Ludwig van Beethoven composed at least six works for mandolin, four of which survive. [1] None were published during his lifetime. [2] Though known better as a pianist, Beethoven possessed a Milanese mandolin, which was hung beside his piano. [2] He was friends with two prominent mandolinists, both of whom were linked to his surviving mandolin music. [2]
Beethoven cultivated a relationship with Wenzel Krumpholz, a Bohemian violinist and mandolin virtuoso who played the violin in the opera orchestra in Vienna. [3] Carl Czerny wrote of Krumpholz that he was one of the first to recognize Beethoven's genius. [2]
Beethoven had met Krumpholz in Vienna in 1795, after the release of Beethoven's Three Trios for Piano, Op. 1. [3] Beethoven took violin lessons from Krumpholz and "the close relationship between Beethoven and Krumpholz may have led to the composition of two pieces for mandolin and harpsichord" (WoO 43, Numbers 1 and 2). [3] As these were likely first attempts, Beethoven never published the pieces. [3]
The other mandolinist was Josephine of Clary-Aldringen, the wife of Count Christian Philipp Clam-Gallas and mother of Eduard Clam-Gallas; the couple invited Beethoven in on his first visit to Prague to their palace, and he dedicated the aria "Ah! perfido" to the count's wife. [2]
Josephine was a student of Johann Baptist Kucharz, a composer and organist who was also a mandolinist. [3] He was the first to play mandolin in Mozart's Don Giovanni in the first production in 1787. [3]
Joseph Braunstein said that Beethoven composed the second set of works (WoO 44, Numbers 1 and 2) in 1796, after he met Josephine in Prague. [3] He also "revised" the second of his 1795 works (WoO43 #2) for the countess, adding a dedication, "pour la belle Josephine." [3] According to Robert Cummings, Beethoven's four works using mandolin were all composed for the countess and were discovered in her husband's collection. [4]
Beethoven wrote his mandolin works near the beginning of his career. The works are numbered in the WoO system of 'works without opus number', which designates compositions written throughout his career which were never published with an opus number. For example, Ah! perfido Op. 65, dedicated to countess Josephine and written about the same time as the mandolin sonatas, wasn't given an opus number until 1819. Beethoven was not known for his mandolin works, and ultimately focused elsewhere. However, Joseph Braunstein said of these pieces that, although "not great music ... they are valuable miniatures that fit well, biographically and stylistically, into the period of Beethoven's Opus 1, his first sonatas, the String Trio in E-flat, the song "Adelaide", and the Piano Concerto in B-flat." [3]
Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 1 is a set of three piano trios, first performed in 1795 in the house of Prince Lichnowsky, to whom they are dedicated. The trios were published in 1795.
The Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24, is a four movement work for violin and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was first published in 1801. The work is commonly known as the Spring Sonata (Frühlingssonate), although the name "Spring" was apparently given to it after Beethoven's death. The sonata was dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, a patron to whom Beethoven also dedicated two other works of the same year—the String Quintet in C major, Op. 29 and the Violin Sonata No. 4—as well as his later Symphony No. 7 in A major.
The Classical period was an era of classical music between roughly 1730 and 1820.
A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a plectrum. It most commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 strings, although five and six course versions also exist. The courses are typically tuned in an interval of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin. Also, like the violin, it is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.
Sonata, in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century, it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas still maintain the same structure.
Johann Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era. He was a pupil of Mozart, Salieri, Clementi, and Haydn. He was also friends with Beethoven and Schubert.
A sonatina is a small sonata. As a musical term, sonatina has no single strict definition; it is rather a title applied by the composer to a piece that is in basic sonata form, but is shorter and lighter in character, or technically more elementary, than a typical sonata. The term has been in use at least since the late baroque; there is a one-page, one-movement harpsichord piece by Handel called "Sonatina". It is most often applied to solo keyboard works, but a number of composers have written sonatinas for violin and piano, for example the Sonatina in G major for Violin and Piano by Antonín Dvořák, and occasionally for other instruments, for example the Clarinet Sonatina by Malcolm Arnold.
Sophia Giustina Dussek was a Scottish singer, pianist, harpist, and composer of Italian descent.
Jan Křtitel Kuchař, or also German: Johann Baptist Kucharz was a Czech organist, mandolinist, harpsichordist, music composer, operatic conductor, and teacher.
Viviana Sofronitsky is a Russian and Canadian classical pianist. Born in Moscow, her father was the Soviet-Russian pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky.
The Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord is a three-movement, neoclassical chamber work composed by Walter Piston in 1945, that marks the beginning of his postwar style.
Michael Tsalka is a Dutch/Israeli pianist and early keyboard performer. He performs solo and chamber music from the Baroque to the Contemporary periods on the modern piano, harpsichord, fortepiano, clavichord, square piano and positive organ. Michael Tsalka, who is the oldest son of Israeli writer Dan Tsalka, performs throughout Europe, the U.S.A., Canada, Asia, and Latin America. Recent engagements include the Boston Early Music Festival, the Gasteig in Münich, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, the Bellas Artes Theater in Mexico City, the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, the Hermitage Festival in St. Petersburg, and full programs and interviews for radio stations in Hong Kong, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Chicago, Berlin, Auckland, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Jerusalem.
"Ah! perfido", Op. 65, is a concert aria for soprano and orchestra by Ludwig van Beethoven. The dramatic scena begins with a recitative in C major, taken from Pietro Metastasio's Achille in Sciro. The aria "Per pietà, non dirmi addio" is set in the key of E-flat major. and its lyricist is anonymous. A performance takes about 14 minutes.
The Piano Sonata, WoO 51, in C major, is an incomplete composition for piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, believed to have been composed before he left Bonn, that was discovered amongst Beethoven's papers following his death. The composition was not published until 1830 by F. P. Dunst in Frankfurt, with a dedication to Eleonore von Breuning, along with the piano trios WoO 38 and WoO 39.
The Piano Quartets, WoO 36, by Ludwig van Beethoven are a set of three piano quartets, completed in 1785 when the composer was aged 14. They are scored for piano, violin, viola and cello. He composed a quartet in C major, another in E-flat major, and a third in D major. They were first published posthumously in 1828, however numbered in a different order: Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major, Piano Quartet No. 2 in D major, and Piano Quartet No. 3 in C major.
Alon Sariel is an Israeli mandolinist, lutenist and conductor.
based on an article that originally appeared in “Mandolin Magazine,” Fall 2001.