Czech Chamber Music Society • Leonidas Kavakos

Robert Schumann’s chamber pieces are relatively few in number compared to his piano works and songs (until 1839 he composed exclusively for piano). In addition to three string quartets, a piano quintet and several piano trios, he wrote only several compositions for a string or a wind instrument, mostly with piano accompaniment. A true Romantic, Schumann lived in a century of virtuosos, to which he made a significant contribution himself both as a pianist and as a composer. His three sonatas for violin and piano (of which the last one remained unfinished and consists of only two movements) seem to be unpretentious, but demand considerable virtuosity. They were composed in a very short period of time – the first two violin sonatas, in A minor and D minor, were written in 1851, while the unfinished third one dates from 1852. There must have been a reason for such a creative explosion for Schumann, who was never particularly fond of the violin, and that was his friendship with the outstanding violinists – Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski, conductor and concertmaster from Düsseldorf; Joseph Joachim, with whom Schumann later consulted his Violin Concerto; and above all Ferdinand David, the concert master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and a teacher at the Leipzig Conservatory.

Schumann had a deep connection with the city of Leipzig. His Violin Sonata No. 2, op. 121 is dedicated to David because of what David had written in one of his surviving letters to Schumann: “I am uncommonly fond of your Fantasiestücke for piano and clarinet; why don’t you write something for violin and piano? There is such a lack of good new pieces, and I can think of no one who could do it better than you.” Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 105 was premiered by David and Schumann’s wife Clara. Schumann wrote the second violin sonata specifically for David – he did so at a miraculous pace, between 26 October and 2 November 1851. As in his other works, he encoded the dedicatee’s name in the score: in the opening and in the first movement, there is a motif consisting of the four-note sequence DA(vid) F(erdinan)D. Wasielewski recalled another circumstance of the sonata’s inception: after the publication of the A minor Sonata, Schumann allegedly made the following comment: “I didn’t like the first violin sonata, so I wrote a second, which I hope turned out better.” However, it is not possible to compare the two works in quality; they differ above all in character and scope.

The second sonata is based on a wide-ranging plan and is so expressive in every respect that it is hard to believe that Schumann’s creative powers were waning at that time. The second movement retains the lyrical character of Schumann’s scherzo movements in 6/8 time with two different rhythms and expressively contrasting sequences in the trio – which greatly influenced the young Brahms. The third movement comprises a series of variations on a theme derived from the Lutheran chorale Aus tiefer Not schreiʼ ich zu Dir, reverting back to sonata form only at the beginning and at the end of this movement. In all movements of the sonata, an extraordinary role is played by the piano and contrary to the custom of the time is given a great deal of space. Although the sonata is dedicated to David, it was actually premiered by Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann in a concert on 29 October 1853. Together with Märchenbildern, Op. 113 (Fairy Tale Pictures), the sonata is one of the last major works composed by Schumann.

Leoš Janáček did not produce many pieces for violin; they include Romance, Dumka and the violin concerto The Wandering of a Little Soul. He had already attempted to compose a violin sonata during his studies in Leipzig around 1880, and later in Vienna at least twice, but these compositions are now lost. He began to work on Sonata for Violin and Piano as late as 1914, but it took seven years in total before the composition of this title saw the light of day. Janáček’s peak creative period is marked by his Russophilia and the drama of the beginning of the First World War. The composer hoped for an early end to the war and for the victory of anti-Austrian forces: “I wrote the violin sonata in 1914, when we were expecting the Russians in Moravia...” He was disappointed not only in his political ideas, but also in his confidence that the piece would be played by Jaroslav Kocian, whom he addressed after completing the first version of his Sonata probably in the autumn of 1915. At that time, the Ballada was the third movement, the Adagio was the second movement and there was also a fast movement, Con moto. In the autumn of 1916 Janáček began revising the Sonata by changing the order of the movements and writing a new fourth movement, an Allegro. However, he eventually put it aside and in 1920 rewrote the original Finale as an Allegretto. The Sonata received its final form before its first performance, which was given on 24 April 1922 in Brno by the violinist František Kudláček (Otakar Ševčík’s pupil at the Prague Conservatory and the principal violinist of the Moravian Quartet, who premiered Janáček’s Second String Quartet) and Jaroslav Kvapil as the pianist (a pupil of Janáček). A year later it was presented internationally by Paul Hindemith, who played the solo part in Frankfurt am Main; the following year it was performed in Salzburg by Stanislav Novák and Václav Štěpán. The Russian-sounding echoes in the essentially classical four-movement Sonata reflect not only Janáček’s pro-Russian sentiments, but above all the connection with his opera Katya Kabanova, coming into being in parallel. In the first movement, the main theme is reminiscent of the theme of the Volga River; the third movement evokes the scene featuring Kudryash and Varvara; and the final movement is heading towards a similar drama as the above-mentioned opera.