by Marvin J. Ward

Northampton, MA, 9 May, and Ashburnham, MA, 10 May 2009.  This past weekend, the Arcadia Players Chamber Ensemble, consisting of Lisa Rautenberg, violin, Alice Robbins, cello, and Monica Jakuc Leverett, together with tenor Peter Shea, offered the same all-Haydn program in 2 venues using 2 different pianos.  The differences were remarkable, but we will first dispense with the things that were the same.

First, the program: The main course was the trio of piano trios Haydn composed in 1793, in advance of his 2nd visit to London, for Mrs. Therese Jansen-Bartolozzi, one of London’s finest pianists, Muzio Clementi’s best pupil, and a personal friend of Haydn, who served as a witness at her wedding when she married art dealer Bartolozzi.  She played their premières.  They are Haydn’s trios 43-45, Hoboken XV: 27-29, in C, E, and Eb respectively.  They were published in 1797 along with 2 standalone trios, numbers 41 and 42, Hob. XV: 31 and 30 respectively, these 5 constituting the last ones he wrote, and therefore the summit of his compositional skills in this genre.  They are contemporaneous with Beethoven’s 1st set of 3 (of 13 in all), his Op. 1 composed 1792-94.  As Jakuc Leverett pointed out in her introductory comments, each of the 3 is distinctly different from the others; she described them as “brilliant and virtuosic,” “intimate and contemplative,” and “elegant, graceful, and witty” respectively.  But they also form a progression in a sonata-form way of fast-slow-fast to a climactic conclusion.  It served as a segue into the group of 4 Scottish folksongs with variations for voice and piano that served as the lighter dessert, with Shea joining the instrumentalists to sing them.  Haydn wrote over 400 Scottish songs, most of them for voice and piano, and only 6 with variations for piano trio.  They are sets, not cycles, and we heard Nos 1, 3, 4, and 2, in that order.

In these trios, the piano is the star; there is not an even distribution of the musical material among the 3 instruments.  The cello often serves as a sort of continuo or doubles the left hand of the piano part, and the violin often doubles or repeats the piano’s right-hand part, although it does have some chances to sing.  It makes one think of Beethoven’s nomenclature for what we call his violin sonatas as ‘sonatas for piano with violin’; these are sorts of trios for piano with violin and cello.  The trio form simply had not developed to its later, more evenly balanced form that we have come to perceive as standard.  The relative lack of power of the late 18th-century piano is certainly part of the explanation for this handling of the form.  There are unquestionably a lot of notes for the pianist to play, including some solo moments in the middle movements, the one in the 2nd trio quite long and lovely.  None of this would even work on a harpsichord, which is evidence of the huge advances the keyboard instrument technology had made in the 90 or so years from the 1st Christofori instrument, even if the 19th century advances that gave the modern concert grand its power were yet to come.

Second, the musicians: While theirs are not names with international-star recognition, they are certainly of that quality, and are well-known by those in and acquainted with historically-informed performances.  They play together often and were at the top of their form in both performances, demonstrating the kind of communication amongst themselves for which the big name piano trios are always commended.  They are, for this listener, the incarnation of consummate musicianship and artistry.

Next, the instruments: For the Northampton performance, Jakuc Leverett used her Paul McNulty replica built in 2000 of a ca. 1803 Anton Walter piano.  This is a Viennese style 5.5 octave instrument.  For the Ashburnham performance, she used an original 1805 5.5-octave Clementi piano built in London that is owned by the Frederick Collection.  Clementi was a composer, pianist, teacher, music publisher, and owner/manager of a piano-building firm; he did not personally build the pianos.  Interestingly, Jakuc Leverett said that the Clementi would not ‘let her play’ the octave glissandi that she could execute on the Walter, even though the works were composed for an English instrument, albeit not a Clementi, for he was not yet in the business.  The Walter has knee levers, the Clementi pedals, including a moderator which has been disabled.  On the other hand, it has a significant after-ring, owing perhaps to its heavier and more forceful striking of the hammers.  The Walter hammers are leather covered, which softens and mellows the tone.  The actions transferring the depression of the key to the striking of the strings – double in the Viennese except for the upper register where they are triple, triple throughout in the English– are also different, the Walter having no intermediary mechanisms, while the English instruments have escapements.  The dampers are also different, the Walter being wedge-shaped felt while the English ones rest only lightly on the strings.  A nice book on the development of the piano, with good illustrations and written for the general rather than the specialist reader, is John-Paul Williams: The Piano (London: Quarto, 2002, pub. In the US by Billboard Books, an imprint of Watson-Guptill, Pp. 160, $29.95).  Most fortepianos used today are Viennese-type instruments.

Finally, the venues: Both are churches with wooden floors, the Northampton one a design that is the common (mis-?)conception (thanks to Norman Rockwell) of the quintessential New England protestant church, rectangular with a wrap-around balcony supported by columns, organ in the rear, pulpit area raised 3 steps off the main floor.  This one is not historic; it was built in 1955, and the ceiling over the pulpit area is rounded, apse-like.  The musicians played beneath it, and audience members were advised to stay out from under the balcony for the best sound, which was good.  The Ashburnham building is historic, a more or less square box with a balcony (with small organ, also historic but not original to the building) in the rear but actually over the entry hall, so the entire box-like area has full-height walls and ceiling covered in tin dating from ca. 1890, no small contribution to the wonderful acoustic.  The pulpit area is higher up and a square area (also with full-height ceiling) extending off the central box; the musicians performed on the main floor in front of it.

The overall effects of the performances were completely different.  It is difficult to apportion the differences between the instruments and the venues, but this writer found the Ashburnham performance more effective.  The Clementi’s afterring did not muddy the sound, as one might fear, and its greater power and brightness somehow seemed more appropriate for the music to my ears.  This is not to say that the Northampton one was not lovely, for it was indeed, having a certain warmth that suited the slow movements particularly well that the Clementi piano could not provide.  On the other hand, the Walter seemed to make a better accompanying instrument for Shea’s delightful rendition of the songs.  Could this be why lieder became so prominent a genre in Vienna?