November 5 & 6, 2023

Discovered and Rediscovered

Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Trio Op. 1, No. 1

George Walker
String Quartet No. 1

Enrique Granados
Piano Quintet Op. 49

Sunday, November 5, 3 pm * Round Hill Community Church * 395 Round Hill Road, Greenwich
Monday, November 6, 7:30 pm * Greenwich Arts Council * 299 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich

Program Notes

When Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) moved from Bonn to Vienna in 1792 to find fame and fortune, he arrived with a letter of introduction from Count Ferdinand Waldstein (1762-1823), his patron in Bonn, to Prince Karl Lichnowsky (1761-1814). Prince Lichnowsky provided Beethoven with a tiny attic apartment and opportunities to play at the Prince’s influential musical salons. Beethoven delivered. His performances, especially his improvisations, astonished his listeners; no one had heard playing of such daring and vehemence before. Beethoven, the pianist, became the toast of Viennese musical society.

Beethoven, the composer, was not. While he had studied composition and written some music in Bonn, he went to Vienna primarily to further his compositional studies rather than find employment as a performer. Beethoven studied with Haydn, as well as Antonio Salieri, and Johann Albrechtsberger (1736-1809). The results of their tutelage were mixed as Beethoven was not the most tractable of students, but Beethoven plowed ahead with his composing.

Beethoven’s performances at Prince Lichnowsky’s salons gave Beethoven, the composer, the chance to show Viennese musical movers and shakers what he had been up to. Those performances included the first outings, in late 1793 or early 1794, of Three Trios for Violin, Cello and Piano. The audience was impressed (including Haydn, although he was put off by the third trio in C minor), but Beethoven continued to revise the trios, only publishing them in 1795. And he had good reasons for doing so. The 241 copies of that printing, sold primarily to members of the aristocracy, netted enough money to support Beethoven for a year. And the subscribers got their money’s worth.

Actually, they got more than their money’s worth. The Viennese upper classes at that time tended to be accomplished musicians themselves and were on the lookout for pieces to play at home. Piano trios were a popular genre, thought to be entertaining bits appropriate for domestic consumption. But these trios offered more than mere entertainment. In them, Beethoven deepened the piano trio’s typical musical syntax, elevating the violin and cello parts to the same musical level as the piano part, added an extra movement (a scherzo, for a total of four), and wrote music that was as musically sophisticated as that used in the prestigious forms of the string quartet and the symphony. Proud of the results, Beethoven planted his flag as a composer by dubbing these trios his Opus No. 1 and dedicated them to Prince Lichnowsky.

The Trio No. 1 in E flat Major embodies all these qualities. While clearly rooted in the grammar of Mozart and Haydn, it is an expansive work that engages players and audiences in one of the earliest examples of Beethoven’s distinctive style.

Most writings on George Walker (1922-2018) begin, quite justifiably, by mentioning his many honors and career firsts (first black person to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music (Lilacs, 1996), to graduate from the Curtis Institute of Music (1945), to receive a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music (1955), first…). But they rarely mention how and why, as a composer, he made the choices he made. For Walker, composition is “a matter of each person having to learn to make certain decisions...Trying to make decisions about what you want to use, how you want to use it, how long you want to use it.”

How did Walker learn to do this? He did study composition while training to be a concert pianist at the Oberlin Conservatory, the Curtis Institute, and the Eastman School of Music – sort of. But he did not want to become a composer; Walker studied composition to gain a greater understanding of the music he played as a pianist (and he wanted to do more than practice piano five hours a day). Even then, Walker said his coursework at Curtis with composition teacher Rosario Scalero (1870-1954) “could hardly been considered composition” as his assignments were based primarily on counterpoint exercises students had been given for hundreds of years. Rather, Walker learned how to become a composer, how to apply the techniques he learned, by studying the music he played.

