Program

ONE huNDRED TwENTy-FiRST SEASON Chicago Symphony orchestra riccardo muti Music Director Pierre Boulez helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, March 29, 2012, at 8:00 Friday, March 30, 2012, at 8:00 Saturday, March 31, 2012, at 8:00 Sunday, April 1, 2012, at 3:00 mitsuko Uchida Conductor and Piano Stravinsky Concerto in D Major for String Orchestra Vivace— Arioso: Andantino— Rondo: Allegro mozart Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat Major, K. 456 Allegro vivace Andante un poco sostenuto Allegro vivace MiTSuKO uChiDA

IntermISSIon mozart Adagio and Fugue in C Minor, K. 546 mozart Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271 (Jeunehomme) Allegro Andantino Rondo: Presto MiTSuKO uChiDA

Saturday’s concert is sponsored by Walgreens. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. CommentS By PhilliP huSChER

Igor Stravinsky Born June 18, 1882, Oranienbaum, Russia. Died April 6, 1971, New York City.

Concerto in D major for String orchestra

hortly after Stravinsky con- (and her husband, Franz Werfel), Sducted the world premiere of Rubinstein, and Aldous Huxley, his Symphony in C in Chicago who hooked him up with W. H. in November 1940, he and his Auden to work on The Rake’s new wife Vera bought a house at Progress. Mann later said that 1260 North Wetherly in West “Hollywood during the war was Hollywood. In the spring of 1941, a more intellectually stimulat- they moved in. It would remain ing and cosmopolitan city than their home for nearly two decades, Paris or Munich had ever been.” and there, only a few houses away Schoenberg and his family were from the flash and hubbub of settled in nearby Brentwood Park, Sunset Strip, Stravinsky would but the two men, each viewed by compose nearly all his last works, the other as “the opposition,” never including the Mozartean opera met once. “Musicians came from The Rake’s Progress; Agon, his first all over the world to visit them,” venture into the twelve-tone world; Robert Craft wrote, “not mention- and this piece for string orchestra. ing to one composer their meetings During the war years, Los with the other one.” Angeles was a refuge for a Stravinsky became a U.S. citizen great many expatriates, and the in 1945. In 1946, he received his Stravinskys enjoyed the company first European commission in a of a large and varied circle of dozen years, a request from Paul friends, including Rachmaninov, Sacher, the Swiss conductor and Thomas Mann, Alma Mahler patron, for a work to celebrate

ComPoSeD FIrSt CSo InStrUmentatIon 1946 PerFormanCe string orchestra November 2, 1972, FIrSt PerFormanCe Orchestra hall. Daniel aPProxImate January 27, 1947, Basel, Barenboim conducting PerFormanCe tIme Switzerland 12 minutes moSt reCent CSo PerFormanCe August 2, 1975, Ravinia Festival. lawrence Foster conducting

2 the twentieth anniversary of the toys with many other keys and with Basel Chamber Orchestra he had the blurring of tonal boundaries in founded at the age of twenty. its itinerary. Stravinsky writes three Over the past two decades, Sacher movements, with two spirited sec- had introduced several important tions embracing the central Arioso, scores in Basel, including Bartók’s with its big, elegant B-flat melody. Divertimento, as well as his land- In 1951, Stravinsky’s score was mark Music for Strings, Percussion, choreographed by Jerome Robbins and Celesta. The twentieth- as The Cage, a horror story about anniversary concert, which was murderous insects, and premiered held on January 27, 1947, held new by the New York City Ballet on work Sacher had commissioned— June 10. The Cage was a great suc- Bohuslav Martinů’s Toccata e cess, despite the fact that Robbins’s due canzoni, Arthur Honneger’s subject and Stravinsky’s music Fourth Symphony, and Stravinsky’s make an odd match—as The New Concerto in D, which is some- York Times opening night review times called his Basel Concerto noted, “It is set upon the music of (primarily to distinguish it from Stravinsky’s Basler [sic] Concerto his other Concerto in D, for violin for strings, which is by no means and orchestra). vicious or brutal in character, Stravinsky’s Concerto in D is one with a curious fitness that does it of his final essays in his particular no violence whatever.” The Cage brand of neoclassicism. It flirts has often been revived over the with both D major and D minor years—it is part of the New York as its primary tonal anchors and is City Ballet’s current season—but obsessed in general with the inter- the concerto itself remains a rarity val of a minor second, but it also in the concert hall.

3 Wolfgang mozart Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria. Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria.

