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There are certain concerts you do not want to miss, and the Symphony Center Presents Chamber Music series recital featuring violinist Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Yuja Wang should be on that list. Both artists are known for their technical skill and virtuosity, as well as the power of their interpretations. What is so special about this performance is that it has these exceptional artists turning their attention to three works not only of great difficulty but also of great depth.
The Nov. 7 program is comprised of three sonatas for violin and piano: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonata in E Major (BWV 1016) from 1720, Ferruccio Busoni’s Sonata No. 2 from 1898 and finally, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sonata in G Major from 1968. It is a beautifully crafted program that will give listeners great insight into the evolution of the form as well as carry on a tradition of distinguished pairings of violinists and pianists who have turned their attention to these works.
The strict definition of a sonata is an instrumental work typically of three or four movements in contrasting forms and keys. There are examples from as early as the 13th century of the word “sonnade” being used. Early use of the word was not particularly precise, but it nearly always indicated instrumental music, as opposed to something sung (“cantata”). By the early 1700s, it began to suggest another meaning as well: that its musical material was at the composer’s discretion, i.e., music freely imagined by the composer and not dictated by the setting of text or dance rules. J.G. Walther’s definition in his 1732 Musical Lexicon was “the sonata is a piece for instruments, especially the violin, of a serious and artful nature, in which adagios and allegros alternate.”
As is characteristic of Johann Sebastian Bach, he takes the genre to the next level. He does this by explicitly notating the part for the keyboard (most likely a harpsichord in Bach’s time). Before Bach, scores would have simply included symbols below the violin’s bass notes that indicated a standard chord progression to be ornamented at the keyboard player’s discretion (figured bass). Bach instead gave the part specific instructions for both hands and therefore its own melodic line. By writing out the parts for both musicians, Bach elevates the role of the keyboardist from accompaniment to equal partner with the violinist.
This comes across in the very opening of the Sonata in E Major, BWV 1016, where the violinist and pianist do not even share a theme. This dialogue between two unique voices, each with its own point of view, continues throughout the work. Bach’s model set a standard for the violin sonata form that was picked up by composers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
While we do not know details of the premiere of Bach’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard, BWV 1014-19, we do know that they were written for Bach’s then patron, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen. He was by all accounts a very fine musician, according to sources including Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel, who wrote that “he played the violin cleanly and penetratingly. He understood to perfection the possibilities of the stringed instrument.” We can only imagine that Bach may have been Prince Leopold’s duo partner for these cutting-edge sonatas.
Kavokos and Wang fast forward in their Nov. 7 program to the end of the 19th century with Busoni’s Violin Sonata No. 2, a work he privately referred to as his “Opus 1” because he felt it signaled the beginning of his musical maturity. Another noteworthy link between the Bach and Busoni sonatas on this program is that both composers were 32 years old when they composed them. At the time Busoni was just beginning his career as an international teacher, composer and virtuoso pianist.
It is of particular note that Bach’s influence on Busoni is as profound as Busoni’s impact on Bach, mainly with the publication of the famous Bach-Busoni editions. This was a 30-year project that included two collections of piano transcriptions of Bach’s keyboard works: the 25-volume Busoni Ausgabe and the Bach-Busoni Collected Edition, printed in seven volumes in 1920. By 1898, Busoni was about 10 years into his project to perform, transcribe and publish the keyboard works of Bach. Busoni’s transcriptions are revered for their nuanced analysis of how to interpret works by Bach that were written for very different keyboard instruments, mainly harpsichord and organ, on a modern piano.
The third and fourth movements of Busoni’s Second Sonata are an extended a set of variations on a theme from Bach’s chorale Wie wohl ist mir (How Blessed I Am), from the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena. It will be tantalizing to experience Bach’s E Major Sonata juxtaposed with Busoni’s Sonata No. 2 and to hear the influence of the Baroque-era composer through a lush, late-Romantic lens.
Busoni wrote his Second Violin Sonata at the recommendation of violinist Hjalmar von Dameck, a friend from Leipzig, Bach’s longtime home, for the concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Henri Petri. In the end, the premiere went to violinist Victor Nováček, who became a colleague of Busoni when he joined the faculty of the Helsinki Music Institute in fall 1898; he also was the artist who would premiere Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in 1904, thus continuing the theme of sonatas with auspicious premieres by distinguished musicians.
The final sonata on this program is Shostakovich’s Violin Sonata, Op. 136, written in honor of his friend and supporter for some 30 years, David Oistrakh, to celebrate his 60th birthday. The work is far from celebratory; rather, it is stark and deeply introspective. This mood is characteristic of Shostakovich’s late works following his nearly fatal heart attack in October 1966. He was also interested in experimenting with 12-note composition during this time. Taking a nod from the Bach sonata that opens the concert, Shostakovich’s sonata is a constantly evolving conversation between the two musicians. Kavakos and Wang are both acclaimed interpreters of 20th-century Russian composers, so it will be particularly noteworthy to hear the dialogue they create in this performance. They follow in the footsteps of Oistrakh and the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, another of Shostakovich’s longtime friends and collaborators, who premiered the work in Moscow in 1969.
If you are looking for a visceral experience that will remind you why there’s nothing like hearing music live, this is it! You may not leave the hall humming a tune, but you will certainly leave moved.
