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What’s happening in composers’ lives often reverberates in the music they produce. Violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, pianist Wu Qian, and cellist Nicholas Canellakis explored this theme in music by Dvořák, Beethoven, and Smetana on March 14 at an absorbing concert titled “From My Life,” part of the Aspect Chamber Music Series‘ current season.
Musicologist Nicholas Chong (author of The Catholic Beethoven) gave an illustrated talk introducing the pieces and describing some of the circumstances of their creation. But this was far from an academic exercise. The added context only deepened the pleasure of this great music performed beautifully by three superb musicians.
Dvořák’s Children
Sitkovetsky and Qian began the first half of the concert with Antonin Dvořák’s Sonatina in G major for Violin and Piano, Op. 100, B. 183. Dvořák wrote it for his children in 1893 during his three-year stay in the United States. So it’s relatively straightforward and doesn’t require enormous virtuosity. (His pianist daughter was 15 at the time, his violinist son just 10.) But as the composer himself noted, adults too “should be able to converse with it.” And converse Sitkovetsky and Qian did.
In one sense the piece engages quite directly with the composer’s circumstances. The second and third movements reflect Dvořák’s engagement with the American folk music traditions he was encountering as he sojourned, literally and culturally, away from his base in New York City. Native American dance rhythms and African American spirituals are easily discernible in the second and third movements.
The duo clearly had fun mining the serious depths of the ostensibly light-hearted Sonatina. They attacked the rather abstract first movement, marked “Allegro risoluto,” firmly shaping the phrases and engaging with but not overemphasizing the moments of drama. Sitkovetsky’s deep, rich tone immediately seized attention.
The Larghetto includes what sounds very much like a Native American chant, solemn if not melancholy. The musicians developed it quite eloquently. The Scherzo suggests an American fiddle tune or folk dance, which they revealed as a sheer delight.
The fiery Finale is where the African American influence is strongest. Sitkovetsky and Qian infused it with a great sense of rhythmic fun, while making room for a tinge of sadness that might, in keeping with the evening’s theme, reflect Dvořák’s homesickness.
Regardless of any personal associations, this was an extraordinarily rich exegesis of a work that contains more than appears on the surface. That made it a natural fit with the Beethoven that followed, the Violin Sonata No. 7, Op. 30 No. 2, in C minor, a key that the composer used in some of his most defiantly serious works.
Hypnotic Beethoven
Sitkovetsky and Qian rendered the first movement as a thrill ride of doomy excitement, pricked with dotted quarters and with a sprinkle of humor.
The slow movement is a tearjerker for sure, but the musicians approached it almost gingerly, with muted humility and a delicate touch. They understood that because the pathos is right there in the melody, there’s no need to over-pressurize.
The result was hypnotic. In one remarkable moment, the violin passed a repeated pizzicato note to the piano – quite imperceptibly. I looked up surprised – which instrument was the sound coming from?
The Scherzo further revealed the two musicians’ superb synchrony. It shouldn’t be surprising – not only do they play together regularly in the Sitkovetsky Trio, they are married. But it’s impressive nonetheless.
In the Finale, again, a grimness, this time a punchy one, was leavened by flashes of cheer as Sitkovetsky and Qian played with turbocharged dexterity.
Family Tragedy
Among the disappointments and problems Beethoven was dealing with at the time, probably the worst was his dawning realization of his increasing deafness. What he gave us, out of a morass of despair, was something sublime, and that’s just how it sounded.
A hard act to follow? Not for these two musicians, in the company of cellist Nicholas Canellakis, who joined them after the break in a smashing performance of Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15.
Also in a dramatic minor key, it was written in the aftermath of the death of the composer’s young daughter. The tempestuous first movement billows with orchestral aspiration as it develops, but the quieter passages establish an intricate and more intimate context.
After fully exploring this, the trio asserted muscular rhythmic togetherness in a different way, with powerfully expressive unison passages in the second movement. Folk song-like elements arrived, then transformed into dark fantasies. It’s not a slow movement, as second movements typically are. But the musicians found contemplative depths.
Embodying a feverish Czech dance, the final movement rides along on a quick three-against-two rhythm that alternates with passages of lyrical melodic sweetness, before a funereal recapitulation brings us to the end. It wasn’t the end, though. The rapturously appreciative audience received an encore, this one courtesy of another Czech composer: Josef Suk, who wrote his Op. 23 “Elegie” in 1902 when his mentor (and father-in-law) Dvořák was nearing the end of his life safely back home in Bohemia.
The current season of the Aspect Chamber Music Series continues this spring with music of Liszt, Brahms, and Mozart.
