Beethoven, Brahms & Zimmermann: Viola Sonatas

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The magic, enigma and uniqueness of Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770–1827) Sonata "Kreutzer" in A major Op. 47 have influenced not only music history but also literature from Tolstoy to Dürrenmatt, and it takes a long search to find a chamber music work that has a similar nimbus. Wild and untamed not only the work itself but also its history of creation appears. Beethoven wrote the "Kreutzer Sonata" for the violinist George Bridgetower (1778–1860), who spent some time in Vienna in 1803 and became friends with Beethoven. After an unusually short period of creation by Beethoven’s standards, the Sonata was premiered at the Augarten in Vienna by Bridgetower and the composer at the piano.

Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918–1970) was the great loner of classical music in Germany after the end of the war and wrote one of the most interesting chamber music works of those years with the Violin Sonata from 1950. Zimmermann has spent his entire life dealing with Beethoven and his music is often interwoven with Beethoven’s work, so that a coupling of the sonatas is obvious. The Violin Sonata (1950) is a great example of his "pluralistic" compositional style in which different styles, past and present merge.

While Beethoven and Zimmermann are indeed looking to the future with their works, Johannes Brahms' (1833–1897) Viola Sonata in E-flat major Op. 120 No. 2 is a work of retrospect. Brahms had announced "two modest sonatas" for clarinet after his new encounter with clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld in Ischl/Austria in the summer of 1894, and conceived his last two instrumental works simultaneously for viola and piano. The Sonata in E-flat major is Brahms' last instrumental work, followed only by the Vier ernste Gesänge and the Chorale Preludes, Op. 122. © TYXart