PROGRAM NOTES: MURRAY

PERAHIA
Posted on March 3, 2012 by VRS

J. S. Bach: French Suite no. 5 in G major, BWV 816

Bach’s Partitas, English Suites and French Suites – six of each – collectively rank among the glories of the keyboard

literature. Each is a four-part sequence of dance movements, all in the same key but varied in rhythm, tempo and

mood: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue. Each movement has a different national origin, respectively

German, French, Spanish and English/Irish. To this basic framework additional movements, usually of French origin

are found between the Sarabande and Gigue. These dance movements are generally in binary form, with each half

repeated.

The French Suites were probably written sometime between 1717 and 1720 while Bach was serving

as Kapellmeister and composer in the service of Duke Leopold of Anhalt at Cöthen. No reference to the moniker

“French” is found in any of Bach’s surviving manuscripts. He called them simply Suites pour le clavecin; the

designation is in French, but the “English” Suites (again, not Bach’s title) also bear French titles (Suites avec leurs

préludes). The first reference to “French” Suites is found only in 1762, twelve years after Bach’s death, by the critic

and theorist Friedrich W. Marpurg. Numerous musicologists and program annotators have attempted to determine just

what is specifically “French” about these suites, but in the final analysis, the answer is “very little, if anything.”

The Fifth French Suite opens with an Allemande of uncommon graciousness and closes with a Gigue requiring great

technical facility and a firm sense of rhythm. An Allemande characteristically consists of quietly flowing, continuous

sixteenth-note motion, beginning with an upbeat, and moves in moderately slow quadruple (4/4) metre.

The lively Courante takes its name from the French courir (to run). This movement too is characterized by continuous

motion, but is generally faster than the Allemande and is in triple metre.

The Sarabande, slowest of the movements, is stately, dignified, and full of elaborate embellishments to the simple

melodic line. It is in triple metre, with the second beat of each measure heavily weighted.

The Gavotte in this suite is a bright and breezy piece, often found in collections for young pianists to play.

The Bourrée is a folk dance in quick duple metre and beginning with an upbeat. It originated in the Auvergne in the mid

sixteenth century. Its name comes from bourrir, meaning to flap wings. Bourrées often come in pairs, with the second

usually of contrasting character.

The rapid and brilliant Gigue, in lilting 6/8 metre, serves as the suite’s finale. Philipp Spitta, Bach’s first biographer,

believed that “the hearer goes away with a sense of pleasant excitement.”

Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata no. 27 in E minor, Op. 90

This sonata is one of the few in Beethoven’s canon of 32 in two movements only. In certain respects, it is a harbinger

of the composer’s last work in the genre, the great Op. 111 in C minor (still eight years in the future), in that it contrasts

a tempestuous, volatile movement in the minor tonality (E) with a calm, even serene one in the major. Even the first

movement’s sonata form and peremptory opening gesture are analogous to those of Op. 111.

The strongly defined contrast between the two movements has an apocryphal biographical explanation. Beethoven

dedicated the sonata to his aristocratic friend Count Moritz von Lichnowsky, who was engaged to be married.

Presumably, the composer said that it depicted “a contest between head and heart,” which may have been

Beethoven’s rough-humoured way of casting doubt on the suitability of the match. Some listeners like to hear the two

movements as representing instead speech and song, or prose and poetry. Eric Blom suggests a more general

scenario: “All that matters is that we have here two wonderfully contrasted movements which do suggest, in a way

applicable to mankind at large, some sort of passionate quest attended by a satisfying discovery, some agitating

problem followed by a calming solution.” Beethoven’s detailed performance directions for each movement indicate the

care he took to ensure an emotionally committed execution: 1) “With animation, and with feeling and expression

throughout”; 2) “Not too fast, and in a very singing manner.”