T h E minor sonata... impressive for its impassioned and profoundly grave character. Its very first notes create room for dialog between rising arpeggiated octaves and sighing downward figures. This interplay combines a plebian ‘cantabile’ quality with dramatic outbursts and fermatas of great intensity... eerily piercing melody above nervously racing bass lines is an incomparably tender and profoundly human portrait hovering somewhere between hope, apprehension, and a scarcely definable longing.”
— Anselm Hartinger, liner notes for Viviane Chassot CD.
T he pale F minor Adagio [of the F major sonata, Hob. XVI:23] sounds like an eccentric siciliano, with idiosyncratic bass phrasing and complicated rhythms undermining the movement’s simple, rocking motion... an unimposing but brilliant exploit. The abrupt toccata-like entry... is remarkable for its passionate quality, giving the lie to any good-natured, fatherly image one might have of Haydn.”E very year somebody I know asks me to suggest some scary music for them to play, for a Halloween party or other gathering of friends around this time. “Something exotic. Not Bach ‘Toccata and Fugue in D minor’ predictable.” Okay, so how about haunted accordion!
— Anselm Hartinger, liner notes for Viviane Chassot CD.
[30-sec clip, Viviane Chassot, Joseph Haydn, Sonata in e minor, Hob. XVI:34, Presto; (track 11), 2009, 1.1MB MP3]
A h, the wistful, waning days of autumn, hours of daylight quickly shortening, your major-key moments vanquished by spooky darkness. How about a swooping, nimble waltz brought up crippled with rubatic, sesquipedalian and perhaps lethal injuries? Rapid sextuplets of flitting bats! Long fermata rests in the spooky wood; then continue on the dank path...
[30-sec clip, Viviane Chassot, Joseph Haydn, Sonata in F major, Hob. XVI:23, Adagio; (track 5), 2009, 1.1MB MP3]
Y our languid puppy innocence cannot protect you from the danger here; it only signals your vulnerability and the juiciness of your jugular. These stretches of tranquil major are like a cinematic tight-shot, hiding the danger that’s nearby. Your lonely ambling treble can take no comfort from the lurker bass-voice. He does not escort you. Instead, he narrates your doom. Bwa-ha-ha!
T hese sonata movements become ‘character pieces’ by way of, shall we say, a “possessed” timbre and texture of which accordion is capable! E minor, the key of flight from reality and spiritual drunkenness. F minor, the key of self-torment; qualms of conscience; introversion; pensiveness; endless worry; self-reproach; wishing you’d never come. The e minor and f minor are perfect keys for Halloween, don’t you think? Far more subtle and sneaking than ... the undead d minor; the ominous g-sharp minor; the sepulchral c-sharp minor; the tragic c minor; the frenzied g minor, so obvious (see links below, esp. Steblin and Schubart).
B orn in Zürich, Chassot studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Bern with Teodoro Anzellotti. She is winner of the Kranichstein Music Prize in 2004 in Darmstadt. She is an energetic champion of new music, working with ensembles such as Contrechamps Geneva, Collegium Novum Zurich, Klangforum Wien und Ensemble modern Frankfurt. She also has in the past 10 years engaged in interdisciplinary projects with writers and dancers—for example, her 2007 collaboration with choreographer Luca Veggetti and the Cincinnati Ballet, with presentations at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Ms. Chassot presently lives as a freelance musician in Leipzig. She has collaborated with composers such as with Beat Furrer, Michael Pelzel, Toshio Hosokawa, Roland Moser, Henri Dutilleux, Jörg Widmann, Friedrich Cerha, Arman Gushchyan, and Bernhard Lang, and she has transcribed many Baroque and early music works for the accordion. Her interpretations combine historical musical performance practice with the unusual properties of free-reed, which inevitably makes the music appear in a new [and sometimes eerie] light!- Viviane Chassot website [site design in black-with-blood-red palette!]
- Chassot V. Joseph Haydn: Sonatas. (Genuin, 2009.)
- Music and Emotion Bibliography, School of Music, Ohio State Univ. (graduate course Mus-829D)
- Juslin P, Sloboda J. Handbook of Music and Emotion. Oxford Univ, 2010.
- Li T, Ogihara M. Detecting emotion in music. Johns Hopkins Univ, 2003.
- Lindley M. A rudimentary approach to the history of the major and minor keys. Working Paper, 2010.
- Meyer L. Emotion and Meaning in Music. Univ Chicago, 1961.
- Schubart C. Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst. 1806.
- Steblin R. A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. Univ Rochester, 2005.
- Zangwill N. Music, metaphor, and emotion. J. Aesthet Art Crit 2007;64:391-400.
- Haydn J. Piano sonata in E minor, No. 53, Hob. XVI:34, at IMSLP
- Haydn J. Piano sonata in F minor, No. 38, Hob. XVI:23, at IMSLP
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