Boston Symphony Orchestra Concert Programs, Summer, 1991
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A FESTIVAL OF MUSIC FROM SONY CLASSICAL On Sony Classical Compact Discs and Cassettes, Advancing the State of the Arts* LJ5 ."Sony Qasskal" are trademarks of Sony Corporation © 1991 Sony CtassicaiGmfaH — Tanglewq&d Thursday, August 22, at 8:30 takAcs quartet GAbORTAKACS-NAGY, violin KAROLY SCHRANZ, violin GABOR ORMAI, viola ANDRAS FEJER, cello MOZART String Quartet No. 23 in F, K.590 Allegro moderato Andante Menuetto: Allegretto; Trio Allegro BEETHOVEN Grosse Fuge in B-flat, Opus 133 Overtura. Allegro—Allegro Fuga INTERMISSION SCHUBERT String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D.810, Death and the Maiden Allegro Andante con moto Scherzo: Allegro molto; Trio Presto Notes The String Quartet in F, K.590, is the last of Mozart's string quartets, composed in June 1790. It is part of a group that Mozart planned to compose for the cello-playing King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II, whom he had visited at Berlin in the spring of 1789 in the hopes of reviving his seriously dwindling fortunes. He came back to Vienna with a commission to write "six easy clavier sonatas" for the Princess Friede- rike and six string quartets for the king himself. But his mood was particularly low at this time, owing to the financial situation in Vienna that had drastically reduced the number of concert events and paid commissions for new pieces, and possibly, too, because of the frequent illness of his wife Constanze. In any case, Mozart was never able to bring himself to complete either commission; he wrote one of the sonatas and only three of the string quartets. Naturally, since he did not present the finished work to the king, he never received the much-needed fee; the three quartets were printed a year after the composer's death, but without a dedication to Friedrich Wilhelm. They have, however, become known as the "Prussian Quartets" from the circumstance of their commissioning. And to some degree or other, all three of them feature the king's own instrument, the cello, so that when they were printed, the publisher identified " them as ' concertante" string quartets, meaning that at least one of the instruments had an unusually significant solo part. In general, Mozart found the writing of string quartets to be difficult. The limita- tion of the voices to four, the need to balance the parts evenly (miscalculations are far more obvious in the string quartet than with an orchestra), and— in this instance—the need to write a rather more elaborate cello part than usual without letting it over- balance the ensemble made the task a tricky one, and Mozart himself referred to his work on these pieces as "troublesome." At the same time he was making new innova- tions of texture (which no doubt required careful planning) and had begun to shift the center of gravity of the work as a whole from the first movement to the last. Thus the three quartets that he finished all brought with them special problems that de- layed their completion, even in the hands of a composer normally so fluent. The first movement of K.590 is carefully restrained (to allow for a climactic close in the last movement). It begins with a lengthy opening theme first heard in the violin, but soon the cello takes over and dominates the modulatory passage in a high register, while the remaining instruments function largely as accompaniment. Though the texture is generally lightly woven, Mozart cast the opening phrase in unison and returned to that texture as a way of marking important way stations in the form: the end of the exposition and beginning of the development; the beginning of the re- capitulation; and (most dramatically) the end of the recapitulation and passage to the brief, subdued coda. In his early quartets, Mozart more often made the Menuetto the second movement and put the slow movement third, but in the later works he tended to revert to the contrary practice, which was more common with symphonies and other larger forms. The second movement is marked "'Andante' in Mozart's manuscript, but as "Allegretto" in the first publication. Assuming that this is not simply an error, but reflects some- thing about the composer's wishes, it suggests that the "slow" movement is in fact r A For Life's Little Emergencies... Donovan Jaguar Service Specialist in the service and restoration of Jaguars The Immediate Care Center Brian J. Donovan Berkshire Medical Center Proprietor 725 North St., Pittsfield, MA. Crystal Street P.O. Box 295 447-2000 Lenoxdale, MA 01242 (413) 637-4425 intended to move along rather lightly. The basic 6/8 rhythm heard in the opening measure dominates the entire discussion with almost the same single-mindedness— if not quite the same powerful drama—as in the first movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony (Mozart's rhythm does not use the dotted figure of Beethoven's symphony, however). The Menuetto is unusual