Beethoven Revisited

Sypert Hall, St Cecilia’s Hall 21/6/25

Jacqueline Ross violin, Artem Belogurov fortepiano

I returned to the elliptical-plan Sypert Hall at St Cecilia’s Hall and Museum in Edinburgh for the last of their Summer Concert Series 2025 on the balmy humid night of Saturday 21st June.  New Yorker, Juilliard graduate and currently Professor of Violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,  Jacqueline Ross, has a keen research interest in 19th century performance practice.  She was joined by keyboard artist Artem Belogurov, currently on the faculty of Utrecht Conservatory, who performs and records regularly on a variety of historical keyboard instruments and shares her interest in historically-informed performance.  Their current joint project, ‘Beethoven Revisited’, seeks to recapture the interpretative freedom of Beethoven’s time, while also casting light on the close connections between Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart.  The night’s programme was curated around these aims, with two early and one (on the cusp of) middle-period Beethoven sonatas, interspersed with one each from Haydn and Mozart, and a set of Beethoven variations on a Mozart theme.  Jacqueline’s violin was made in 1777 by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in Turin, at a time when his instruments were more closely imitative of the Stradivari model, and it has gut strings.  Artem played a fortepiano, a modern instrument mostly built by Donald Mackinnon in the early 1990s and finished in 1998 by Christopher Barlow in Frome, Somerset.  It is a faithful copy of an early 18th century model by Schantz, of a type owned by both Haydn and Beethoven.  Attendance in the intimate Sypert Hall was entirely satisfactory.

In her introductory remarks to Beethoven’s 3-movement A-major Sonata Op.12 No.2, Jacqueline quoted from Beethoven’s illustrious pupil Carl Czerny, whose contemporary notes offer valuable guidance on the performance practices of the time.  The first movement, with a light fast metre in 3, sounded quite operatic, presumably a nod to its dedicatee Salieri, a conventional sonata form with subtle added ornamentation in the exposition repeat, short forays into the minor key in the development, and a witty coda with syncopation and repartee between the instruments.  Still quite operatic was the quasi-recitative from the fortepiano which opened the ‘slow’ movement, answered in kind by the violin.  The lyrical cantabile theme which followed was very lovely, though I was tickled by a passing resemblance to ‘Some Enchanted Evening’.  Pensive chromaticism later in the movement added a dramatic variation.  The finale’s genial narrative style did not lack humour, one typically Beethovenian gag was trying different keys for the return of the theme, then discarding them all in favour of heading off on a wee wander.  A delightful concert opener.

Few composers deliver ‘delight’ so consistently as Beethoven’s one-time teacher Haydn.   Jacqueline introduced his 2-movement Sonata in G, Hob.XVI;27 (as appeared on the printed programme) as one of the few originally written as a sonata for violin and keyboard, rather than an arrangement of a string quartet or other work.  However, that Hoboken number is a 3-movement solo piano sonata, also in G.  What we heard was Hob.XV:32.  In a gesture of homage to the younger composer whom Haydn admired (and survived by nearly two decades), the theme of its first movement is derived from that of the second movement of a Mozart sonata which we heard later in the programme.  Her Guadagnini and the fortepiano both sang and danced the elegant Andante’ the ensuing Allegro was not particularly fast but was as gleeful a dance a charming piece.

Jacqueline described No.3 in E-flat as the ‘most ambitious’ of Beethoven’s early Op.12 set, and so it proved, with the two instruments as contrasting characters, each displaying virtuosity by turn.  In the first movement, the violin was sometimes prominent with very ornate runs, only to be superseded by the piano.  There was also much melodic answering and imitation.  The slower C-major second movement was akin to an operatic duet, a flowing and lyrical Adagio with each voice taking its turn at expressive arioso.  The Rondo finale, whose main melody I found very familiar, was very much in the character of a rustic dance, with lots of virtuosic scampering and a witty conclusion, plus more than a hint of Mozartean charm in the mix, raising lots of smiles. 

First up after the interval was the promised 2-movement Mozart Sonata in G K.201.  After an improvised piano cadenza introduction, a radiant lyrical theme introduced by the violin was interrupted by a march-like figure before a dancing second theme set the playful tone of the exposition, which was repeated.  Minor key exploration dominated the development.  Apart from some role-swapping, the recapitulation was conventional, sweet and satisfying.  The second movement was indeed the same melody as featured in the Haydn sonata we heard earlier but, to my ears at any rate, so much sweeter and more charming as an elegant minuet with variations, including a stylish  minor key departure in the middle.  Gorgeous.

Beethoven’s 12 Variations on ‘Se vuol ballare’ from Mozart’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ were written as an exercise to impress his teacher Haydn in 1793, neatly uniting the great classical triumvirate in one work.  Confident, playful inventiveness permeates the piece, making it easy to imagine the young Beethoven getting a first taste (and very much enjoying the sensation) of his audience wondering “what’s he going to do next? “  A super piece given a persuasive outing.

The programme concluded with Beethoven’s C-minor Sonata Op.30 No.2, a beefier 4-movement work dedicated to Tsar Alexander I.  The dramatic first movement seemed to spin a heroic narrative, a macabre first theme followed by a marchlike second theme, evolving into a tale of adventure.with plenty of major key moments.  Much minor key exploration in the development amplified the drama, which the recapitulation sustained.  The lyrical rhapsodic Adagio cantabile in radiant A-flat major was exquisite, as the Guadagnini sang again.  The quirky C-major Scherzo made sport of derailing a minuet by obsessing over an ornamentation, then toppling it with displaced accents into Haydnesque bariolage,  The Trio was no less mischievous, as the melodic lines seem to slip out of sync with each other and, indeed, the bar lines too.  Hilarious.  Back to C-minor ghosties for the opening of the finale, but the overall feel is of a Hungarian romp (did Beethoven think it was Russian?), with wee flashes of major-key merrymaking, a thrilling fugal interlude, and a wild Presto coda.  Thrilling.

This imaginatively-curated programme portrayed Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as a “mutual admiration society” who learned much from each other, up to the point where Beethoven was on the cusp of crossing new frontiers of innovation.  Not yet, perhaps, ‘The Great Mogul’, but there were signs.  Yes, there were signs.  And it wasn’t all innovation either.