Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives

P p • Al- • • I • —P P f f f .......114••••■•■•ON. no, Boston Symphony Orchestra Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Colin Davis, Guest Conductor Joseph Silverstein, Assistant Conductor Tuesday, March 30, 1976 at 7:30 p.m. Symphony Hall, Boston Ninety-fifth season Baldwin Piano Deutsche Grammophon Records Philips Records Program Program Notes Cohn Davis conducting Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Symphony No. 3 in D Schubert: Symphony No. 3 in D Adagio maestoso; allegro con brio The Symphony was written in the summer of 1815, when Allegretto the composer was eighteen years old, and calls for 2 flutes, Menuetto 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, tym- Presto: vivace pani and strings. It has been performed by the Boston Sym- phony Orchestra during the 1956-57 and 1963-64 seasons and at Tanglewood in 1964. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414 Allegro The record has it that the Third, like most of Schubert's Andante symphonies, lay quite untouched for many years. At a con- Rondo: allegro cert of "Symphonic fragments" in 1860 by the Gesellschaft Peter Frankl, piano der Musikfreunde, to which he had belonged, movements from several of his symphonies were dusted off by Johann Intermission Herbeck: the first two movements of the Fourth ("Tragic"), the scherzo of the Sixth, and the finale of the Third. Why Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in E minor Op. 39 Herbeck chose this particular composite does not appear. The complete Symphony in D major was performed in Andante ma non troppo; allegro energico London in 1881 and the score published three years later, Andante ma non troppo lento sixty-nine years after its composition. This was the first Allegro publication of his symphonies and included the first four. Finale (quasi una fantasia): andante; allegro molto When the New York Philharmonic Symphony Society performed the Third under Erich Kleiber on November 6, 1930, Lawrence Gilman wrote for the Program: "We have been This program will end at approximately 9:35 p.m. unable to find any record of an American performance of this Symphony; but since the score has been available for Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra record exclusively for almost half a century, it would be rash to conclude that the Deutsche Grammophon present performance is the first in the United States, or even the first in New York." This supposition still stands Call C-O-N-C-E-R-T for up-to-date program information uncorrected. This most unpretentious of symphonies is designed for immediate pleasure. It is as transparent and unweighted with serious matters as the Rosamunde music and as much a spontaneous emanation of sociable Viennese Gemiitlichkeit as the delicate Landler which Schubert was always ready to provide when led to the piano at a "Schubertiade." The first subject of the opening movement, a rhythmic figure on the tonic chord, has been compared to the corre- sponding subject in the great C major Symphony. Unlike the themes in the last symphony, the themes in this one are not intended for and do not receive extended development. The allegretto is a romance which moves lightly and unclouded; the third movement, which according to con- vention the composer calls "Menuetto," is in effect a Schu- bertian Landler, with a trio which grows from it in much the way that one section begets another in his piano waltzes. The finale is a swift presto in a winged 6/8 beat. Alfred Ein- stein calls it "the most charming movement," with a "'buffo' flavor—an overture rather than a finale." —John N. Burk ond theme, however, is all Mozart—indeed, it is virtually Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) the Allegro's first subject, repunctuated. This slow move- Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K. 414 ment, in D, is in the same overall sonata form as the Allegro; The three piano concertos that Mozart wrote in the the piano leads the way into the minor for the develop- autumn of 1782 (No. 11 in F, K. 413; No. 12 in A, K. 414; ment —Girdlestone's "lands full of poetry" —before return- ing to major for a conventional recapitulation. No. 13 in C, K. 415) were the first that followed the water- shed of the previous year—his break with the Archbishop The final rondo is light, animated, and quite lacking in what we think of as Mozartian shading; it is, in short, a of Salzburg—and his subsequent move to Vienna and mar- great romp, with themes whose contrast depends on the riage to Constanze Weber. The three works seem to have head rather than the heart. Perhaps its most amusing fea- reflected an understandable desire to please his new patrons, the general public, and were nicely calculated to ture is the way that the final refrain is withheld until after the cadenza, when it is played almost entirely by the piano: bring the worthy Viennese a modicum of utility as well as pleasure: they are written so that they can be performed by the orchestra is allowed to join in only for the final six bars. string quartet as well as full orchestra. (As Einstein points The A major concerto is scored for 2 oboes, 2 horns and strings. It has received two previous performances by the out, the winds are "not essential, as they contribute noth- ing not fully expressed by the strings; their function is only Boston Symphony, the most recent at Tanglewood in 1965. to lend color or rhythmic emphasis.") The composer was frank about his intentions in a letter to his father, calling the three concertos "a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957) brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which con- Symphony No. 1 in E minor op. 39 noisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages It was of course to be expected that the first symphony of are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to a composer in Finland (however talented) should in some be pleased, though without knowing why." There is no degree reflect the constructive methods and romantic cynicism here, only the clear-eyed truth of a twenty-six- ardors then in vogue upon the continent of Europe. That year-old, consummate professional. the eloquent voice of this symphony is the distinct and Of the three concertos, the A major has generally ranked unmistakable voice of Sibelius is no less apparent because, highest in twentieth century estimation, Arthur Hutchings in a later day, he departed from it, cultivating restraint, going so far as to call it as satisfying as the later, greater half-lights, a more inward structural resource. works and Girdlestone, more circumspect, speaking It has all the seeds of its composer's symphonic maturity, warmly of its "personal" qualities as he singles out the although only a modicum of a device in which he was to Andante's "lands full of poetry" half-glimpsed. It is not become a pre-eminent master—the gradual moulding of a especially original in structure, even compared to its two theme from the merest fragment. There is indeed theme fellows of 1782, and certainly not when measured against transformation in this symphony—the accumulation of sig- either the E flat concerto (K. 271) of six years earlier or the nificance in the heat of discourse—but there is the dif- works that would emerge in such miraculous number from ference that his starting points in this work were themes 1784 forward. Yet its charm and understated tenderness are full rounded, and of indelible vividness in their very first immediately accessible. statement. The opening Allegro's first subject has that unique Mozar- As introduction, a clarinet sings a melody of great beauty tian sweetness that makes even the most galant work more over a soft drum roll. The body of the movement opens than a collection of conventional gestures; the second sub- with a dramatic first theme, stated by the violins and ject, a march, appears after an almost operatic tutti. When shortly followed by two "subsidiary" themes of more lyri- the piano appears, its entry is straightforward; it repeats the first subject, then derives new material from the tutti's cal character. They are not "subsidiary" at all, except in the lingo of classification, taking a predominant part in the reappearance and, modulating to E major, injects the movement. The initial theme is more largely proclaimed, march with rather more life than it has exhibited pre- viously. After the familiar tutti, the development begins and a second theme is given by the flutes in staccato thirds over strings (tremolo) and harp. Another theme (which is with a new march theme; ultimately, a series of conversa- later combined with this) is sung by the woodwinds over a tional passages between piano and orchestra grows in light accompaniment of syncopated string chords. The first excitement through rapid modulations. A tiny cadenza fall- ing three octaves bridges the end of the development and of these gathers great rhythmic impetus as it draws the the beginning of the recapitulation. whole orchestra into its staccato motion. The melody of the andante has an eerie and haunting The beginning of the Andante, called Schubert-like by quality which, once heard, lingers in the memory. It is first Einstein, was apparently in homage to Johann Christian Bach, Mozart's much-loved teacher, who had died earlier played by the muted violins and cellos with an answering in 1782; it was derived from an overture that the London cadence from the clarinets.

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