Leif Ove Andsnes

and Friends
Saturday 28 May 2016 7.00pm
Milton Court Concert Hall

Brahms Piano Quartet No1 in G minor, Op25

interval 20 minutes

Brahms Piano Quartet No2 in A major, Op26

Brahms Piano Quartet No3 in C minor, Op60
Chris Aadland

Leif Ove Andsnes piano

Christian Tetzlaff violin
Tabea Zimmermann viola
Clemens Hagen cello

Part of the LSO Artist Portrait on

Leif Ove Andsnes

Part of Barbican Presents 201516

Programme produced by Harriet Smith;

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 Welcome

Welcome to this evenings concert, the
Barbicans contribution towards the current
LSO Artist Portrait series featuring the
celebrated Norwegian pianist Leif Ove
Andsnes.
one of the sunniest of Brahmss large-scale
pieces. To perform them, Leif Ove is joined by
three of the finest string players on the planet:
Christian Tetzlaff, Tabea Zimmermann and
Clemens Hagen.

Following appearances earlier this month
with the London Symphony Orchestra in
concertos by Mozart and Schumann, he
now turns his attention to the chamber
music of Brahms. The three piano quartets
are such a substantial feast that they rarely
appear in a single concert, but tonight we
have the opportunity to explore Brahmss
development from the turbulent G minor
Quartet, written when he was still in his
twenties, to the unequivocal mastery of the
Third. The Second acts as a counterweight,
Looking ahead, the LSO Artist Portrait series
ends on 10 June with a solo recital featuring
Leif Oves beloved Sibelius, along with
works by Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy.
Meanwhile, the Barbican Presents series
concludes with two contrasting piano recitals:
Steven Osborne performs the music of
Crumb and Feldman on 31 May and Murray
Perahia plays Beethovens Hammerklavier
Sonata alongside Haydn, Mozart and
Brahms on 20 June.
I hope you enjoy the concert.
Huw Humphreys
Head of Music

Barbican Classical Music Podcasts

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artists from around the world. Recent artists include
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Available on iTunes, Soundcloud and the Barbican website
2

