Program Notes - The Mysterious World of Heinrich Biber - Symposium 85

HELICON SYMPOSIUM LXXXV
5 p.m., Sunday, 10 February 2008

"Listening to Biber, Some Thoughts"

Career

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) was born in the small Bohemian town of Wartenberg, now Stráx pod Ralskem in the Czech Republic. Little is known of his early training as a musician, though Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c1620-1680), Kapellmeister of the Imperial Viennese Court knew and encouraged Biber’s career, and may even have been his teacher. Biber held posts in Graz and then Kromeriz, before establishing himself in Salzburg in 1670, a move he made without notifying his former employer he was leaving! He flourished in Salzburg, entering the service of Archbishop Maximilian Gandolph von Khuenberg. In 1679, he was given the modest appointment Vice-Kapellmeister, advancing to Kapellmeister and dean of the choir school in 1684. Leopold I granted him ennoblement in 1690 with the title, ‘Biber von Bibern.’ Subsequently, Biber was promoted to the station of 'Lord High Steward' marking the culmination of his social career. By this point, his salary had risen to 60 gulden a month, with free board and lodging including such items as wine, bread and firewood. Jacob Stainer, the most celebrated instrument maker of the day referred to Biber as “the formidable virtuoso,” and indeed his reputation and compositions reveal a man of prodigious talent and quixotic temperament.

Style

Biber’s music can be heard as the culmination of the 17th-century Italian style birthed around 1600 with the invention of opera. In the first decades of the 17th Century, this new Italian music swept over The Alps, quickly dominating the courts of Austria, Germany, and France (the latter, only until the reign of Louis XIV). The major part of Biber’s career was spent in Salzburg, and indeed, it was in this city that Italian operatic music gained its first important foreign outpost. Archbishop Marcus Sitticus von Hohenums, who reigned from 1612-1619, fostered close ties to Italy and in 1614 built a stage in his residence appropriate for Italian opera. On 10 February 1614 (394 years ago today), the first performance of an opera outside of Italy took place on that stage in Salzburg.

To appreciate the music of Biber, it is important to know some things about 17th-century Italian opera. Music before 1600 was characterized by complex polyphony, or the simultaneous sounding of multiple melodic lines. The euphonious pleasures and splendors of 16th-century Italian polyphonic vocal music outweighed clear communication of the text being sung. The music of Palestrina (c1525-1594) represents the highest achievement in music of this style. The invention of Italian opera offered the antidote to the excesses of this complex music. In the new musical style, the vocal line followed inflections of speech and the accompaniment did not obstruct a direct presentation of the text. Instead of polyphony, or multiple melodic lines, 17th-century Italian opera was based on monody.

As Italian opera spread north of the peninsula, it influenced all musical genres, including instrumental music. By the time of Biber, this style had developed a great sophistication of affect, expression, and melodic inventiveness, while retaining its economy of means, and directness of expressive intent.

Each of Biber’s sonatas is a single movement work with contrasting sections. These sections are quite recognizable and while the music is instantly appealing, it may help to know some of the signposts along the road. These works often begin with a freely rhapsodic prelude (Praeludium) where the violin plays seemingly improvised flourishes over long held notes in the continuo. These sections invite the listener to enter the sound world of the work; they seduce and in so doing, prepare the way for what is to come. These preludes are purely instrumental music, but Biber also writes Adagios in the vocal style of small opera arias. Here the accompaniment has a more active and regular metric feel over which the violin sings its songs (albeit without words). The most striking sections of Biber’s sonatas are the long sets of variations (Variatio or Aria e Variatio). These sections are the meat of his works and begin with either a simple song-like melody or simple chord progression. The violin then embarks on a series of fanciful reinterpretations of those simple building blocks. With all the inventive and virtuosic tricks of his trade, Biber moves through these variations, creating a music of accretion, upping the ante with each repetition. These sections can produce a trance-like or meditative experience in the listener. Your own imagination is in good hands with Biber and
these musicians. Enjoy!

