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Sara Davis Buechner performs parts of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata No. 8, Opus 13 in C minor, exploring the influences and origins of stile patetico in the Grave and Adagio Cantabile, the origins of the theme from the Adagio, and more.
Palm Springs, California / Easter Sunday 2013
It’s springtime here in sunny Southern California, where I have spent the past week surrounded by imposing mountains, lovely desert flowers, cacti, and golf courses, while adjudicating the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition. Today being the jurors’ one day off amongst many long days of listening to wonderfully talented young pianists from all over the world, I am enjoying a chance to ruminate on all things bright and fresh, as befits the end of winter — warmer weather, birdsong and foliage, baseball, and of course the renewal of all things artistic and spiritual in general.
The Piano Competition here is named after Virginia Waring, wife of bandleader Fred Waring and known well in her earlier days as half of the celebrated Piano Duo-Team of Morley & Gearhart. The full orchestral sound of two pianos played in perfect sync was a winner in the days of early radio, and fabulous two-piano teams dotted the American musical scene of the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s — think of Vronsky & Babin, Pollack & Lawnhurst, Bartlett & Robertson, Gold & Fizdale. The repertory of many such teams traversed the classic and popular musical canon, and it’s a delight to re-visit that charming heritage. I had not known previously of Virginia Morley and Livingston Gearhart, but discovered via their historic recordings that they were among the very best of the bunch. Hearing their renditions of works by Bach, Debussy, Liszt, Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, Harold Arlen and others has given me a true burst of Spring Fever.
Here are two selections properly in keeping with the new season, Vernon Duke’s evergreen “April in Paris,” and “With a Song in my Heart” (from the Richard Rodgers musical “Spring is Here”) — as performed by Virginia Morley and Livingston Gearhart ca. 1949. Do note the impressionist chord structure and clever references to Maurice Ravel’s “Scarbo” (final movement of the piano suite “Gaspard de la Nuit”) throughout the “April in Paris” arrangement — just a small example of how well-versed musicians of the mid-twentieth century were, and how much trust they put in the cultural literacy of the audiences they entertained.
Franz Joseph Haydn’s final sonata for the piano, in E-flat major (it is numbered either 52 or 62 according to various sources) is, in my own estimation, one of the most sweepingly complete artistic statements by any creative person possible. One hears in its audacious and virtuosic gestures the astonishingly virility and bold imagination of an old man eternally youthful. The scalar passagework is clearly influenced by the power of the new instruments that Haydn saw and played on, during trips to London; the harmonic adventures he takes his listeners on are sparked both by the new music of his own time and his own willingness to try new sonic combinations; and the innermost reflection of the second movement but a memento of a life spent largely in the quiet remove of Esterhazy, allowed and encouraged to ruminate musically with a heart and mind of incomparable genius. A man of humility, perception, humor and remarkable insight, Franz Joseph Haydn is a great composer whose sensitive humanity shines forth in every note of this unforgettable and brilliant work.