Program Notes 7:30Pm Saturday, February 7, 2015 Heritage Center 2:00Pm Sunday, February 8, 2015 University of Dubuque
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Program Notes 7:30pm Saturday, February 7, 2015 Heritage Center 2:00pm Sunday, February 8, 2015 University of Dubuque WILLIAM INTRILIGATOR, Music Director & Conductor Overture to The Impresario WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART In the winter of 1786, Mozart had to suspend work on his opera The Marriage of Figaro to whip up a little concoction called Der Schauspieldirektor or The Impresario for a command performance before Emperor Joseph II and other royal guests at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace. Indeed, the Emperor had even dictated the details of the plot of this brief Singspiel or operetta with spoken dialogue. It was to involve the frantic efforts of an impresario in Salzburg (Mozart’s own hometown) to put on a show despite the prima donna antics of two rival sopranos: Madame Herz (Heart) and Mademoiselle Silberklang (Silver Tone). b. 1756, Salzburg, Austria d. 1791, Vienna, Austria Because of the spoken dialogue, all Mozart had to compose was an overture, two suitably showy arias for the sopranos, and two ensembles. Paired with The Impresario was a brief opera in Italian, Prima la musica e poe le parole (“First the Music, Then the Words”) by Mozart’s supposed rival, Antonio Salieri (of Amadeus fame). The occasion and both works were a great success. The palace’s elegant Orangerie was the setting, and a contemporary newspaper described the festivities: “The party alighted at the Orangerie, which had been prepared most lavishly and attractively for luncheon for the guests. The table, beneath the orange trees, was most prettily decorated with both local and exotic flowers, blossoms and fruits. ... [The performances were given] on the Italian stage erected at the other end of the Orangerie. All this time, the Orangerie was most gloriously illuminated with numerous lights from candelabra and wall-brackets.” For such an important occasion — and one that might be highly advantageous to him — Mozart lavished great care on his little overture, which is impressive enough to introduce a more major work. Besides the spirit of high comedy, it has a regal grandeur befitting the splendid setting of its premiere. Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor JOHANNES BRAHMS Though he was a lifelong bachelor and a bit of a loner, Johannes Brahms always placed great importance on his friendships. One of his most important was with the great Hungarian-born violinist Joseph Joachim. The two had become close friends as young men back in 1853 when they had begun giving concerts together. In 1878, Brahms created his magnificent Violin Concerto to show off Joachim’s artistry and had even accepted his recommended changes in some of the solo writing. But in 1884, the friendship crashed in flames. A pathologically jealous man, b. 1833, Hamburg, Germany Joachim had instigated divorce proceedings against his wife, Amalie, accusing d. 1897, Vienna, Austria her of infidelity with Brahms’ publisher, Fritz Simrock. Fond of Amalie and convinced (quite rightly, it seems) of her innocence, Brahms wrote her a candid and sympathetic letter in which he affirmed his total faith in her and said he had long been aware of Joachim’s unreliable emotional nature. In her defense, Amalie then produced this letter in court, and it was the pivotal document causing the judge to rule against Joachim. Enraged, the violinist broke off all relations with Brahms for three and a half years. Brahms tried over and over to restore relations, but without success. Finally in the summer of 1887, he hit upon a possible solution. The cellist Robert Hausmann — Joachim’s partner in a long-established string quartet — had been begging Brahms to write him a Cello Concerto. The composer decided instead to write a Double Concerto for Hausmann’s cello and Joachim’s violin: a concerto combination never tried before. In a letter to Joachim, Brahms told him about the new work and how much it meant to him, and asked him to simply reply by postcard with the words “I decline” if he was not interested. But Joachim did not decline. Instead, a reading of the concerto by Joachim, Hausmann, and Brahms was arranged at the home of another longtime friend, Clara Schumann. As everyone had hoped, Joachim was quickly caught up in the new work, and the rift was gradually healed. The composer reportedly exclaimed: “Now I know what it is that’s been missing in my life for the past few years — it’s been the sound of Joachim’s violin!” And on October 18, 1887, the three friends (with Brahms on the podium) premiered the work in Cologne. In its very musical substance, the Double Concerto is an ode to friendship; Brahms filled it with nostalgic messages to Joachim. The violinist’s entrance music recalls a theme in a Viotti violin concerto the two had played together years before. The slow