in its irregular phrase patterns; the main section is constructed of seven-bar phrases, and the Trio of five-bar phrases. Such metrical imbalance is more likely in the work of Haydn; it is somewhat surprising (though by no means unknown) in Mozart. The finale races along in a kind of capricious perpetuo moto, with a combination of rondo and sonata elements. Its energy is channeled into surprising harmonic jumps —most strikingly at the double bar that ends the exposition where, following a strong cadence on the dominant key of C, the next section suddenly takes off in D-flat. There are bits of fugal development and extended pedal points to ground the harmony as the quartet ends with a great burst of energy. One of the things that left early audiences nonplussed with Beethoven's late string quartets was the fact that the composer broke away almost completely from the old four-movement pattern by having a larger number of movements or by introducing a bewildering variety of tempo changes. In Beethoven's original plan for the B-flat quartet, Opus 130, he does both of these things, with the effect of breaking down the old sense of a work made up of so many discrete movements and replacing it with the work conceived as a much wider-ranging and more flexible whole. Even the most disparate and varied passages, the least expected harmonic relationships, and the most abstruse contrapuntal working-out play their parts in the final result. Though The Stage Is Set for the Perfect Vacation Whether you're staying with us or just close by, Cranwell has everything all set for you to enjoy the perfect vacation in the Berkshires. You may dine in our elegant restaurant, golf on our 6,402 yard, par 70, 18-hole championship course, play tennis on our private clay courts, swim in our heated pool or simply relax and enjoy the spectacular scenery of the surrounding Berkshire countryside from our Rose Terrace. Our facilities are open to the public as well as to our guests. So, if you're eager to open the curtain on the perfect vacation, join us here at Cranwell. For more information, call (413) 637-1364. RESORT AND HOTEL ROUTE 20, LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS 01240 Managed by Corcoran Jennison Companies Beethoven seems on the surface to be destroying "classical" balance, these works are in many respects the most classical of all. Beethoven originally planned to end the B-flat quartet with a massive fugue as its culmination. He was in the end prevailed upon to publish the fugue separately, as Grosse Fuge ("Great Fugue"), Opus 133, and to provide a somewhat more conventional ending for Opus 130. Many ensembles today choose to play Opus 130 with the Grosse Fuge instead of the substitute ending, where it naturally serves as the culminating point of the entire score. When heard separately—a practice implicitly authorized by Beethoven when he published it with its own opus number—the fugue may seem to arise out of nothing, but our attention can be thrown more directly on its astonishing features. Beethoven was increasingly interested in fugal writing in his last years (examples are widely scattered throughout the late works). In the Great Fugue he seems deter- mined to answer a challenge implicitly laid down by his old counterpoint teacher Albrechtsberger, who, in a study of fugal writing, listed all the "decorations and ar- tifices" possible with the comment that it would be difficult to fit them all into a single work. Beethoven, however, manages to accomplish this feat, including even one de- vice of Albrechtsberger's invention, thus producing, like J. S. Bach, his own monumen- tal "Art of Fugue." Yet, Beethoven's composition is anything but an academic exercise. The daring freedom and flexibility with which he develops his material are unprecedented, and the thoroughgoing way in which the melodic figures of the fugue subject penetrate the entire musical fabric, already distantly foreshadow (to those gifted with 20/20 hindsight) the total chromaticism of Schoenberg and the development of twelve-tone music. The Grosse Fuge is one of those rare works that is fundamentally difficult—for performers and audiences alike—and will remain forever an "avant-garde" composi- tion. * * * * In February 1817 Schubert wrote a brief but deeply moving song, Der Tod und das Mddchen ("Death and the Maiden"), D.531, to a poem by Matthias Claudius, in which a young girl becomes reconciled to Death, who sings gently lulling strains to soothe her anguish. The song (and its key of D minor) reappeared in Schubert's output seven years later to become the basis for one movement of his last string quartet but one, the quartet in D minor, D.810, composed early in 1824, and that movement has given APARTMENTS WITH A Life to be TVFFERENCE , lived., V'TransformedT TJfrom a Jt\ \^_J turn-of-the century cotton mill and nestled in the Berkshires, the Berkshire Mill offers historic charm and dramatic vistas in rental apartments of various sizes, some with two levels.