Andreas Romberg - Sonata for piano and violin in B flat major, Op.9 No.2 скачать в хорошем качестве

Andreas Romberg - Sonata for piano and violin in B flat major, Op.9 No.2

James Woodrow – Violin Alexander Woodrow - Piano Live concert recording at Bradford Cathedral 12th April 2016 0:00 Allegro non molto 7:52 Larghetto cantabile 'There's cauld kail in Aberdeen' 11:09 Allegretto 'Down the burn, and thro' the mead' With thanks to Stewart Smith for producing the live recording and the music team at Bradford Cathedral. The three Sonatas for Piano and Violin Op.9 are the only set of sonatas for this instrumentation by German violinist and composer Andreas Romberg (1767-1821). Romberg is a scarcely known composer with audiences today. The music of his cellist/composer cousin, Bernhard Romberg, is slightly better known. Andreas Romberg’s oeuvre encompasses a wide variety of musical genres; amongst others: eight operas, a ‘Messiah’ (presumably he knew of Handel’s), and instrumental works including nine symphonies, twenty violin concertos and various chamber music pieces. Andreas Romberg’s musical, and presumably social, milieu was impressive. After an early career as a soloist, in 1790 he joined the electoral court orchestra in Bonn as an orchestral violinist. Also in this orchestra was the young Beethoven on viola (he left the orchestra in November 1792 to make his way as a composer in Vienna). Other players in the orchestra included his cousin Bernhard, Anton Reicha on flute and Franz Anton Ries (Beethoven’s violin teacher and father of Ferdinand, who in turn was to be the most notable student of Beethoven). With such an embarrassment of riches, it was presumably a remarkable ensemble. When Napoleon’s army invaded in 1793, Romberg fled to Hamburg where he worked with the opera orchestra there. Romberg visited Vienna in 1796, where he became friends with Joseph Haydn, who at this stage was at the peak of his career. Romberg remained in Hamburg until 1815 when taking up the post of Hofkapellmeister in Gotha, succeeding Louis Spohr. He remained here until his death in 1821. The title page of the sonatas from the first edition published in Berlin in 1804 describes the works as ‘Three Sonatas for the Pianoforte with the accompaniment of the Violin’. The wording, humbling for the violinist, builds on a relatively new genre previously championed by Mozart in his sonatas for the two instruments. Mozart is likely to have been influenced in this new chamber music genre by composers Johann Schobert and Johann Gottfried Eckhard. The accompanied sonata genre is in contrast to the other new type of instrumental composition, the duo concertante, championed by composers such as Anton Reicha and Louis Spohr, where the violin is more prominent and as a result the writing is inevitably more virtuosic. The second sonata, Op.9 No.2, is arguably the finest of the set. Movements two and three are based on Scottish folk tunes, ‘There’s Cauld Kail in Aberdeen’ and ‘Down the burn, and thro’ the mead’ marked in the score respectively. Although not marked in the score, the second subject of the first movement can be identified as the Irish tune Si bheag, si mhor. The adaptation of folk tunes was popular at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries, including in works by Haydn and Beethoven. Romberg is likely to have acquired the melodies from James Johnson’s ‘Scottish Musical Museum’ which were printed in a series of volumes between 1786-1803. It is very unlikely that Romberg heard traditional Scottish music himself, although there is a faint imitation of bagpipe like drones in the piano part in the third movement. This is certainly not a copy of traditional Scottish folk music, but perhaps a gentler imitation which makes up a finely structured and melodically lyrical miniature sonata. Image: New Abderdeen, Alexander Nasmyth. Aberdeen City Council Collection (Collective Commons agreement for non-commercial use) My Links Subscribe    / @jameswoodrowviolin   Twitter   / jspwoodrow   LinkedIn   / james-woodrow-08912240