Schedule for Vadim Repin (violin) and Nikolai Lugansky (piano) 2022

Composer: Ludwig Van Beethoven
Composer: Leos Janacek
Violin soloist: Vadim Repin
Composer: Edward Grieg
Piano: Nikolai Lugansky

Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra

Programme includes:
Leos Janacek. Sonata for violin and piano
Edvard Grieg. Sonata for violin and piano No. 2
Ludwig van Beethoven. Sonata for violin and piano No. 7

The Sonata for Violin and Piano is one of few works by Leos Janacek that managed to survive despite the composer’s unparalleled severity to himself. As far back as 1880 Janбиek wrote two violin sonatas, neither of which survive today. Janacek began working on the sonata in question in 1914, though it was a long time – in 1922 – before he allowed it out of his hands as he was continuously making amendments. This should come as no surprise as it is one of the Czech genius’ most original, capricious and highly lyrical works, at times speaking in an almost avant-garde language.
The most traditional section of the sonata is the second, a tranquil and lyrical Ballade that unexpectedly soars towards the ecstatic culmination. In the brilliant rhapsody of the first section (Con moto), the scherzo (Allegretto) and the slow finale (Adagio) there is a miraculous combination of colour worthy of the Impressionists, romantic passion and folkloric motifs (Janбиek was a folklorist “in the field” who collected thousands of folk melodies). The music of these sections is imbued with anxious and nervous motifs, now coming from the violin, now from the piano – the idea for the sonata emerged at the very outbreak of World War I.

Edvard Grieg completed his Second Sonata for Violin and Piano in July 1867, soon after his marriage to his cousin Nina, and it is dedicated to the violinist and composer Johan Svendsen. Grieg turned to violin music in 1865 as a result of performing together with the legendary Ole Bull. It was then that the composer had a new idea – to find the national Norwegian style. Already with the Second Violin Sonata he had achieved his aim.
Regardless of the G Minor tonality, the sonata is utterly bereft of drama and the music flows from minor key into major. This serene sonata is a true Norwegian idyll. Both parts were written in the rhythms of the Norwegian springar dance. The sonata sounds fresh and clear and the national intonations are given with all possible refinement. The musical material is, to a large degree, ornamental, and all three sections are rich in light and airy arabesques that come first from the violin but very quickly are taken up by the piano.

Ludwig van Beethoven often wrote sonatas specially for famous violinists of the age, but the three sonatas, Op. 30, that emerged in the spring of 1802 were intended for the amateur violinist Emperor Alexander I of Russia. It is probable that the fact they are dedicated to the Emperor occurred through Count Razumovsky, the Russian Ambassador in Vienna.
The start of 1802 was a time of flourishing in Beethoven’s life when he wrote music in abundance, though this was also when he lost any hope of his hearing’s improving and his sense of fate grew: in autumn the same year Beethoven wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament. This duality of his situation was reflected in his music: in opus 30 between the two beautiful sonatas in major there is the Sonata in C Minor, which in an analogy with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Minor may be called Pathetique. Instead of the standard three sections, in this one there are four. The longest and most ponderous is the second, the lofty Adagio cantabile. The third section is a scherzo in the primordial sense of the word (“jest”), where the mischievous rhythmic figures are knocked aside. However, the outer sections of the sonata are dramatic and perturbed, and several details (the march as a secondary theme in the first section and the threatening fateful basses) hint at the fact that this is music of a time of war.

Anna Bulycheva