LIFE CAST IN MUSIC: BeetHOVEN, MOZART, FRANCK

February 4, 2025 | Blue Gallery

Zsolt Bognár piano
Andrea Cicalese violin

Illustrated talk by Jan Swafford

Program
Beethoven Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, Op. 12, No. 1
Mozart Violin Sonata in E minor, K. 304
Franck Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major

There is a tendency to look at composers and their works as a single entity—Beethoven always Beethoven, Mozart always Mozart, and so on. However, when we come to know a composer more intimately, we begin to understand their work within the context of particular moments in their life and art.

Mozart had a singular career, beginning as a famous prodigy in childhood and becoming fully mature as a composer by his teens. Beethoven's mature work, starting in his 20s, has long been divided into three distinct periods. César Franck, on the other hand, had a winding path as a composer, not reaching full maturity until his mid-40s.

Mozart wrote his striking, minor-key Violin Sonata in E Minor in Paris, during a period when he was pulling away from his domineering father and moving toward the great works of his middle years. Beethoven's first period was characterized by stylistic exploration, largely influenced by models; the audible model for his first violin sonatas was Mozart. Franck’s passionate, high-Romantic Violin Sonata was written at the age of 63, by which time his importance among French composers had finally been recognized after a long creative gestation.

Although all the works in this concert are mature ones for their composers, each composer’s journey to maturity followed a distinctly different path.