Piano Concerto no. 18 in B-flat major, K. 456

n 1785, Leopold Mozart spent time; the next evening he listened Iten weeks in Vienna visiting his to Wolfgang’s three new string son. It is clear from his letters home quartets, and with even greater to Nannerl, Wolfgang’s sister, that delight to the famous remark he was thrilled by it all; enjoyed Joseph Haydn made that night: being introduced around town as “Before God, and as an honest Wolfgang’s father; and felt relief, man, I tell you that your son is the mingled with surprise, to see that greatest composer known to me in his son had made a success of it person or by name.” And this was without him. Leopold arrived on only Saturday. February 11, just in time for a bitter On Sunday, February 13, cold snap that lasted till the first Wolfgang played “a masterful of March, leaving the streets piled concerto that he wrote for Paradis. with snow and several people dead I had the great pleasure of hearing of frostbite. all the interplay of the instruments Leopold soon saw that his son’s so clearly that for sheer delight life in Vienna was a whirlwind tears came to my eyes. When your of public appearances. “Since my brother left the stage, the emperor arrival,” he later wrote to Nannerl, tipped his hat and called out ‘Bravo “your brother’s fortepiano has been Mozart!’ and when he came on taken at least a dozen times from to play, there was a great deal of the house to the theater or to some clapping.” That concerto was appar- other house.” The night Leopold ently this work in B-flat major, arrived, Friday the eleventh, he the one Mozart had entered in heard Wolfgang play the great his new catalog on September 30, D minor piano concerto for the first 1784, and Ludwig Köchel would

ComPoSeD FIrSt CSo InStrUmentatIon Entered in catalog PerFormanCe solo piano, flute, two oboes, September 30, 1784 February 21, 1952, Orchestra two bassoons, two horns, hall. Myra hess, piano; strings FIrSt PerFormanCe Rafael Kubelík conducting unknown CaDenzaS moSt reCent Mozart CSo PerFormanCe May 31, 2009, Orchestra aPProxImate hall. Benedetto lupo, piano; PerFormanCe tIme Bernard labadie conducting 29 minutes

4 later reckon as number 456 in the intricacy of the wind writing is composer’s output. especially remarkable. Maria Theresia von Paradis was a pianist, composer, and singer who had been blind from early childhood. In 1784, when Mozart composed the concerto for her, she was twenty-five, three years younger than Mozart. That year was the busiest of Mozart’s hectic life, a flurry of productivity that prompted Mozart finally to open a blank book and begin a detailed registry of his works or else lose The Mozart Family. Painted by Johann Nepomuk della Croce, Salzburg, 1780–81 track forever. In the span of this one year, Mozart wrote six of his most magnificent The slow movement is more piano concertos. The first and the intimate still, and darker in tone. fourth were written for his pupil It is a theme with five variations Barbara Ployer, and two were for and a hefty coda instead of a sixth. his own concerts—“They are both (Each of the variations is repeated; concertos to make you sweat,” he since Mozart writes out the told his father. The fifth in the repeat each time from variation 2 series is this lovely B-flat concerto onward, varying the material in for Maria Theresia, the blind vir- slight but significant ways, there tuoso whose name is a fair descrip- are in effect nine distinct varia- tion of the music contained within. tions.) This is minor-key music, Like its neighbors (K. 451, 453, frequently enlivened by the shift and 459), the concerto opens with to major—just the opposite of the rhythmic martial music, though first movement. there are no trumpets and drums in The finale is quick and lively, the orchestra. It is a forceful open- with hunting horn fanfares, and, ing, and this is strong material, among an abundance of surprises, but the rest of the first movement a passage in the remote key of proceeds more like chamber music, B minor with the winds in 2/4 and animated by the interplay of instru- the strings in 6/8. The piano enters ments that so touched Leopold and the dispute, argues briefly and a piano solo that is more discreet persuasively for 2/4, then sides with and conversational than flamboy- the strings and sweeps everyone ant. The simultaneous clarity and along to a cheerful 6/8 finale.

5 Wolfgang mozart

adagio and Fugue in C minor, K. 546

hortly after he moved to Vienna provided not just a thrilling history Sin 1781, Mozart began to lesson, but a change in the way he spend his Sunday afternoons at the began to think about writing music. home of Gottfried van Swieten, From that point on, counterpoint where a small group of music lovers began to play a more crucial role in gathered each week to play through Mozart’s output. music by older masters. Swieten, In 1782, Mozart wrote to his one of the most powerful politi- sister back in Salzburg, cians of the day, had been delighted to encounter the works of Johann Baron van Suiten [sic], whom Sebastian Bach when he lived in I visit every Sunday, gave me Berlin, and it was in Swieten’s all the works of Handel and Viennese salon that Mozart too Sebastian Bach to take home fell under the spell of Bach’s music. with me after I had played Swieten had an impressive private them through to him. When library, its shelves filled with for- Constanze heard the fugues gotten works by Bach and Handel. she fell quite in love with them. At Swieten’s Sunday matinees, She will listen to nothing but Mozart and his fellow enthusi- fugues now. . . . Having often asts played through these scores heard me play fugues off the with a mixture of excitement and top of my head, she asked if discovery—sometimes they read I had ever written any down, through entire Handel oratorios and when I said I had not, she with Mozart at the piano. For scolded me very thoroughly for Mozart, these Sunday gatherings not having written anything in

ComPoSeD moSt reCent CSo reCorDIng 1786, based on fugue for two CSo PerFormanCe A 1976 performance of pianos of 1783 April 7, 1979, Orchestra Mozart’s Adagio and hall. Christoph von Fugue in C minor with Sir FIrSt PerFormanCe Dohnányi conducting Georg Solti conducting unknown was released on From the InStrUmentatIon Archives, vol. 4. FIrSt CSo strings PerFormanCe February 9, 1894, Auditorium aPProxImate Theatre (Fugue). Theodore PerFormanCe tIme Thomas conducting 9 minutes

