David Popper (1843-1913) Romantic Cello Showpieces The cellist David Popper was born in Prague in 1843, the son of the Prague Cantor. He studied the cello...
David Popper
(1843-1913)
Romantic Cello
Showpieces
The cellist David Popper was born in Prague in 1843, the son of the
Prague Cantor. He studied the cello there under the Hamburg cellist Julius
Goltermann, who had taken up an appointment at the Prague Conservatory in 1850.
It was through Liszt's then son-in-law, the pianist and conductor Hans von
Bülow, that Popper was recommended in 1863 to a position as Chamber Virtuoso at
the court of the Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Konstantin von Hohenzollern, who had had
a new residence with a concert hall built at Lowenberg. The musical
establishment there was disbanded, however, in 1869, on the death of the
Prince. In 1867 Popper made his debut in Vienna and the following year was
appointed principal cellist at the Court Opera, serving also for a time as
cellist in the Hellmesberger Quartet. In 1872 he married Liszt's pupil Sophie
Menter, described by her teacher as his only legitimate daughter as a pianist
and the greatest woman pianist of the age, later to join the staff of the St
Petersburg Conservatory. The following year they left Vienna to embark on a
series of concert tours throughout Europe and in 1882 he undertook a tour of
Spain and Portugal with the French violinist Emil Sauret. His marriage was
dissolved in 1886, the year in which Liszt died during a reluctant stay in
Bayreuth, where Sophie Menter and her friends had visited him, as his life drew
to a close. In 1896 Popper settled in Budapest to teach at the Conservatory
that Liszt had established there, serving for a time as cellist in the quartet
led by Jeno Hubay, the son of the first head of the Conservatory string
department, who had inherited his father's position as professor of violin in
1886. In the same year Popper joined Hubay and Brahms in a performance in
Budapest of Brahms's Piano Trio in C minor, continuing an earlier
connection with the composer. Popper died at Baden, near Vienna, in 1913.
As a composer Popper is remembered for his compositions for cello. These
include four concertos, now seldom heard in the concert hall, and, better
known, a number of salon pieces. His studies remain well enough known to
aspirant cellists, while his other works include compositions that give an
opportunity for virtuoso display.
The suite for cello and orchestra Im Walde ('In the Forest') was
written in 1882. It has an introductory movement, Eintritt, that couples
virtuosity with music of considerable charm. Gnomentanz ('Dance of the
Gnomes') frames in a sinister G minor a central section of lighter mood. Andacht
('Devotion') brings tender intensity, with the horns of elfland faintly
blowing as the movement comes to a close. This is followed by Reigen ('Round
Dance'), in a lively G major, and a meditative Herbstblume ('Autumn
Flower'). The suite ends with Heimkehr ('Homecoming'), a cheerful enough
occasion that brings a surprising final excursion into fugal texture.
Wie einst in schoner'n Tagen('As once in fairer days'), the first of a set
of three pieces published in 1892, sometimes paraphrased as Fond Recollections,
is as nostalgic as its title suggests. It is here followed by a Gavotte that
forms a fine contrast with the familiar virtuosity of Papillon, taken
from a set of six character pieces published in Leipzig in 1880.
Popper's Requiem for three cellos and orchestra, Opus 66, was
first performed in London in 1891. In memory of his friend Daniel Rahter, it
was published in 1892 with prefatory verses:
Thranen, die Musik
geworden,
Treue Freundschaft
beut sie.
Liebe, die nie
enden kann,
Treue Liebe weih't
sie.
Freundesherz, das
ausgerungen,
Nimm die kleine
Gabe:
Was die
Freundesseel' gesungen,
Tone, troste, labe!
(Tears, turned to
music,
True friendship
offers.
Love that can never
end
True love dedicates.
Friend's heart, now
gone,
Take this little gift:
What a friend's soul
has sung,
Sound out, console,
refresh!)
Marked Andante
sostenuto, the Requiem is scored for woodwind, timpani and strings,
with the three solo cellos sensitively deployed in sonorities that may at first
recall Schubert's famous Quintet, before each makes a solo entry .The
key shifts from F sharp minor to B flat major in a central section, after which
the cellos return to the original key and material, now muted.
There follow two
Spanish
Dances, from a set of five published between 1883 and 1887. The first of
these is a lyrical piece, lacking the sound and fury popularly associated with
Spain at the time.
Vito, however, is livelier, but without spurious or
facile exoticism.
Wiegenlied ('Cradle-Song') is the third of the set of pieces
that started with Wie einst in schoner'n Tagen. It exploits the gentle
lyricism of which the cello is capable, its title a suggestion of its mood
rather than anything else. To this Spinnlied offers a marked contrast in
its demand for virtuoso agility, as the spinning-wheel turns in a sort of mota
perpetuo.
The final Hungarian
Rhapsody was published in 1894. It is in the spirit of Liszt's compositions
of the same title, making use of a quasi-improvisatory and rhapsodic style in
the first section, with a lonely ascent into the highest possible register,
before moving on to the inevitable excitement, as the music accelerates towards
a triumphant conclusion, a wild dance in which earlier lyricism alternates,
before it is forgotten in the whirl of the dance.
Keith Anderson