Fifth Ave Chamber
Orchestra
Monday, March 12th, 2012 8pm
William Noll, Music Director & Conductor
Fifth Ave Chamber Orchestra
Ilya Itin, Pianist
Mozart - Piano Concerto #21 in C Major
Beethoven - Symphony #8 in F Major
SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Concerto
No. 21 in C Major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 467
– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria
Died December 5, 1791 in Vienna, Austria
The work was
premiered on March
10, 1785, at the
Royal
Imperial
National
Court Theater
in Vienna.
It is scored for flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two
trumpets, timpani, and strings.
Wolfgang Mozart, like his father, Leopold, had been
employed in the court of Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg – Leopold as deputy Kapellmeister
and Wolfgang as court organist and concertmaster.
Wolfgang despised the harsh treatment of the court's servants
whose ranks included all court musicians.
After two years of service, he left the position against official
orders from the Archbishop.
In other words, he quit, but his employer refused to release him.
Because of his unique family situation, a rift with the court
also meant a severance of ties with his father.
Much like the Archbishop, Leopold insisted on retaining control
of his son. Wolfgang had no
choice but to leave Salzburg, deciding to
relocate to the musical Mecca of Vienna.
He was finally granted dismissal from the court in May of 1781.
In Vienna,
Mozart met Constanze Weber (a cousin of the composer Carl Maria von
Weber) and they were married on
August 4, 1782.
Leopold did not approve, not yet ready to accept that the son who had
brought the family so much wealth and recognition was no longer under
his control. In hopes that
Leopold would accept Constanze if he finally met her, the young couple
planned a trip to Salzburg for the following June.
Leopold, not to be outdone, never accepted his daughter-in-law.
When the Mozarts left
Salzburg
after the 1783 visit, they never returned.
In February of 1785, Leopold arrived in Vienna to make sure that
Wolfgang had not been ruined by the new wife that was simply not
suitable in his eyes. In the
ten weeks that Leopold was in
Vienna, he witnessed the life of an immensely
popular composer and his supportive wife.
He jealously complained about the parties and non-stop pace that
left him breathless. In a
letter to his daughter, Nannerl, he wrote:
"We never get to bed
before one o'clock and I never get up before nine. We
lunch at two or half past. The weather is horrible. Every day there are
concerts; and the whole time is given up to teaching, music, composing
and so forth. I feel rather out of it all. If only the concerts were
over! It is impossible for me to describe the rush and bustle. Since my
arrival, your brother's fortepiano has been taken at least a dozen times
to the theatre or to some other house."
Wolfgang still managed to compose several works
during Leopold’s stay, including the Piano Concerti nos. 20 and 21 – two
of the greatest works Mozart composed in the genre.
Piano Concerto No. 21, finished just a month after its
predecessor, was dated March 9 and was premiered the following day.
As other annotators have reported, the concert earned Mozart 559
gulden, which is roughly the equivalent of $1500 in today’s value.
The first movement,
Allegro maestoso, opens with the standard orchestral exposition in
which the two main themes are presented.
Introduced by the strings in octaves, the first theme begins as a
staccato outline of the C major chord, followed by a descending scale.
Woodwinds interject martial figures between phrases.
Mozart shifts the focus for the more robust second theme,
entrusting it entirely to the winds.
When the piano finally enters, it does not immediately play the
theme, as is usually the case in Mozart’s concertos, but instead,
provides commentary and filigree to enhance and expand upon the sturdy
themes already presented.
The development is a romp through new material akin to the character of
Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro
which would follow just a year later.
(Pablo Arencibia,
Piano Orquesta Sinfónica Municipal de Caracas,Venezuela, Edvard
Tchivzhel - Conductor—http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2uYb6bMKyI&feature=related)
Perhaps the most familiar part of this concerto is
the andante second movement,
which served as incidental music to the 1967 Swedish film
Elvira Madigan. A
crystalline, upward-reaching theme in F major is first stated in its
entirety by the strings with support from a cushion of woodwind chords
added midway through. Of
course, the piano takes over the theme and dominates the movement from
that point forth. Of
particular interest is the sudden key change to A-flat major in the
middle of the movement that comes as a profound gesture.
