Programnotes Dewaart Mozart
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Please note that Christoph von Dohnányi has had to postpone his arrival in Chicago due to his recovery from a minor eye surgery. The CSO welcomes Edo de Waart, who has graciously agreed to lead this week’s concerts. PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, June 2, 2016, at 8:00 Friday, June 3, 2016, at 8:00 Saturday, June 4, 2016, at 8:00 Tuesday, June 7, 2016, at 7:30 Edo de Waart Conductor Daniel Gingrich Horn Mozart Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504 (Prague) Adagio—Allegro Andante Presto Mozart Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat Major, K. 447 Allegro Romanza: Larghetto Allegro DANIEL GINGRICH INTERMISSION Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36 Adagio molto—Allegro con brio Larghetto Scherzo: Allegro Allegro molto These performances are generously sponsored by the Randy L. and Melvin R. Berlin Family Fund for the Canon. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to 93XRT, WBEZ 91.5 FM, and RedEye for their generous support as media sponsors of the Classic Encounter series. 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 Wolfgang Mozart Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria. Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria. Symphony No. 38 in D Major, K. 504 (Prague) There are more sketches he opening of the Prague Symphony is for the Prague Symphony highly dramatic music, full of power than any other by and that peculiarly alarming Mozartean Mozart—starts and stops undercurrentT of tragedy. This Adagio is argu- and doodling for all the ably the most profound and fully realized movements, even an symphonic introduction before Beethoven’s opening for the finale, Seventh Symphony, and it certainly marks an which eventually was advance over the slow beginning of Mozart’s discarded. This was own Linz Symphony, written three years earlier. Mozart’s first symphony Even Prague audiences, who doted on Mozart’s in three years; his struggle, however, wasn’t with every move and were surely willing to give him the form, which he had mastered long before, but the benefit of the doubt, must have wondered with the desire to say something important what Mozart was up to in these first thirty-six and new. measures of music. Our advantage is a familiarity This great D major symphony was written for with Don Giovanni, which Mozart would soon Prague, where Mozart was something of a folk introduce in Prague, and which obviously was on hero. Music from his newest opera, The Marriage his mind. Don Giovanni’s fingerprints are all over of Figaro, was whistled on the streets and played this music—listen to the tread of surging basses, at dances and balls—even the alehouse harpist the heart-stopping drum rolls, the suspenseful had to add Cherubino’s “Non più andrai” to wind chords, even the rising chromatic scales. his repertoire. The symphony was written in An introduction of this breadth and signifi- the eighteen months between the premieres of cance demands a substantial, big-boned allegro, Figaro and Don Giovanni, and it finds Mozart and Mozart doesn’t disappoint. Mozart is working on an operatic scale in purely orches- working here on the largest scale (this is one of tral music and reaching for a more deeply his most spacious sonata-allegro movements) expressive language. and with an astonishing abundance of thematic COMPOSED MOST RECENT APPROXIMATE 1786, entered in catalog on CSO PERFORMANCES PERFORMANCE TIME December 6 July 17, 2005, Ravinia Festival. James 29 minutes Conlon conducting FIRST PERFORMANCE CSO RECORDINGS April 18, 19 & 23, 2013, Orchestra Hall. January 19, 1787; Prague, Bohemia. 1940. Frederick Stock conducting. Riccardo Muti conducting The composer conducting Columbia April 20, 2013, Krannert Center 1952. Rafael Kubelík conducting. FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES for the Performing Arts. Riccardo Mercury November 30 & December 1, 1894, Muti conducting Auditorium Theatre. Theodore 1960. Sir Thomas Beecham conduct- Thomas conducting INSTRUMENTATION ing. NVC Arts (video) two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, July 10, 1941, Ravinia Festival. Sir 1982–83. Sir Georg Solti conducting. two horns, two trumpets, timpani, Thomas Beecham conducting London strings 2 material. In the first sixteen bars alone there are believes he will never run out of ideas. After the at least four perfectly good ideas, and although power and energy of the first movement, the Mozart continues to use and develop these, he Andante seems uncharacteristically placid, but spins out new material at every turn. Melodic Mozart draws the listener in until the simplest ingenuity is at the highest