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Program Notes Coming to Vienna he is respected and welcomed, especially in the great houses.” Drawn to the city multiple times, both Wolfgang Amadè Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven spent the majority of their adult lives in Vienna. Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756. At the age of six, Wolfgang, sometimes along with his sister Maria Anna, began performing to enthusiastic audiences in Vienna and, over the next eight years, traveled to European capitals, astonishing professional musicians and amateurs alike with his musical abilities and knowledge. With this experience as a young boy and certainly some innate knowledge of his own abilities, it is no wonder that Mozart spent most of the 1770s trying to leave Salzburg, which was considered a provincial town. Mozart had been officially appointed to the post of concert master for the court orchestra of the Archbishop of Salzburg on July 9, 1772 with a modest salary of 150 florins. Five years later, Mozart, with the support of his father, asked Instrument Spotlight: to be released from these responsibilities. The Clarinet archbishop responded by firing both father and son. His father’s position was soon restored, By 1800, the clarinet PROGRAM NOTES but Mozart’s was not. Free to pursue other had become established opportunities, he searched for a new position, throughout Europe as a COMING TO VIENNA but nothing was offered. In 1778, disappointed five-key instrument made of with his job prospects and mourning the death of boxwood, with ivory rings and his mother, who had died while she and her son brass keys. The single reed Vienna “is so rich in composers, As the capital of the Austrian empire was tied on to the mouthpiece were in Paris, Mozart returned to Salzburg and and encloses within its walls such and the home of its powerful ruling with a string, a tradition still a number of musicians of superior family, the Habsburgs, Vienna was his old position, now combined with a new post favored today in Germany and merit, that [it is], among German an international and cosmopolitan as court organist. Austria. cities, the imperial seat of music, as city with visitors from all over the The lack of keys necessitates well as of power,” wrote the English world, yet the walls constructed in After three years, Mozart took a decisive step, when he again asked to be released from his the use of complicated historian and composer Charles medieval times still surrounded the fingerings, which also create Burney when he visited Vienna in 1772 city (and would not be replaced by position with the archbishop’s court. At first the greater variation in timbre. as part of a larger tour undertaken to the Ringstraße until the following answer was no, but Mozart persisted and did Beethoven had already secure his release; he was also humiliated by composed significant parts for acquire material for a book on music. century). The streets were congested the clarinet in chamber music Burney’s enticing description of the with pedestrians, carriages, and the archbishop’s representative, who, as Mozart wrote to his father, gave him “a kick on my arse … such as Opus 11, Opus 16, and city recognizes its contradictions as vendors; however, there were also in his First Symphony, but well: “The streets are rendered doubly large, sedate parks, such as the Prater by order of our worthy Prince Archbishop.” the Septet offered a leading dark and dirty by their narrowness and Augarten, open to the public role which finally puts the and by the extreme height of the since the mid-18th century. Mozart’s first years in Vienna were filled with instrument on equal footing success. He composed one of his most popular with the other wood houses; but, as these are chiefly winds. of white stone, and on a uniform Vienna’s numerous smaller courts operas, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), and was in demand elegant style of architecture, ... there offered many opportunities for both — Eric Hoeprich is something grand and magnificent the composer and performer. It is no as a performer and composer. At the end of 1781, in their appearance, which is very surprise that musicians felt drawn he published his first works in Vienna, a set of striking; even many of those houses to this city that the 18th-century six sonatas for violin and keyboard. The fourth which have shops on the ground floor, chronicler Johann Pezzl described sonata of the set, along with two other works by seem like palaces above.” as “an assembly of all European Mozart (another of the violin sonatas and a piano nations” where “the musician trio) were published by Johann Anton André possesses a certain status in society; in an arrangement for clarinet and string trio 16 HANDELANDHAYDN.ORG 2015–2016 SEASON: MOZART AND BEETHOVEN 17 