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Magnificent Mozart MAGNIFICENT MOZART PROGRAM NOTES By Erik Rohde © | Violin II, Illinois Symphony Orchestra | Music Director, Winona Symphony Orchestra | Director of Strings and Activities, Indiana State University ILSYMPHONY.ORG To The Point composers at the 1889 World Exposition in Paris. JENNIFER HIGDON This movement uses extensive pizzicato and other b. Brooklyn, New York, 31 December, 1962 string colorings (as a reflection of the Gamelan ensemble’s colorful percussion instruments). Each Written as a string quartet in 2003 as a commission by instrument has its own theme (as would a Gamelan the Cypress String Quartet as part of their Call & Response series. Premiered in the orchestral version by the Brooklyn instrumentalist) and there is no development of those themes (following Debussy and Ravel’s lead). Philharmonic on March 15, 2004. (Approx. 4 minutes) 27 In addition, the word “point” in the title refers to the Jennifer Higdon is one of America’s most acclaimed pointillistic technique in Impressionist painting (from and most frequently performed living composers. She the composers’ time period). is a major figure in contemporary Classical music, (C) Jennifer Higdon receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin For more information: www.jenniferhigdon.com Concerto, a 2010 Grammy for her Percussion Concerto and a 2018 Grammy for her Viola Sinfonia Concertante Concerto. Most recently, Higdon received the WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University which is b. Salzburg, 27 January, 1756 given to contemporary classical composers of d. Vienna, 5 December, 1791 exceptional achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. Higdon enjoys Written in Salzburg in early 1779. (Approx. 30 minutes) several hundred performances a year of her works, As a young child, Mozart had made his mark as a and blue cathedral is one of today’s most performed violinist and keyboard player, touring Europe with his contemporary orchestral works, with more than family and playing for the highest nobility his father 600 performances worldwide. Her works have been could arrange. He wrote violin concertos for himself recorded on more than sixty CDs. Higdon’s first opera, to play as a virtuosic teenager and had begun to write Cold Mountain, won the prestigious International Opera piano concertos for himself – a pursuit that would last Award for Best World Premiere and the opera into his maturity and leave us with a wealth of great recording was nominated for 2 Grammy awards. Dr. piano concertos from throughout his life. But in 1778 Higdon holds the Rock Chair in Composition at The Mozart journeyed to Paris where he was surrounded Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. by the unique form of the sinfonia concertante, a hybrid form of a concerto/symphony in which multiple “To The Point” is a work derived from Jennifer soloists are featured independent from the orchestra, Higdon’s 4th string quartet, “Impressions.” That work with a more defined soloistic role than the Baroque was commissioned to be a compositional response to concerto grosso form. the Debussy and Ravel string quartets. This particular movement is a response to their second movements, When Mozart returned to Salzburg, he tried his hand which both imitate the Gamelan heard by the at several pieces in this new form, and the three MAGNIFICENT MOZART PROGRAM NOTES continued ... By Erik Rohde © | Violin II, Illinois Symphony Orchestra | Music Director, Winona Symphony Orchestra | Director of Strings and Activities, Indiana State University examples that we have are each gems in their own a violinist with his position in Salzburg (it was part right: a concerto for flute and harp, a concerto for two of his required duties to play), so once he moved ILSYMPHONY.ORG pianos, and the sinfonia concertante for violin and to Vienna in 1781, he actually gave up playing the 28 viola. While all three pieces are excellent, the sinfonia violin altogether and would turn always to the viola concertante is the most ground-breaking work. Writ- when getting together with friends (including regular ten last of the three, it is the most self-assertive, as quartet partners Haydn, Dittersdorf, and Vanhal) to if Mozart is striking out with a new, improved musical play chamber music. voice. Certainly in his life, he was attempting to do so. After several successful tours through Europe, Mozart So it is that in writing a major work for the shared was chafing against his court appointment that tied soloists of violin and viola that Mozart found a truly him to what he considered the back-water hovel of personal voice. The viola part was almost certainly Salzburg, and he desired more than anything else to written for Mozart himself to play, and perhaps the have a post in a major European city where he could violin part for his