Czech Chamber Music Society • Jan Fišer
Beethoven’s violin sonatas are among the jewels of the literature for the instrument. To begin the season, we will hear all of them played by Jan Fišer, the concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic and this year’s Czech Chamber Music Society curator. Series I opens with the first four of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas, in which one hears Viennese Classicism and the influence of Beethoven’s teacher Salieri.
Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, Op. 12
Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 12
Violin Sonata No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 12
Violin Sonata No. 4 in A minor, Op. 23
Performers
Jan Fišer violin
Martin Kasík piano
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Performers
Jan Fišer violin
Czech Philharmonic concertmaster Jan Fišer already exhibited his obvious musical talent as a child, winning many competitions (Kocian Violin Competition, Concertino Praga, UNESCO Tribune of Young Musicians, Beethoven’s Hradec etc.). He comes from a musical family, quite literally a family of violinists—his father is one of the most respected violin teachers in this country, and his younger brother Jakub plays first violin in the Bennewitz Quartet. Jan Fišer took his first steps as a violinist under the guidance of Hana Metelková, and he later studied at the Prague Conservatoire under Jaroslav Foltýn. He went through the famed summer programme of the Meadowmount School of Music three times, where he also met his future teacher, the concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Andrés J. Cárdenes. It was in the studio of that important professor who continued the great Ysaÿe–Gingold–Cárdenes tradition of violin pedagogy that Fišer graduated from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music in Pittsburgh in 2003.
Just when he was deciding whether to remain in the USA or to return to the Czech Republic, the Prague Philharmonia announced an audition for the position of concertmaster. Fišer won the job and stayed with the orchestra for a full sixteen years, until he left the first chair of the Prague Philharmonia for the same position with the Czech Philharmonic, where he remains to this day alongside Jan Mráček and Jiří Vodička. He has also appeared as a guest concertmaster with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern; he also collaborates with important Czech orchestras as a soloist (Prague Philharmonia, Janáček Philharmonic in Ostrava etc.). He has assumed the role of artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.
Besides engaging in a wealth of orchestral and solo activities, he also devotes himself actively to playing chamber music. With pianist Ivo Kahánek and cellist Tomáš Jamník, he belongs to the Dvořák Trio, which has already enjoyed many successes at competitions (such as the Bohuslav Martinů Competition) and on concert stages both at home and abroad. Jan Fišer has appeared at festivals abroad and in famed concert halls worldwide not only as a soloist, but also as a chamber music player. For example, the Dvořák Trio has made guest appearances at the Dresden Music Festival and at renowned concert halls like the Berlin Philharmonie and Hamburg’s Elbephilharmonie.
Fišer’s French violin from the early 19th century is attributed to the violinmaker François-Louis Pique; the instrument has also been heard in recording studios: Jan Fišer records for television and radio, and he was one of the five laureates to take part in recording the CD “A Tribute to Jaroslav Kocian” for the 40th anniversary of the Kocian International Violin Competition. He is also following in his father’s footsteps as a pedagogue, serving as one of the mentors for the MenART scholarship academy, and he regularly teaches at music courses including the Ševčík Academy in Horažďovice and the Telč Music Academy.
Martin Kasík piano
Martin Kasík is widely acclaimed for his inventive, poetic approach to performing, through which he captures the mood of the moment. He studied at the Janáček Conservatoire in Ostrava under M. Tugendliebová, the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under I. Klánský and participated in masterclasses under L. Berman, G. Ohlsson, and P. Badura-Skoda.
His path to stages around the world (Carnegie Hall, Wiener Musikverein,Gewandhaus Leipzig, Suntory Hall Tokyo etc.) was opened by victory at the 1998 Prague Spring Competition and at the 1999 Young Concert Artists Competition in New York. Since then, he has been collaborating with the most important ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Rotterdam Philharmonic, or Czech Philharmonic. His recordings on the Supraphon and Arco Diva labels have won top honours in the journals Gramophone, Repertoire, and Harmonie.
He also teaches at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and at the Prague Conservatoire, and he is the artistic director of the Chopin Festival in Mariánské Lázně.
Compositions
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, Op. 12
“With Beethoven, a new epoch commenced for pianists and violinists,” wrote Ignaz von Mosel a few years after Beethoven’s death. This statement is based on the striking equality of the two instruments, while in Mozart’s early sonatas these two instruments were presented as piano with violin accompaniment. The first of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas have a similar character; he tried to maintain this Mozartian type of sonata, but in fact gave the violin a much greater role. Beethoven’s first opuses are piano trios and piano sonatas, string trios and a sonata for piano and cello. His three sonatas, Op. 12, are entitled in a similar way as Sonatas for Piano and Violin. Beethoven composed these sonatas between 1797 and 1798, and dedicated this opus under the title Tre Sonate per il Clavicembalo o Forte-Piano con un Violino to his teacher, Antonio Salieri, the Imperial Court Kapellmeister, composer, teacher and conductor, one of the most important and influential figures in Vienna at the time. Beethoven first went to Vienna at the age of 17 to meet Mozart, and for the second time at the age of 22. He studied with Joseph Haydn (because Mozart died in the meantime) and also educated himself, especially in his approach to dramatic form, by consulting Salieri. Like every composer of the time, he longed to excel in opera, but his main strength from the beginning was instrumental music. While still in Bonn, Beethoven worked as a violinist in the local court orchestra. He mastered the instrument and continued to play it even after his move to Vienna. In his violin sonatas Beethoven continued on the path begun by Mozart – the violin ceased to be an accompaniment and became an equal partner to the piano. The form of the sonatas also follows from Mozart – they are in three movements, with an opening Allegro in sonata form and a concluding Rondo.
The second movement in Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, Op. 12, to be heard tonight, presents a 32-bar theme with four variations and a coda. The dialogue between the piano and violin is a defining feature of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, but the use of distinctive modulations and rhythms seemed to cause consternation among the audience. Even the dedicatee Antonio Salieri reacted in surprise to the innovative style of the music. A critic of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung wrote as early as 1799: “It is undeniable that Herr van Beethoven goes his own way, but what a bizarre, laborious way! Studied, studied, and perpetually studied, and no nature, no song. Indeed, to put it precisely, there is only a mass of learning here, without good method. There is obstinacy for which we feel little interest, a striving for rare modulations, a repugnance against customary associations, a piling on of difficulty upon difficulty so that one loses all patience and enjoyment.” Robert Schumann, on the other hand, in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1836 expressed his opinion metaphorically: “...in those 37 years the name Beethoven has unfurled like a shining sunflower – and what has remained of the words of the former reviewer?”
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 12
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 12
Ludwig van Beethoven
Violin Sonata No. 4 in A minor, Op. 23