[Karol Rathaus] Piano Sonata No.1 in C Minor Op.2 (Score-Video)

This sonata has 4 movements:
00:05 - I. Grave e maestoso - Rubato, molto espressivo (...)
10:41 - II. Lento con espressione - Tempestoso - Poco tranquillo - Più lento - Furioso - Pesante - Lento
18:08 - III. Scherzo: Presto - Trio. Piu lento, rubato - Tempo I
23:08 - IV. Finale: Grave - Allegro energico

Performer:
Kolja Lessing

Audio from    • Franz Schreker's Masterclasses in Vienna a...  

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"After Franz Schreker was called to the Staatliche Akademische Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, the first applications for his composition class began to arrive in the summer of 1920. Young music students, some of whom had already studied with Professor Schreker, submitted their papers and applied for permission to take the exam. I can remember this exam exactly: Karol Rathaus played two movements from a Sonata in C minor – the same one that was published as op. 2 – and improvised and modulated at the piano that it was a joy to listen to."

This is how Georg Schünemann remembers Rathaus in his appreciation Franz Schreker als Lehrer (Franz Schreker as a teacher), published in the Franz-Schreker-issue of the Musikblätter des Anbruch on the occasion of Schreker's 50th birthday in 1928. Indeed: Karol Rathaus's grand four-movement Sonata op. 2 is captivating due to its unusual virtuosity, which in its outer movements is evocative of orchestral volume of sound. Following the Russian piano tradition, in particular its most important exponents of the 1900s Sergej Rachmaninov and Alexander Skrjabin, Rathaus develops a piano style which, inspite of its association with orchestral colours and even vocal moments, remains a genuinely pianistic sound experience and betrays a profound knowledge of the instrument. Rathaus's modulatory inventiveness praised by Schünemann is characteristic of the 1st Piano Sonata, but the harmonic framework and formal conception display close links with traditional patterns.

The 1st movement follows the classical sonata form in every detail with its two contrasting subjects: the dramatic first subject in C minor, declamed with great pathos, and the contrasting lyrical second subject beginning in the third-relationship of E flat major before appearing in C major in the recapitulation. E flat major is established as the principal key of the three-part 2nd movement, its stormy middle section framed by two calm passages in a curious twilight mood. This twilight is the result of the harmonically ambivalent tritonic tension rooted in the alternating broken E flat major and A major chords at the beginning of the movement. The 3rd movement acts as the dominant to the E flat conclusion of the 2nd movement – a demonic scherzo in B flat minor, a tritone (C – G flat) again gaining prominence at the onset of the movement and at first giving the movement a degree of harmonic instability which, however, is given direction by the fortissimo cue of the bass octave B flat. Più lento (Con sentimento) is the title of the nostalgic G flat major trio – a deliberately romantic episode coloured with melancholy which stands in contrast with the incredibly complex, and at times rather dissonant, rondo-like Finale.

The numerous allusions to Eastern Jewish chants in this sonata are noteworthy. These are recognisable in the transition to the second subject of the 1st movement, but particularly clear in the far-reaching melody at the beginning of the 2nd movement and in the melismatic motion circling around the smallest interval cells at the beginning of the 3rd movement. Perhaps these moments can be understood as a personal testimony on Rathaus's part to specific Jewish traditions in his East-Galician home, as his childhood friend Soma Morgenstern impressively describes in his memoirs In einer anderen Zeit [In a different time] (Lüneburg: zu Klampen 1995).

"As concerns my sonata: in June, I gave it to Stefan Askenase for performance. He will play it this season in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Mannheim, Munich, Vienna and Warsaw." thus Karol Rathaus writes on 21 September 1920 (while still in Vienna) to Felix Petyrek (cf. EDA 017-2), who had shown an interest in premiering Rathaus's Sonata op. 2. There is no proof whether Petyrek included the sonata in his repertoire despite missing the opportunity of giving the first performance. However, his copy of the piece, published in 1921 by Universal Edition, was used as a source in the present recording.

(Source from the CD Booklet, Written by Kolja Lessing)

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