Tonight's Violin Music

The eight sonatas published in 1681 represent Biber’s most sophisticated marrying of composition and virtuoso violin technique. Fiendishly difficult, these melody-driven works are marked by unpredictability, inventiveness, and a spontaneity that suggests improvisations. The violinist Andrew Manze suggests that, “but for the fact that it exists on the printed page, [Biber’s music] might have been improvised straight into a baroque tape-recorder.” Biber revels in the surprises he throws at the audience, so be ready.

Biber’s most famous work is a cycle of fifteen violin sonatas based on the Mysteries of the Rosary with a concluding Passacaglia for Violin Solo. “The Mystery Sonatas,” as they are titled, were published in the 1670s. They are remarkable for their use of scordatura, or the retuning of the violin’s strings to allow special harmonic and acoustic effects. Tonight we will hear the first of the “Mystery Sonatas” (and the only one to employ standard violin tuning), to open our second half.

The Sonata Representativa was written for Carnival while Biber was living in Kromeriz. The Prince-Bishop of Olmouc-Kromeriz was a fan of programmatic effects in music, so the piece may have been written for him. The animal noises Biber sets are obvious enough, but they are not exactly his invention. He was quoting from an internationally influential musicological work, “Musurgia Universalis,” written by Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, who codified melodies in imitation of nature. (A chart of these musical/bestial quotations is included with your program.) This work would certainly be an “inside joke” for the highly literate audience. As Robert Frost taught us “all the fun is how you say a thing," and when Biber says something, it turns out to be very fun, indeed.

A quick note on Schmelzer

Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c1620-1680) began his career as a violinist in the Viennese Imperial court band, a world dominated by Italians, playing Italian music. This young Austrian musician went on to overturn the foreign domination by becoming a master of their style. His Sonatae unarum fidium of 1664 were the first solo sonatas to be published by a non-Italian. Schmelzer also became the first non-Italian Kapellmeister at the Viennese court and was widely considered to be ‘one of the most famous, distinguished violinists in the whole of Europe’ (J. J. Müller, Reise-Diarium, 1660). Though it has been suggested that he was Biber’s teacher, this attractive idea cannot be proven. We do know, however, that he used his influence to aid the younger musician, and certainly, he was an important role model to any aspiring Austrian musician.

The sonata of Schmelzer that ends our program tonight opens with an extended set of variations—a passacaglia—built on a peaceful descending four-note melody. Over this bass line, Schmelzer presents a simple melodic line in the violin that builds in complexity as the piece unfolds. He weaves two contrasting Baroque dances into the repeating bass line, a graceful sarabande and a lively gigue. At the end of the passacaglia, Schmelzer offers a small aria before ending in flourishes of virtuosic display.

Symposium 79 - 22 October 2006

Symposium LXXIX
22 October 2006
The 22nd Season Opener
Beethoven & Brahms String Quintets

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Mark Steinberg & Colin Jacobsen, violins
Dov Scheindlin & David Miller, violas
Nina Lee, ’cello

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To inaugurate Helicon’s first season of Symposiums at Kosciuszko, we’ve gathered an impressive ensemble of virtuoso string players for a rare gut-string performance of masterpieces by Beethoven and Brahms. We begin with Beethoven, his splendid Quintet in C Major, Op. 29. Among the finest works from his early creative period, this is the composer’s only quintet originally conceived for strings. In the magnificent tumult of the last movement, Beethoven creates such vivid musical effects that the work became known as “The Storm.” We then move to Johannes Brahms’ glorious Quintet in G Major, Op. 111. Opening with shimmering strings under a sweeping ’cello melody, this work is symphonic in scope and contains some of Brahms’ most engaging and emotionally generous chamber music. His lush textures and rich harmonies will be enhanced by the earthy sound of gut strings.