movement is in the key of D major — the key of Brahms’ Violin Concerto. And the finale is in gypsy-rondo style, recalling both the Violin Concerto’s finale and the two musicians’ mutual love of Hungarian gypsy music. The opening of the sonata-form first movement is most unusual. The orchestra loudly states the first four measures of the principal theme, with its characteristically Brahmsian conflict of two-beat rhythms against three-beat triplets. But immediately, the cello interrupts, attacking a forceful recitative. The woodwinds then try to start the movement’s second theme. But now the violin leaps into action. Both soloists join in a double cadenza, trading back and forth rapid arpeggios, just as good friends sometimes finish each other’s conversational ideas. Finally, the orchestra is allowed back in to present the brawny principal theme in all its muscular drama. Its character suggests the storminess of Joachim and Brahms’ friendship even in the best of times. And the orchestra shouts out the sighing second theme, whose lyrical character only the soloists will reveal. In the slow movement, the soloists present a wonderfully mellow and nostalgic theme in unison: a perfect musical portrait of the pleasures of long companionship. In the middle section, woodwinds sing a pensive melody to which the soloists add a beautiful rippling theme of their own. All of Brahms’ regret for a lost amity colors the closing moments of this sublime movement. The rondo finale is rich in melody. The cello opens with the impishly playful refrain theme; the orchestra then brings out its gypsy fire. A second theme, warm and noble in double stops for the cello, forms the first episode. And a dramatic third theme — proclaimed by both soloists and featuring the three-against-two rhythm that was so important in the first movement — dominates the big central episode. The concerto’s brilliant conclusion is in the joyful A major of friendship restored. Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, “Eroica” LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Although the responses to Beethoven’s music are as varied as the individuals who listen to it, virtually everyone seems to agree that it often embodies an ethical or spiritual quest: the drama, in Scott Burnham’s words, “of a self struggling to create and fulfill its own destiny.” And this epic quest is most forcefully expressed in the works Beethoven wrote during the first decade of the 19th century: what we now call his Heroic Period. Historically, this was also an era of heroism and aspiration. The American and b. 1770, Bonn, Germany French revolutions had recently acted out humankind’s desire for freedom d. 1827, Vienna, Austria and self-determination and thrust forward leaders such as Washington and Bonaparte. The contemporary German dramas of Goethe and Schiller celebrated historical freedom fighters like Egmont and Wallenstein and mythical ones like William Tell. Beethoven translated this aspiring spirit into music. Living in Vienna under the autocratic Hapsburg regime, he acted out his dream of individual liberty in his daily life. His career revolved around two heroic quests: his struggle against encroaching deafness and his creative battle to forge a new musical language within a conservative and often hostile environment. And this musical language was itself heroic: with its audacious harmonic procedures, epic expanded forms, virile themes, assaulting rhythms, and pronounced military character. Beethoven launched his Heroic Period with his Third Symphony, a work he subtitled “Sinfonia eroica, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.” The question of exactly who that “great man” was has provided fertile grounds for commentators to till ever since. The chief candidate, of course, is Napoleon. Beethoven himself told his publisher that “the subject is Bonaparte,” but he also reportedly tore off the work’s title page to expunge Napoleon’s name upon hearing in 1804 that the Frenchman had crowned himself emperor. Others have suggested the noble Trojan prince Hector, Homer’s hero in the Iliad, or because of Beethoven’s use of a theme from his Creatures of Prometheus ballet score in the finale, the mythical Prometheus. Many believe the hero to be Beethoven himself. In any case, the “Eroica” was itself a heroic act: shocking its first audiences and setting a new symphonic template for future composers to emulate. A contemporary critic spoke for many when he described it as “a very long drawn-out, daring and wild fantasy … very often it seems to lose itself in anarchy.” In a work twice the length of previous symphonies, Beethoven had expanded 18th-century symphonic structures beyond his contemporaries’ powers of comprehension. Even more challenging was the “Eroica’s” harmonic daring and overall tone of aggression. It did not seek to please and amuse its listeners but to challenge and provoke them. We hear the challenge in the two loud E-flat chords that open the first-movement.