Mozart Orchestra of New York

Saturday, September 23, 2017 at 8 pm Join us for these upcoming shows Mozart Orchestra of New York Buy 3 or more and save 10%! Gerard Schwarz, Music Director and Conductor Vladimir Feltsman, Piano Betty Buckley in Story Songs Saturday, October 7 at 7:30 & 9:30 pm Program Shanghai Quartet Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 Sunday, October 8 at 3 pm Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (Emperor) Allegro George and Ira Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing Adagio un poco moto Saturday, November 4 at 8 pm Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo Music for Two Violins Intermission Sunday, December 3 at 3 pm Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D Major Adagio molto – Allegro con brio Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Larghetto Friday, January 19 at 8 pm Scherzo: Allegro Allegro molto China National Symphony Steinway is the official piano of Tilles Center. Sunday, February 11 at 3 pm Classical music performances are made possible, in part, by Buy tickets and sign up for our email list at tillescenter.org, The Classical Music Fund in honor of Dr. Elliott Sroka. and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram! 2017-18 Presenting Season Sponsor NOTES ON THE PROGRAM 1807, the drama was no longer frequently While he was composing this work, score as an integral part, giving the music The following program notes are performed; nevertheless, Beethoven’s Beethoven, whose hearing was already continuity, but at the same time denying copyright Susan Halpern, 2017. composition quickly became a popular poor, felt tortured by the noise of the the soloist opportunity for impromptu concert piece. It was first performed at howitzer shells exploding. It was a very virtuosic display. Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 a subscription concert in Vienna during difficult time for him: food was scarce and Ludwig van Beethoven the month of March 1807, at the palace of expensive. His wealthy and noble friends The comparatively brief slow movement, Born: December 15, 1770, in Bonn Beethoven’s patron, Prince Lobkowitz. had escaped to their country estates, and Adagio un poco moto, opens with the Died: March 26, 1837, in Vienna because all the city parks were closed, muted strings playing a solemn hymn- Beethoven intended this dark, dramatic the peaceful solace of these urban oases like melody and the piano answering it. Although Coriolanus is often identified overture to present a musical portrait of was not available to him. This tranquil and reflective movement with Shakespeare, Plutarch first told the the play’s hero. The first theme outlines consists mainly of a duet between the story of the legendary Roman general, the impulsive mood of Coriolan’s complex By the time he composed this concerto, piano and the orchestra. The center of Gaius Marcus Coriolanus, who van- emotions, and the more lyrical second Beethoven’s hearing was so limited that the movement is a sequence of qua- quished the Volscian tribe in ca. 500 B.C., theme may depict the pleading of the no possibility remained that he could si-variations on the theme that the strings capturing their capital city of Corioli and general’s wife and mother. The work’s perform its premiere in Leipzig with the announce. At the movement’s end, the taking its name as his. When Coriolanus quiet ending mirrors Coriolanus’s despair Gewandhaus Orchestra on November piano quietly plays a figure that gives came home from battle to find that the and resignation to death. 28, 1811. Instead, Johann Schneider be- intimations of the exuberant theme of the privileges of his patrician class had been came the piano soloist, and Johann P. C. last movement. Suddenly and without diminished, he was enraged, defected to The score calls for two flutes, two oboes, Schulz conducted. An influential music pause, Beethoven transforms that figure the enemy and led the Volscian troops two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, critic noted the excited and enthusiastic into the exultant main theme of the rondo against his own people. Nothing could two trumpets, timpani and strings. audience and wrote about the music, “It finale, Allegro, which begins without the persuade him not to destroy Rome until is without doubt one of the most original, customary break between movements. his wife and mother pleaded with him. Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, imaginative, and most effective but also In this impetuous and spontaneous His mother succeeded as no one else Op. 73 (Emperor) one of the most difficult of all concertos sounding movement, the piano delivers could, wearing down his pride and deter- Ludwig van Beethoven in existence.” and develops the dynamic themes in mination. He then yielded and withdrew, what has been called the “most spacious abandoning his conquest and, in the end, Beethoven wrote Piano Concerto No. 5 Except for the first emphatic orches- and triumphant of concerto rondos.” committing suicide. in Vienna when the city was occupied by tral chords, the soloist, rather than the At the end of the coda, in a renowned Napoleon’s troops. He did not give the orchestra, begins the concerto’s Allegro section, the kettledrums quietly mark the The writing of Beethoven’s contempo- subtitle “Emperor” to the concerto and first movement. In other ways, too, the rhythm of the first subject to accompany rary, the popular Austrian dramatist would have resented the name, if for no beginning is a departure from common the piano’s soft chords. Heinrich Joseph von Collin (1772-1811), other reason than his bitterness and dis- practice. The piano introduction is a inspired Beethoven to write his Overture appointment in the imperial motivations huge rhapsodic flourish, a kind of caden- No one really knows why Beethoven to Coriolan, although Beethoven also knew of Napoleon, who he felt had completely za, that Beethoven wrote out complete- never composed another piano concerto the traditional versions by Plutarch and betrayed his republican beginnings. The ly. The orchestra later introduces the after the Emperor Concerto, although Shakespeare. The story of Coriolanus most widely accepted of several theories thematic subject matter of the movement he lived for another twenty years. It appealed to Beethoven because of its about the subtitle’s origin is that one of and, to a great extent, undertakes the has been conjectured that he perhaps themes of freedom for the individual, as the early publishers thought it an appro- task of developing the themes with the abandoned the piano concerto form well as daring, pride, and the power of priate term to describe the concerto’s piano as an accompaniment, a musical because his deafness ended his days as female persuasion. The predominant “grand dimensions and intrinsic splen- mannerism that Brahms would later also a pianist. He dedicated the concerto to themes of love and patriotism were dor.” Some musicologists have found the use to great effect in his piano concerti. the Archduke Rudolf, a musician, a good qualities for which Beethoven had much work martial and imperious, at least in its In another structural and stylistic ad- friend and patron: he was Beethoven’s respect. The play Coriolan (in German) external features, but it is rather a radi- vance, the orchestra does not halt for the only composition student, and Beethoven was first performed in 1802 and was ant, positive and self-confident composi- insertion of a cadenza for the soloist to dedicated many works to him. very popular for several seasons, but tion that gives homage to the unconquer- improvise. Breaking with the tradition, when Beethoven wrote the Overture in able nature of the human spirit. Beethoven weaves the cadenzas into the The concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four he wrote a little more, although he was revolution in music, as Mozart did.” (Italian for “jest” or “joke”). The sym- horns, two trumpets, kettledrums and even more drowned in complete hope- phony closes with a high spirited finale, strings. lessness. With intense internal fortitude, Now, it is as difficult to associate Bee- Allegro molto. Beethoven completed the symphony in thoven’s Symphony No. 2 with musical Symphony No. 2 in D Major the late fall. revolution as with the terrible torment The score calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, Ludwig van Beethoven he endured in Heiligenstadt. Its first clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, A major concert on April 5th of the fol- movement opens with a long, slow in- timpani and strings. Beethoven wrote his Symphony No. 2 in lowing year introduced Beethoven’s Sym- troduction, Adagio molto, that is at once the summer and early autumn of 1802. phony No. 1 and the first performance of dramatic, lyrical and even gracious, but This symphony is one of his most joyous, three important works: his Symphony No. not tragic. He organized the main section serene compositions, yet it was written 2, Piano Concerto No. 3, and an oratorio, of the movement, Allegro con brio, on a during one of the saddest times of his life. Christ on the Mount of Olives. The inten- much larger scale than was common at tion was to perform other vocal works the time, in what we now think of as a The year he composed this sympho- too, but there simply was not time for classical manner. The second movement, ny, Beethoven left Vienna for about six everything. Larghetto, consists of beautiful long months at his doctor’s orders to live in themes, and the third is a true Scherzo the quiet country village of Heiligenstadt. The day of the concert was also the only On October 8, shortly before he returned day of rehearsal for this demanding per- to the city, he wrote a will in the form of a formance.

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