SCHUMANN SONATA NO.1 OP.105 FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO

Alexandra Wood explores the passionate and highly effective work of a composer tormented by his own ideals

From Schumann Violin Sonata in A minor. Urtext Edition, paperbound with marked and unmarked string parts. Ed. Wiltrud Haug-Freienstein. Pf fingering Hans-Martin Theopold. Vn markings Kurt Guntner. Order no. HN 428, ISMN 979-0-2018-0428-6. €16.50. Printed with permission of G. Henle Verlag, Munich © 1994

Written in just a few days in September 1851 when the composer confessed to being ‘extremely angry with certain people’, Schumann’s first Violin Sonata is a telling witness to his feelings. Things were not going well for him as Düsseldorf’s municipal music director, but at least the concertmaster of the Düsseldorf Musikverein, Wilhelm Josef von Wasielewski, appreciated his musicianship, describing the ‘depth of feeling and wealth of creativity’ evident in this piece. From the very start of the first movement we are launched into the drama and borne along on the tide of its momentum. There is no introduction, just a passionate theme underpinned by the piano right hand, which is always off the beat and which generates an urgency in a similar way to Fauré’s piano chamber music. It is like opening the door and stepping straight into a rather dark and troubled world.

Urgency and monothematicism

It’s easy to feel an affinity with his music as there’s something so immediate – even tortured – about it. It feels slightly suppressed with a lot happening beneath the surface – alittle bit like being British! Particularly in this first movement, the piano bubbles away constantly like a cauldron. Occasionally it explodes as Schumann makes a statement with four unarpeggiated chords, but the rest of the time it’s simmering away and how the composer creates that effect is both really exciting and quite unsettling.

It should feel inexorable, and with the constant momentum you need to be prepared to rein in tendencies towards too much Romantic rubato. Of course there needs to be space, but if a performance takes time at every corner I think it loses direction – and of course those tempo changes are not written. The power comes from the drive and focus heading to the chordal pillar points, and the end. Schumann uses the material in such a taut way that it’s essentially monothematic, and that helps in getting the obsessive feel.

The way Schumann voices different characters is something I try to keep in mind when I’m performing this piece. You would think the solo instrument was a viola at first (which is an effect that Schumann uses a lot) as the theme is stated on the G string at the beginning, but the way it then moves to a higher register is almost operatic. It’s saying the same thing, but in subtly different ways.

Articulation markings

The other general point to note about this piece is that Schumann is very particular about his markings. So you have lots of different accents: short hairpins, as in the first bar; sforzandos; conventional accents; fortepianos; sforzando-pianos; and martellato signs in bars 38 and 39, for example, and you need to make a conscious decision as to how you are going to play those differently. You could do them any number of ways; it doesn’t matter – whether it’s going to be more bow speed, more attack or more left hand – but whichever way you choose it’s worth coming up with a master plan. I think it’s important to keep in mind that you have to be consistent in your approach, but that all the different accents need their own character.

Expressive bow

The rising and falling phrases of the opening have a real swing to them, which continues throughout the piece. It should be really clear that it’s in 6/8 and for this reason it’s important to use the right hand expressively. We can create so many different sound worlds and colours by varying our bow speed, and planning bow division carefully. I like to practise the opening phrase quite slowly, with no vibrato and without thinking about expressive fingering, but just using the right hand to try and get the maximum swell in the first bar, for example, and later the hairpins and the fortepiano. Isolating the bow arm in this way means you can check it’s really working.

In general we tend to rely on shifts and vibrato to achieve our expressive aims and of course these are really important. But sometimes we forget that we need to use our right hand to phrase in the same way that singers and wind and brass players use their breathing. Each bar of this theme feels very much like an inhalation and an exhalation and we can use our bow to do achieve that.

It’s easy to feel an affinity with his music as there’s something so immediate – even tortured – about it

Long lines

The second phrase, which starts on the D string, is longer and marked crescendo. Generally when Schumann writes the word crescendo it denotes a sustained growth in dynamic, as opposed to shorter shapes, which are usually marked with hairpin signs. For this second phrase, I interpret the repetition of the word crescendo as showing the gradual progression from bars 11–23. In terms of creating that shape with the right hand, you might start with less bow and gradually use more length, or focus on grading the pressure or the point of contact. There are so many options in your palette, as it were, but it is also important to hold a clear direction in mind as you play this phrase and remember the sustained crescendo, even in the absence of signs.

In places like bars 31–34 and 145–148 Schumann uses repetition to drive the music forward, much like Beethoven would, so here again I pace myself by using increasing amounts of bow length and bow speed. It’s like a crescendo: the first sforzando isn’t too big, the second is bigger and so on until the last one, which can take all the bow. I try not to be too conservative in these big moments. We may be taught to maintain focus in the sound with careful use of the bow but in bar 34, for example, you can get quite a wild sound by using almost too much bow, and I think that’s a good thing.

When the music shifts to the major in bar 35 we don’t have as many expression markings – there are no hairpins, and it’s the first time we can feel stable as the sand is not constantly shifting. The theme is essentially the same rhythmically but it has a sunnier quality to it: perhaps the sense of gazing at out an open view.

Uniqueness of the development and the power of piano

With so much taut reworking of thematic material throughout the movement, the development asserts its identity with shorter phrases that are overlapped to sound more nervous than tumultuous. It is the only part of the piece with accents marked sforzando piano, so again we must consider how to make these distinct from the other accents throughout the movement. I think they need to be short and sharp, played purely with speed and weight of bow, rather than with vibrato.

It is also the only time the main theme appears in augmented form – something Schumann is fond of doing particularly towards the end of his songs. Stealthily used to introduce the recapitulation here, this is arguably the most important point in the piece, so the first augmented statement is an octave higher than the rest of the main thematic material. Bar 110 is marked with a soft dynamic, but the composer wants it to be heard.

The very softest moment of the piece, and the only place that is marked pianissimo, is a few bars into the coda at bar 183. After circling over F and E pedals the music seems to run out of energy before gathering momentum once more.

The last section requires us to prepare carefully and to take risks. Bars 189–192 can be practised slowly to let the feeling of each of the intervals become part of the body. At tempo there is something fast and mechanical about it, but when played well, each note stands in relation to the others and therefore will be slightly different. And although we would normally focus on neat and accurate wrist movement for a string crossing passage like the one from bar 199, we can afford bigger movements to let the music sweep towards its dramatic end.

INTERVIEW BY HELENA RUINARD