STE R'E O

YEHUD! MENUHIN / ROBERT MASTERS / GECIL ARONOWITZ / ERNST WALLFISCH / MAURICE GENDRON / DEREK SIMPSON J6234

ALLEGRO FROM THE F-A-E SONATA: HEPHZIBAH AND YEHUDI MENUHIN

RUBENS: LANDSCAPE WITH RAINBOW-MUSEE DES BEAUX- ARTS, VALENCIENNES, FRANCE PHOTO: GIRAUDON

Library of Congress Catalog Card Numbers R 64-1509 (mono) and R 64-1510 (stereo) apply to this recording.

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Can Be Filed Under: Chamber Music * Menuhin

Johannes Brahms

SEXTET NO.1 IN B FLAT, Op. 18

From left to right: Yehudi Menuhin, Robert Masters, Ernst Wallfisch, Cecil Aronowitz, Derek Simpson and Maurice Gendron.

Yehudi Menuhin & Robert Masters (violins )

Cecil Aronowitz & Ernst Wallfisch (violas )

Maurice Gendron & Derek Simpson (cellos )

I. Allegro ma non troppo [side 1, band 1 — 12’08’’]

II. Andante, ma Moderato [side 1, band 2 — 10’29’]

III. Scherzo (Allegro molto) & Trio (Animato) [side 2, band 1 — 3’00’’]

IV. Rondo (Poco Allegretto e grazioso ) [side 2, band 2 — 11’16’’]

[Total: 36753’7]

ALLEGRO (Third Movement of the F-A-E Sonata)

[side 2, band 3 — 6’05”’]

Yehudi Menuhin (violin) & Hephzibah Menuhin (piano)

& © & HOW VALUABLE to Brahms was the friend-

ship of the violinist Joachim may be gauged from the opening of this Sextet for strings,

a passage that owes its final form to a sug-

gestion Joachim made to the composer. Not only did Joachim contribute to the success

of the work by taking part in its earliest per- formances (1860); at that time he also used

to help Brahms by criticizing his works, which Brahms sent to him for this purpose,

before they were published.

The B flat Sextet, the first of Brahms’ two essays in this medium, originally began

at what is now its eleventh bar. Joachim pointed out that the modulation to D flat

in the theme’s twelfth bar came too quickly. (Mozart, in the Musical Joke, had satirized

composers who left their key before estab-

lishing it firmly enough, and it was a trap

that Weber was apt to fall into.) On

Joachim’s advice, Brahms altered the fully

scored statement of the first leg of the theme into a counter-statement, preceding

it with a statement on the first cello. This makes the modulation more satisfying when

it does come, and later in the movement,

at the start of the recapitulation, it has the effect of intensifying the contrast of the

quite different modulation made there by altering the rhythmic proportions of the

theme as well as its harmonic progress.

Another cardinal point that may be ob-

served in these opening bars — and here it is the genius of Brahms himself that is dem- onstrated — is their irregular number. The

reason why this masterpiece, for all its

apparent leisureliness, never drags lies in its freedom of phrase-length. This is a feature that almost always distinguishes the master from the merely competent composer, who

can usually be recognized at once by his un- varying succession of 4- or 8-bar phrases.

The second movement is square in

thythm, but for one thing this is perfectly permissible in a variation movement, as

opposed to one that proceeds by develop- ment. And for another the sheer depth of

feeling of the noble D minor theme, so obviously Hungarian-Gypsy in inspiration,

and the richness and subtlety of its treat-

ment, especially in the almost unbearably

PHOTO: AXEL POIGNANT

beautiful 4th and 5th variations, make this the greatest of the four movements in qual-

ity of inspiration.

The third movement carries freedom to

even greater lengths than the first, especially in the trio, where the phrases overlap in

such a tumultuous manner that to count their length is a hopeless undertaking. This supremely classical procedure of turning the

end of one phrase into the beginning of

the next is finely exemplified again in the middle of the second occurrence of the finale’s rondo theme: here the first violin’s

cadence phrase turns out to have been, before we realized it, the first bar of the

theme. Such are the touches of combined inspiration and workmanship that keep

even this superficially languorous movement plentifully supplied with inner momentum. Nor should it be thought, any more than

with the finale of the second Piano Con- certo, that the emotional lightness of the

last two movements is out of place in a

context of such sublimity: a work is better with one supreme peak than with two, and

the 27-year-old composer’s fineness of judg- ment is shown by the sense of balance that

makes his scherzo and finale an ideal foil to what has gone before.

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The C minor Scherzo for violin and piano

is the movement Brahms contributed to a

composite sonata written in 1853 with his friends Albert Dietrich, who wrote the first

movement, and Schumann, who contrib-

uted an intermezzo and finale. Written to

greet Joachim when he arrived in Diissel- dorf, it was called the F.A.E. Sonata after his motto, ‘‘Frei aber einsam” (‘‘free but

lonely’’). Brahms based his movement on the first subject of Dietrich’s.

Note © 1964 BERNARD JACOBSON

MORE BY YEHUDI MENUHIN ON ANGEL

(S) indicates Stereo.

BAcH: The Musical Offering, BWV 1079.

With Elaine Shaffer, flute; members of the Bath Festival Orchestra. (S) 35731

HANDEL: The Twelve Concerti grossi, Op.

6. Bath Festival Orchestra. (S)D-3647 MozART: Sinfonia concertante in FE flat,

K.364; nAayDN: Violin Concerto No. 1 in C. With Rudolf Barshai, viola (in the

Mozart) and the Bath Festival Orchestra. (S) 36190

BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy. Yehudi Menuhin,

viola; Philharmonia Orchestra, Colin

Davis cond. (S) 36123 RAVEL: Trio in A minor; MozART: Trio No.

5 in E, K.542. With Gaspar Cassado, cello, and Louis Kentner, piano.

(S) 35630 BLocH: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

(1938). Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul

Kletzki cond. (S) 36192

STEREO S 36234

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