father. Mozart took special care with support himself and be connected with the main- the viola part, not only is it technically demanding, but stream of culture and musical life. He would finally in order to help the viola to compete with the more get the opportunity just two years later after getting brilliant, higher-pitched violin, Mozart wrote the viola himself literally kicked out by his employer, and, while part in a more sonorous D Major, with instructions he would write all of his mature masterworks in that for the soloist to simply tune up a half-step to E-flat, time, would struggle financially the rest of his life. thereby creating a brighter effect. Meanwhile, this piece represents a unique turning The first movement is grand and noble, introducing point in Mozart’s career as a performer. From a young the soloists with each taking stately turns through age, Mozart had been a prodigious violinist. Taught the melodic figures. The second movement, a rich C by his father, whose pedagogical violin treatise is still minor slow movement is both poignant and in print today, he became famous as a teenager for profound – unusual in that it is a minor slow his ability on the violin. It was, however, the viola that movement in a major-key concerto. The final was Mozart’s true love in the string family. The rich, movement is a mischievous interplay between the dark sonority was appealing to Mozart, and he often two soloists, both parts virtuosic and again in high took advantage of this by writing two viola parts in the spirits. Pleasantly, this concerto is the only string orchestra instead of just one, as he does in this piece. concerto for which Mozart’s own cadenzas have Of his string chamber music, it is the viola quintets survived, so what you will hear will be very much like which add a viola to the regular string quartet that what it would have sounded were Mozart himself are the most lush and wonderful. Mozart linked being here to perform – of course playing the viola part! Concerto in E-flat, “Dumbarton Oaks” always been inspired by Bach – his Violin Concerto IGOR STRAVINSKY from six years earlier also bears many hallmarks of ILSYMPHONY.ORG b. Oranienbaum, a suburb of St. Petersburg, Russia, Bach inspiration (including a specific nod to the Bach 17 June, 1882 Double Concerto), and he said he “played Bach very d. New York City, 6 April, 1971 regularly during the composition of the (Dumbarton Premiered on May 8, 1938 in Dumbarton Oaks outside of Oaks) concerto.” He went on to say: Washington, D.C., Nadia Boulanger, conductor. I was greatly attracted to the Brandenburg Concertos. (Approx. 15 minutes) Whether or not the first theme of my first movement is a conscious borrowing from the third of the Igor Stravinsky was a composer of many styles Brandenburg set, however, I do not know. What I 29 and saw himself as an international artist. Having can say is that Bach would most certainly have been grown up in Russia, he became famous for his ballet delighted to loan it to me; to borrow in this way was scores written in the early 20th Century in Paris: exactly the sort of thing he liked to do. Firebird, Petroushka, and The Rite of Spring. After splitting time in Russia and Switzerland, Stravinsky While Stravinsky was clearly inspired by Bach, the moved to France following World War I, eventually music is distinctly in his own style. The small becoming a French citizen in the mid-1930s. In 1939, orchestra fairly bristles with bright, edgy energy, thanks to the outbreak of World War II, Stravinsky and the opening really does remind one of the third would sail to the United States, where he settled in Brandenburg concerto. Dancing rhythms abound and Hollywood and became a naturalized US citizen in the the ensemble often seems to teeter on the edge of 1940s. He would not return to Russia until a visit in staying together as Stravinsky drops part of a beat 1962, after being away for almost 50 years from the every few measures to give the music a surprising, country of his birth. He eventually would move to New slightly askew sensation. In the opulent music room of York where he lived the last years of his life. the magnificent Federal-style mansion of Dumbarton Oaks, it must have sounded fresh, unexpected, and Just before moving to the United States, Stravinsky brilliant at the premiere. received a commission from Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss, named for their Dumbarton Stravinsky uses each member of the ensemble as a Oaks estate in honor of their 30th anniversary. At the soloist and everyone has their own part to play, just time, Stravinsky was extremely interested in like in the third Brandenburg. The orchestration is composing music modeled after music of the past, an vivid and virtuosic, opening and closing with two fast era in his life called his neoclassical period.
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