Sonatina for mandolin and harpsichord
Every Friday, Beethoven is here. To mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, each week the Swiss Music Review takes a look at a different work from his catalog. Today, it's the Sonatina for mandolin and harpsichord in C minor.
"Deh vieni alla finestra" (darling, come to the window). These words from Don Giovanni by Mozart are still accompanied on the mandolin on opera stages today, revealing the instrument's Italian folk origins. But this wonderful canzonetta is not the only one to have contributed to its spread. On the contrary, the Neapolitan mandolin tuned in fifths was as popular in Paris in the early 19th century as it was in Vienna and Prague. Johann Nepomuk Hummel, for example, wrote several pieces for it, and in 1798, Leopold Kozeluch included the mandolin in a Sinfonia concertante with a curious orchestration: piano, mandolin, trumpet, double bass and orchestra. Beethoven's work also contains four short mandolin passages, including two single-movement "sonatines".
These miniatures, which preferably require a pianoforte for balanced accompaniment, were written during Beethoven's stay in Prague between February and April 1796, either commissioned by or courtesy of Countess Joséphine von Clary-Aldringen. The four individual pieces (a fifth may be missing) fell into oblivion as quickly as the mandolin itself - at least in concert and salon music. It wasn't until the 1920s that the instrument enjoyed a new lease of life. Arnold Schönberg also used it, both in his twelve-tone Serenade op. 24 (1920/24) and in the arrangement of Funiculi, funicula by Luigi Denza (1921). Beethoven's pieces were first printed between 1880 and 1940.
The fact that Beethoven apparently had to take into account limited technical skills in the Adagio in C minor WoO 43a, entitled "Sonatina", is verified by a glance at the autograph, now preserved in the British Library and bound in the Kafka-Skizzenbuch As the crossed-out sixteenth-note passages in the mandolin part show, part A of the piece was not intended to be repeated literally, but varied with greater difficulty.
Aufnahme auf idagio
Keeping in touch
A weekly newsletter reveals the latest column on line. You can subscribe by entering your e-mail address below, or by subscribing to our RSS feed.
