These notes are supplemental to the printed notes. I took these and edited them down. This is the original verbiage.
Frédérick Chopin (1810-1849):
Nocturne No. 20, Opus posthumous, in C# minor, was composed in 1830 and dedicated to his sister Ludwika Chopin. It was first publicly performed by the Russian piano virtuoso and composer Mily Balakirov on October 17, 1894, during a ceremony dedicating a monument to Chopin in his birthplace, Zelazowa Wola, Poland, 45 years after his death.
There is no indication that Chopin ever intended this piece to be publicly performed or that it be included as one of his nocturnes. Chopin did not include this work with his published nocturnes and it was originally entitled Lento con gran expressione. He wrote it in Vienna shortly after arriving there in 1830 and sent it to his sister with a note suggesting that she should play it before she practiced his second piano concerto. The piece is unique among Chopin’s works in that it contains musical quotations from several of his other pieces (including his second piano concerto), none of which had been published at the time he composed it.
In 1875, more than a quarter century after Chopin’s death, the manuscript for the Lento was discovered by Chopin’s first Polish biographer, who convinced a publisher to issue it under the title “Adagio.” Because Chopin’s sister described the piece as a “Lento with the character of a nocturne,” Chopin scholars have classified it as one of his nocturnes.
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924):
Elégie for Cello and Piano, Op. 24, was composed in 1880 and first publicly performed in 1883 in Paris by cellist Jules Loeb with Fauré on piano.
The Elégie was Fauré’s first composition for cello and remains one of his most popular works. Written early in his career, it was intended to be the slow movement of a never-completed cello sonata. In 1880, it was first played through at the home of composer Camille Saint-Saens, who took on Fauré as a student in 1861, and became a mentor and a champion of Faure’s music. Due its popularity, Faure orchestrated the Elégie in 1901 and conducted the first performance with Pablo Casals as the soloist.
The Elégie is an unusually passionate work for Fauré, whose music is often described as subtle and subdued. Fauré biographer Jean-Michel Nectoux writes that the Elégie was one of the last works where Faure allowed himself “such a direct expression of pathos.” Nectoux further states that the Elégie is “one of the last manifestations of French musical Romanticism. From now on, Fauré’s music was to be more introverted and discreet.”
Reinhold Glière (1875-1956):
Today’s pieces, four selections from 8 Duets for Violin and Cello, Op. 39, were composed in 1909 when Gliere was a music professor at the Gresin Institute in Moscow.
Glière is a Russian composer most famous for the Russian Sailor’s Dance from his ballet The Red Poppy, a staple item at Pops Concerts. A musical conservative, Glière’s career in Russia began under the Tsar and ended after the death of Stalin. While best known for his symphonies, concertos, and ballets, Glière also wrote chamber music, including four string quartets, two string sextets, and various duets for stringed instruments.
The Duets are a sequence of brief dances and songs that test the mettle of both players.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918):
The Danse-taratelle styrienne for piano was composed in 1890. It was first published in 1891 with the original title but was republished in 1903 as simply Danse.
Danse is one of Debussy’s earliest piano pieces, written in 1890 when Debussy was living the life of a starving Bohemian artist in Paris. Since there is no record of Debussy ever traveling to Styria, a province of Austria, it is assumed that the original title was simply intended to capitalize on the French love of exotic themes in salon music.
Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772):
Le Coucou (“The Cuckoo”) for keyboard. It was first published in 1735 as part of a collection of harpsichord pieces, Pieces de Clavecin.
Daquin is a French baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer who was a contemporary of the great French composers Rameau and Couperin. He was known as a dazzling virtuoso, famous for the “unfaltering precision and evenness” of his playing. These qualities are required in the “moto perpetuo” 18th notes found in Le Coucou, Daquin’s most famous and popular piece, which, of course, also imitates the distinctive two-note call of the Cuckoo bird.
Robert Helps (1928-2001):
Homage a Fauré for piano. The piece is one of Three Homages for piano composed in 1973. The other two pieces are homages to Rachmaninov and Ravel.
Helps is an American pianist, composer, and professor, who as a performer was recognized as one of the foremost interpreters of Twentieth Century piano music. Helps had a strong connection to Princeton University, as he studied composition and theory with the eminent Princeton composer Roger Sessions, taught at Princeton between 1972 and 1978, and premiered and interpreted piano works by another Princeton music professor, Milton Babbit. Helps as a composer is described in Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Musicians as having “developed a personal style of expression while utilizing 12-tone techniques.
Helps acknowledged that Homage a Faure was atypical of his work in that it is “more tonal than the rest of my output.” Perhaps not surprisingly, it is also one of his most frequently played pieces, often included as the “contemporary piece“ in piano competitions and conservatory recitals. Helps noted that he gave the piece its title long after he composed it and therefore he did not an attempt to “imitate the style of Fauré.” Rather, the work is intended to perhaps evoke moods similar to those found in Fauré’s piano works.
The final work on today’s program, Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, was composed in 1915 and dedicated to his wife Emma. It was first performed in London and Geneva in 1916 and was finally performed in Paris in 1917 with Joseph Salman on cello and Debussy on piano.
Claude Debussy (1862-1918):
The Cello Sonata was composed during a difficult time in Debussy’s life. Afflicted with the colorectal cancer since 1909 that would eventually kill him in 1918, Debussy was in almost constant pain and had largely stopped composing. Moreover, the outbreak of World War One in 1914 had reduced drastically royalties from Debussy’s music, exacerbating his constant money troubles (Debussy was never good with money and lived in genteel poverty with enormous debts). The war itself contributed to Debussy’s anxieties, with German forces several times threatening his home in Paris.
At the urging of his publisher, Debussy began writing a series of six sonatas for varied instruments. He would only complete three of the projected six: the Cello Sonata, a Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp, and a Sonata for Violin and Piano. The Cello Sonata was the first of those to be completed.
The Cello Sonata was also the first piece of chamber music written by Debussy since composing his String Quartet in 1893. It is unusual in Debussy’s music for being written as an abstract classical sonata form without reference to poetical titles or literary references. Indeed, Debussy angrily rejected one cellist’s suggestion that the sonata had a specific “program” and that the composer intended it to have the subtitle “Pierrot Angry at the Moon.” Instead, the Cello Sonata can be viewed as a political statement by Debussy in response to German aggression during the war, with its cover inscription stating that the sonata was written by Debussy, a “French musician.”
With the piano part largely serving as a “continuo” as in an 18th Century Baroque sonata, the sonata requires the cellist to use a variety of exotic techniques without the long legato lines often found in other cello sonatas. Indeed, one early critic accused Debussy of trying to turn the cello into a bass guitar in his sonata. Nevertheless, the sonata has been recognized as one of masterpieces of the Twentieth Century cello literature, with virtually every prominent cellist recording it over the years.