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Home , James Levine

Please note that CSO has withdrawn from this week’s concerts due to continuing illness. Guest conductor Edo de Waart replaces Maestro Muti for these performances. Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony is substituted for the works by Stravinsky and Busoni.

Program

One Hundred Twenty-Second Season Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Music Director Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO

Thursday, January 17, 2013, at 8:00 Friday, January 18, 2013, at 1:30 Saturday, January 19, 2013, at 8:00 Edo de Waart Conductor Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 (Jupiter) Allegro vivace Andante cantabile Allegretto Molto allegro

Intermission Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 Andante moderato Allegro giocoso Allegro energico e passionato

These performances have been enabled by the Juli Grainger Fund. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Wolfgang Mozart Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria. Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria.

Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 (Jupiter)

ronically, it’s Mozart’s last three longer believe that Mozart wrote Isymphonies rather than the these three great symphonies for famous that remain the the drawer alone—that goes against mystery of his final years. Almost as everything we know of his working soon as Mozart died, romantic myth methods. But we don’t know what attached itself to the unfinished orchestra or occasion he had in pages of the requiem left scattered mind. Apparently a series of sub- on his bed; a host of questions— scription concerts was planned for who commissioned the work?; who the summer of 1788, when Mozart finished it?; was Mozart poi- entered the three symphonies in his soned?—inspired painters, novelists, catalog, but there’s no evidence that biographers, librettists, playwrights, the performances took place. and screenwriters to heights of Mozart, who didn’t expect the imaginative re-creation. We now C major symphony performed know those answers: the requiem is today to be his last, never called it unfinished, but not unexplained. the Jupiter. According to an entry The final symphonies, on the in the British publisher Vincent other hand—no. 39 in E-flat, the Novello’s diary, Mozart’s son Franz “great” G minor (no. 40), and Xaver reported that the London the Jupiter (no. 41)—continue to impresario Johann Peter Salomon beg more questions than we can gave the work its nickname after answer. Even what was once the the most powerful of the Roman most provocative fact about these gods. The title first appeared works—that Mozart never heard in print for a performance in them—is now doubtful. We no Edinburgh on October 20, 1819. composed Most recent CSO Approximate completed August 10, 1788 performance performance time December 6, 2008, 34 minutes first performance Orchestra Hall. Bernard date unknown Haitink CSO recordings 1954. First CSO instrumentation conducting. RCA performance flute, two oboes, two 1981. James Levine February 3, 1893, Auditorium bassoons, two horns, two conducting. RCA Theatre. Theodore trumpets, timpani, strings Thomas conducting A 1978 performance conducted by Sir is included in From the Archives, vol. 6.

2 The nickname itself suggests The Andante, with muted strings that the Jupiter Symphony was to counter the noonday brilliance accepted as the summit of instru- of the opening movement, exposes mental music within a few years the darkness that often is at the of its composition. At least until heart of Mozart’s music. This is a 1808, when Beethoven premiered world of poignant contemplation, his Fifth Symphony in the same yearning, and distress. It’s as heart key, it could safely be mentioned wrenching as Pamina’s great aria as the C major symphony, without from and even more danger of confusion. (Beethoven’s remarkable for being in a major key. begins in C minor and only ends The minuet and trio are unusually in the major.) Schumann, who rich and complicated, both musi- wrote at length about many pieces cally and emotionally, for all their he admired, thought it “wholly plain, traditional dance forms. above discussion,” like the works The finale, which includes a of Shakespeare; Mendelssohn and famous fugue at the end, is as Wagner both modeled youthful celebrated as any single movement symphonies on it. of eighteenth-century music. It Salomon’s nickname probably begins innocently enough, with an was suggested by the majesty and innocuous do-re-fa-mi theme, and nobility of the first movement, turns into a tour de force of classi- which includes the brilliant sound cal counterpoint. Five themes are of trumpets and drums and features presented, developed, and restated; stately dotted rhythms in the then, at the end, in the great, opening measures (C major was the miraculous coda, they’re brought traditional key for ceremonial music together in various combinations in the eighteenth century). But the (and sometimes upside-down) in a movement, cast in conventional dazzling display of perfect counter- sonata form, is also light and play- point. With these two minutes of ful. Mozart starts the recapitulation music, Mozart shifts the center of in the wrong key (the subdomi- gravity from the beginning of the nant) as an inside joke and quotes symphony to the end, anticipating the music of a lighthearted aria Beethoven, Brahms, and countless he recently had written to a text other composers who owe him so presumably by Lorenzo da Ponte: much else in this field. Mozart can’t “You are a bit innocent, my dear have known that this work would Pompeo,” a bass sings to an inexpe- bring his own symphonic career to rienced lover, “Go study the ways of an end, but he couldn’t have found the world.” Like Don Giovanni, this a more spectacular and fitting way movement is dramma giocoso—the to crown his achievements, and, at quintessentially Mozartean mixture the same time, to point the way to of the serious and the comic. the future.

3 Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany. Died April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria.

Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98

rahms’s good housekeeping has music and destroyed all remaining Bdenied us an unfinished fifth evidence of a fifth symphony. symphony to set beside Mahler’s Brahms’s Fourth Symphony is Tenth and Bruckner’s Ninth—two his final statement in a form he had magnificent symphonies left incom- completely mastered, although for plete at their composers’ deaths. We a very long time he was paralyzed know that Brahms was working on by the nine examples by Beethoven. a fifth symphony as early as 1890, Even Beethoven chose not to go during a trip to Italy; apparently he beyond his own ninth, although he soon gave up on it. During the last toyed with a new symphony two years of his life, Brahms conscien- years before his death. It’s dif- tiously destroyed or recycled any ficult to imagine what Beethoven musical scraps cluttering his desk. or Brahms might have done next, He admitted using the opening of since their last symphonies seem his fifth symphony in the string to sum up all either knew of quintet, op. 111, the work he orchestral writing. The difference is intended to be his last. (“It is high that Beethoven’s choral symphony time to stop,” he wrote to his pub- opened up a vast new world for lisher in the note that accompanied the rest of the nineteenth century the score.) Although he went on to to explore, while Brahms reached write a handful of great chamber something of a dead end. But what works, he didn’t return to orchestral a glorious end it is. Brahms was

Composed Most recent CSO Approximate 1885 performances performance time May 31, 2011, Orchestra Hall. 40 minutes First performance conducting October 25, 1885, CSO recordings July 13, 2012, Ravinia Meiningen, Germany. The 1969. Festival. Christoph composer conducting conducting. Angel Eschenbach conducting 1976. James Levine conduct- First CSO Instrumentation ing. RCA performance two flutes and piccolo, two February 17, 1978. Sir Georg Solti oboes, two clarinets, two 1893, Auditorium conducting. London bassoons and contrabas- Theatre. Theodore soon, four horns, two 1993. Thomas conducting trumpets, three trombones, conducting. Erato timpani, triangle, strings

4 never one to forge new paths—like recapitulation capped by a power- Bach and Handel, he added little ful coda. to the historical development of In the Andante moderato, music—and yet he always seemed Brahms takes the little horn call to prove that there was more to be of the first measure and tosses it said in the language at hand. throughout the orchestra, subtly Brahms’s Fourth Symphony altering its color, rhythm, and begins almost in midthought, with character as he proceeds. A forceful urgent, sighing coming out fanfare in the winds introduces a of nowhere; it often disorients first- juicy new cello theme. (It turns out time listeners. (Brahms meant it to: to be nothing more than the fanfare he originally wrote two prepara- played slowly.) Near the end, tory bars of wind chords and later shadows cross the music. The horns crossed them out, letting the theme boldly play their theme again, but catch us by surprise.) The violins the accompaniment suggests that skip across the scale by thirds— darkness has descended for good. falling thirds and their mirror The lightning flash of the image, rising sixths—a shorthand Allegro giocoso proves otherwise. way of telling us that the interval of This is music of enormous energy, a third pervades the harmonic lan- lightened by an unabashed comic guage of the entire symphony. (It streak—unexpected from Brahms, also determines key relationships: normally the most sober of com- the third movement, for example, posers. Here he indulges in the is in C major, a third below the repeated tinklings of the triangle, symphony’s E minor key.) and he later boasted that “three Brahms has a wonderful time kettledrums, triangle, and piccolo playing with the conventions of will, of course, make something of sonata form in the first movement. a show.” Midway through, when He seems to make the classical the first theme’s thundering left repeat of the exposition, but, only foot is answered by the puny voice eight measures in, alters one chord of the high winds, the effect is as and immediately plunges into funny as anything in Haydn. the new harmonic fields of the Throughout his life, Brahms col- development section. Listen for lected old scores and manuscripts— the great point of recognition—at the autograph of Mozart’s great ppp, the quietest moment in the G minor symphony was a prized symphony—with which Brahms possession—studying their pages marks the recapitulation. For to see what history might teach twelve measures the music falters him. More than once he spoke of like an awkward conversation, the wanting to write a set of variations winds suggesting the first theme, on a theme he remembered from a the violins not seeming to under- cantata by Bach. But no one before stand. Suddenly they catch on and, Brahms had seriously thought of picking up the theme where the writing a strict passacaglia—a winds left off, sweep into a full continuous set of variations over

5 a repeated bass line—to wrap up dancelike sequence, and an urgent a symphony. (Beethoven used a and dramatic final group that theme and variations in the finale provides a triumphant conclusion. of his Eroica Symphony [1803] and One can follow Brahms’s eight- Brahms himself wrote a passacaglia note theme from the shining sum- to conclude the Variations on a mit of the flute line, where it first Theme by Haydn.) appears over rich trombone har- The finale to Brahms’s Fourth monies, to the depths of the double Symphony isn’t a musty, academic bass, where it descends as early as exercise, but a brilliant summation the fourth variation, supporting a of all Brahms knew about sym- luscious new melody. Even phonic writing set over thirty-two in the twelfth variation, where the repetitions of the same eight notes. theme steps aside so the focus is Trombones make their entrance on the poignant, solemn song of in the symphony to announce the the flute, the spirit of those eight theme, loosely borrowed from notes is still with us. And as Arnold Bach’s Cantata no. 150, Nach dir, Schoenberg loved to point out, the Herr, verlanget mich (I long for you, skeleton of the main theme from O Lord) [the cantata is no longer the first movement also appears thought to be by Bach]. To bring in the penultimate variation, like the ancient passacaglia form into the ghostly statue in Mozart’s Don the nineteenth century, Brahms Giovanni. The finale is as mag- superimposes over his variations the nificent and as satisfying as any general outline of sonata form, with movement in symphonic music; it’s an unmistakable moment of reca- easy to assume that, having written pitulation midway through. A look this, Brahms had nothing left to at the finale in its entirety reveals say. We’ll never know whether that the sturdy four-movement structure was so, or if, in the end, he simply of the classical symphony: Brahms ran out of time. begins with eight bold and forceful variations, followed by four slow variations of yearning and quiet Phillip Huscher is the program annota- eloquence, an increasingly hectic tor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

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