Christ Church Cathedral
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Artists: Pierre-Antoine Tremblay, horn; Alexander Weimann, fortepiano
In 1805, the Irish poet Thomas Moore wrote a short poem entitled “The Last Rose of Summer,” which was later set to a traditional tune called “Aisling an Óigfhear” (The Young Man’s Dream). The poem and the tune were published together in 1813 in Volume 5 of Moore’s Selection of Irish Melodies. Dozens of classical composers created their own arrangements and fantasies based on the tune, including three of the five composers on this program, Beethoven (twice, in 1814 and 1818), Moscheles in 1826 in a work for piano and orchestra, and Mendelssohn (in 1830) with a piano piece that opens with a short Adagio introduction in which the melody is presented, after which it is subjected to a steady succession of treatments in terms of tempo, mood, and fragmentation.
The horn and the piano had been around for many years before anyone thought of writing a sonata combining the two instruments. That “anyone” was Beethoven, and the year was 1799. Scholars have so far found no precedent. It was to be the only sonata by this composer for a wind instrument, and it was written for a particular horn player named Jan Václav Štich (1748-1803), born in Bohemia, and who became Giovanni Punto when he moved to Italy. Renowned for his virtuosity, Punto had ample opportunity to prove himself in Beethoven’s acrobatic writing for the instrument. As Beethoven was a formidable pianist, he gave himself a substantial part as well.
Another composer to highlight on this programme is Fanny Mendelsshon who was an outstanding pianist and one of the foremost women composers of the nineteenth century.
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PROGRAMME
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Horn Sonata in F Major, op. 17
Allegro moderato
Poco adagio, quasi Andante
Rondo: Allegro moderato
Fanny Hensel (1805-1847)
Four Songs for Piano, op. 2
No. 1 – Andante
Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870)
Introduction and Rondo Ecossais, op. 63
Felix Mendelssohn
Fantasy on “The Last Rose of Summer,” op. 15
Jacques-François Gallay (1795-1864)
Fantasy for Horn and Piano, op. 47 no. 2
PROGRAMME NOTES
Both the horn and the piano had been around for many years before anyone thought of writing a sonata combining the two instruments. That “anyone” was Beethoven, and the year was 1799. Scholars have so far found no precedent. It was to be the only sonata by this composer for a wind instrument, and it was written for a particular horn player named Jan Václav Štich (1748-1803), born in Bohemia, and who became Giovanni Punto when he moved to Italy to avoid detection by Bohemian government authorities who were looking for him. Punto is the name by which he is best remembered today. He gave the first performance of Beethoven’s sonata on April 18, 1800, on which occasion Beethoven improvised much of the piano part that was still in sketch form. Punto was renowned for his facility on the instrument, and Beethoven gave him ample opportunity to prove himself, incorporating many wide leaps, acrobatic effects, and other technical feats across the entire range of the instrument. As Beethoven was a formidable pianist, he gave himself a substantial part as well. Punto was also a prolific composer for his instrument. His catalogue includes 16 concertos, 21 quartets, 47 trios, and 103 duos.
Fanny Hensel, also known as Fanny Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, was the older sister of Felix Mendelssohn. At the age of seventeen she fell in love with a painter named Wilhelm Hensel (not to be confused with the contemporaneous composer and pianist Adolf von Henselt), but, much as in the case of Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck, parental disapproval kept them apart and made marriage difficult. Only six years after they fell love did they marry, and that was when Hensel became curator of a huge art collection. The marriage was a happy one, but Fanny died young, succumbing to a massive stroke at the age of 41. Felix was so distraught that his own death followed six months later, due certainly in part to grief over the death of his beloved sister.
Fanny composed despite strict social conventions surrounding women’s music-making. (She was also an outstanding pianist.) Her catalogue runs to over 450 works, but virtually none of them were published during her lifetime. Thus, even though the piece we hear at this concert is designated as coming from “opus 2,” it dates from 1836, by which time Fanny had composed well over two hundred other pieces. Despite the title, the four “songs” of Op. 2 are unequivocally instrumental rather than vocal in style. The first is in simple ternary (ABA) form, with a somewhat agitated middle section. Her catalogue runs to over 450 works, but virtually none of them were published during her lifetime. Thus, even though the piece we hear at this concert is designated as coming from “opus 2,” it dates from 1836, by which time Fanny had composed well over two hundred other pieces. Despite the title, the four “songs” of Op. 2 are unequivocally instrumental rather than vocal in style. The first is in simple ternary (ABA) form, with a somewhat agitated middle section.
- notes by Robert Markow
Moscheles is a name known mostly to pianists and scholars of the Romantic period. He was a key figure in his time, first as a virtuoso pianist, then as a composer. In the former capacity he remains an important link in the development of piano playing. Harold Schonberg, in his book The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present, describes him as “the first touring virtuoso to make a consistent effort to bring the best music to the people, and to act as a moral force.” He was a gentleman, and moved freely in the highest circles of the social order and nobility, including the Rothschilds and Prince Albert. Born in Prague, he spent time in Vienna (where he befriended Beethoven), then Paris, London, and finally Leipzig, where in 1846 he joined the newly opened conservatory there at the invitation of Mendelssohn, whom years before he had taught as a child. As a composer Moscheles is today mostly forgotten, but this recital revives a typical salon piece of a type so common in his age. It is music of no intrinsic depth, but is intended simply to be enjoyed. The cover of the first edition, published in Paris in 1825, advises that the horn part may be played by a cello instead, and further, that a separate violin part is available to replace the horn or cello. The slow introduction is followed by a peppy tune of Scottish character that recurs frequently in alternation with subordinate ideas.
