was a concert pianist, organist, conductor and teacher.  He served as music director of the Leipzig University Church, a professor at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig and director at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen.  At age five, he began studying the piano with his mother and learned the organ, violin and cello from his father, an amateur musician.  He was expected to become a school teacher, like his father; however, after hearing Wagner’s Die Meistersinger and Parsifal at age 15, Reger decided to pursue a career in music.  Over 25 years he would write in nearly every genre except opera and the symphony.  Among his students were Rudolf Serkin and George Szell.    

Inspired by Brahms’ clarinet sonata, Reger’s B-flat sonata, composed in 1908-09, was later transcribed for both violin and viola by the composer, who considered the work “a very light and friendly piece.” He wrote, “The work sounds very good, is intimate chamber music and not difficult to play together.” The work was hailed by the press as “a return to classical simplicity . . . a beautiful and deeply-felt sound idyll.”  

Program notes by Sara Grossman