Klebe: Violin Sonatas / Capriccio for Solo Violin, Op. 128 / Fantasia Incisiana, Op. 137
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Giselher Klebe (b. 1925) Music for Violin Giselher Klebe was born in Mannheim in 1925 and in 1940 entered the Berlin Conservatory with a scholarship,...
Giselher Klebe (b. 1925)
Music for Violin
Giselher Klebe was born in Mannheim in 1925 and in
1940 entered the Berlin Conservatory with a
scholarship, studying the violin, viola and music
history, and composition with Kurt von Wolfurt. He
resumed his studies after the war as a pupil of Josef
Rufer at the newly founded Berlin International Music
Institute, and, privately, with Boris Blacher. His
Divertimento, Op. 1/2, for piano, had its first
performance in 1947, the year of his first meeting with
the composer Wolfgang Fortner, whom he succeeded
ten years later as senior lecturer in composition and
music theory at the Detmold North-West German
Music Academy. He became a professor at the
Academy in 1962. By this time he had established
himself as a composer, with works performed at
Darmstadt and at Donaueschingen and notable success
in 1950 with his orchestral Zwitschermaschine,
described as a musical metamorphosis for full orchestra
and inspired by Paul Klee's The Twittering Machine.
He won various awards and became one of the most
important contemporary composers of opera in
Germany, with a series of works, first with his own
libretti and then with texts by his wife Lore Klebe,
generally based on existing literary works. Over the
years he has won great distinction, with further prizewinning
compositions and public honours. In 1981 he
became director of the music section of the Berlin
Academy of Arts, of which he served as president from
1986 until 1989.
Klebe's Sonata No. 1, Op. 8, for solo violin, was
written in the summer of 1950 in Berlin-Frohnau, and
dedicated, in gratitude, to Hans Werner Henze, who had
recommended his orchestral piece The Twittering
Machine to the then director of the Donaueschingen
Festival, Heinrich Strobel. It was performed at the
festival in the same year by the South-West Radio
Symphony Orchestra under Hans Rosbaud, a
performance that brought Klebe's international
breakthrough. The Sonata marks the first stages of
development of his musical language. Both movements
are linked by rhythmic-formal structures. Klebe's belief
in the unifying function of melody is a continuing
feature of his work.
Sonata No. 1, Op. 14, for violin and piano, was
written in autumn 1952 and dedicated to the Alsatian
poet Rene Schickele (1883-1941), with whose work
Klebe at the time had particular affinity. The three short
movements are played without a break, the ostinato
motif groups and development of the first movement
undergoing intensive changes in the second, with its
new patterns, taking the form of several melodic arch
forms in the third.
Dedicated to his wife, Klebe's Sonata No. 2, Op.
20, for solo violin, was commissioned by Darmstadt for
the Tenth International Vacation Courses for New
Music in 1955. It was written between January and
March in that year, under the strong influence of
Haydn's Symphony No. 92 in G major, 'Oxford'. The
sonata has three movements. The first of these starts
with an idea that is fundamental to the structure of the
sonata. Its first pattern, double stops marked piano and
narrowly spaced intervals, and the second, single-line
crescendo and decrescendo, with widely spaced
intervals, are continuously interrelated. Hence comes
the proportional structure that is basic to all sonatas.
From this basis all new ideas are strictly interwoven
with the fundamental idea. The first movement builds
up the intervallic, musical, dynamic and rhythmic
elements. The second movement is quieter, with a rapid
change and intensive development of several
contrasting idea groups. The third movement
strengthens the calmer tendency and ends by bringing
together the melodic complexes of the sonata with
increasing simplicity.
Klebe wrote his Sonata No. 2, Op. 66, for violin
and piano, in May and June 1972. He originally gave it
the title of Sonata on Boris Blacher, dedicating it to
Blacher on the latter's 75th birthday, using the notes
derived from his name, B - E flat (Es) - B - A - C - B
natural (H) - E, as the introductory notes of the
composition. In the years from 1946 to 1951 Boris
Blacher (1903-1975) had been the definitive teacher for
Klebe's musical development. In the violin part he
wrote with the playing technique of Blacher's then very
young son in mind. The three movements of the sonata
follow the implicit classical pattern. The first
movement is an exposition of the thematic ideas, the
second reveals darker aspects of these ideas, and the
third finally forms the melody at the centre of the whole
sonata.
Capriccio 'Vor dem Gewitter', Op. 128, came
about as the result of Klebe's desire to write a solo
violin capriccio for his friend Eckhard Fischer. Klebe
was sitting in the garden of his daughter Sonja, who
lives in the Alpine Foreland, and conceived the
principal part of this work as a thunder-storm arose.
The two movements characterize the event, distant
lightning, the air is oppressive, the first gusts of wind
sweep in, it becomes ever darker, there is thunder and
lightning in the distance, the rain grows heavy, and the
storm is there.
Klebe's Fantasia Incisiana, Op. 137, for violin and
piano, has the Italian dedication 'Questa Fantasia č
composta e dedicata per tutti gli uomini scortandomi
dolce fuori l'avvilimento tenebroso'. The name
Incisiana is taken from Eckhard Fischer's vineyard,
Incisa Scapaccino, in Piedmont, where the private
performance of the fourth movement provided the
starting-point, and where the initial sketches of the first
movement were made. The Fantasy is dedicated to all
those who helped the composer through the period of
depression he underwent on the death of his wife Lore,
after sixty years together. The first movement presents
a clear melodic shape, peaceful in character; the second
brings odd ideas and memories, the third an intensive
interchange of ideas, the fourth a tribute to his wife,
herself an enthusiastic violinist, the fifth a counterpart
of the third, and the sixth related to the fourth.
Based on notes by the composer
English version by Keith Anderson
Violin Sonata, Op. 8 (more info)
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I. Moderato - 6:19
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II. Allegro - 4:21
Violin Sonata, Op. 14 (more info)
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I. - 1:59
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II. - 3:57
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III. - 2:46
Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 20 (more info)
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I. - 3:17
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II. - 0:56
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III. Tempo ordinario - 1:34
Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 66 (more info)
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I. Allegro - 4:30
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II. Largo - 5:12
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III. Adagio - 5:51
Capriccio, Op. 128 (more info)
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I. - 6:20
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II. - 2:19
Fantasia Incisiana, Op. 137 (more info)
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I. Andante - changing Tempi - - 6:21
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II. Giocoso - - 0:55
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III. Adagio molto pesante - - 4:35
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IV. Agitato - Cantabile - Agitato - 7:40
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V. Molto lento con alcuna licenza - - 4:07
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VI. Con fuoco brioso - changing Tempi - 5:23