Your Daybill

Contents

Creative Team & Program
About the Work
Biographies

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Creative Team

Anna Goldsworthy, piano and original monologue
Andrew Haveron, violin
Neil Armfield AO, directorial consultant
With thanks to Mitchell Butel

Program

Anna Goldsworthy, spoken word
After the Kreutzer Sonata

Andrew Haveron, violin
Anna Goldsworthy, piano
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Sonata for Violin & Piano No. 9 in A, Op.47, Kreutzer

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About the Work

The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.

Edgar Allan Poe

From its hurried beginnings in 1803, Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 for violin and piano has enjoyed a rich and varied afterlife. Beethoven was still scrawling out notes on the morning of its premiere, forcing its dedicatee, the black virtuoso violinist Bridgetower, to extemporise violin passages on stage. Shortly after this performance, the two men fell out, allegedly over a woman, leading to the work’s re-dedication to the violinist Rudolphe Kreutzer, who famously never played it. Nevertheless, Kreutzer’s is the name that history remembers, immortalised in a work that has become a virtuosic mainstay of the repertoire.

It is also a work that has spawned a number of other works. Leo Tolstoy famously made the Kreutzer Sonata the centrepiece of his lurid, conflicted manifesto against sexuality, The Kreutzer Sonata, after hearing a performance given at his home by his son Sergei. Tolstoy’s novella charts the onset of a husband’s obsessive jealousy, culminating in the murder of his wife, and prompted Tolstoy’s younger son, Lev Lvovich, to publish his own story in response (a "stupid and untalented" effort, according to Tolstoy). More significantly, Sofiya Tolstaya composed her own counter-novella, Whose Fault? Apropos of “The Kreutzer Sonata”, from the perspective of the maligned wife, with margin notes addressing the relevant passages in Tolstoy's novella. (Later again, Janacek created his own Kreutzer Sonata string quartet in response to Tolstoy’s novella.)

Drawing on the novellas, journal entries and correspondence of both Tolstoy and Sofia Tolstoya, writer and pianist Anna Goldsworthy retells this story of male jealousy and violence in an original monologue, from the perspective of the murdered wife. Anna’s recitation accompanies a performance with celebrated violinist Andrew Haveron of this timeless and thrilling work.

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Biographies

Anna Goldsworthy
Piano & Original Monologue

Acclaimed pianist, writer and festival director Anna Goldsworthy performs extensively throughout Australia and internationally. An accomplished chamber musician, Anna is a founding member of Seraphim Trio. Anna’s literary publications include the best-selling memoir Piano Lessons and the novel Melting Moments, and works for the stage, such as the cabaret show Cole for Michael Griffiths, and the libretto for Victorian Opera’s award- winning production of The Magic Pudding. Anna is Director of the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide, and an Associate Professor at the Elder Conservatorium of Music. In 2022, she is Artistic Director of the Coriole Music Festival, the Hayllar Music and Mountains Festival in Queenstown, New Zealand, and co-curator of the She Speaks festival for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Andrew Haveron
Violin

Andrew Haveron has established himself as one of the most sought-after violinists of his generation, enjoying accolades as a soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster. In 1999, Andrew was appointed leader of the Brodsky Quartet. A busy schedule saw the quartet perform and broadcast in its unique style all over the world. Andrew has appeared with numerous groups such as the Nash and Hebrides ensembles, Kathy Selby and Friends, the Verbruggen Ensemble, the Sydney Soloists and Ensemble Q. He has appeared in recitals around Australia with the pianists Piers Lane, Simon Tedeschi and Anna Goldsworthy. He has held positions as concertmaster and director with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia and, since 2014, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Andrew has also worked extensively with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. He can be heard on many film and computer game soundtracks including Disney’s Fantasia game. In 2004, Andrew received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Kent for his services to music. He plays on a G.B. Guadagnini violin from 1757, a generous loan to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

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