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The sonata From the Street, 1 October 1905 is one of few major piano works by Leoš Janáček, the 20th century’s Czech classic. It is a chronicle of actual events that took place in Brno on 1 October 1905. On this day there was a demonstration by the Czech populace in support of the opening of the National University in the city. The demonstration was broken up by a German magistrate and it resulted in the death of a twenty-year-old worker.
Janáček immediately began composing a work and in January 1906 he completed his sonata in three sections: Premonition, Death and Funereal March. It was performed straight away by Ludmila Tučková at the Friends of Art Club, but before the concert the composer himself burnt the third section, and later he destroyed the sheet music of the remaining two sections (he did exactly the same thing with many other works he wrote). It was only in 1924, when the composer turned seventy, that Tuchkova admitted she had kept a copy of two sections of the sonata. This time Janáček did not destroy the work, and he even gave it a programme: White Marble Steps of the Besední dům. A Simple Worker, František Pavlik, Falls, Stained with Blood. He Came only to Champion Higher Learning and Has Been Slain by Cruel Murderers.
This dramatic programme work exposes the hand of this innate theatre composer and the creator of the most beautiful operas. The Moravian colour of the music is linked not just with Janáček’s intense engagement with folklore, but also with the fact that the events in Brno arose precisely because of the struggle for national culture.
Sonata Op. 81а and Six Bagatelles Op. 126 are among works by Beethoven that are most closely linked with the aesthetics of Romanticism, which was then growing in force.
Sonata No 26 was written between 1809 and 1810 and carries the title Characteristic Sonata – Farewell, Parting and Meeting. The composer subtitled the motif that opens the first section was subtitled Lebe wohl! – “Farewell!” This motif is a kind of musical epigraph to the sonata. It is developed in the poetic coda that concludes the perturbed and anxious first section. The second section (Parting) is filled with heavy, consuming melancholy, and the finale (Meeting) literally radiates happiness, kindness and nobleness.
In the art of Classicism, programme music was rated much lower than “pure” music, and so the sonata drew an angry response from a contemporary critic: “A work for an occasion, but written by such an inspired maestro!” Against all expectations it was not about love, but rather about friendship. The appearance of the sonata was due to the temporary absence from Vienna of Archduke Rudolph – friend, pupil and patron to whom the work is also dedicated.
Six Bagatelles Op. 126 (1824) was Beethoven’s last work in this genre. It is not a collection of separate pieces but rather a cycle that should be performed in its entirety and without interruption. The fantasy unpredictability of the development and the mixed character of this “musical kaleidoscope” brings to mind works by Schumann. Beethoven, as if joking, “samples the taste” of new, light genres, for example – in the sixth bagatelle – a waltz.
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Joseph Haydn’s Sonata in A Flat Major is denoted as a “divertissement” in the original score. At the time it was written (this early work appeared between 1767 and 1770) it was common to use this word to refer to music that was highly varied – sonatas, quartets and orchestral serenades. And this far from always indicated its entertaining nature.
Haydn’s sonatas from this period were intended for the harpsichord rather than the piano. Very many of them were to be performed, in the main, by ladies. In the 18th century, sonatas were performed in chamber-like domestic settings. Lovers often adored them, inviting no audience, and so composers were not ashamed to express their most sacred feelings in their sonatas.
But this sonata is not so much for lovers as it is for intellectual connoisseurs. All three sections are written in sonata form and are embellished with polyphonic techniques. The noble, serious and lofty music of the sonata expands far beyond the confines of the “gallant” style popular at the time.
Of all of Felix Mendelssohn’s piano works, Serious Variations, completed on 4 June 1841 and printed in Vienna in the Beethoven Album (the aim of the publication was to raise funds for a memorial to the composer), occupies a central position. At the time, Mendelssohn was at the height of his fame and acclamation, and in September he was offered the appointment as conductor of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV and was to travel to Berlin.
Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations served as an example for Serious Variations. Their theme is original, deep and rich in expressive details. Themes such as these are difficult to develop “without lowering the tone”, but Mendelssohn achieved this masterfully.
The numerous Songs without Words (there is a total of eight books each containing six pieces) are among the most popular works of Romantic piano music. This is a beautiful example of the Biedermeier style in music that delighted publishers and that was enthusiastically performed by an entire army of erudite amateur musicians.
The Songs without Words genre was invented by Mendelssohn. He wrote one of the first “songs” in 1828 to mark his sister Fanny’s birthday, together with whom he loved jokingly to select words for various piano works. The famous Duet, Op. 38 No 3, which crowns the third book of Songs, appeared on 27 June 1836 and is dedicated to Fräulein Rosa von Worringen. The Song Op. 85 No 4 was composed on 6 May 1845, when the composer and his family were peacefully resting in Frankfurt from his duties in Berlin, and the amazing piece Op. 102 No 5 with its “dazzling” rhythmic sketch was composed on 12 December the same year, when at the peak of the concert season Mendelssohn was literally tearing between Leipzig and Berlin.
Anna Bulycheva
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