Sense of an ending
The cadenza is one of the concerto’s longest standing traditions – a chance for the soloist to show off their virtuosity. But how and why did it develop? Jessica Duchen traces its history across the centuries
Jessica Duchen traces the history of the cadenza
Many classical musicians emerge from years at music college petrified by the idea of improvising. Yet improvisation is living musical creativity: a structured response to a moment in real-time that is all about the exchange of energy between musician and audience. In Arabic and Indian classical traditions, that is essentially what music is. But in western music, improvisation has lately been pushed aside and is now almost the sole preserve of the jazz and organ worlds. One familiar trace of it, however, remains in staple concert-hall repertoire: the not-so-humble concerto cadenza.
The word derives from ‘cadence’ – the pattern of two or more chords that bring a piece or part of one to a close. In a traditional cadenza format, towards the end of a concerto’s first movement the orchestra comes to rest on a second-inversion chord, which would normally usher in a quick chordal progression to take the music ‘home’.
But first, the soloist plays briefly alone, typically concluding with a trill: then comes the muchpostponed cadence and, with orchestra, the coda.
The reality, of course, is more complicated – especially as the concept originated chiefly with singers. The building-block of Handelian Baroque opera was the da capo aria, in which the performer was expected to add his/her own improvised embellishments to the music the second time around. This development coincided with the rise of the singer as star. Handel went to immense lengths to recruit leading sopranos and castrati for his company
in London, Farinelli among them; the financing of opera here depended on its popularity with the public, and the public loved its stars. The freedom to embellish let such performers give their virtuosity free rein.
‘That’s the fun for us singers,’ explains Carolyn Sampson. ‘If you’ve sung an aria that’s very sad or folorn, you could, in the da capo, either fall deeper into your misery or perhaps express an element of emerging strength. If I’m angry, I could use big octave leaps, or chromaticism to make it more plangent. We tend to think of them as very flashy with high notes, but occasionally I like to use lower notes to bring in an element of despair.’
Instrumentalists nevertheless could match, even overtake singers in the skills of improvisation. Bach was a legendary improviser on the organ; people would travel from far and wide to hear him. The cadenza was essentially a formalised way of inserting concentrated extemporisation into the concerto format, generally using themes from the work. Bach left indications of pauses in certain pieces, notably the third Brandenburg Concerto, to show where cadenzas should be added.
Sometimes, though, soloists’ efforts burst the banks of propriety. According to Charles Burney, in Dublin in 1742 Handel found the violinist Matthew Dubourg improvising a cadenza with lengthy, dizzying modulations. When he finally returned to the tonic, Handel called: ‘You are welcome home, Mr Dubourg.’ And the singers whose questionable taste led to much tooth
‘‘ The cadenza was essentially a formalised way of inserting concentrated extemporisation into the concerto format ’’
gnashing on the part of the composer would take too long to list.
This was where the art of improvisation began to work against its own best interests – because to forestall such splurges, composers started to write down their preferred cadenzas. Mozart, if performing one of his own piano concertos, would improvise on the spot and often did not notate them at all. However, if writing for a pupil or a patron, he would indeed provide them; the ‘little’ A major Piano Concerto K414 is a good example, among several that give useful guidance as to how the unwritten cadenzas for his other concertos might progress.
Not that Beethoven took much notice. His cadenza for the first movement of Mozart’s D minor Piano Concerto K466 is extraordinary: unmistakably Beethovenian, while using only Mozart’s themes. But again it’s a matter of taste, and pianist Angela Hewitt is among those who prefer to avoid it. ‘I don’t like cadenzas to be so anachronistic that suddenly you’re in another world,’ Hewitt says. ‘I don’t play the Beethoven cadenzas for Mozart’s K466 because all of a sudden you’re playing Beethoven! And I don’t want to play Beethoven in the middle of a
Mozart concerto.’ She has composed several original cadenzas herself for Mozart concertos: ‘My favourite was for the finale of Mozart’s K482 in E flat, which I wrote on the 88 bus!’
Beethoven, like Mozart, was famed for improvising. Once, the story goes, Prince Lobkowitz persuaded him to undertake an improvisation ‘duel’ against celebrated pianist Daniel Steibelt. It ended with Steibelt swearing never to set foot in Vienna again as long as Beethoven was there. Perhaps the third cadenza Beethoven wrote for the first movement of his Piano Concerto No. 1 gives us some clue about how his improvisations sounded. The first two are reasonably ‘normal’, but the third, added later, is a white-knuckle ride that includes five minutes of staggering virtuosity. ‘I performed it in Detroit with conductor Matthias Bamert, who has a dry sense of humour,’ Hewitt says. ‘In the rehearsal he turned round to me and said: “Would you like us to leave the stage while you play that?”’
