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BRAHMS During the year 1856, the centenary of Mozart’s birth, the 23-year-old Brahms was

active in a series of public concerts celebrat- ing this anniversary. After performing in various German cities both as a soloist and as

pianist in chamber music ensembles, Brahms returned to Dusseldorf in April, at which time

he showed the violinist Joachim the manu- script of a piano quartet in C-sharp minor. In

a letter written later that month, Joachim

discusses this new Brahms work and quotes one of its themes, and from this circumstance

we are able to identify the work as being in

fact an early version of the Piano Quartette

in C Minor, published by Brahms 19 years later as Op. 60.

The extraordinary stylistic variety of the

four movements of the work (as well as con- flicting statements by various commentators)

makes it difficult to ascribe dates of composi-

tion with complete certainty. Kalbeck cites a Brahms memorandum that places the com-

pletion of the third and fourth movements in the years 1873-74. Another scurce suggests

that part of the work was “completed” in Switzerland during the Christmas season of

1862. What seems evident is that Brahms, who

liked to tackle big works in pairs, kept the C Minor Piano Quartette at hand during almost two decades for periodic bouts of revision.

We thus find it sharing his attention from time to time with other major projects, among them the German Requiem. Not the least in-

teresting thing about this quartet—particularly

since Brahms was certainly as well aware as

his critics of its peculiar stylistic contrasts—is the composer’s dogged insistence on perfect-

ing it. Not surprisingly, the work as finally

published won popular affection much more

slowly than Brahms’ two other—and more

homogeneous—piano quartets. But it has al- ways been an absorbing experience to pre- cisely those listeners whose interest is deeply

engaged by problematic concepts—among whom, on the evidence, we might place Brahms himself.

Judged solely on stylistic grounds, the

second movement (Scherzo) would seem to be the earliest. It is reminiscent of the first piano sonata in its confident address and

youthful energy. Yet the energy here is more concentrated, more contained, and we defin-

itely sense the shaping hand of the mature Brahms working on youthful material.

The first movement (Allegro) and the third (Andante) suggest the deep seriousness and

controlled muscularity familiar in middle-

period Brahms. The somber and portentous character of the first movement has reminded

some critics of the Schubert C minor piano

sonata—particularly since the melody of the second subject is followed, as in the Schubert

work, by a series of variations on itself. The Andante contains one of those immaculately

long-lined melodies of which Brahms had an apparently infallible command at any and

every date but which are most often associ-

ated with his later piano pieces. The finale is

unquestionably later Brahms, and to those who prefer this composer as a young Roman- tic, the movement has sometimes seemed

lacking in spontaneity. To others, its terseness of statement and spareness of texture repre-

sent a reward, not a penalty, of sobering in- hibition. From this point of view Brahms’ two decades of revision are justified. If he has

produced richer chamber works than the C Minor Piano Quartette, he has produced none

more transparent in musical intention or more gratefully accessible to the hearer.

BOCCHERINI Since Luigi Boccherini lived until the year 1805, he is perhaps not yet ancient enough to

be given the kind of wholesale revival enjoyed nowadays by earlier and, in many cases, less

important composers. Today, at any rate, he is something of an anomaly: an admittedly

great composer (and an incredibly prolific

one), the larger part of whose work is still unfamiliar to the wide public. He is credited

with upward of 460 works—including, among

other things, 20 symphonies, 21 sonatas for violin and piano and either 91 or 102 string

quartets, depending on your source. Boc- cherini was roughly contemporary with

Haydn, and although there is no record of the two composers having met, they are known to have admired each other and to have ex-

changed salutations through the Austrian

publisher Artaria. Their contemporaries

found their styles so neatly complementary

that the violinist Giuseppe Puppo put the no-

tion in a celebrated witticism: ‘“‘Boccherini is

Haydn’s wife.” As the present Sonata in D

indicates, however, Boccherini was much

more than the “graceful” composer his popu-

lar piano minuet would suggest. The Sonata is

a work of originality, warmth and integrity,

with a glowing surface from a kind of inner

illumination. It would be difficult to find a

chamber work that revealed to greater advan-

tage the cantilena style of both the instru- ments involved.

1OCH It might be difficult, also, to find a true cham- ber work that is further removed in mood

from the Boccherini Sonata than the late Ernst Toch’s second Divertimento (a work written originally for violin and viola). Yet

the Toch piece is as authentic, as idiomatically

“chamber,” as the Boccherini. There is no

denying that Toch’s musical curiosity kept pace with the adventurousness of his era: in

addition to operas and a quantity of brilliant and extremely difficult piano music, he wrote radio music, film music and even a suite in “spoken music” consisting of words explored in their rhythmic and dynamic aspect only. But Toch’s first and lifelong interest was chamber music; his own earliest experiments in the idiom are thought to have derived about equally from Mozart and Brahms. The

present Divertimento is characteristic of his later style. It reveals an extremely spirited and

Rothschild

energetic mind, one in which a highly devel-

oped interest in formal organization (and a

discernible taste for lean textures and eco-

nomical gesture) does not forbid pointed ref- erence to the Romantic tradition.

The present version of the Divertimento, in addition to replacing the viola with the cello,

reverses the playing sequence of the move-

ments as written. —ROBERT OFFERGELD

SANFORD SCHONBACH, violist in this recording, died December 19, 1967. This

is his only recorded collaboration with

Heifetz and Piatigorsky, who were his

friends and colleagues for many years.

Born December 29, 1917, Mr. Schonbach

had been principal violist of the Los

Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra since

1946, appearing as soloist with the orches-

tra as well as performing with major chamber music groups throughout the

United States. As a fellow professor at the

University of Southern California he ap-

peared with Heifetz and Piatigorsky in

concerts of chamber music and performed

with them in the intimacy of their homes

among friends.

As friend, colleague and musical col-

laborator — Heifetz and Piatigorsky con-

tinue to pay him the highest respect and

hold the memory of his friendship and talents in the highest esteem.

SANFORD SCHONBACH

Mono LM-3009

Stereo LSC-3009

THE HEIFETZ-PIATIGORSKY

CONCERTS Brahms — PIANO QUARTETTE

IN C MINOR, Op. 60

Jacob Lateiner, Pianist

Jascha Heifetz, Violinist

Sanford Schonbach, Violist

Gregor Piatigorsky, Cellist

Boccherini— SONATA IN D

Toch— DIVERTIMENTO,

Op. 37, No. 2

Jascha Heifetz, Violinist

Gregor Piatigorsky, Cellist

Produced by John F. Pfeiffer

Recording Engineers: Ivan Fisher and John Norman

JACOB LATEINER

Other recordings in The Heifetz—Piatigorsky Concerts series: Dvorak Piano Quintette in A, Op. 81 (with Jacob Lateiner, Israel Baker, Joseph de Pasquale) * Francaix Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello (with dosepn de Pasquale) 2545 os ee pero ess LM/LSC-2985

Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5, K.219 * Turina Trio No. 1 for Piano, Violin and Cello, Op. 35 (with Leonard Pennario) ........... LM/LSC-2957

DYNAGROOVE © 1968, RCA, New York, N.Y. © Printed in U.S.A. “

Library of Congress Card Numbers R68-2633-35 (Mono) and R68-2636-38 (Stereo) apply to this recording.

Timings: Side 1—8:51, 3:47, 8:02, 8:55 (P.D.)

Side 2—8:36, 7:03 (BMI)