Season 2012-2013

27 Season 2012-2013 Sunday, October 28, at 3:00 The Philadelphia Orchestra 28th Season of Chamber Music Concerts—Perelman Theater Mozart Duo No. 1 in G major, K. 423, for violin and viola I. Allegro II. Adagio III. Rondo: Allegro William Polk Violin Marvin Moon Viola Dvorˇák String Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 97 I. Allegro non tanto II. Allegro vivo III. Larghetto IV. Finale: Allegro giusto Kimberly Fisher Violin William Polk Violin Marvin Moon Viola Choong-Jin Chang Viola John Koen Cello Intermission Brahms Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 I. Allegro II. Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo III. Andante con moto IV. Rondo alla zingarese: Presto Cynthia Raim Piano (Guest) Paul Arnold Violin Kerri Ryan Viola Yumi Kendall Cello This program runs approximately 2 hours. 228 Story Title The Philadelphia Orchestra Jessica Griffin Renowned for its distinctive vivid world of opera and Orchestra boasts a new sound, beloved for its choral music. partnership with the keen ability to capture the National Centre for the Philadelphia is home and hearts and imaginations Performing Arts in Beijing. the Orchestra nurtures of audiences, and admired The Orchestra annually an important relationship for an unrivaled legacy of performs at Carnegie Hall not only with patrons who “firsts” in music-making, and the Kennedy Center support the main season The Philadelphia Orchestra while also enjoying a at the Kimmel Center for is one of the preeminent three-week residency in the Performing Arts but orchestras in the world. Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and also those who enjoy the a strong partnership with The Philadelphia Orchestra’s other area the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Orchestra has cultivated performances at the Mann Festival. an extraordinary history of Center, Penn’s Landing, artistic leaders in its 112 and other venues. The The ensemble maintains seasons, including music Philadelphia Orchestra an important Philadelphia directors Fritz Scheel, Carl Association also continues tradition of presenting Pohlig, Leopold Stokowski, to own the Academy of educational programs for Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo Music—a National Historic students of all ages. Today Muti, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Landmark—as it has since the Orchestra executes a and Christoph Eschenbach, 1957. myriad of education and and Charles Dutoit, who community partnership Through concerts, served as chief conductor programs serving nearly tours, residencies, from 2008 to 2012. With 50,000 annually, including presentations, and the 2012-13 season, its Neighborhood Concert recordings, the Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin Series, Sound All Around is a global ambassador becomes the eighth music and Family Concerts, and for Philadelphia and for director of The Philadelphia eZseatU. the United States. Having Orchestra. Named music been the first American For more information on director designate in 2010, orchestra to perform in The Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin brings a China, in 1973 at the please visit www.philorch.org. vision that extends beyond request of President Nixon, symphonic music into the today The Philadelphia 29 The Music Duo No. 1 in G major, K. 423, for violin and viola Wolfgang Amadè Mozart Mozart’s early years in Vienna were heady ones, and in Born in Salzburg, addition to musical successes he was also fortunate to January 27, 1756 win the hand of Constanze Weber—actually his second Died in Vienna, choice after her sister, Aloysia, who rejected him for December 5, 1791 another man. The couple was married in August of 1782, and the following summer Mozart took his new wife back to his Salzburg home to introduce her to his family, in particular to his father, Leopold. Mozart was by this time persona non grata in his hometown, having clashed with the notorious Archbishop Colloredo, who had ultimately disinherited him from the court. But his father was still in the Archbishop’s service, so Mozart felt obliged to play nice with the court. According to legend, while he was in Salzburg Mozart visited a family friend and former colleague, Michael Haydn, Joseph’s younger brother, who was also in the Archbishop’s service. Haydn had fallen ill, having completed only four of a set of six duos for violin and viola the Archbishop had commissioned. Colloredo wanted the duos immediately and threatened to cut off Haydn’s salary if he did not complete the commission. So in a spirit of friendship and collegiality—“with undeniable pleasure,” as Mozart himself wrote—the young composer agreed to write two duos of