About the event
"BETWEEN MODERN AND ANCIENT?"
Program 7:30 pm on modern instruments:
Trio « L’Archiduc » op.97: I. Allegro moderato, II Scherzo. Allegro,
III. Andante Cantabile ma pero con moto, IV. Allegro moderato
Sonate « Waldstein » op.53 : I. Allegro con brio, II. Introduzione. Adagio molto,
III. Rondo : Allegretto moderato – Prestissimo
Intermission
Program 20h15 on Rosenberger 1820 piano :
Sonates Waldstein op.53 & op.109 by Laura Granero
Round table discussion at 9:30 pm between the trio Stimmung and Laura Granero
Presentation
Within this festival, which values the inspired interpretation of historical playing modes, this concert opens up the listening experience by proposing to hear Beethoven's pieces on modern instruments as well.
Listening to the interpretations - some of them using late Baroque instrumental sonorities and modes of play referring to the treatises of the time, others on modern instruments - will help to grasp part of the path of a Beethoven - an 18th century polyphonist and harmonist - who opened the passage to the 19th century. Beethoven developed new forms of writing that linked the discoveries of the new structures of the tonal system and the acoustic research of a violin making in full evolution.
The composer's writing was inspired by this research and the instrument makers responded to the composer's creative demands. This process of collaboration between the acoustician and the composer (a typically Beethovenian working method) is still very much alive in contemporary creation...
For the listening of the works heard today, I propose a reading of the Beethovenian creative process which seems to me to proceed from this complex and very complementary movement evoked above:
1° The Beethovenian elaboration of the forms, redistributes the original contrapuntal designs often broken on several registers, the harmonic and modulating grids, the expressive functions. It is a masterly exploration of the "possibilities" of the tonal system, of the baroque heritage at the time of equal temperament, beyond the specificities of instrumental timbres.
2° Simultaneously with the heritage of the 18th century, the "very modern and anticipatory" research of the timbres of the lutherie in full evolutionary research, in particular the search for the new acoustic dimensions of the sympathetic and spatial resonance, the amplification of sound.
This will be particularly the case for the corpus of 32 sonatas and chamber music. These works will open the way to the romantic piano to the orchestra of the 19th century, to an immense repertoire often referring to Beethoven, and this from March 26, 1827 to our days.
Michael Levinas
To be or not to be HIP*.
To be or not to be HIP, that is the question. Or perhaps the question is to try to play in search of beauty and truth, whatever instrument we choose to play with? In my case, for years I have been fascinated by historical instruments, the written sources of the time and early recordings before 1950. From the nineteenth century to the present, Beethoven has been the subject of much reflection, especially regarding his pianofortes and how they affected his compositions. However, to this day, few pianists have been interested in discovering or playing these instruments.
L’Andante favori, originally conceived for the Waldstein Sonata, was relegated to a separate movement. This Andante with the Sonata Opus 109 will be heard today on an 1828 Viennese fortepiano from the collection of Luca Montebugnoli.
In this concert, I would like to propose a rereading of these works by trying to rethink other canons of beauty from my research of past sources.
Laura Granero
*HIP : Historically Informed Performance
This project Between Moderns and Ancients was conceived with the Festival of La Chaise Dieu, concert on August 28, 2021 16h.