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Program Notes | Friday, February 21, 2020

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Program Notes | Friday, February 21, 2020 PROGRAM NOTES | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN There is a transcription for piano and Born in Bonn, Germany, December 16, 1770 orchestra of the famous D Major Violin Died in Vienna, Austria, March 26, 1827 Concerto that Beethoven wrote out on a commission from Muzio Clementi’s The Five Beethoven Piano Concertos London publishing house, but this work is a at the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, curiosity done without much commitment February 21 and 23, 2020 from Beethoven. A couple of juvenilia By Don Reinhold, CEO, Wichita Symphony compositions exist mostly in fragments. There are even sketches from around 1816 The five piano concertos of Ludwig van of a first movement for what would have Beethoven are familiar works to regular been the sixth concerto, but Beethoven concertgoers. Even at a regional orchestra abandoned this work. such as Wichita’s, performances of all five as individual works would be typical over Following in Mozart’s footsteps, Beethoven a decade. Hearing them in chronological wrote his concertos as vehicles to display his sequence over a single weekend is rare keyboard virtuosity, which, as we’ll see, was and unusual, but appropriate this year accomplished up until his Fifth Concerto. It that marks the 250th anniversary of was only after “playing them around” a few Beethoven’s birth on December 16. While times for personal benefit that he sent them a few other orchestras will accomplish the off to publishers. feat this year with a single soloist or with five different soloists, Wichita is privileged Beethoven’s model and point of departure to enjoy performances by Stewart were the piano concertos of Mozart, Goodyear, regarded by many as one of especially those composed during Mozart’s today’s leading interpreters in the world of Viennese years, 1784 - 1791. They reflect Beethoven’s piano music. the standard concerto form of the day, which started with a fast first movement Beethoven’s catalog of works for piano and in sonata-allegro form, followed by a slow orchestra is not limited to these five familiar movement, and concluding with another concertos. Also, there is the Triple Concerto, fast movement, usually in rondo form. which we heard in Wichita a few seasons Other nods to conventional form occur in ago, and the Choral Fantasy for piano, vocal the first movement where sections of the soloists, and chorus, which we will listen full orchestra, called the tutti or ritornello, to next December. A Rondo in B-flat Major alternate with sections dominated by the that was probably the original finale to the soloist much in the way concertos were Second Concerto appears on recordings and written going back to Johann Sebastian might occur in concert from time to time. Bach and continued by Mozart and others in the 18th century. 1 PROGRAM NOTES | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020 THE FIRST AND SECOND long as one didn’t venture onto subjects PIANO CONCERTOS that would alert the secret police. Public amusements abounded with gardens and PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN B-FLAT as many as five theaters that offered a fare MAJOR, OP. 19 of drama, comedy and opera, the latter Last performed by the Wichita Symphony being mostly Italian. When the theater February 21/22, 2015 season closed for the Lenten and Advent season, public concerts filled the venues. In PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1 IN C the summers, outdoor performances were MINOR, OP. 15 popular on the grounds of the Belvedere Last performed by the Wichita Symphony Palace and the Liechtenstein residence. February 21/22, 2015 Many of the great aristocratic houses still maintained orchestras, although this In November 1792, the soon to be 22-year luxury would soon fade. Although Mozart, old Ludwig van Beethoven packed his bags, whom Beethoven met during his 1787 visit, and with blessings and a small subsidy from had died the previous year, many leading the Elector of Bonn, set off for Vienna to composers and teachers, such as Haydn, pursue musical studies with the greatest Salieri and Albrechtsberger still taught composer of the day, Franz Joseph Haydn. and held musical influence. It was a city of The Vienna that Beethoven arrived in had opportunity for the young Beethoven, and begun to change since his first visit in he set out to conquer it as the keyboard 1787. It was a city of duality. With France virtuoso he had become. experiencing the throes of revolution, the Austrian response under the new leadership Among the compositions that Beethoven of Emperor Franz II was to turn towards brought from Bonn was a score for the harsh repression curbing all dissension and Piano Concerto in B-flat Major. The history organizing into what would become the of this piece is somewhat obscure and even first manifestation of the modern-day