Cadenzas’ placement, length and raison d’etre varied increasingly as the 19th century progressed. Sometimes they became an integral element of the work and could even be the point at which the music reached its emotional core. The Schumann Piano Concerto is a notable example: ‘You wouldn’t play your own cadenza there,’ Hewitt says. ‘Well, you might, but it would be a huge mistake. Schumann’s is essential and is part of the piece.’
By the early 20th century, the notion had been much transformed. Prokofiev, in his devastating Piano Concerto No. 2, and Ravel in his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand both weave cadenzas into the work’s structure, opening up the emotional vistas that the pieces explore. Elgar’s Violin Concerto involves an extended, inwardlooking cadenza in the finale, accompanied by rustling thrums from the orchestral strings – arguably the heart of the work.
The Elgar was written for the great Viennese violinist Fritz Kreisler. Although many composers had continued to write concertos to perform themselves – including Clara Schumann, Liszt and Rachmaninov – it had also become more usual to compose works for particular performers. The violin concertos of Schumann, Brahms, Bruch and Dvo ák were all written for the Hungarian violinist and pedagogue Joseph Joachim to play – not that he was always willing to do so – and his own cadenza contributions could be vital. ‘For me, the Joachim cadenza is so synonymous with the Brahms that it feels odd to hear a different one,’ says violinist Tasmin Little. Dedicatees and colleagues often worked closely with composers on cadenzas. Szymanowski worked on the cadenzas for both his concertos with Pawel Kochanski; Elgar took advice from WH Reed for his, and Kreisler changed bits and pieces.
But many cadenzas provided by artists long after a work’s creation have also seduced performers: ‘I am completely wedded to the Kreisler cadenzas for the Beethoven,’ Little says. ‘I couldn’t bear to play that work and not do them!’ Kreisler, a fine composer in his own right, wrote numerous new cadenzas and his offering for the Brahms (pace, Tasmin!) is particularly striking, exploiting attractive and ear-boggling violinistic effects; occasionally, too, he pushes
the chromatic envelope in intriguing directions to explore the themes in thrilling new ways.
As for pianists, Mozart and Haydn’s piano concertos have sparked cadenzas by luminaries including Wanda Landowska, Artur Schnabel and even Busoni. The latter’s cadenza for Mozart’s A major Concerto K488 became the cause of a rather public disagreement some years ago between the pianist Hélène Grimaud, who wanted to record it, and the conductor Claudio Abbado, who asked her to replace it with the composer’s original – even though Busoni’s cadenza sounds quite plausibly Mozartian.
Intriguingly, the concerto genre is now enjoying a revival among contemporary composers, cadenzas and all. Errollyn Wallen in her one-movement Cello Concerto puts the cadenza at the beginning, where soloist Matthew Sharp describes it as ‘incredibly intense and stratospheric’. Wallen explains that this placement ‘establishes the cello as the commanding presence driving the whole piece’. At the other extreme, György Ligeti’s Violin Concerto presents the cadenza at the very end – but here the performer is required to create their own, using material from the earlier movements.
Little has tackled it: ‘Almost the whole responsibility for the conclusion falls on the violinist’s shoulders,’ she says. ‘Ligeti gives precise instructions for what he wants: you are
‘‘ For me, the Joachim cadenza is so synonymous with the Brahms Concerto that it feels odd to hear a different one ’’
supposed to take ideas from all five movements, and keep it hectic and busy. In mine, I aimed to sum up the piece and to recreate on the violin some of the soundworlds that he’s created in different movements. For instance, I used artificial harmonics in double stoppings to create the ocarina sounds from the second movement.’
If you think ocarinas are surprising in a concerto, try turntables. Improvisation has made a very 21st-century comeback in Gabriel Prokofiev’s Concerto for Turntables: the soloist is a DJ who isn’t generally accustomed to reading scores. Prokofiev (grandson of Sergei) provides a skeleton guide part for the soloist, with much of it learnt and improvised during rehearsals. ‘In one way,’ Prokofiev writes, ‘this new instrument is bringing the concerto back to its roots.’
Although there is a long way to go before improvising a cadenza again becomes a regular part of concerto performances, the art is not wholly lost: American fortepianist Robert
Levin is noted for his expertise, and pianist and pedagogue David Dolan has been teaching classical improvisation at a number of colleges.
Yes, it’s easy to stick to the well-worn pathways we know from our record collections, but it could be we’re missing out. The improvised cadenza may yet be resurrected: just a few minutes to reconnect us to the wellspring of inspiration that lies at the heart of why we make music at all.