Chamber Works for Cello
Hummel • Haydn • Chopin
A Short History of the Cello
The violoncello, meaning, in Italian, a small violone, is
generally known by the shorter name of ‘cello’, and is a
string instrument an octave lower than the viola, its four
strings tuned C-G-d-a. Its structure and form correspond
to those of the violin, but the neck is relatively shorter
and the sides deeper. The bow is somewhat shorter, but
stronger than that used for the violin.
As the violin may correspond to the discant, and the
viola to the tenor, so the cello was originally identical
with the bass of the old viola da braccio family. It had a
longer struggle than its two sisters to free itself from the
gamba family. In 1740 there appeared in Amsterdam a
treatise by Hubert Leblanc, a lawyer and music-lover
from France, that throws a characteristic light on the
importance of the violoncello in that time. The work is a
vigorous defence of the viola da gamba against the
violoncello that was slowly encroaching on the former’s
territory. This was in fact a completely unintelligible
polemic, since at the time there was little literature on
the younger instrument that was worth talking about.
This was first changed by the Duport brothers, who
ranked as the most important champions of the new
school of cello-playing both in duo sonatas, such as
those of Beethoven, and in chamber music, as, for
example, the classical string quartet and quintet.
It was about 1710 that the violoncello acquired its
classical dimensions through the Italian violin-maker
Antonio Stradivari (1644 or 1648/9-1737), with a body
length of 75-76 and a depth of 11.5 centimetres. After
that there were many other cellos built, as well as
gambas, and until about 1800 instruments of a mixed
form from both types, among other things with the
change of a straight neck into a neck at an angle. The
use of the spike first became customary in about 1860.
The greatest masters of violin-making, such as
Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari, also started to make
cellos. Montagnana, Grancino, Testore and Tecchler
specialised almost exclusively in the instrument.
My instrument, on which I play in the present
recording, was made by David Tecchler (1666-after
1743) in Rome in 1727. A master-craftsman from
Salzburg, he first went to Venice, where he experienced
some hostility, moving in 1705 to Rome where he
reached the height of his profession, considered the
most important maker there. His splendidly made
instruments are marked by their great fullness of tone.
He generally preferred very large models, using special
wood and a yellow-red varnish. A characteristic is the
lengthening of the corners and the particularly wide F
holes.
While the gamba remained the instrument of
soloists, the cello, then generally with five or six strings,
was reduced to strengthening the continuo in the
orchestra and in chamber music.
From the end of the seventeenth century Italy took
the lead in compositions for the cello. In 1689
Domenico Gabrielli wrote a Ricercar for the cello and
laid the foundation for the independent solo literature of
the instrument. In the first half of the eighteenth century
Vivaldi and Tartini, among others, and, with some
virtuosity, Boccherini, wrote sonatas for the cello. The
instrument acquired new importance in the transition to
the classical period through composers such as Carl
Stamitz, Luigi Boccherini, Georg Matthias Monn, and
particularly Joseph Haydn, who wrote solo concertos
for the cello.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the
cantabile playing of the cello acquired growing
importance. Generations of romantic composers made
use of the particular feeling of which the cello was
capable, giving expression to melodic sonority and
melancholy resignation. In the chamber music of
Beethoven, Brahms, Fauré, Grieg, Rachmaninov,
Debussy, and others, cellists could explore the whole
range of musical feeling. There were wonderful
concertos by Schumann, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns,
Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky (Rococo Variations),
Brahms (Double Concerto), and Elgar, and works in
which the cello had a concertante rôle by Richard
Strauss (Don Quixote) and Hindemith.
For me the cello has a particularly fascinating and
important place in opera. There it embodies the direct
expression of the human soul in music. With its range it
has an almost physical affinity with the human and
responds directly to it. It is the instrument that can
express the deepest feelings of love and death.
Unique in all opera is the cello solo in Die Frau
ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss, my favourite solo:
the curtain falls, while the scene is changed, and the
cello, free of stage action, becomes the protagonist.
King Philip sings in the great aria from Verdi’s Don
Carlo in dialogue with the cello of his isolation and
erotic desires; the cello first sinks down, then rises a
little, allows a glimmer of hope to be heard, and finally
despairs. The music expresses resignation and the cello
supports the singer’s feelings.
The duet of Othello and Desdemona at the end of
the first act of Verdi’s Otello is accompanied by a cello
solo, then joined by the whole cello section; the world
of the two lovers is still as it should be, yet Othello
conjures away the revenge of Fate on the outsider, too
fortunate in his love.
At the beginning of the first act of Wagner’s Die
Walküre Siegmund and Sieglinde do not know that they
are twins. The eyes of the two outcasts meet and they
experience happiness for the first and last time. Here too
an almost recitative-like cello solo supports the
intimacy of the situation.
Agathe’s aria from Weber’s Der Freischütz is
accompanied by a pure and romantic cello that reveals
to us the unfulfilled love, hope and confidence that the
power of evil will not triumph and love will not always
remain unfulfilled.
When Cavaradossi, in Puccini’s Tosca, is about to
die, the cello and the clarinet, operatic instruments that
express despair, accompany him on his last way. A
descending chromatic scale shows where his path is
leading.