Mozart, Beethoven, and in 1799, eight years after Mozart’s Adagio con espressione, attempts structured like a minuet, but with a the World Beyond death. to counterbalance the first; however, more driving tempo and feel. This it soon hovers between longing and scherzo is announced by the horn, 1756 Mozart. Beethoven Throughout the Violin Sonata in acquiescence. which sounds leisurely to start, but Mozart is born stays only about in Salzburg on two weeks; he is B-flat, arranged for clarinet and intensifies as the strings join in the January 27 and called back to Bonn string trio, the clarinet and violin The Scherzo is fiery and the Trio movement. baptized Joannes because his mother share much of the melodic material. more tame, yet in both sections Chrysostomus is ill. Beethoven In the first movement, this duet of the third movement, figures are The final movement, Andante con Wolfgangus moves to Vienna texture expands to a trio as the cello shared between all of the instruments moto — Presto, opens in a manner Theophilus. permanently in 1792. introduces a countermelody. A long, equally and in a manner often found similar to the first movement, but 1770 1787 lyrical line in the clarinet opens the in Beethoven’s later chamber music. with an even more imposing feeling, Ludwig van The Constitutional second movement; later, the clarinet Similar to earlier movements, but underscored by the horn line. What Beethoven is born in Convention meets in joins the other strings to support the more pronounced, the momentum follows, however, is not imposing, Bonn and baptized Philadelphia. violin line. The final movement is a of the last movement lies in the but a light, fun, and fast movement on December 17. rondo in which the departure from shifts between flourishes and more linked to its slow introduction by a 1791 1778 Mozart dies in and return to each iteration of the controlled passages. Although this descending horn line and moments La Scala opera Vienna on opening music is delightful in both movement feels to be on the verge in which the whole ensemble holds house in Milan opens December 5. its predictability and surprise. of losing control, it never does. a chord that suggests a return to the with a production Beethoven closes the Finale in a most sentiments of the slow introduction. of Antonio Salieri’s 1798 Two years after Mozart moved unusual way; it simply fades away with Europa riconosciuta. Beethoven publishes his String Trios, to Vienna, the thirteen-year-old the return of the opening music in the This is not the Beethoven of the Eroica 1781 Op. 9. Beethoven was being compared violin. or Fifth Symphony. There is a carefree Mozart publishes his to him for his keyboard skills and quality to the Septet that masks the first works in Vienna, 1799 youthful genius. This association Composed in 1799, Beethoven’s difficulty of the piece. This may be a set of six sonatas Mozart’s Violin was solidified with Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20 follows the serenade one of the aspects that appealed to for violin. A review Sonata in B-flat and from 1783 says the two other works first trip to Vienna in 1787, when or divertimento in the generally light- Haydn, who found this to be one of sonatas are “rich in are issued in an he was expected to study with hearted character of the movements; the young composer’s best works. new ideas and traces arrangement for Mozart. These lessons did not however, there is more here than Audiences shared that sentiment: the of their author’s clarinet and string materialize; Beethoven was recalled a piece simply to amuse. Even Septet was one of Beethoven’s most great musical genius.” trio by the German to Bonn because his mother was though the first movement begins successful works and was continually publisher Johann ill. Unfortunately, by the time with a delicate slow introduction programmed throughout his life. 1783 Anton André. First public account Beethoven was ready to return to led by the violin, in the subsequent of Beethoven’s 1799 Vienna in 1792, Mozart had died. fast section, Allegro con brio, Later years would see the center of prodigious skills Beethoven While preparing for his second trip Beethoven captivates the listener the musical world shift to other cities, at the keyboard. composes his to the city, this time for studies with with constantly shifting instrumental but certainly from Mozart’s arrival in Written by Septet, Op. 20. Haydn, Beethoven’s patron wrote colors and combinations. The second 1781 until Beethoven’s death in 1827, Beethoven’s teacher, the article concludes 1817 that he would “receive Mozart’s movement, like the arrangement of Vienna was “the place to be” for a that “this young The H+H Board of spirit through Haydn’s hands.” In Mozart’s Violin Sonata in B-flat, takes young musician.
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