THE HELICON FOUNDATION
James Roe, Artistic Director
William A. Simon, President
Albert Fuller, Founder

Symposium 80 - 10 December 2006

Symposium LXXX
10 December 2006
"Buon Natale y Felices Fiestas"
Baroque Holiday Music from Italy, Spain, & Latin America

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EL MUNDO & ENSEMBLE REBEL
Jennifer Lane, mezzo soprano; Catherine Webster, soprano
Richard Savino, lute & baroque guitar
Jörg-Michael Schwarz & Karen Marie Marmer, violins
John Moran, cello
Dongsok Shin, harpsichord

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Helicon is pleased to welcome back the renowned Baroque guitarist, Richard Savino and his ensemble, El Mundo. Composed of singers, strings, and plucked instruments, El Mundo specializes in the rich, sensual music of 16th - 19th century Italy, Spain and Latin America. Their Helicon performance features mezzo-soprano, Jennifer Lane. Throughout the Baroque period music flourished in the Spanish colonial territories, yet little of this fascinating repertory is known today. This music truly crosses cultural borders by blending European styles with native rhythms and dances. Richard has created a program of new musical discoveries including Yuletide music from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and Argentina, and sacred Hebraic psalms by Solomon Rossi.

“El Mundo’s program was a joyful tour. . . this ensemble was stupendous!” - San Francisco Classical Voice

THE HELICON FOUNDATION
James Roe, Artistic Director
William A. Simon, President
Albert Fuller, Founder

Symposium 81 - 11 February 2007

Symposium LXXXI
11 February 2007
“The Art of English Song”
Baroque and 20th-century Masterpieces

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Nicholas Phan, tenor
Robert Wolinsky, harpsichord
Myron Lutzke, ’cello
Pedja Muzijevic, piano
James Roe, oboe

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Nicholas Phan has quickly established himself as an important tenor among America's next generation of singers. A noted interpreter of Handel, he made his New York debut this season as Damon in Acis and Galatea with the New York City Opera. He has appeared with the Houston, Frankfurt, Glimmerglass, and L.A. Operas, the Chicago Symphony, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. At Helicon Mr. Phan will sing an innovative program that juxtaposes beautiful Baroque and 20th-century songs by England’s two greatest composers, Henry Purcell and Benjamin Britten. Separated by 300 years, both possess a lyric naturalness for setting the English language and a bountiful melodic gift. The stylistic breadth of this program will offer new ways of hearing music from these different eras. Rounding out the program, James Roe will join Mr. Phan for Vaughan Williams’ haunting and lyrical “Blake Songs” for Tenor and Oboe.

THE HELICON FOUNDATION
James Roe, Artistic Director
William A. Simon, President
Albert Fuller, Founder

Helicon at The Morgan, October 4, 2011 at 6:30

The Morgan Library & Museum presents Helicon in Concert

"Réalités Invisibles" Music from the Life of Marcel Proust

TUE • 4 OCT 11 • 7:30

For tickets and information please visit

www.helicon.org/morgan

Symposium LXXXII
13 May 2007
“The Music of Proust’s Salon”

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Jennifer Frautschi & Serena Canin, violins
Hsin-Yun Huang, viola
Ed Arron, ’cello
Pedja Muzijevic, piano

with

Richard Howard, poet & reader

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It is no surprise that Marcel Proust—an author so concerned with memory and time—was a dedicated lover of music, the invisible art that exists only in the passage of time. Our 82nd Symposium features music important in Proust’s life and work. We open with piano pieces by Proust’s lover, Reynaldo Hahn. His is quintessential salon music, charming, nostalgic, and utterly French. Jennifer Frautschi then joins Pedja for Saint-Saëns’ Violin Sonata No. 1. Hahn’s diaries reveal that the reoccurring melody in this piece inspired the famous “little phrase” that represents Swan’s love for Odette in “A la recherche du temps perdu.” Proust wrote that his primary “spiritual nourishment” came from the music of Beethoven and Franck. Famously, he would round up certain Parisian musicians for private, post-midnight performances Franck’s music. To close our 22nd season (well before midnight) we’ve rounded up musicians of our own to play Franck’s opulent Piano Quintet. It should be night to remember.