Johannes Brahms (183397)
Piano Quartet No1 in G minor, Op25
(185761)
1 Allegro . 2 Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo
3 Andante con moto . 4 Rondo alla Zingarese: Presto
Piano Quartet No2 in C major, Op26 (1862)
1 Allegro non troppo . 2 Poco adagio
3 Scherzo: Poco allegro . 4 Finale: Allegro
Piano Quartet No3 in C minor, Op60
(18556/18735)
1 Allegro non troppo . 2 Scherzo: Allegro
3 Andante . 4 Finale: Allegro comodo
Piano Quartet No 1 in G minor
Brahmss First Piano Quartet is a product of
turbulent times. The first ideas probably began to
form around 1857, the year following the death
of Brahmss inspiring but also highly unstable
mentor Robert Schumann. The score wasnt
completed however until September 1861. At this
stage composing on a large scale took Brahms
a colossal amount of mental effort and plenty
of angst. To make matters worse, he was also
grappling with another, still more obstinate piano
quartet, the one we know as No 3, but which
didnt reach its familiar final form until 1875, two
decades later.
Part of the problem was that Schumann had laid
a huge burden of responsibility on his young
protg. The symphony, Schumann insisted, was
Brahmss true vocation: and Brahms clearly saw
large-scale chamber works as a way of practising
fully fledged symphonic writing just as Schubert
before him had seen his A minor and Death and
the Maiden quartets as stages on his path to a
grand symphony. But the great model Schumann
had in mind, Beethoven, was an abominably hard
Programme notes
act to follow. Have you any idea how difficult it is,
Brahms grumbled several years later, with such a
giant marching behind you?
To make matters worse, Brahms was also
wrestling with his feelings for Schumanns widow
Clara. There has been plenty of argument about
the precise nature of their relationship. Was Clara
Brahmss lover, platonic muse or an eroticised
mother figure? (She was 14 years older than him.)
Whatever the case, his attachment was intense
and apparently lifelong. Evidence of this inner
conflict can be heard in the First Piano Quartet,
not only in the Sturm und Drang character of the
opening movement, but in the telling use of a
musical code, invented by Schumann, associated
with the woman Brahms now adored. The
plaintive little figure played by the first violin at
the start of the Intermezzo second movement
is a transposed version of Schumanns motif,
CBAG sharpA: the B standing for L and the
G sharp for R: thus CLARA.
The closely argued thematic development of the
first movement, with both long lines and dramatic
contrasts growing from the seminal four-note
3
 motif at the start, clearly represents a big step
towards symphonic thinking. At the same time,
the relationship between the piano and the
string instruments sometimes stern contention,
sometimes intimate dialogue shows that Brahms
is developing a true feeling for chamber music. In
the second movement intimacy here connected
explicitly with the Clara motif comes to the fore.
Brahms originally called this movement Scherzo,
but he seems to have realised that this was a
long way from the typical dynamic Beethovenian
scherzo; Intermezzo is a much better title for this
delicate, nervous, shadow-haunted movement.
The Andante con moto begins with one of those
long-breathed Brahmsian melodies that go on
unfolding for phrase after inspired phrase, all
beautifully suited to the full piano quartet sound.
But the quasi-martial central section is more
like an arrangement of an orchestral piece, the
kind of arrangement popular in middle-class
households in Brahmss time. After this comes the
Rondo alla Zingarese (Gypsy Rondo), firmly in
the dark minor key, yet worlds away from tragedy.
Brahms had a lifelong love for Hungarian folk
music and this wild Hungarian hoedown with its
almost silent-cinema piano cadenza near the end
suggests a healthy resolution to dance Sturm
und Drang right out of the system. The dark but
exhilarating coda shows that, despite what Hugo
Wolf later claimed, Brahms could indeed exult.
interval: 20 minutes
Piano Quartet No 2 in A major
If the Second Piano Quartet sounds as though
it had a much less difficult birth than either of its
minor-key neighbours, the evidence bears this
out. Certainly the labour was far less protracted!
Overall this is one of Brahmss sunniest chamber
works; it is also the longest, most performances
weighing in at around 50 minutes. But in this
case the length has less to do with Brahmss
symphonic ambitions, and rather more to do
with his growing love for the music of Schubert,
whose large-scale works heinously neglected
in his own lifetime were beginning to be
discovered and valued around the time Brahms
wrote this quartet. His mentor Schumann had
praised Schubert for his heavenly length a
spaciousness born not from extended musical
4
argument, but from a wonderful melodic
generosity. Brahmss own love of generating long,
continually evolving melodies owes much more to
Schubert than it does to Beethoven.
The Second Piano Quartets first movement
shows a side of Brahmss musical character
for which he still isnt given enough credit his
feeling for rhythm. The finale of the First Quartet
made great play with decidedly un-Classical,
un-Germanic three-bar phrase lengths, but in the
Second Quartets opening the rhythmic games
are gentler and subtler. Listening to the pianos
relaxed opening theme it isnt always easy to tell
where the beat is. The alternation of triplets and
duplets (onetwothree onetwothree one
twothreefour) and the carefully positioned rests
make this theme unusually rhythmically slippery.
But that in itself makes it ripe for development,
as Brahms shows throughout this long but
remarkably fertile movement. The feeling for
intimate instrumental dialogue that emerges in
sections of the First Quartet is intensified and
enriched here. A lovely example comes in the
coda, where the slippery opening rhythm is
shared between piano and strings, but at a
beats distance a kind of affectionately mock-
academic canon.
After this comes what Brahmss friend the
virtuoso violinist and composer Joseph Joachim
aptly called the wonderful Poco adagio with
its ambiguous passion. In its alternation of
delicious long-breathed lyricism with moments
of mystery and, later, darker outbursts, it
feels at times like a conscious tribute to one
of Schuberts half transcendent, half death-
haunted slow movements. Brahms titled the
third movement Scherzo, but again its gently
flowing opening idea is far closer to Schubert
than to any of Beethovens titanic models until,
that is, the rugged minor-key Trio turns wistful,
tender instrumental dialogue into dramatic
confrontation. Like the First Quartet, folk music
possibly with more of a Slavic accent this time
leaves its mark on the Finale. As in the other three
movements (and in marked contrast to the First
and Third Quartets), Brahms allows the material
plenty of time to work itself out: further evidence
of how liberating he found the encounter with
Schubert there were more ways of creating
large-scale forms than via Beethovens tense,
concentrated dialectical drama.
pause: 5 minutes

Piano Quartet No 3 in C minor
Brahms may have seen composing the First,
and perhaps also the Second Piano Quartet
as an important stage on the path to a grand
symphony, but what he also discovered in
the process was how valuable chamber music
could be as a vehicle for his more private
thoughts and feelings. Not that this meant
an end to his artistic struggles. The Third
Quartet is perhaps the most personal, the most
autobiographical even, of all his chamber
works which must at least partly explain why
it took him so long to complete it and release it
into the world.
Programme notes
for copycat suicides. By adopting this bluff
jocular posture Brahms may have been trying
to convince himself that he had overcome the
emotional trials of his younger self. But when
he sent the completed score off to his publisher
Simrock, the compulsion was clearly still there
only now Brahms seems to have got the clothing
issue right:
On the cover you must have a picture, namely
a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form
some conception of the music! Ill send you my
photograph for the purpose. You can use the
blue coat, yellow trousers and top-boots, since
you seem to like colour printing.