Continuo playing is a fascinating element in opera.
Working on recitatives in Mozart’s operas with
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, a conductor with whom
collaboration was among my most decisive artistic
encounters, opened a completely new dimension of
musical expression. The specific dramatic situations
that drive the plot forward are found in the recitatives.
Each individual note has its importance, with notes that
are violent, pointed, loud, gentle, particularly
beautifully played, slow, fast or without vibrato. As a
continuo player one is a part of the musical dramatic
situation.
The CD: Works by Hummel, Haydn and Chopin.
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837):
Grand Sonata in A major for cello and piano, Op. 104
Johann Nepomuk Hummel was born in 1778 in what is
now Bratislava and died in Weimar in 1837. At present
he is undergoing a remarkable revival, after more than
150 years in which he was virtually forgotten. His
extensive list of works is now a source of rediscovery.
The son of a violinist, Hummel was exceptionally gifted
as a child. For two years Mozart took him into his house
in Vienna as a pupil, an unparallelled act of pedagogic
generosity on the part of the master. Haydn made him
his successor in the Esterházy musical establishment.
He rivalled Beethoven for the position of the most
important pianist in Vienna, with the verdict not
infrequently in Hummel’s favour. Chopin admired him,
Schumann, after initial declarations of respect, showed
his contempt for him and called him a figure from the
past. This is typical of the injustice Hummel suffered.
Today he seems to us a bridge between Mozart and
Chopin, between the Viennese classical and the high
romantic.
Hummel wrote his Cello Sonata in 1824, when he
was Kapellmeister at Weimar. The work is
characteristic of this transition. It often seems as if one
is hearing a cello sonata by Mozart (nothing of the kind
exists), mingled with passages of poignancy, while
many elements have the force of Beethoven, and the
beginning of the first movement offers a melody like a
particularly fine theme of Chopin. The second
movement is a Romance, that today would be said to
have hit quality: the principal theme resembles the 1971
hit-song Butterfly, my Butterfly by the Belgian Daniel
Gérard, which topped the hit-parade for months. This
shows how a composer of this ability can survive after
one and a half centuries of oblivion. In the third
movement the internationally celebrated virtuoso
pianist comes to the fore: here the cello part is
discriminated against in such a way that the important
cellist Friedrich Grützmacher in the nineteenth century
in his edition proposed a skilful dialogue between cello
and piano. Here we have opted for this version.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809):
Trio in G major for flute, cello and piano, Hob. XV:15
Extensive correspondence survives over Haydn’s three
Flute Trios, Hob.XV:15-17 from the years 1789-1790.
The leading London music publisher Bland travelled
personally to Esterháza to buy music from Haydn, who
was employed by Prince Esterházy as Kapellmeister.
The trios for flute (or, optionally, for violin), cello and
piano were exclusively promised to the Vienna
publisher Artaria, but England seemed to the old
composer sufficiently far away to sell the trios again
and to turn into cash once more the triumphant success
of his London stay after a tour on which he embarked in
1790.
Haydn’s genius is unmistakable in these trios
through his incomparable wit, humour, liveliness and
delight in modulation. The rôle of the cello in this trio is
not unduly demanding, but here it fulfils again the only
apparently subordinate function that I have remarked on
in connection with recitative: the cello accompanies the
dialogue between flute and piano, showing them how to
keep their fantasy within bounds.
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849):
Sonata in G minor for cello and piano Op. 65
Chopin too was one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of
his time and his compositions are almost exclusively for
the piano. It is through his friendship with the famous
cellist Auguste Franchomme (1808-1884) that he wrote
three of his four chamber-music works for cello and
piano.
The Cello Sonata is a late work that he wrote for
his friend, with whom he gave the first performance in
his last concert in Paris on 16th February 1848. On that
occasion the first movement, with which Chopin was
not happy, was not played. The work had a difficult
birth. ‘I throw the sonata into a corner, then take it up
again’, Chopin wrote, expressing his doubts.
In the first movement the theme is stated by the
piano and taken up gracefully by the cello. Chopin here
combines all the charms of his decorative piano writing
with an astonishing feeling for the particular qualities of
the cello. The three-part Scherzo of the second
movement, with a Trio of melodic delicacy, leads to a
much too short central movement: the Largo, its melody
stated by the cello, is, in its conciseness, a movement of
unforgettable beauty. The Finale with its drive and
subtlety effects a balance between the two instruments.
The period of composition of the work was marked
by the life-threatening tuberculosis and material want
that overshadowed the end of Chopin’s life. As a star
and virtuoso of Paris salons he did well, but maintained
a corresponding life-style. There were neither royalties
nor systems of licensing, and in illness savings were
quickly exhausted. The relationship with the great love
of his life, the writer George Sand, was over.
Here things came full circle: on 15th October 1849,
two days before his death, Chopin was visited by his
last friends, his former pupil, his beloved Delfina
Potocka, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, a gifted
pianist, and Franchomme. Princess Czartoryska and
Franchomme began to play the G minor sonata, until a
fit of coughing from the sick man brought the concert to
an end. A few days later Franchomme was one of the
bearers of the coffin, performing this last service for
Chopin.
Franz Bartolomey
English Version: Keith Anderson