police confusing. Leon Plantinga, a modern-day state. For a liberal-thinking young man authority on Beethoven concertos, surmises like Beethoven with sympathies towards that Beethoven may have arrived in Vienna democratic thought, one would think this a with as many as four piano concertos in his poor choice for career advancement. luggage. The scores, or whatever existed of these concertos are now lost, save for some In contrast to the oppressive political fragments, including some for the B-flat atmosphere, Vienna remained a city of Concerto. Through paper and handwriting carefree joy and pleasure. Coffeehouses and analysis, scholars have determined that the inns attracted people for discussions about concerto fragments date between 1786 and art and philosophy that were permitted as 1790. Beethoven undoubtedly discarded 2 PROGRAM NOTES | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020 the other works from the Bonn period as After 1798 the B-flat Major Concerto re- inferior juvenilia. surfaces in the fall of 1801. In a letter to Franz Anton Hoffmeister, Beethoven offered his Concert documentation during this period publisher scores to the First Symphony, the in Beethoven’s life is very sparse. Beethoven Septet, and a Piano Sonata in B-flat Major almost certainly performed the B-flat asking twenty ducats for each. He also Concerto for private concerts during his mentioned that he would include the B-flat first two years in Vienna. However, the first Major Concerto for ten ducats. Explaining evidence of Beethoven playing a concerto in the disparity in the fee, Beethoven wrote, “I public in Vienna occurred in 1795. Between do not consider it one of my best works… 1795 and 1798, there are records of several at the same time, it would not disgrace you performances in which Beethoven alternated to engrave the work.” By 1801, Beethoven’s between the B-flat Major Concerto and a growing compositional maturity had newer concerto in C Major. Evidence exists surpassed his earlier efforts. The multiple that Beethoven performed both concertos in revisions to the concerto probably left him Prague in 1798. dissatisfied with the results. In preparation for the concerto’s publication, Beethoven Leading up to the 1798 performance, used his 1798 score, making one final effort Plantinga cites evidence of four distinct to tighten up the first orchestral tutti with a versions of the B-flat Major Concerto. The few more revisions before letting the work first originates during the Bonn years. The go to his publisher. second probably dates from 1793 with a different Rondo than what we hear today. Before dispatching the B-flat Major Concerto, Scholars suspect that the original finale is Beethoven had already published his C what is known today as the independent Major Concerto as Opus 15 earlier that Rondo in B-flat Major (WoO 6, WoO means same year. Since numbering in Beethoven’s “without opus”). A third revision of the work time generally referred to publication order probably occurred in 1795, and yet another rather than compositional order, the C before the 1798 performances. Sketches Major Concerto became the First Concerto. and drafts exist for all of these versions, but The B-flat Major, the earlier work, became it is impossible to determine how the actual the Second Concerto. The concertos are full scores may have looked. Only the score numbered as such to this day. We’ve chosen for the discarded Rondo of 1793 exists in to begin the concert with the Second autograph form. Since Beethoven used his Concerto for this historical reason. concertos to promote his career as a pianist, he held onto his score and parts, making Even though the B-flat Major Concerto is an edits as he performed the music, instead of early work and the “weakest” of Beethoven’s seeking a publisher. five piano concertos, its sunny disposition 3 PROGRAM NOTES | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2020 and hints of the greatness still to come the openings of the Jupiter Symphony and make this work a repertoire standard the Piano Sonata in D Major, K. 576. and audience favorite. Many scholars use this concerto to demonstrate Mozart’s As Beethoven follows the concerto model influence on Beethoven, and in many ways, laid out by Mozart, there are indications of it is Beethoven’s answer to his famous Beethoven’s youth and inexperience, such predecessor. But the importance of Haydn as in the abrupt stop and start of successive on Beethoven’s development can also be sections. Also, by the time of his mature seen, as well as Muzio Clementi, who, during Viennese piano concertos, Mozart’s wind the decade of the 1790s, was considered writing had taken on a remarkable degree Europe’s most famous pianist and composer of sophistication and independence. In for the keyboard. Beethoven’s Second Concerto, we hear the treatment of the wind section as a single We can observe Mozart’s influence in the choir that mostly doubles parts that already layout of the first movement.
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