level throughout; the of gestures—even the gentle rise and fall of bassoon accompaniment to the second theme, for the interval of a second—carries extraordinary example, quietly alludes to the first. emotional weight. Mozart’s concept of sonata form is flexible and The Prague Symphony is known in Germany creative. The exposition ends unexpectedly with as the symphony without a minuet, and, in fact, material first heard early in the movement, the it’s the only one of Mozart’s last six symphonies development section tosses out a couple of false that follows the serenity of the slow movement leads regarding the return to home base, and the directly with the bustle of the finale. recapitulation is cavalier about restating events The Prague audience surely recognized the in their original sequence. There are moments in composer of their beloved Figaro in this last the development section when every instrument movement—the opening is the same music as contributes to a contrapuntal web as dazzling that of the breathless duet in which Susanna as that in the celebrated finale of the Jupiter tries to stop Cherubino from jumping out the Symphony. The whole is a great intellectual window. The form here is a hybrid between achievement, presented with the good-natured sonata-allegro and rondo that’s neither, though grace of one who is very comfortable with his it’s thoroughly delightful and inventive music. exceptional talent. There’s a wonderful moment in the development The most remarkable thing about the section when the violins seem to have fallen Andante—in G, without trumpets and behind the beat and scurry after the cellos and drums—is the way one lovely idea succeeds basses, causing a frightful series of dissonances. another in the most logical progression. There’s Finally, Cherubino makes his jump and lands enough material here to last a lesser composer squarely on both feet, to the D major cheers of a lifetime; Mozart presses forward, as if he the full orchestra. Wolfgang Mozart Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat Major, K. 447 No solo performer colleagues, and the horn virtuoso even went on profited more from tour throughout Italy with the Mozarts in Mozart’s talent and 1773. “He will certainly make his mark here,” generosity than the Wolfgang told his sister at the time, and when virtuoso horn player they arrived in Milan, Leopold wrote home to Joseph Leutgeb. When Salzburg: “He will make quite a fortune here, for Leutgeb first joined the he is extraordinarily popular.” Salzburg orchestra in Apparently Leutgeb never did make a fortune, 1763, across town and in 1777, when he relocated to Vienna, he Leopold Mozart was borrowed money from Leopold to make the beginning to manage the career of his trip and to buy a house (although not to open a seven-year-old son, already an unusually accom- cheese shop, despite the popularity of that myth). plished pianist and a budding composer (he Wolfgang and Leutgeb remained unusually published his first works, sonatas for keyboard close, and after the composer himself moved to and violin, the following year). Wolfgang and Vienna in 1781, they saw each other frequently. Joseph eventually became both friends and Several of Mozart’s last letters make passing 3 reference to his good friend: “I am going to give horn was even trickier in Mozart’s day than in Leutgeb a surprise by going out to breakfast with our own; the valved horn, which has replaced the him,” the composer wrote to his wife Constanze, natural or hand horn that Mozart had in mind, who was taking the cure at Baden; on another didn’t catch on until sometime around 1820.) The occasion, after he had spent the night at the concerto has three relatively brief, beautifully Leutgebs’ home, he complained of the wretched crafted movements. Mozart’s concertos for horn job Joseph’s wife had done laundering his are shorter than those he wrote for other instru- nightcap and necktie. His next-to-last surviving ments, out of sympathy for the extra effort and letter, dating from early October 1791, talks of care demanded of the performer. (The celebrated taking Joseph to see The Magic Flute not once, but piano concertos that date from this time, for twice (“Leutgeb begged me to take him a second example, are often twice as long.) In this con- time . .”). certo, Mozart calls for clarinets and bassoons in Although Leutgeb apparently asked Mozart the orchestra, replacing the oboes and horns of for a concerto as early as 1777, the year the horn the previous horn concertos and lending a softer, player moved to Vienna, the composer didn’t richer sound. get around to writing anything for another four years, when he turned out a lovely rondo he concerto opens with an outgoing, for horn and orchestra.