Music for Small Spaces… Number Two

The Music

The Words

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the ‘Classical For Everyone’ Podcast… five hundred years of incredible music. My name is Peter Cudlipp and… If you enjoy any music at all then I’m convinced you can enjoy classical music. All you need are ears. No expertise is necessary. If you’ve ever been curious about classical music… or explored it for a while once upon a time… or just quietly wondered what all the fuss was about… then this is the podcast is for you.

And because there’s a lot of music out there each episode has something of a theme. And for this one it is… Music For Small Spaces… And it is the second episode with this theme.

This is music originally intended for smaller performance spaces… sometimes even just a dining room… written for a small number of instruments and by virtue of that, the connection between players and audience can be more intimate and more intense. And I hope some of that will come across from the recordings I have chosen. The music in the episode is by  Anne Cawrse, Giovanni Sammartini, Sergei Prokofiev, Felix Mendelssohn, Gareth Farr and Samuel Barber.

Whilst the dominant image of classical music probably remains a large orchestra on a large stage in a large hall; there is still today a surprising amount of music being written and performed for these smaller collections of instruments… for small spaces.

And I’m going to start with a work from only a few years ago. In 2020 the Australian composer Anne Cawrse (her surname is spelt C A W R S E) wrote a three part work for Piano Trio (that is a piano, a violin and a cello) which she called ‘Songs Without Words’. And here is a little of what she wrote about them.

My ‘Songs Without Words’ are composed in an unapologetically melodic and lyrical style.  I have come to think of the process of composing these pieces as ‘Historically Informed Composition’- perhaps this is a little silly, as we composers never operate in a vacuum devoid of historical influence. Certainly though, in composing ‘Songs Without Words’ I was more conscious than usual in my choice of influences, and deliberate in my use of quotation. The references to specific chamber works by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn creates a set which, I hope, tell a little of the life, music and relationship between these two talented composers. 

And I want to thank my friend the cellist Catherine Hewgill who told me about the work as she had just recently performed it. Here is the third section of Anne Cawrse’s ‘Songs Without Words’ performed  by the Benaud Trio. It is about 5 minutes long.

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That was the third section of Anne Cawrse’s ‘Songs Without Words’ performed  by the Benaud Trio. Incidentally, they took their name from a legendary Australian cricketer by the name of Richie Benaud. Which I have to say is a sign of  very good sense of humour and a world view perhaps slightly wider than is usual in classical music.

So the music in this episode… music for small spaces, more generally known as ‘chamber music’ seems to carry some baggage because of its origin. In past centuries quite a bit of this music was written to be the background music played live by the house servant musicians whilst aristocrats enjoyed their dinner. And for some reason this seems to have added a tarnish of highbrow elitism and privilege to people’s sense of this music. Which is rather a shame. Because to be fair most art we enjoy has been or is being paid for by someone. Today it is usually the tiniest slice of tax revenue that’s left over after stadiums and submarines. But for every piece that was written to accompany dinner for the ruling class there were even more that were written for musicians to play with their friends or to play with their students. Or just to fulfil the need to give voice to ideas and desires.

Now, perhaps because the next piece of music in this episode is from pretty early in the history of ‘music for small spaces’ we can sidestep all of those issues. There is an almost total lack of information about it’ origin. The story can be whatever the listener wants it to be. What we do know is that it is a very early composition for a string quartet… the grouping of two violins, a viola and a cello. People think it was written by Giovanni Battista Sammartini. But it might have been written by his brother Giuseppi. And it was most likely written in the 1760s but that is ad far as I can tell… an educated guess.

It is, though, agreed that is sometimes called ‘Sinfonia per archi’ or ‘Sinfonia for Strings’ or ‘String Quartet in G’. Here is the first section performed by the Casal Quartett. It is about 4 minutes long.

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That was the first section of the ‘Sinfonia for Strings’ or ‘String Quartet in G’ probably written by Giovanni Battista Sammartini and probably sometime in the 1760s. And it was played by the Casal Quartett. Interestingly, the instruments that they were playing were a matched set made by the Austro-German luthier, or instrument-maker, Jacob Stainer who after an apprenticeship in Italy lived and worked near Innsbruck in what it now Austria from 1645 to 1680. This is not a name you hear much anymore but in the age of Bach and Mozart these were the most coveted instruments. More than those of Amati or Stradivarius.

Now one of the things that this music for small spaces can be an opportunity for, is for composers to take bigger risks, to make bolder statements and to take audiences further from their comfort zones. If big orchestral works are like the flagships of a composer’s career, a work for two, three or four instruments can be smaller vessels that can sail under the radar. Sorry for that extended metaphor but for the next piece I hope you will agree it has some relevance. When Sergei Prokofiev wrote his first Violin Sonata (a work for violin and piano) he was an established and highly visible artist in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin at a time when the political and social complexities of that role could not have been more challenging. He started writing the work in 1938, then set it aside and completed it in 1946.