He began working on the quartet in 1855, the There is however nothing jocular about the
year after Schumann had been admitted to a music. At the opening, one of the darkest
lunatic asylum, leaving the 22-year-old Brahms in all Brahms, the pianos stark octaves are
to help out in the Schumann household. There followed on the strings by another version of
is evidence that at some stage during this the Clara motif, outlined in the First Quartets
traumatic period Brahmss painfully conflicting second-movement Intermezzo. This time
feelings for Clara Schumann led him to however a slight stammering hesitation on the
consider suicide. When he came to take up the first two notes could almost be said to utter
quartet again in 18734, nearly 20 years later, Claras name. According to Brahms, only this
he made a series of strange statements about sombre, passionate first movement and the
the works emotional character. At face value succeeding Scherzo survive from the original
they look like black jokes, self-mockery of a Quartet of 18556, but theres little, if any sense
peculiarly blunt kind. But the posture is almost of discontinuity with the two movements that
certainly defensive. follow a fact that has led some commentators
to speculate that they may also be based on
First, to his friend, the surgeon Theodor Billroth material from 18556 or thereabouts. The
Brahms writes that he has given the quartet Scherzo is unusually stormy and driven by
a thorough overhaul, revising two of the Brahmss standards. But then the Andante
movements and composing two completely begins with what sounds like an exquisitely
new ones. The result, he says, is a curiosity tender love song for cello and piano, eventually
perhaps an illustration for the last chapter answered as though in a kind of ideal duet
about the man in the blue coat and the yellow by the violin. A restless violin solo, against rapid
waistcoat. This as just about everyone in the running figures on the piano, launches perhaps
German-speaking world would have realised the most enigmatic of Brahmss finales. Storms
at the time was a reference to Johann soon erupt again, but then what might be the
Wolfgang von Goethes hugely successful novel significance of the hymn-like second theme for
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), which strings, with its almost teasing piano responses?
depicts an agonising love-triangle: Werther is Minor-key tension yields at the last minute to
desperately in love with a woman betrothed a notionally brighter C major: a hushed string
to another, older man, one whom Werther chord then two emphatic thuds from the full
admires. Convinced that the only way to end this ensemble. But, as the writer Donald Tovey aptly
painful emotional impasse is to remove himself put it, this comes far too late for happiness.
from the equation, Werther shoots himself. The Perhaps the kind of deliverance Brahms had
novel was such a success that across Europe in mind was closer to that of Goethes tortured
moody young men took to dressing in Werthers young hero.
trademark blue coat and yellow trousers.
(Brahms was wrong about the waistcoat.) Its Programme notes Stephen Johnson
even reported that there was a passing vogue
5
 About the performers
zgr Albayrak
Giorgia Bertazzi
Leif Ove Andsnes
Leif Ove Andsnes piano
Leif Ove Andsnes gives recitals and plays
concertos in the worlds leading concert halls and
with its foremost orchestras, besides being an
active recording artist. An avid chamber musician,
he was co-artistic director of the Risr Festival for
nearly two decades and this August launches the
Rosendal Chamber Music Festival in Norway. He
was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame
in 2013.
Last autumn saw the release of Concerto
ABeethoven Journey, a documentary directed by
Phil Grabsky. This chronicles Leif Ove Andsness
four-season focus on Beethovens music for piano
and orchestra, which took him to 108 cities in 27
countries for more than 230 live performances.
Other highlights of this season include major
European and North American solo recital
tours, as well as Schumann and Mozart
concerto collaborations in the USA with the
Chicago Symphony, Cleveland and Philadelphia
orchestras. In Europe he appears with the Bergen
and Munich Philharmonic orchestras, Zurich
Tonhalle, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and
London Symphony Orchestra, as well as on the
current tour of Brahmss piano quartets.
Leif Ove Andsnes now records exclusively for
Sony Classical and his Beethoven Journey with
the Mahler Chamber Orchestra has won many
awards. His discography also features more than
30 discs for EMI Classics, in repertoire ranging
from Bach to the present day.
6
Christian Tetzlaff
Christian Tetzlaff violin
Equally at home in Classical, Romantic and
contemporary repertoire, Christian Tetzlaff sets
standards with his interpretations of the violin
concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky,
Berg and Ligeti, and is renowned for his innovative
chamber music projects and Bach performances.
He regularly works with many of todays leading
orchestras and conductors and this season
performs with the Boston and San Francisco
Symphony orchestras, Philadelphia Orchestra,
Minnesota Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus
Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie
Bremen, Staatskapelle Dresden, Israel and
London Philharmonic orchestras and Budapest
Festival Orchestra.
Chamber music activities include a one-week
residency at Toppan Hall in Tokyo, concerts with
regular trio partners Lars Vogt and Tanja Tetzlaff,
as well as with the Tetzlaff Quartet, and the
current tour of Brahmss piano quartets.
Christian Tetzlaffs recordings have received
numerous prizes, including the Diapason
dOr, Edison, MIDEM Classical and ECHO
Klassik awards. His discography includes violin
concertos by Beethoven, Dvork, Lalo, Mozart,
Shostakovich, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Jrg
Widmann; Mark-Anthony Turnages Mambo Blues
and Tarantella; violin sonatas by Mozart, Bartk,
Schumann and Brahms; and Bachs Solo Sonatas
and Partitas.

