Sound Recording Essay-Review: Archduke Rudolph's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano and Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano

Archduke Rudolph's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano and Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano. Ricardo Morales, clarinet, Gerald Kagan, cello, and Susan Kagan, piano. Koch 3-7339-2H1, ©1997. $15.99 ARCHDUKE RUDOLPH, WHEREVER HIS SPIRIT resides, is entirely in Susan Kagan's debt. Almost singlehandedly she has resurrected interest in and fleshed out our portrait of Beethoven's most important patron. In 1988 her dissertation on the composer, Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven 's Patron, Pupil, and Friend, was published by Pendragon.1 It contains a biography, survey of the Archduke's studies in music theory, several chapters analyzing his compositions (including a chapter devoted to his Variations on a Theme by Beethoven), and a thematic catalog. In 1992 Kagan recorded the Archduke's Sonata and Variations in F Major for Violin and Fortepiano with Joseph Suk for Koch International. That same year her edition of the composer's Violin Sonata and Forty Variations was published by A.R. Editions. Her edition of the Variations in F Major for Violin and Fortepiano was published by Doblinger in Vienna in 1996. Now Koch has recorded, with her husband Gerald and clarinetist Ricardo Morales, the Archduke's Clarinet Sonata and Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Fortepiano. Everyone who wishes to understand Beethoven's life in richer detail will want this recording, for it affirms again as did Kagan's first recording - that the relationship between the two men was based on much more than the confining structure of the patronage system. In Archduke Rudolph Beethoven found not only an enthusiastic supporter, fellow sufferer of a permanent and debilitating disease, and gifted musician, but a deeply artistic spirit who understood Beethoven's music as he wished it to be understood. It is often said that the best teachers do not force students into slavish imitation, but encourage them to develop their own distinctive paths. Beethoven was such a teacher. For although his hand is almost always apparent in the construction of Rudolph's works (and I will give examples below), Rudolph's music clearly reveals a sensibility substantially distinct from Beethoven's. To state my conclusion first: this compact disk contains two movements which are, without qualification, exceptional pieces of music. They stand without apology next to works by Schubert and Mendelssohn (and I chose these contemporaries because Rudolph's style is more romantic than Beethoven's). The second movement of the Clarinet Sonata, an extended minuet and trio in E Major, is a constantly engaging piece alternating a felicitous, untroubled lyrical melody with a quiet, somewhat enigmatic trio. Every note, every gesture is perfect. The second wonder is the third movement of the Trio, a Scherzo allegretto in G Minor. A wonder, if flawed to my ears. The movement begins with a fantastically ghostly four measures with a striking timbre (see Example 1). The clarinet and cello play the tune in octaves and the fortepiano plays only those notes of the tune that fall on the downbeats. It's edgy, enigmatic, just the sort of open beginning that promises much. But then the flaw comes, though even here in an artful way. The Archduke turns immediately to the relative major, B-flat, reversing his orchestration: the fortepiano plays the melody in a Biedermeier version while the other instruments play only those notes of the melody which fall on the downbeat. In a major key the melody is, well, kitschy, for this is not a tune that changes clothes with any ease. What was that spooky introduction if it could be dispatched so offhandedly? The trio section is gemutlich in a similarly disjunctive manner. The Archduke was on the edge of another brilliant movement. (I can't help but speculate that it was the Archduke's civilized nature and official responsibilities that restrained him here.) Having thus played my hand, it's time to back up and address the works in their entirety. …