On Monday afternoon at St. Stephen's Church the Jupiter Players performed their first recital of 2016. The program was entitled Austro-German Gems and did indeed feature works by the German composers Ernst Pauer, Schumann and Schubert. The real focus, though, was on the nineteenth century arrangers Friedrich Hermann and Robert Wittmann, both of whom did an excellent job in transcribing the two better known works.
The program opened with Schumann's Bilder aus Osten ("Pictures from the East"), Op. 66 (1849), a series of piano impromptus for four hands arranged here for string quartet by Friedrich Hermann of the Leipzig Conservatory. I have never heard Schumann's original piano version of this work and was able to find very little background concerning it - Did Schumann intend to perform it himself with Clara by his side? - other than a brief note on a sheet music vendor's website:
"As can be seen from the preface of the first edition, Schumann was inspired by the 'Maqama' - a genre of Arab rhymed prose - by the medieval poet Hariri in the translation by Friedrich Rückert. Schumann could not banish the protagonist in the Maqama, Abu Said, whom he likened to the German character Till Eulenspiegel from his thoughts whilst he was writing the works. This explains the 'foreign character' of the pieces."
This five-movement piece highlighted the composer's skill at writing for the piano. At the time he produced it, Schumann was at the height of his powers and his incipient madness had yet to manifest itself. The present arrangement was of exceptional quality, so much so that one would have thought the quartet was the original form in which the music had been written. Hermann was a respected composer himself and had studied as a violinist under Ferdinand David and Felix Mendelssohn. Through them he had a genuine connection to the older French violin style of Viotti and Kreutzer.
The next work was Pauer's Piano Quintet in F major, Op. 44 (c. 1855) for piano, flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon. The four-movement piece was written while Pauer was living in England and was dedicated to Franz Lachner with whom Pauer had studied in Munich a decade earlier. Though Pauer was highly respected as a pianist, the review in The Musical World following the quintet's London premiere was decidedly mixed:
"Herr Pauer's new quintet, coming between Mozart and Mendelssohn, had scarcely a fair chance. It was like an abstraction between two things of flesh and blood. The quintet, however, is clever, brilliant for the piano, nicely written for the wind instruments and, though altogether unambitious in style - if style, indeed, it may be said to possess, having no individual character of its own - is very creditable to Herr Pauer's talent as a composer."
I'd have to agree with the reservations expressed by the anonymous reviewer . The quintet was a pleasant enough work but clearly derivative. The influence of Mozart's K. 452 and Beethoven's Op. 16, both written for similar instrumentation, could be heard throughout. Though the piece was well crafted, there were no moments when the music rose above the level of a light divertimento.
After intermission the program concluded with Schubert's Sonata for Four Hands in C major, Op. 140, D. 812 (1824), nicknamed the "Grand Duo," here arranged for piano trio by Robert Wittmann. Schubert's original version is considered one of his more important works for piano and the best of his four hand pieces. It is so symphonic in its sound that Schumann at one time thought it a draft for a larger work, and the piece has in fact been orchestrated a number of times, most notably by Joseph Joachim. After having listened to the arrangement played at this recital, I could easily understand why this should have been so. The piano trio form seemed hardly large enough to contain the music even though Wittman's transcription was exemplary. The fact that the trio was performed by such capable musicians - Drew Petersen, piano; Danbi Um, violin; and Mihai Marica, cello - made it that much easier to appreciate Schubert's accomplishment.
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