PROGRAM NOTES October 29 and 30, 2016

Piano Concerto No. 24 in Minor, K. 491 Born in Salzburg January 27, 1756 Died December 5, 1791 in Vienna

Last performed February 15/16, 1997

Was Mozart a manic/depressive? Musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon has suggested that all Mozart’s compositions in C minor are manifestations of depression, and that Mozart may have been acutely depressed in spring 1786 when he composed the C minor piano concerto. Certainly K. 491 is a work of epic grandeur and symphonic scale. Both this concerto and the well-loved Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K .466, anticipate Beethoven’s stormy emotional intensity. An expansive orchestral exposition to the opening Allegro establishes sobriety and drama that are sustained throughout the work. Mozart distributes his thematic material throughout the orchestra, allowing exquisitely balanced dialogue with the soloist. An interpretive challenge in this concerto is that the manuscript is one of Mozart’s sketchiest. The soloist must flesh out some passages that Mozart only indicated in a kind of musical shorthand. For these performances, Mr. Weiss plays ’s cadenza in the first movement. He plays his own original embellished entrances (called Eingänge) and cadences in all three movements. In its pristine simplicity, the E-flat Larghetto is one of the most perfect creations in all Mozart. Using rich color resources – K. 491 is Mozart’s sole piano concerto calling for both oboes and clarinets – he transforms a simple A-B-A-C-A form into a sophisticated amalgam of rondo, woodwind serenade, and variation. Each contrasting episode (the first in C minor, the second in A-flat) occurs first in the woodwinds, then the soloist embellishes. The finale was Mozart’s last essay in variation form among the mature concertos. Only this and K .453 in conclude with variations, but the structure in K .491 is more complex and gives greater weight to the finale, rivaling that of the first movement. Simply stated, the movement consists of a theme, eight variations and a coda. But variations two through seven are double variations, which means the second half of each section introduces a different variation treatment. In the final variation, Mozart switches the meter to 6/8 and adds a brilliant coda. Brilliance does not necessarily mean the clouds lift, however. Mozart remains in minor mode through the closing chords.

Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Opus 93 Born in St. Petersburg, Russia September 25, 1906 Died August 9, 1975 in Moscow

Last performed March 30/31, 1985

Nearly seven decades ago, in February 1948, Stalin’s most prominent lieutenant, Andrei Zhdanov, issued a resolution condemning Dmitri Shostakovich, and other Soviet composers. Their `crime’ was failure to comply sufficiently with socialist realism. Shostakovich had already been the target of Stalin’s formal censure in 1936, when a famous attack in Pravda lambasted his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. After that early debacle, Shostakovich was `rehabilitated,’ and had lived more or less according to Soviet party doctrine for more than a decade, including the crucial years of the Second World War. He was deeply wounded by the Zhdanov decree. He reacted by withdrawal, declining to release new compositions for several years other than film scores and some Soviet choral music. Some people knew he was writing chamber music. Privately, he worked on his Tenth Symphony during the tense years following Zhdanov’s resolution. Stalin died in March 1953. During the months that followed, Soviet Russia gradually breathed a little easier, as the tight controls of Stalin’s police state eased. This was the beginning of the so-called “thaw.” Shostakovich emerged from his compositional shell by dusting off some works he had declined to issue, and completing others. Three important premieres of his music took place in November and December 1953: the Fourth and Fifth String Quartets, and the Tenth Symphony. The much-anticipated symphony was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. Yevgeny Mravinsky led the Leningrad Philharmonic in the first performance, at the conclusion of the city’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

In his controversial memoirs, published posthumously as Testimony in 1979, Shostakovich told Solomon Volkov: I couldn’t write an apotheosis to Stalin, I simply couldn’t. I knew what I was in for when I wrote the Ninth. But I did depict Stalin in music in my next symphony, the Tenth. I wrote it right after Stalin’s death, and no one has yet guessed what the symphony is about. It’s about Stalin and the Stalin years. The second part, the scherzo, is a musical portrait of Stalin, roughly speaking. Of course, there are many other things in it, but that’s the basis.

The Tenth Symphony sums up Shostakovich’s emotional reaction to war and the post- war period. The overall format -- four movements arranged slow-fast-slow-fast — is similar to his structural layout in the Fifth and Seventh (“Leningrad”) Symphonies, with the addition of an introductory Andante to the finale in the Tenth Symphony. There is no real slow movement; the first and third movements -- Moderato and Allegretto, respectively -- are simply slower than the second and fourth. A disproportion in movement length is evident. The first movement is unusually long. The second, the scherzo purportedly portraying Stalin, is a concentrated ball of fury lasting a scant four minutes. The third movement introduces Shostakovich’s musical monogram: D-S-C-H. In German transliteration, his name was spelled Dimitri Schostakovitsch. In German musical spelling, Es means E-flat and H means B-natural. (D and C are the same in English and German musical spellings.) Thus the four pitches D-Es-C-H (D, E-flat, C, B-natural on the piano keyboard) provided the composer with a musical signature. This motive proved extremely important in many works through the 1960’s. The Tenth Symphony was the first composition in which it played a significant role. Its prominence in the third movement and recurrence in the finale are an affirmation of self, Shostakovich’s defiant assertion of individuality in the face of Soviet oppression. The sardonic opening violin theme and a recurrent solo horn call also bind the third movement together. The lengthy Andante that opens the finale serves as a transition between the meditation of the third movement and the unbridled optimism of the symphony’s conclusion. As in the symphony’s opening, low strings introduce the material. A series of woodwind solos -- first oboe, then flute, then bassoon -- intensify a leaden mood. Presently clarinet and flute hint at the sprightly theme that will form the basis of the march-like Allegro. Elements of cyclic structure occur in the echoes of the malevolent second movement. Overall, however, the feeling is carnivalesque, with just enough of an edge to it for us to wonder if Shostakovich’s sarcasm has found another outlet.

Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2016 First North American Serial Rights Only