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●★ Rudolf Serkin - Beethoven Sonata Nr. 26『Les
Adieux』★●
Adagio
Allegro
Adante
espressivo
Vivacissiment
■ Rudolf
Serkin(1903~1991) ■
Rudolf Serkin (March 28, 1903 –
May 8, 1991), was a Bohemian-born pianist.
● Life and early career
Serkin was born in Eger, Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Cheb, Czech Republic) to a Russian-Jewish family.
Hailed as a child
prodigy, he was sent to Vienna
at the age of 9, where he studied piano with Richard Robert and, later,
composition with Joseph
Marx making his public debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at 12. From 1918 to 1920 he studied
composition with Arnold
Schoenberg and participated actively in Schoenberg's Society for the
Private Performance of Music. He began a regular concert career in 1920, living
in Berlin with the German violinist Adolf
Busch and his family, which included a then 3-year-old daughter Irene
whom Serkin would marry 15 years later. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Serkin
performed throughout Europe both as soloist and with Busch and the Busch
Quartet. With the rise of Hitler in Germany in 1933, Serkin and the Busches (who
were not Jewish but who vehemently opposed the Nazi regime) left Berlin for Basel, Switzerland.
In 1933 Serkin made his first United
States appearance at the Coolidge Festival in Washington, D.C., where he performed with Adolf Busch.
In 1936 he launched his solo concert career in the U.S. with the New York Philharmonic under Arturo
Toscanini. The critics raved, describing him as "an artist of unusual
and impressive talents in possession of a crystalline technique, plenty of
power, delicacy, and tonal purity." In 1937, Serkin played his first New York recital at Carnegie
Hall.
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Immigration to the United States
Shortly after the outbreak of World War
II in 1939, the Serkins and Busches immigrated to the United States, where
Serkin taught several generations of pianists at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From 1968 to 1976 he served as the
Institute's Director. He lived with his growing family first in New York, then
in Philadelphia, as well as on a dairy farm in rural Guilford, Vermont. In 1951, Serkin and Adolf Busch
founded the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont with the goal of stimulating interest in and
performance of chamber music in the United States. He made numerous recordings
from the 1940s into the 1980s, including one at RCA Victor of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in 1944, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toscanini. Most of
his recordings were made for Columbia Masterworks, although in the 1980s he also
recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and Telarc. Serkin admired the music of Max Reger, which he discovered while working with Adolf
Busch. In 1959, he became the first pianist in the United States to record
Reger's Piano Concerto, Op. 114, with Eugene
Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Serkin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 and in March 1972
celebrated his 100th appearance with the New York Philharmonic by playing Johannes
Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1. The orchestra and board of
directors also named Serkin an honorary member of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Society, a distinction
also conferred on Aaron
Copland, Igor
Stravinsky, and Paul
Hindemith. In 1986, he celebrated his 50th anniversary as a guest
artist with the orchestra. He is also regarded as one of the primary
interpreters of the music of Beethoven in the 20th century.
Revered as a musician's musician, a
father figure to a legion of younger players who came to the Marlboro School and
Festival, and a pianist of enormous musical integrity, he toured all over the
world and continued his solo career and recording activities until illness
prevented further work in 1989. He died of cancer on May 8, 1991, aged 88, at
home on his Guilford, Vermont farm.
He and Irene were the parents of seven
children (one of whom died in infancy),[1] including pianist
Peter Serkin and cellist Judith Serkin.[2] They also had
fifteen grandchildren. Irene Busch Serkin died in 1998.
● Awards and
recognitions
●
References
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● Beethoven-Sonata
N.26 in Eb
-
『Les Adieux』
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First two bars of the piece, indicating the
syllables 'Le - be wohl' over the three-note theme
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 26 in E
flat major, Op. 81a, known as the Les Adieux sonata,
was written during the years 1809 and 1810.
The title Les Adieux implies a programmatic nature. The French attack
on Vienna, led by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1809, forced Beethoven's patron,
Archduke Rudolph, to leave the city. Yet, there is some
uncertainty about this nature of the piece — or at least, about the degree to
which Beethoven wished this programmatic nature would be known. He titled the
three movements "Lebewohl," "Abwesenheit," and "Wiedersehen," and reportedly
regarded the French "Adieux" (said to whole assemblies or cities) as a poor
translation of the feeling of the German "Lebewohl" (said heartfully to a single
person) (Kolodin, 1975). Indeed, Beethoven had written the syllables
"Le-be-wohl" over the first three chords.[1]
On the first 1811 publication, a dedication was added reading on the
departure of his Imperial Highness, for the Archduke Rudolph in admiration".
An average performance of the piece lasts about 17 minutes. The sonata is one
of Beethoven's most challenging sonatas because of the mature emotions that must
be conveyed throughout it. It is also the bridge between his middle period and
his later period and is considered the third great sonata of the middle period.
The last movement is technically very challenging.
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● Form
Three movements of this sonata originally written in German and French, and
the last two movements are described in German because of the unusual tempo. The
translation in English shown in italic as below:
- Das Lebewohl (Les Adieux - The Farewell): Adagio - Allegro
- Abwesenheit (L'Absence - The Absence): Andante espressivo (In
gehender Bewegung, doch mit viel Ausdruck - In walking motion, but with much
ｅxpression)
- Das Wiedersehen (Le Retour - The Return): Vivacissimamente (Im
lebhaftesten Zeitmaße - The liveliest time measurements)
The sonata opens in a 2/4 time Adagio with a short, simple motif of three chords, over which are written the three
syllables Le-be-wohl ('Fare-thee-well'). This motif is the basis upon which both
the first and the second subject groups are drawn. As soon as the introduction is over and the exposition begins, the time signature changes to split
C (alla breve) and the score is marked Allegro. The first movement oscillates
between a turbulent first subject which portrays deep disturbance and a second
subject which is more lyrical in nature and gives the impression of reflections.
The rhythmic figure of two short notes and a longer note which is used
repeatedly in the first subject is developed inexorably through the
'development' section with rich harmonies and discords which are harmonically
closer to the later period of Beethoven's compositions than the middle for their
intellectual penetration. The movement has a surprisingly long coda which
occupies about three-tenths of the movement's length. The coda encompasses both
the subjects in a display of powerful mastery over composition. Typically the
movement played properly with repeats lasts a little over 7 minutes.
The Andante Espressivo is harmonically built on variations of the diminished
chord and the appoggiatura. The movement is very emotional and is often played
with a lot of rubato. A lot of the subject matter is rhythmically repeated
consecutively as well as sectionwise. This seems to be for emphasizing the
feelings of uncomfortable solitude with a fear that there will be no return.
However there is a return and the second movement leads directly into it with
the modulation to B flat major at the end. Typically the movement lasts just
under 4 minutes.
The finale, also in sonata
form, starts joyfully on the dominant, B flat, in 6/8 time. After the
startling introduction, the first subject shows up in the right hand and is
immediately transferred to the left hand, which is repeated twice with an
elaboration of the arrangement in the right hand. Before the second subject
group arrives, there's one remarkable bridge passage, introducing a phrase that
goes from G flat major to F major, first through distinctive forte arpeggios, then in a more delicate, fine piano arrangement.
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