Brownbag Concerts | Program Notes

Program Notes

October 22, 2003

Welcome to a concert of chamber music by Ludwig van Beethoven in which we'll first hear a rarely-performed set of variations for cello and piano followed by a sonata for violin and piano. Then all three musicians will come together in one of Beethoven's wonderful piano trios.

Beethoven's creative life and output have for years been divided into three stylistic periods to which more recent scholars have added an earlier, fourth period: the Bonn period of his earliest years ending about 1792, the early Viennese period which lasted until about 1802, the middle period (1803-1813) which commenced with his 'heroic' works like the third symphony and the opera Fidelio (aka Leonora); and the late period from 1813 until his death in 1827, which saw both transcendent, highly abstract works and very accessible public music like Wellington's Victory (Battle Symphony). In all cases, and quite possibly more than any other composer, Beethoven's musical output was a barometer measuring the emotional hills and valleys of his private life.

Variation sets were extremely popular in the Baroque and Classical Periods (think of Bach's 'Goldberg Variations' Mozart's piano variations on the tune we know as 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star' and Beethoven's monumental variations on a rather silly little waltz by Diabelli. Today's concert begins with a dozen variations on a chorus from George Friderick Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabeus entitled 'See the Conqu'ring hero comes'. The work was premiered during Lent of 1747 (when Handel's oratorios replaced opera performances) and performed at least twenty-six times before the composer's death in 1759. The tune was nearly 50 years old before it ended up in Beethoven's variations which were composed in Vienna in 1797 and dedicated to Princess Christiane von Lichnowsky.

Beethoven's three violin sonatas of opus 12 were composed in Vienna in 1797 and 1798 and dedicated to the Viennese court composer Antonio Salieri (known to Amadeus fans as Mozart's bête noir).

Finally, one of Beethoven's less famous piano trios (in contrast to opus 70, no. 1, 'The Ghost' and opus 97, "The Archduke") is opus 70, no. 2, composed in 1808 and published one year later in Leipzig. Dedicated to the Countess Marie Erdödy, the twins of opus 70 were composed at Heiligenstadt just after the sixth ('Pastoral') Symphony, and at the end of a frenzy of composition which had seized Beethoven during the previous two years and produced such works as the Razumovsky quartets, the 'Appassionata' Sonata, the fourth symphony, the violin concerto and most of the fourth piano concerto.