In 1805, the Irish poet Thomas Moore wrote a short poem entitled “The Last Rose of Summer,” which was later set to a traditional tune called “Aisling an Óigfhear” (The Young Man’s Dream). The poem and the tune were published together in 1813 in Volume 5 of Moore’s Selection of Irish Melodies. The first piano accompaniment was provided by John Andrew Stevenson, and others followed. Dozens of classical composers have created their own arrangements and fantasies based on the tune, including three of the five composers on this program, the others being Beethoven (twice, in 1814 and 1818) and Moscheles in 1826 in a work for piano and orchestra, Op. 69. The song has also been incorporated into dozens of films spanning more than a century, from a silent of the same title in 1912 to a 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. Mendelssohn contributed to this voluminous repertory in 1830 with a piano piece, which has been arranged for horn and piano. It opens with a short Adagio introduction in which the melody is presented, after which it is subjected to a steady succession of treatments in terms of tempo, mood, and fragmentation.
Jacques-François Gallay is a name known to every horn player, but to almost no one else. He was the leading horn player in France for much of the mid-nineteenth century, renowned for his tone and his facility in playing the natural horn, which requires the musician to adjust the hand in the bell differently for nearly every note. His Méthode complete pour le cor was pretty much the bible of natural horn playing until the early twentieth century, and it was due to Gallay’s influence that training exclusively on the natural horn (as opposed to the valve horn) persisted at the Paris Conservatoire until 1903 (the valve horn having been in existence since almost a century earlier). Gallay held a number of prestigious positions in Parisian orchestras, and in 1842 succeeded his teacher Louis-François Dauprat at the Conservatoire, where he taught for 22 years.
In addition to his Méthode, Gallay wrote numerous books of preludes, exercises, and etudes still in use today, as well as two concertos and various concert pieces. Throughout the nineteenth century, fantasies on themes from popular operas were all the rage, and Gallay contributed to this rage with several fantasies for horn (or cornet) and piano, including the three of Op. 47, published in 1840. We hear the second of these (the only one that survives), based on material drawn from Bianca’s aria “Deh! non ferir, deh! sentimi” near the end of Act II of Bellini’s Bianca e Fernando, premiered in Genoa in 1828.
Alexander Weimann, fortepiano
Alexander Weimann is one of the most sought-after ensemble directors, soloists, and chamber music partners of his generation. After traveling the world with ensembles like Tragicomedia, and as frequent guest with Cantus Cölln, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Gesualdo Consort and Tafelmusik, he now focuses on his activities as Music Director of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in Vancouver, Music Director of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and regular guest conductor of ensembles including the Victoria Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, Arion Baroque Orchestra in Montreal and the Portland Baroque Orchestra.
Weimann was born in 1965 in Munich, where he studied the organ, church music, musicology (with a summa con laude thesis on Bach’s secco recitatives), theatre, mediæval Latin, and jazz piano, supported by a variety of federal scholarships. From 1990 to 1995, Weimann taught music theory, improvisation, and Jazz at the Munich Musikhochschule. Since 1998, he has been giving master classes in harpsichord and historical performance practice at institutions such as Lunds University in Malmö and the Bremen Musikhochschule, and at North American universities such as The University of California in Berkeley, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, McGill University, Université de Montréal, and Mount Allison in New Brunswick. Since 2007, he has conducted several acclaimed opera productions at the Amherst Early Music Festival. He now teaches at the University of British Columbia and directs the Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Programme there.
A multiple JUNO and GRAMMY nominee, Weimann can be heard on some 100 CDs. Highlights include an Opus and JUNO award-winning CD of Handel oratorio arias with soprano Karina Gauvin, a recording of Bach’s St. John’s Passion with Les Voix Baroques/Arion Baroque Orchestra, a JUNO nominated recording of Handel’s Orlando with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra that was also awarded a Gramophone Editor’s Choice award, and most recently, the JUNO-nominated album Nuit Blanches with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra and Karina Gauvin.
Pierre-Antoine Tremblay, horn
Originally from Quebec, Pierre-Antoine Tremblay pursues a career of horn player specialized in early music practice. His musical activities over the past few years have led him to about thirty countries across the world, working with renowned conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe, Fabio Biondi, René Jacobs, Pablo Heras-Casado, Teodor Currentzis and Raphaël Pichon. He plays regularly with top period-instrument ensembles such as Europa Galante (Italy), the Freiburger Barockorchester (Germany), and Arion Baroque Orchestra (Canada). He also occasionally performs with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées (France), the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century (Netherlands), MusicAeterna (Russia), the Festspielorchester Göttingen (Germany), and B’Rock (Belgium).
Recent activities include a recording of Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto with Concerto Copenhagen, a staged performance alongside Cecilia Bartoli of Handel’s Ariodante at the Salzburg Festival, as well as a Richard Strauss symphonic program with Anima Eterna Bruges.
In 2014 he cofounded in Barcelona, with clarinetist Lorenzo Coppola and pianist Cristina Esclapez, the Dialoghi Ensemble. Their first recording of Mozart and Beethoven will be released by Harmonia Mundi in August 2018. In the next few months, the group will be performing in Poland (Warsaw Chopin Festival), Norway, Japan, and Singapore.
Pierre-Antoine was invited to give masterclasses at the conservatories of Brussels, Madrid, Singapore and Amsterdam.
He obtained a Master’s Degree in Early Music from the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where he studied with Teunis van der Zwart.