6 this most artistic and beautiful the same day as his Symphony in of musical form. E-flat—the one we know as no. 39. A postscript. On his way to The Adagio and Fugue per- Berlin the next year, Mozart formed this week is what came stopped off in Leipzig to visit from Constanze’s scolding. It Bach’s church, began as a grand fugue for two where he pianos, composed in 1783. Five improvised years later, Mozart decided to on the organ make an arrangement for strings, for an hour. prefacing it by “a short adagio,” as Bach’s suc- he described it in his catalog, as cessor there, a kind of dramatic introduction. who sat beside The Adagio finds Mozart at his him at the most daring and expressive. The organ, said fugue demonstrates how closely “old Sebastian Mozart had studied Swieten’s Bach Bach has scores—he also transcribed several risen again.” Mozart’s wife Constanze. Oil portrait by Joseph Lange of Bach’s fugues, not only to give Mozart then painted about 1782, Vienna them a new performing life, but studied Bach’s also as a way to get inside them autograph and see precisely how they were scores, “the parts spread all put together. Mozart entered the around him, held in both of his Adagio and Fugue for strings in his hands, on his knees, and on the thematic catalog on June 26, 1788, adjoining chairs.”

7 Wolfgang mozart

Piano Concerto no. 9 in e-flat major, K. 271 (Jeunehomme)

ozart completed this piano French pianist, Mlle Jeunehomme, Mconcerto the month he turned who visited Salzburg in the last twenty-one. It is his first true months of 1776. We know very masterpiece. The 270 works that little about her background or her precede it in Ludwig von Köchel’s talent. We don’t even know her catalog reveal music of exceptional first name, and Mozart himself skill and occasional greatness—a made a mess of the one that has number of those scores are much come down to us: “die jenomy” he loved and regularly performed writes in a letter (Mozart’s father today. But with this concerto, turns that into “genommi”). But Mozart indicated for the first time it is Mozart’s name, not hers, that he would be remembered not that is forever established in the as a musician of charm and remark- history books, although it was able fluency, but as a composer of another seven years before he historical significance and emo- wrote a concerto to match it. Mlle tional depth. Jeunehomme may have played the The concerto is full of the piano at the first performance of energy, inspiration, and innovation the concerto, but Mozart quickly that often characterize the first took it up. We know that he played mature efforts of great composers. it in Munich on October 4, 1777; And like many early works, the he was still performing it in Vienna precise circumstances of its com- in the 1780s. position are not known. Evidently In this, his first large-scale piano Mozart was inspired—or perhaps concerto, Mozart acknowledges commissioned—by a touring the problem posed by the classical

ComPoSeD FIrSt CSo InStrUmentatIon completed January 1777 PerFormanCe solo piano, two oboes, two November 21, 1902, horns, strings FIrSt PerFormanCe Auditorium Theatre. Raoul sometime in 1777 Pugno, piano; Theodore CaDenzaS Thomas conducting Mozart

moSt reCent aPProxImate CSo PerFormanCe PerFormanCe tIme April 28, 2007, Orchestra 31 minutes hall. Jeffrey Kahane, con- ducting from the keyboard

8 concerto—that the traditional With this concerto, Mozart orchestral opening before the gives us the first of his great slow soloist’s entrance often seems like movements. (In Mozart’s day, a long-winded tease—and then andantino usually meant a tempo sets out to solve it “in a manner as slightly slower than andante—it’s brutal and as simple as breaking just the reverse today.) Like much the neck of a bottle to open it,” as of Mozart’s most expressive instru- Charles Rosen writes. Mozart’s mental music, this movement is an solution is to bring in the piano opera scene without singers. The unexpectedly in the second mea- piano part is elaborate and highly sure, to answer the orchestra’s expressive—as rich as the music fanfare-like opening. Mozart never of any operatic heroine—and the tried this trick again, recognizing tone is dark and contemplative, at that novelty does not require repeti- times genuinely tragic. Despair has tion, although Beethoven makes seldom been represented with such something quite wonderful of the simplicity. The emotional make-up idea in his last two piano concertos. of the movement is complicated; After Mozart’s unorthodox Mozart, perhaps better than any opening, the orchestra continues other composer, knew how to trace with a traditional exposition. But the complexities of the human the piano’s breech of etiquette is not heart. The brilliant finale is a rac- easily forgotten, and throughout the ing, virtuoso rondo that stops once first movement the usual relation- for a gracious, full-scale minuet— ship between soloist and orchestra perhaps included to make Mlle is questioned at every turn. The Jeunehomme feel at home—shortly movement becomes a game of who before the final getaway. plays what—and when. Even at the very end, in the orchestral wrap-up that follows the soloist’s cadenza, the piano scorns convention again Phillip Huscher is the program annota- and makes one last appearance. tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra © 2012 Chicago

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