Fellow blogger Wenatchee has long been recommending the music of Matiegka so I decided to have a look for myself. I have no idea why it has taken so long for him to be better known because he seems to be as fine a composer for guitar as Fernando Sor and Mauro Giuliani. Here is Wenatchee's analysis of one of Matiegka's sonatas. Here is the first movement of the Sonata, op. 17. The guitarist is Giulio Tampalini.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfmTBiuTsaw
There is also an excellent edition of the guitar sonatas by Stanley Yates, published in 2017 so it isn't exactly new.
This is a very useful edition as it includes some 12 pages of editorial material covering biographical information, notes on the compositions and technique and on expression markings. I haven't spent a lot of time with the music, but I have very much enjoyed these pieces and I think they are a solid addition to our scant repertoire from the period. Think of Matiegka as a somewhat less-talented Joseph Haydn and you would not be far off. The music is well-composed and lies well on the guitar. Let's hope it gets lots of performances!
Here is a zippy performance by Hao Yang of the Sonata, op. 31 no. 6 (just the scherzo and finale, though the beginning of the scherzo is cut off):
5 comments:
I've played Sonata op. 31, no. 5 a couple of times live. Fun piece, but the problem I had with playing it, as I also have with a piece like Sor's Magic Flute variations, is bringing out the lightness and charm and humour on a modern instrument (on top of my own technical deficiencies, I have to be honest -- it can be too easy to just blame the instrument!) I think David Starobin's recordings use a curious Viennese model Hauser, which works very well.
I think I see what you mean, thought I haven't tried this music on a period instrument. It seems to work pretty well on my guitar.
Oh yes it can certainly work well. But when I played some original 19th century guitars I was struck by how much easier and more graceful slurs were especially. I imagine that Matiegka's exceptionally detailed articulation would feel more natural on a period guitar, but I could be wrong..!
Oh no, now I have to get a 19th century guitar! But I suspect you are correct. Sor and Giuliani always feel a bit strained on a modern guitar. The lighter-built 19th century designs undoubtedly are more appropriate.
The comparison to Haydn is pretty apt both in terms of influence and not being quite as a creative, especially when we get to Matiegka's Op. 23, which is an adaptation/transcription of Haydn's Hoboken XVI:32 B minor piano sonata. Matiegka made Haydn's finale his first movement and the menuet his second movement and created an original finale.
On that note, if anyone has any recommended references for analyses of Haydn's piano sonatas, but most especially Hoboken XVI:32 post comments if you would.
Matiegka's use of Haydn is especially extensive as well in Grand Sonata II, which I've written about a bit in the past but I'm going to have to revisit it and when I do I'll show which Haydn themes he used in the first and third movements. I think a plausible case can be made that Grand Sonata II's first movement is a light reworking of a theme from one of Haydn's E flat piano trios while his finale with bravura variations overtly lists the Haydn lieder he used for his inventio in the score.
In the wake of work by Hepokoski and Darcy such as Elements of Sonata Theory the time seems ripe for a reappraisal of Matiegka's approach to sonata forms that factors in the Types 1 through 5. That way his work can be seen as full of varied approaches to sonata forms rather than as some kind of sub-par "didn't master sonata form" of the sort I've seen in some 20th century musicology on, say, DSCH, or dismissive remarks about Villa-Lobos' handling of sonata forms because back in the 1970s through 1980s sonata forms were "obsolete".
IRL life events have slowed me down on this project but the Matiegka 2023 blogging project is going to continue however long I need it to to eventually blog through all of his twelve sonatas. Throw in Op. 20, No. 24 study and it's actually thirteen.
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