Program

I. PROUST IN LOVE — Marcel & Reynaldo
“One is always inspired when speaking of what one loves.
The truth is that one should never speak of anything else.”
Letter from Proust to Hahn

Marcel Proust: poems from
"Portraits of Painters, Portraits of Musicians" (1896)
translated and read by Richard Howard

Reynaldo Hahn: Premières valses pour piano (1898)

II. THE LITTLE PHRASE — Swann & Odette
“. . . the little phrase by Vinteuil which was, so to speak,
the national anthem of their love.”
from Swann’s Way

Passage from Swann’s Way
“In Search of Lost Time” Vol. 1, chapter "Swann in Love"
translated and read by Richard Howard

Camille Saint-Saëns
Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 75 (1885)

III. SPIRITUAL NOURISHMENT — Proust & Music
“For some years Beethoven’s last quartets and the music of Franck
has been my principal spiritual nourishment”
Proust to Mme. Albert Hecht, March 1916

César Franck
Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 7 (1878-79)

THE HELICON FOUNDATION
James Roe, Artistic Director
William A. Simon, President
Albert Fuller, Founder

Helicon Members 2006-2007

For its generous support of our 82nd Symposium,
The Helicon Foundation is deeply grateful to The Alice Tully Foundation.
We thank The Kosciuszko Foundation for their hospitality.

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We wish to express our gratitude to Helicon’s Members
whose support makes possible the events of our twenty-second season:

Directors Circle
Joan K. Easton
Susan Zolla-Pazner, Ph.D. & Sherman Pazner, M.D.

Sponsoring Members
V. Edward Dent
Karen McLaughlin & Mark Schubin
Ryo Toyonaga & Alvin Friedman-Kien
Lisa & Paul Welch

Sustaining Members
Yukiko & Jim Gatheral
Franklin Heller & Christian Steiner
David S. Moyer
The Irwin Scherzer Foundation
Ann & Joe Scozzafava
Lavinia & William Simon
Marica & Jan Vilcek
Joanne Witty & Eugene Keilin

Contributing Members
Patty Otis Abel & Dennis R. Reiff
Leslie Armstrong
Barbara & Paul Krieger,
Doreen Lindsay & Andrew Burt
Peter C. Lombardo, M.D.
Arthur Richenthal
Laura Schoen & Robert Kaufman
Arlene & Bruce Simon

Members
Anonymous (1)
Cheryl Milone Bab
Cindy Bolt & Edmond V. Karam
Nancy Cardozo
Pamela Drexel
Patricia & Michael Fast
Nancy Hall & Robert Schwartzman
Rosanna & Corwith Hansen
Timothy B. Harwood
Hideko Kamino, M.D. & Howard Ratech, M.D.
Sarah O.H. Johnson
Gregory Keilin
Catherine Keller & Jason Starr
David Longmire
Lena Persson & Hervé Pierre
Gil Quito
Carol & Gerard Silverman
Jane Taylor & Guy Renvoize

Contributors
Rowan Dordick & Jennifer Hirschowitz in Honor of William A. Simon
Don Lebowitz, Esq.

Program Notes - "Music from Proust's Salon - Symposium 82

HELICON SYMPOSIUM LXXXII

MUSIC OF PROUST’S SALON

Program Notes by James Roe

“I believe that the essence of music is to arouse
the mysterious depths of our souls.”
Marcel Proust

It is no surprise that Marcel Proust—a writer consumed with exploring the experience of memory—was a dedicated lover of music, the invisible art that only exists in the passage of time. Helicon’s 82nd Symposium presents music important in Proust’s life and work with readings from his poems and “In Search of Lost Time.”

Reynaldo Hahn (1875-1947)

I. PROUST IN LOVE — Marcel & Reynaldo

Poems of Marcel Proust
Premières valses pour piano by Reynaldo Hahn

When I contacted Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Richard Howard about participating in Helicon’s Proust concert, he was not only delighted at the prospect, but said he had some new material to offer. He was making new translations of little known Proust poems for an upcoming book, and had recently finished several he thought might be of interest. So, I paid a visit to his book-lined apartment near NYU. The poems he showed me were lyrical portraits of individual painters and composers and fit Helicon’s program perfectly. They were written in the mid-1890s, shortly after Proust met the composer, Reynaldo Hahn.