(Same personnel as above --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COnjs-6-_0Y&feature=related)
Mozart’s finale,
Allegro vivace assai, is a
bustling rondo with elements of sonata form (the elusive sonata-rondo
form) that reveals his famous brusque sense of humor.
It is bright and sunny, despite a few excursions into minor
key-areas. This is music of
great lightness and brilliance that sits in perfect contrast to the
profundity of the andante.
After a lively cadenza, the work closes with a lighthearted
passage for soloist and orchestra that sparkles with youthful
exuberance.
(Same personnel as above --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4CBbNviK48&feature=related)
Symphony No. 8 in F Major,
Op.93
– Ludwig van Beethoven
Born
December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany
Died
March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria
The
work was first performed on February 2, 1814, at Schönbrunn Palace in
Vienna. It is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons,
horns, and trumpets, with timpani and strings.
Early in
a composer’s career, his or her musical works are often untraditional.
Composers naturally attempt to cut a niche into which they and
they alone fit as an original voice.
Ludwig van Beethoven had done just that with his earliest
symphonies in the first years of the nineteenth century.
With each successive work, he pushed the standard further – the
expanse of the Eroica, the motivic integration of the Fifth, and
the sheer power of the Seventh.
Imagine the surprise of the audience at the premier of the Eighth
Symphony – a work rooted in the Classical traditions of Mozart and
Haydn, yet totally Beethovenian and Romantic in its compositional
techniques.
The
Eighth Symphony, apart from a private reading for Archduke Rudolph in
April of 1813, was first heard publicly in February of 1814.
The concert, held in the Redoutensaal ballroom of Schönbrunn
palace, was an all-Beethoven affair featuring the mighty Seventh
Symphony, followed by the Eighth, and ending with the premiere the
Battle Symphony “Wellington’s Victory.”
The final work, using artillery and orchestral effects to create
a sonic portrait of the battlefield, served as a sort of 1812
Overture in its day, quickly gaining immense popularity because of
the current Napoleonic Wars in Europe.
Comparatively, the Eighth Symphony seemed small and unimportant.
This work is a
wonderful example of how a composer can honor past musical styles while
continuing to forge ahead and make progress in the musical arts.
The brilliant sonata-form allegro vivace e con brio that
opens the work is filled with many trademarks of Beethoven’s style.
The themes are varied and full of ingenious melodic twists.
Beethoven’s harmonies are adventurous, often sidestepping from
expected resolutions to open new tonal areas.
Beethoven’s development section ends with a huge crescendo into
the recapitulation making the arrival a structural goal of the piece.
The lengthy coda is not a mere closing section, but develops the
thematic material even further than in the earlier development section.
The
second movement of an early nineteenth-century symphony is usually an
introspective slow movement.
Ironically, in this work that hearkens back to the Classical period
Beethoven replaced the traditional adagio with a quicker
allegretto scherzando.
The opening theme, set against a ticking accompaniment in the winds, is
likely a parody of Haydn’s Clock Symphony. After
the exposition, Beethoven provides no development, but the
recapitulation brings back both earlier themes in the proper key for
sonata form (this is sometimes called sonatina form).
Then, to
embrace the period he commemorates, the composer presents a minuet as
his third movement – a tradition he left behind over a decade before in
his first symphony by using a scherzo in its place.
However, Beethoven’s minuet is more rustic than earlier examples
with heavy-footed downbeats that would have made for awkward dancing in
eighteenth-century salons.
Wind instruments prevail in the trio section before returning to the
string textures of the minuet to round off the movement.
The
finale, cast in a hybrid combination of sonata and rondo forms, explores
rhythm and dynamics. The
pianissimo opening theme draws the listener in, only to explode in
volume as a welcome surprise.
As in previous movements, the second theme relies heavily on
woodwind solos. Beethoven’s
development is convoluted and features much fragmentation of the themes.
After the recapitulation, the coda concludes with more than
twenty ‘final’ chords before allowing the delightful and humorous work
to come to a brilliant close.
(Complete historical
performance by Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mca8qiWYmpo)
©2012 Orpheus
Music Prose & Craig Doolin
www.orpheusnotes.com
