VII
In turning to the violin pieces of the great masters of music one finds first and foremost ideas, great or charming, which are wholly worthy of expression. As these find their outlet in music in melody, harmony, and rhythm, and take their shape in form, melody becomes intensified and suggests as well as sings, harmony is enriched, form developed and sustained. Only the solo sonatas of Bach have demanded such manifold activity from the violin alone. Other composers have called to the aid of their ideas some other instrument—pianoforte, organ, or orchestra. The great masters have indeed placed no small burden of the frame and substance of such compositions on the shoulders of this second instrument, usually the pianoforte. Hence we have music which is no longer solo music for the violin, but duets in which both instruments play an obbligato part. Such are the violin sonatas of Beethoven, Brahms, César Franck and others, thoroughly developed, well-articulated and often truly great music.
Beethoven wrote ten sonatas for pianoforte and violin, all but one between the years 1798 and 1803. This was a time when his own fame as a virtuoso was at its height, and the pianoforte part in all the sonatas calls for technical skill and musicianship from the pianist. Upon the violinist, too, they make no less claim. In fact Beethoven’s idea of this duet sonata as revealed in all but the last, that in G major, opus 96, is the idea of a double concerto, both performers displaying the best qualities and the most brilliant of their instruments, the pianist at the same time adding the harmonic background and structural coherence which may well be conceived as orchestral. It is not surprising then to find in these works something less of the ‘poetic idea’ than may be discovered, or has been, in the sonatas for pianoforte alone, the string quartets, and the symphonies. Beethoven is not concerned solely with poetic expression in music. And not only many of the violin sonatas, but the horn sonata and the 'cello sonatas, were written for a certain player, and even for a special occasion.
Of the three sonatas, opus 12, written not later than 1798 and dedicated to the famous Italian Salieri, then resident in Vienna, little need be said. On the whole they are without conspicuous distinction in style, treatment, or material; though certain movements, especially the slow movements of the second and third sonatas, are full of deep feeling. Likewise the next two sonatas, that in A minor, opus 23, and that in F major, opus 24, are not of great significance in the list of Beethoven’s works, though the former speaks in a highly impassioned vein, and the latter is so frankly charming as to have won for itself something of the favor of the springtime.
Shortly after these Beethoven composed the three sonatas, opus 30, dedicated to the Czar of Russia, in which there is at once a more pronounced element of virtuosity and likewise a more definite poetic significance. The first and last of this set are in A major and G major, and show very clearly the characteristics which are generally associated with these keys. The former is vigorous, the latter cheerful. Both works are finely developed and carefully finished in style, and the Tempo di minuetto in the latter is one of the most charming of Beethoven’s compositions. The sonata in C minor which stands between these two is at once more rough-hewn and emotionally more powerful.
The sonata in A, opus 47, is the ninth of the violin sonatas of Beethoven. It was written especially for the English violinist, George Bridgetower, with whom Beethoven played it for the first time on the 17th or 24th of May, 1803. According to the violinist himself, who was, by the way, a mulatto and exceedingly mannered, he altered a passage in this performance of the work which greatly pleased Beethoven. However this may be, Beethoven later fell out with him, and subsequently dedicated the sonata to the great violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, who came to Vienna in the suite of General Bernadotte. It has since been known as the Kreutzer Sonata. It is an imposing and brilliant work, but it may be fairly said that it owes its general popularity to the favor of virtuosi to whom it offers a grateful test of technical ability. Emotionally the first movement alone is of sustained and impressive meaning. The theme of the Andante is of great sweetness, but the variations are hardly more than a series of more and more elaborate ornamentations, designed for the benefit of the players. The brilliant last movement seems to have been first conceived for the preceding sonata in A major, opus 30, No. 1.
Toward the end of 1812 the French violinist, Pierre Rode, came to Vienna, and to this event alone is probably due the last of Beethoven’s sonatas for pianoforte and violin. If he had set out to exhaust the possibilities of brilliant effect in the combination of the two instruments, he achieved his goal, as far as it was attainable within the limits of technique at that time, in the Kreutzer Sonata. Then for a period of nine years he lost interest in the combination. When he turned to it again, for this sonata in G, opus 96, it was with far deeper purpose. The result is a work of a fineness and reserve, of a pointed style, and cool meaning. It recalls in some measure the Eighth Symphony, and like that symphony has been somewhat eclipsed by fellow works of more obvious and striking character. Yet from the point of view of pure and finely-wrought music it is the best of the sonatas for pianoforte and violin. Mention has already been made of the first performance of the work, given on the 29th of December, 1812, by Rode and Beethoven’s pupil, the Archduke Rudolph.
The concerto for violin and orchestra, opus 61, must be given a place among his masterpieces. It belongs in point of time between the two great pianoforte concertos, in G major and E-flat major; and was first performed by the violinist Franz Clement, to whom it was dedicated, at a concert in the Theater an der Wien, on December 23, 1806. Difficult as the concerto is for the violinist, Beethoven has actually drawn upon only a few of the characteristics of the instrument, and chiefly upon its power over broad, soaring melody. He had written a few years earlier two Romances, opus 40 and opus 50, for violin and orchestra, which may be taken as preliminary experiments in weaving a solo-violin melody with the many strands of the orchestra. The violin part in the concerto is of noble and exalted character, and yet at the same time gives to the instrument the chance to express the best that lies within it.