Now if the first two pieces I played you in this episode had a certain lightness and approachability even if created for small forces; this is a very different thing. On first listening I think it is fair to say that if you are expecting ‘likeability’, which is not unreasonable, you might be disappointed. This is art of a rawness and dark emotion that captures a particularly terrible time in a society and the dark troubles of a man’s life. The violinist who first performed the work, David Oistrakh, told the story that during the rehearsals for the premiere Prokofiev told him that parts of the seven minute opening section, which I am about to play you, were intended to depict ‘the wind blowing across a graveyard’. I’m not exactly selling this am I. Well, maybe let me put it this way. For all that, there is a remarkable dark beauty to this music that I think is ultimately very seductive.

Here are Gidon Kremer playing the violin and Martha Argerich playing the piano with the first section of Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Violin Sonata’.

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That was Gidon Kremer playing the violin and Martha Argerich playing the piano with the first section of Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Violin Sonata’ completed in 1946. Amongst the many reasons why composers write music for a small number of instruments, one of them is to have something to do with your musician pals when they come round for a snack and a glass or ten of wine. Now that is not necessarily the genesis of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1 from 1839… but what I can say is that this recording was an opportunity for three friends, who also happen to be better known as remarkable soloists, to get into a recording studio and make some very enjoyable music. Here are the violinist Joshua Bell, the cellist Steven Isserlis and the pianist Jeremy Denk with the opening section of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1. It is about ten minutes long.

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That was the violinist Joshua Bell, the cellist Steven Isserlis and the pianist Jeremy Denk performing the opening section of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 1.

It’s been forty years since I was first lucky enough to go to Aotearoa New Zealand. It remains a favourite place where wonderful things happen. A few months back I did an episode on the classical music of New Zealand and in the process came across a couple of anthology CDs from the New Zealand String Quartet made by Atoll Records in Wellington. From one of those CDs here is another work from the composer Gareth Farr called ‘Te Koanga’. And in terms of showing something of the range of quite different expressions of ‘music for small spaces’, this is well worth a listen. By way of introduction here is a note from the composer on his publisher’s website…

Te Koanga means Spring or “planting season” in the Māori language. Written in the Spring of 2017, the piece is a celebration of life and regeneration, and the happiness that the return of the sun gives us. Ian Lyons was a cellist and string instrument maker in Wellington, New Zealand, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in 2015. In addition to his passion for music, he was passionate about nature and the outdoors and spent much time observing and experiencing the beautiful and rich environment that Wellington boasts. This piece is not a lament for Ian – rather, it is a joyous celebration of the things that were most important to him.

Here is Gareth Farr’s ‘Te Koanga’ performed by the New Zealand String Quartet. It is about 12 minutes long and amongst the many beauties of this work is a violin impersonating the native bird, the tui.

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That was Gareth Farr’s ‘Te Koanga’ performed by the New Zealand String Quartet.

My name is Peter Cudlipp and you have been listening to the ‘Classical for Everyone’ Podcast. I have another couple of pieces coming up but before I get to them I want to give you a little information that I hope you might find useful… If you would like to listen to past episodes including the first ‘Music For Small Spaces’ or get details of the music I’ve played please head to the website classicalforeveryone.net. That address again is classicalforeveryone.net.  And on the individual episode pages of the website there are links to Spotify playlists with the full versions of most of the music played in each of the episodes.

And if you want to get in touch then you can email… info@classicalforeveryone.net.

Alright, to finish this episode I have a section from the American composer Samuel Barber’s string quartet from 1936 written when he was 26 years old. This is the middle section to for which Barber just gave the simple performance speed instruction of ‘molto adagio’ or ‘very slowly’. He would later create a version for string orchestra of this section and he gave it the name ‘Adagio For Strings’ and it is this version that became very well known. And I played it back in the ‘Farewells’ episode. But to hear it in the original string quartet version is a really interesting experience. I think it strips away some of what is perhaps the emotional accretion of the ‘more popular’ version’s place as an American expression of the inexpressible in the time of tragedy. On the musician and writer Kai Christiansen’s website ‘Earsense.org’ there is a terrific article on the quartet and I’ll put a link in the show notes for this episode. But here now is the ‘molto adagio’ section from Samuel Barber’s String Quartet. It is about eight minutes long and is performed by the Cleveland Quartet.

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That was the ‘molto adagio’ section from Samuel Barber’s String Quartet and it was performed by the Cleveland Quartet.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to playing you some more incredible music on the next ‘Classical For Everyone’. This podcast is made with Audacity Software for editing, Wikipedia for Research, Claude for Artificial Intelligence and Apple, Sennheiser, Sony, Rode and Logitech for hardware… The music played is licensed through AMCOS / APRA. Classical For Everyone is a production of Mending Wall Studios and began life on Radio 2BBB in Bellingen NSW, Australia thanks to the late, great Mr Jeffrey Sanders. The producers do not receive any gifts or support of any kind from any organisation or individual mentioned in the show. But, never say never.

And if you have listened to the credits… this bubblingly energetic bit of ‘music for small spaces’ is for you… Here again are the violinist Joshua Bell, the cellist Steven Isserlis and the pianist Jeremy Denk with the third section of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2. Thanks again for listening.