Marco Borggreve
Tabea Zimmermann
Tabea Zimmermann viola
Tabea Zimmermann is one of the most renowned
musicians of our time and her charismatic
personality and deep musical understanding are
valued equally by both her audiences and her
fellow musicians.
As a soloist she regularly works with the most
distinguished orchestras worldwide. Highlights
this season include an artistic residency at the
Frankfurt Museums-Gesellschaft, concerts with
Dnes Vrjon and the Arcanto Quartet, orchestral
concerts featuring works by Hindemith and
Walton and Bartks Viola Concerto with the
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.
The Arcanto Quartet, with violinists Antje Weithaas Chamber Orchestra of Europe, NHK Symphony
and Daniel Sepec and cellist Jean-Guihen
Queyras, continues to be a special focus for her
chamber music activities. This season she gives the As well as concerto performances and his
premiere of a new trio by Jrg Widmann at the
Zurich Tonhalle, together with the composer and
Dnes Vrjon, as well as taking part in the current Argerich, Renaud Capuon, Itamar Golan, Paul
tour of Brahmss piano quartets.
Tabea Zimmermann has inspired numerous
composers to write for the viola and has
introduced many new works into the standard
concert and chamber music repertoire.
On the occasion of the Hindemith anniversary
in 2013, she released a complete recording of
the composers viola works on Myrios Classics,
which has been highly acclaimed, adding to her
substantial and award-winning discography.
About the performers
Clemens Hagen
Clemens Hagen cello
Cellist Clemens Hagen was born in Salzburg
into a family of musicians. He started playing
the cello at the age of 6, becoming a student
at the Salzburg Mozarteum two years later; he
subsequently studied at the Basle Conservatoire
with Wilfried Tachezi and Heinrich Schiff. In 1983
he received a special award from the Vienna
Philharmonic and the Karl Bhm Award.
He has performed with many major orchestras,
including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic
orchestras, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Camerata Academica
Salzburg, Freiburg Radio Symphony Orchestra,
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen,
Orchestra, Tokyo, and the Cleveland Orchestra.
many concerts with the Hagen Quartet, he
has performed chamber music with Martha
Gulda, Hlne Grimaud, Gidon Kremer, Oleg
Maisenberg, Andrs Schiff, Benjamin Schmid and
Mitsuko Uchida.
Among his recordings are the Beethoven cello
sonatas with Paul Gulda and Brahmss Double
Concerto with Gidon Kremer and the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra under Nikolaus
Harnoncourt. Recent releases include a disc
of chamber music by Brahms and Pfitzner with
Benjamin Schmid and Claudius Tanski.
7
 London Symphony Orchestra
Living Music

LSO ARTIST PORTRAIT

Leif Ove Andsnes

One of the few who possess

power and personality in
equal measure
The New Yorker

FRI 10 JUN 7.30PM

The series concludes with a recital
of solo piano works by Sibelius,
Beethoven, Debussy and Chopin

lso.co.uk