Sonata for Piano & Horn, Op. 17

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

In 1800, when Beethoven was not yet thirty years old, he had a reputation in Vienna as a first-rate pianist who could perform his own compositions, improvise, and defeat rival musicians in one-on-one competitions. He also had a growing catalog of published works to his credit, including a concerto, piano sonatas, string trios, and other chamber works.

One of his successes in Vienna was a concert on April 18, 1800, in which he teamed up with the horn virtuoso Johann Wenzel Stich. The latter was better known by the Italian translation of his first and last names, Giovanni Punto. Together they performed Beethoven’s newly composed sonata for piano and horn. The audience applauded so enthusiastically that Beethoven and Punto repeated the entire sonata.

Two more stories invite our attention. One is an astonishing assertion made by Ferdinand Ries, who in 1803 became Beethoven’s student and eventually his secretary, friend, and confidant. Ries tells us that Beethoven’s work on the horn sonata began on April 17, 1800, and that he nevertheless finished it in time for the concert on the next day. Presumably Ries got that information from Beethoven himself. Was Beethoven stretching the truth in order to brag? Maybe. But it is conceivable that a man who improvised brilliantly under pressure could compose a new work rapidly to meet a deadline. Or perhaps Beethoven meant that he didn’t notate any of the music on paper until the day before the concert, though he may have done some composing in his head before that. 

The other story is an amusing reality check. Not long after their Vienna concert, Beethoven and Punto traveled to Pest (as in Budapest) and performed the horn sonata there. One audience member was puzzled and misspelled the composer’s name as “Beethover,” after which he wrote: “Who is this Beethoven? Such a name is not known in German musical history. Punto is, of course, very well known.” For all his celebrity in Vienna, Beethoven was not yet the world-famous genius we recognize today.

Sonata in A major for Violin & Piano

Cesar Franck (1822-1890)

What do you give a friend who is getting married? Items for the kitchen or dining room, gifts of cash, and other conventional choices may be appreciated even if they are unimaginative and lack the personal touch. But what did old César Franck do when he was invited to the wedding of his young friend Eugène Ysaÿe and could not attend? He sent a most creative and personalized wedding present, the violin sonata he had recently completed (1886).

Ysaÿe, a phenomenal Belgian violinist, received the gift on the morning of his wedding day and quickly rehearsed the music with Madame Léontine Bordes-Pène, whose virtuosity at the piano was equal to the challenge. After the ceremony, they played the sonata for the wedding guests.

The same artists gave the first public performance of the piece later that year at an art museum in Brussels. Although the concert began at 3:00 pm, the program was so long that by the time Ysaÿe and Bordes-Pène began the sonata, the light was fading in the winter sky. When the museum authorities, mindful of the flammable treasures in their care, refused to allow even one candle to be lit, Ysaÿe and his collaborator rose to the occasion. Unable to read their sheet music at all after the first movement, they played the rest of the sonata in the dark from memory. We learn this information from composer Vincent d’Indy, who was present at that concert.

D’Indy had studied under Franck and was a great admirer of his music. He later analyzed this sonata as a masterful example of the cyclic form Franck developed in some of his works. Embryonic themes appear in one movement only to reappear in subsequent movements, sometimes with alterations. D’Indy found three such themes in the sonata. The first of them, a rising third followed by a descent, occurs in the very first notes the violin plays, and it comes back in all four movements. It is like a bit of shared musical DNA that gives the movements a sense of belonging to the same family despite their obvious differences.

The last movement begins with an irresistible melody played in the manner of a canon or round. The piano is answered by the violin, and later the violin gets its turn to lead. As the movement unfolds, we hear a rondo take shape: contrastive sections are heard, but the canonic melody keeps coming back (ABACA...). 

Listeners with long memories may recall Franck’s canonic melody from a MetLife commercial announcing their sponsorship of musical broadcasts on PBS. The featured violinist was Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy, with Schroeder on the piano, in a truly animated performance.

Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano in E-flat major, Op. 40 

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Some leading composers in the mid-1800s, the Romantic era of music, had a particular fondness for the horn. A group of horns could make orchestral textures mellow or majestic or heroic. Solo horns could be slow and somber, or they could evoke vigorous hunting scenes and the open-air beauty of nature.

Horns had a special place in Brahms’s heart from his childhood. His father, a professional musician with a command of several instruments, taught young Johannes to play the valveless natural horn, also known as the Waldhorn (forest horn) or hand-horn. In the absence of valves to shorten or lengthen the air column, the player was limited to notes in the harmonic series, unless he used his hand in the bell of the instrument to adjust the air column and thus change the pitch. 

Even after the valve horn was developed to overcome those technical limitations, Brahms liked the tone colors characteristic of the older design. He had the Waldhorn in mind when he composed his horn trio (1865), but he was not insistent about it. He even authorized the use of a cello or viola in place of a horn. Already in his lifetime, performers of this trio sometimes used a valve horn, and that remains the common practice today.

Brahms opted for four movements that alternate in tempo: moderately slow, fast, very slow, fast. That kind of pattern was unusual in his day, though it had precedents in older Italian music. Another point of interest lies within the first movement. Normally Brahms follows sonata form in the first movement of an instrumental work, but here he prefers a more relaxed approach that highlights gentle, lyrical qualities.

After an energetic scherzo, we have an adagio described as mesto (sorrowful). It has often been suggested that Brahms’s grief over his mother’s death in February of 1865 was finding expression as he worked on this movement a few months later. Since Brahms was not one to say much that would connect his family and personal life with his music, we may never know for sure, but the connection is certainly plausible. In any case, the trio closes with a movement that takes us outdoors for the chase and hunting calls and high spirits.