The plan of the work is suggestively different from the plan of the last two concertos for pianoforte. In these Beethoven treats the solo instrument as a partner or at times as an opponent of the orchestra, realizing its wholly different and independent individuality. At the very beginning of both the G major and the E-flat major concertos, the piano asserts itself with weight and power equal to the orchestra’s, and the ensuing music results as it were from the conflict or the union of these two naturally contrasting forces. The violin has no such independence from the orchestra, of which, in fact, it is an organic member. The violin concerto begins with a long orchestral prelude, out of which the solo instrument later frees itself, as it were, and rises, to pursue its course often as leader, but never as opponent.[52]
The few works by Schubert for pianoforte and violin belong to the winter of 1816 and 1817, and, though they have a charm of melody, they are of relatively slight importance either in his own work or in the literature for the instrument. There are a concerto in D major; three sonatinas, in D, A minor, and G minor, opus 137, Nos. 1, 2, 3; and a sonata in A, opus 162.
There are two violin sonatas by Schumann, in A minor, opus 105, and in D minor, opus 121. Both are works belonging to the last years of his life, and both reflect a sad and gloomy spirit; but both contain much that is rarely beautiful. They will strike the ear at once as more modern than those of Beethoven, mostly of course because of the treatment of the pianoforte. Here it may well be mentioned that improvements in the pianoforte rather changed the problem of writing duet sonatas such as these. The new power of the instrument might easily threaten the violin with extinction. On the whole Schumann’s handling of the combination is remarkably successful. He is inclined now and then to treat the pair of instruments in unison—as in the first movement of the sonata in A minor—which is a rank waste of the beauties which the diversity in the natures of pianoforte and violin makes possible. On the other hand, such a movement as that in G major in the second sonata, its unusual beginning with a melody given by the violin in pizzicato chords, and its third statement of the melody in rich double-stops, is a masterpiece.[53]
The only considerable contribution by Mendelssohn to the literature of the violin is the concerto written for and first performed by Ferdinand David. A sonata in F minor, opus 4, is without distinction. But the concerto must be reckoned as one of Mendelssohn’s greatest works. Certainly, standing as it does between the concerto of Beethoven, on the one hand, and that of Brahms, on the other, it cannot but appear small in size and slight in content. But the themes, especially the chief theme of the first movement, are well chosen, the orchestral part exquisitely and thoroughly finished, and the treatment of the violin, thanks to David, smoothly effective. The cadenza—is it Mendelssohn or David?—is of sterling worth, and it is happily arranged in the movement as a whole before the third section, so that the hearer has not the shock which accompanies the enforced dragging in of virtuoso stuff in most cadenzas. It glides naturally out of what came before, and slowly flows back into the course of the movement.
There are three violin sonatas by Brahms which hold a very high place in music. The first, opus 78, in G major, was written after the first and second symphonies and even the violin concerto had been made public (Jan. 1, 1879). It has, perhaps, more than any of his earlier works, something of grace and pleasant warmth, of those qualities which made the second symphony acceptable to more than his prejudiced friends. Certainly this sonata, which was played with enthusiasm by Joachim all over Europe, made Brahms’ circle of admirers vastly broader than it had been before.
The workmanship is, of course, highly involved and recondite. There is a thematic relationship between the first and last movements,[54] and the themes and even the accompaniment are put to learned uses. But the style is gracious and charming, the treatment of the violin wholly satisfactory, and the combination of the two instruments close and interesting.
The second sonata, opus 100, did not appear until seven years after the first. Here again there is warmth and grace of style, though the impression the work makes as a whole is rather more serious than that made by the earlier sonata. Of course at a time when Brahms and Wagner were being almost driven at each other by their ardent friends and backers the resemblance between the first theme of this sonata in A major and the melody of the Prize Song in the Meistersinger did not pass unnoticed. The resemblance is for an instant startling, but ceases to exist after the first four notes.
The third sonata, that in D minor, opus 108, appeared two years later. On the whole it has more of the sternness one cannot but associate with Brahms than either of those which precede it. There are grotesque accents in the first movement, and also a passage of forty-six measures over a dominant pedal point, and even the delightful movement in F-sharp minor (un poco presto e con sentimento) has a touch of deliberateness. The slow movement on the other hand is direct, and the last movement has a strong, broad swing.
No violin sonatas show more ingenuity in the combining of the two instruments than those of Brahms. Mr. Thomas F. Dunhill in his book on Chamber Music,[55] chooses from each of them a passage which really represents a new effect in this field of which one would have thought all the effects discovered.
The concerto for violin and orchestra stands among Brahms’ supreme achievements, a giant among concertos matched only by that of Beethoven. It is not a matter for surprise that Brahms, who in many ways deliberately tried to follow Beethoven, and who even here chose the same key (D major) that Beethoven chose for his concerto, chose likewise the old-fashioned form of concerto. The work gains ponderance by reason of the long orchestral introduction in both the first and second movements. There is, likewise, as in the pianoforte concertos, too conscious a suppression of superficial brilliance. But what is this slight heaviness compared to the soaring power of its glorious themes? Truly the violin rises high above the orchestra as on wings of light.
The treatment of the violin relates the concerto to Joachim even more definitely than the dedication. It is full of the most exacting difficulties, some of which in the last movement gave even Joachim pause. The double-stops, however, and the frequent passages in two voices were, after all, effects in which Joachim was especially successful. Some of the close co-operation of the two great masters on this single great masterpiece is revealed in the correspondence which passed between Joachim and Brahms and happily has been preserved.