One of twelve children, Hahn was born in Venezuela to a Catholic mother and a Jewish businessman. To escape growing political unrest, the family left South America for Paris in 1877. By 1893, the year the two young men met, Hahn had already distinguished himself as a composer and performer. With sympathetic tastes and dispositions, the two quickly fell in love. Considering the time in which they lived, Proust and Hahn conducted their relationship with uncommon conspicuousness. (Oscar Wilde’s trial for “gross indecency” began in 1895.) Their romance lasted several years, but the two artists remained life-long friends.

Though Hahn wrote music in every genre including, opera and ballet, his gifts shine brightest in smaller forms. His songs are exquisite, and he often sang them at parties accompanying himself at the piano. He also produced a large body of salon music for solo piano, which displays his characteristic wit and sophisticated charm. To open our program, we will intersperse readings of Proust’s poems between his friend’s Premières valses pour piano.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)II. THE LITTLE PHRASE — Swann & Odette

A Passage from Swann’s Way translated and read by Richard Howard
Violin Sonata No. 1 in D Minor by Camille Saint-Saëns

In Swann’s Way, Book One of “In Search of Lost Time,” Proust introduces a fictive composer named Vinteuil, whose presence and music recur throughout the multi-volume work. The cyclic structure of Proust’s novel is mirrored in a composition by Vinteuil, a Sonata for Violin and Piano. Swann is particularly taken by this music, especially a “little phrase” that reappears throughout the piece and subsequently comes to symbolize the love he shared with Odette. “The national anthem of our love,” they called it. Through Swann’s evolving experience of this piece, Proust traces the development of his characters’ relations while illuminating complex connections between music, emotion, and memory. Swann’s reflections on the Vinteuil Sonata are among the most eloquent descriptions of musical experience in literature. Richard Howard will read his own translation of Swann’s first encounter with the sonata and the effect of its “little phrase.”

That this imaginary sonata must be based on an actual piece has spawned nearly a century of speculation. Swann describes a work so sublime, that César Franck’s great Sonata in A Major is often suggested as the model. Another candidate is the First Violin Sonata of Gabriel Fauré, a composer Proust knew and admired. (Helicon has presented both pieces, the Franck on our 38th Symposium, 21 April 1996, with Pedja Muzijevic and Mark Steinberg, and the Fauré on our 73rd, 13 March 2005, with Pedja and Jennifer Frautschi.) Reynaldo Hahn’s diaries reveal that the “little phrase” was based on the recurring melody in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Violin Sonata in D Minor, which closes the first half of this program.

César Franck (1822-90)III. SPIRITUAL NOURISHMENT — Proust & Music

Piano Quintet in F Minor by César Franck

“For some years Beethoven’s last quartets and the music of Franck has been my principal spiritual nourishment,” wrote Proust in 1916. It was listening to the music of Franck and Beethoven, as well as Schumann, Wagner, and Mozart, that stimulated Proust’s thinking about the creative process and informed the narrator’s musical meditations late in his novel.

Proust attended concerts by the celebrated Parisian string quartet, Quatuor Poulet, and became acquainted with their violist, Amable Massis. During a post-concert conversation, Proust proposed a private performance in his home. The musicians agreed in principle, though no specific plans were made. Some days later, Proust made a surprise visit to the first violinist’s apartment around 11:00 P.M., consumed by the desire to hear a string quartet of César Franck that very night! The violinist followed Proust to a waiting car where he was offered a bowl of mashed potatoes. They then drove around Paris collecting the other quartet members. By the time the performance began, it was nearly one in the morning. Upon finishing the demanding hour-long work, Proust sat in silence a long time. He then asked to hear the whole work again from the beginning.

Massis later remarked on the novelist’s attention during their performance, “Proust was a marvelous listener, straightforward, direct, a man who drank in music without raising any questions.” One can only imagine the heightened experience of such intimate music making and the spiritual nourishment it provided the musicians and their solitary, marvelous listener.

“Music may be the unique example of what might have been
the means of communicating between souls.”
From “In Search of Lost Time”