But if Walker aspired to be a concert pianist, how did he end up as a composer? Ultimately, racial animus caused Walker to abandon his pianistic ambitions and focus on composition.  “I was the first black pianist to have a successful New York Town Hall debut, the first to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra (Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto under Eugene Ormandy, in 1945).” But his career went nowhere, even after signing up in 1950 with a major concert promoter (National Concert Artists). It was “a road to nowhere, a huge disappointment. From the outset they explained that getting concerts for me – a black pianist playing classical music –  would be an uphill battle. ‘We can't sell you.’ ”

He decided to teach. But, just as practicing piano at Curtis wasn’t enough to engage Walker, teaching piano wasn’t enough to engage him either. Composition, which had always been a sideline, began to dominate Walker’s creative efforts after a residency in 1966 at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. The result – over 100 works in an ecumenical variety of styles and forms. Serialism, jazz, Stravinsky, spirituals, even pop music all have their moment in Walker’s oeuvre.

Walker’s best-known piece is his String Quartet No. 1, composed in 1946 while he was pursuing postgraduate studies at Curtis. The quartet has three cogently argued movements based on traditional forms and the second movement, arranged by Walker for string orchestra, is his most performed work.

That arrangement came about by accident. “Seymour (Lipkin) tells me, “I’m conducting these concerts on the radio with a string orchestra.” ...And I said to him, “If I add a double bass to the second movement of my string quartet, would you play it?” Just like that… And he (Seymour) said yes.  So, I rushed home and put the parts together and gave it to him and they played it. It was called Lament because of my grandmother.” (Walker’s beloved grandmother, Malvina King, had died while Walker was composing his quartet.) Walker later renamed it Lyric for Strings as he felt it more aptly described the music. Today’s performance places the Lyric back in its original context.

Many composers have used the music of Spain as the inspiration and basis of their compositions – Rimsky Korsakov (Capriccio Espagnole), Debussy (Iberia), Glinka (Jota Aragonesa), Bizet (Carmen), Liszt (Rhapsodie Espagnole), Chabrier (España), Ravel (Bolero, Alborada del gracioso, L'heure espagnole, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, Rhapsodie Espagnole...) for starters. But how familiar is music by Spanish composers? Yes, there is the occasional performance of music by Manuel de Falla and umpteen performances of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, but, for most people, that is about it. We are the poorer for it as Spanish composers created a rich musical legacy for us to experience.

One of those composers was Enrique Granados (1867-1916). Born in the Catalan city of Lleida, he made his piano debut in Barcelona in 1890 after studying in Barcelona and Paris. In his day he was known as a piano virtuoso, but today he is best remembered for the Spanish inspired music he wrote for himself to perform, especially the suite Goyescas (1911), inspired by the paintings of Goya. But there is so much more music to remember! He wrote twelve stage works, orchestral music, songs using Spanish texts, and a fair amount of chamber music. So why don’t we hear more of it?

Well, Granados needs to take some responsibility. While he took the time to write down his compositions, he often didn’t take the time to get them published. And Granados often revised a piece after the sheet music was printed. For example, none of Granados’ chamber music was published until the 1970s and there is considerable debate about whether those publications represent Granados’ final choices. The lack of authoritative (or even extant) editions makes it difficult for us to have a full picture of Granados’ style and achievement. That, thankfully, is changing.

Take, for example, Granados’ Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 49. It premiered in Madrid on February 15, 1895, on an all-Granados program, played by an all-star ensemble, including Granados himself. There is no record of subsequent performances by Granados and few, if any, by other performers until the first edition was published in 1973. While we may never know Granados’ final thoughts on the quintet, (different parts of the manuscript were found in two different repositories, and one movement of the piano part is missing), what we have is characteristic of Granados musical style. The piano writing is virtuosic, the harmonies, smokily ambiguous, the melodies, characteristically Spanish (Casals dubbed Granados the “Spanish Schubert”), and the rhapsodic moments reminds us that Granados was a master improviser.  

© 2023 Ubaldo Valli