Sonata Evening
Francis Poulenc, Sonata for Oboe and Piano, op. 185
Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata No. 1 in D Major for Violin and Piano, op. 12, no. 1
Camille Saint-Saëns, Sonata for Oboe and Piano in D Major, op. 166
Robert Schumann, Sonata No. 1 in A Minor for Violin and Piano, op. 105
Sergei Prokofiev, Sonata for Flute and Piano, op. 94
Camille Saint-Saëns, Sonata for Oboe and Piano in D Major, op. 166: Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was “probably the most awesome child prodigy in the history of music” [Harold Schoenberg]. At age 10, he concluded his debut piano recital by offering to play any of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas as an encore, from memory. He entered the Paris Conservatory at age 15, and at age 22 was appointed organist of La Madeleine, a post he held for 20 years. Liszt said that Saint-Saëns was the finest organist he had ever heard. Berlioz opined that “He knows everything but he lacks inexperience.” He did everything: piano, organ, composing, conducting and teaching. As a composer, he was prolific and versatile, writing symphonies, concertos, chamber works, operas, vocal music and solo works for piano and organ. Saint-Saëns’ long life spanned the transition from Romanticism to Modernism. A revolutionary in his early years, he seemed an archconservative as an elder. At age 85, he wrote to his former student Gabriel Fauré that, at his age, “it was one’s right to say no more – and probably one’s duty.” Then he changed his mind and, in the year that he died, wrote sonatas for clarinet, bassoon and oboe. It’s good that he changed his mind. These sonatas “remain faithful to his Romantic sentiments and even reach back to the Classical era for their basic structure and simple musical lines” [Patsy Morita]. Unlike the usual fast-slow-fast pattern, the tempos of this sonata increase successively. They give the performer “a gratifying match between technical challenges and melodic expression” [Morita].
Robert Schumann, Sonata No. 1 in A Minor for Violin and Piano, op. 105: Schumann (1810-1856) was not accepted as a musical immortal until after his death. “Few major composers have been so disliked in their own time, and even fewer have been as little performed” [Harold Schonberg]. What a complex man Schumann was: a man of literature as well as music, a music critic (the “discoverer” of Brahms) as well as a composer and conductor. No match at the keyboard for his virtuoso wife Clara, he commanded her love and devotion in a relationship that reflects as much storybook romanticism as it does tragedy. Today, Schumann would probably be diagnosed as manic-depressive. A final breakdown and suicide attempt in 1854 sent him to an asylum near Bonn where he died two years later, at age 46. Schumann composed this violin sonata in September 1851, later than his other chamber music works, while serving as a conductor in Düsseldorf. This was a time that Schumann was increasingly struggling with his emotions. Some critics profess to see in the first movement surges of emotion and activity that presage Schumann’s eventual breakdown. The second movement is a gentle, delicate and intimate contrast to the first. The third movement is one of perpetual motion and perhaps indicative of Schumann’s “increasingly agitated and complex mind” [Blair Johnston].
Francis Poulenc, Sonata for Oboe and Piano, op. 185: Poulenc (1899-1963) was born to a wealthy French family, which afforded him the private study of piano and composition. Initially intrigued by the music of Debussy, Ravel, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Bartók, he became a member of the Les Six group which stressed lack of pretension, nostalgia and overt sentimentalism in their music. He believed that the French, like the Germans and Russians, could “write profound music” but that French music should be “leavened with that lightness of spirit without which life would be unendurable.” As he grew older, Poulenc became more religious and pondered illness, decay, death, transfiguration and joy – ponderings that reflected themselves in his music. Like Saint-Saëns, Poulenc wrote several sonatas for piano and wind instruments towards the end of his life. The Oboe Sonata, written in memory of Sergei Prokofiev, was Poulenc’s last composition. It departs from the usual sonata format (fast-slow-fast) in favor of a slow-fast-slow pattern. It is a very difficult work, which requires great skill by the oboist. Some critics believe that, while honoring Prokofiev, Poulenc was simultaneously writing his own musical obituary.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata No. 1 in D Major for Violin and Piano, op. 12, no. 1: By the time he wrote this sonata, Beethoven (1770-1827) had established his reputation as a virtuoso pianist and was also becoming recognized as a composer, with more commissions coming his way than he could fulfill, at least by his telling. “The world was at his feet. He was successful, honored, admired” [Harold Schoenberg]. But, by this time, he also may have begun to have intimations of his deafness. Beethoven wrote this violin-piano sonata in 1798, about the same time he wrote his opus 9 string trios, his opus 10 piano sonatas, his opus 11 clarinet and two other opus 12 violin-piano sonatas. He dedicated this violin-piano sonata, published in 1799, to Antonio Salieri, one of great musicians with whom he studied after he moved to Vienna in 1792. (“Salieri ... found Beethoven self-willed and difficult, and he was probably bewildered by the new features of these works” Lewis Lockwood.) Firmly anchored in his so-called Early Period, this sonata reflects the classical three-movement, 18th Century sonata format (fast, slow, fast rondo). “Although relatively unadventurous in structure, [the opus 12] sonatas display a great range of textures, as Beethoven seems to explore every possible relationship between the two instruments. [These and his other contemporaneous works] showed Beethoven to be “a master of the conventional idiom, while being far from conventional in detail” [Barry Cooper].
Sergei Prokofiev, Sonata in D Major for Flute and Piano, op. 94: Prokofiev “was a stubborn, intelligent, obstinate, and cocky young man of undeniable talent” [Harold Schoenberg]. He did not make many friends among faculty or students at the St. Petersburg Conservatory because “he did not suffer fools gladly” and “had to say exactly what he thought,” sometimes savagely. [Id.] St. Petersburg was a Romantically-oriented conservatory. As one of the new breed of anti-Romantics, “Prokofiev composed music that appalled his venerable betters.” [Id.] After the Bolshevik Revolution, he left for what he thought would be a short time, but which turned into 18 years. He first came to the United States. While admired, “America did not like him, and he did not like America.” [Id.] He relocated to Paris, where his tonal dissonance rattled French teeth, but where he was better received than in the States. He traveled back to Russia in 1927, then moved back for good in 1933. When he finally understood what it was like to be a composer in Stalinist Russia, it was too late for him to leave. His music suffered the same State scrutiny as that of Shostakovich, but Prokofiev adapted better because he could write with melody, harmony and beautiful lyricism that would not be accused of “formalism.” He kowtowed to Stalin as required from time to time and, in the opinion of some critics, “Prokofiev himself composed watered-down Prokofiev.” He died in Moscow on March 5, 1953 of a brain hemorrhage – just one hour before Stalin’s death. Prokofiev wrote this flute sonata in 1943 – a decade in which “his creativity soared” [David Dubal]. One year later, with the help of violinist David Oistrakh, he adapted it for violin. Today, both versions continue to be played widely.