his own creation, which were included anonymously in the set and passed off as Haydn’s compositions. This generous act made such an impression that it was passed down in the memoirs of two of Michael Haydn’s students, sources most scholars consider quite reliable. “Thus, if we wish,” comments Maynard Solomon wryly in his 1995 Mozart biography, “we can imagine Mozart’s amusement at the thought of the archbishop unwittingly enjoying the music of his former concertmaster.” Mozart would have delighted in the knowledge, as many have noted, that the Archbishop would not have known the difference between Haydn’s works and his. The subterfuge did not remain a secret for long, although it is not clear whether the Archbishop ever learned of it. As early as 1788 the Wiener Zeitung advertised the six duos for sale, in copies by Johann Traeg, with the two composers correctly identified. “At Joh. Traeg’s the 30 following music is to be had at the price indicated: Six Duetti for violin and viola. The first four are by M. Haydn, the fifth and sixth by Mozart. 5 fl. 30 kr.” These duos, in G major and B-flat, are among a mere smattering of chamber works written during this period in Mozart’s life, which was taken up chiefly with opera and a series of successful public concerts in Vienna. Yet they stand out as extraordinary examples of the rich possibilities available to just two string instruments— “masterpieces of implied harmony,” as scholar Robert W. Gutman has called them, which is to say Mozart has managed to fill in, using the barest of means, an entire harmonic fabric normally requiring three or four instruments. The viola was Mozart’s favorite stringed instrument, and accordingly violin and viola are equal partners in these duos. The challenge was not only to make the harmonic (vertical) texture sound fuller, which he achieved in part through double-stops, using more than one string at a time, but also to impress with the horizontal dimension of its counterpoint. The G-major Duo is a contrapuntal marvel given the limitations imposed by the instrumentation. Mozart presents the partners in frequent imitation and even uses canonic techniques; at other points the two exchange their parts, which entails the crossing of voices. The opening Allegro, in sonata form, abounds in intense virtuoso display. In the lyrical Adagio Mozart is able to suggest a rich harmony by breaking up chords and, as H.C. Robbins Landon observes, uses a slower tempo than he usually did, one associated with Michael Haydn. For the final Rondo: Allegro Mozart calls upon a favorite theme, based on a Swabian folksong that he used in other pieces, and provides a delightful conclusion to this remarkable piece. —Paul J. Horsley/Christopher H. Gibbs 31 The Music String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 97 Antonín Dvorˇák Antonín Dvorˇák was born in a small Bohemian village to Born in Nelahozeves, a non-musical family, but his talents were so evident—he Bohemia, September 8, played organ at church while still a little boy, and picked 1841 up violin and viola by ear—that even his parents knew Died in Prague, May 1, something special was afoot. They sent him to Prague at 1904 age 12, where he studied at the National Conservatory. After graduation he became a violinist for the Czech National Orchestra under the direction of Bedrˇich Smetana, whose opera The Bartered Bride and orchestral suite Má vlast had at last given Czech music a classical voice. Dvorˇák’s composition career stalled for a rather long time. Almost nothing he wrote before the age of 30 survives. In fact he went unnoticed as a composer until 1873, when his choral work Hymnus won a prize adjudicated by the great German composer Johannes Brahms and Europe’s most powerful music critic, Eduard Hanslick. Beyond giving Dvorˇák the award, Brahms and Hanslick recognized a talent that had the potential to raise Czech music to the next level of importance and sophistication. With Brahms’s help, Dvorˇák’s music was published by the prestigious house of Simrock, and with Hanslick’s praise in his pocket he began to get healthy commissions. The remainder of Dvorˇák’s career consisted of one triumph after another, as he became known around the globe. England became so enthusiastic for the composer’s music that Cambridge University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1891. He was invited to America, where he served from 1892 to 1895 as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. During his first year in New York Dvorˇák produced the “New World” Symphony, arguably his best-known work. Then came an incredible outpouring of chamber music in an unlikely place: Spillville, Iowa. Spillville was home to a large Czech immigrant community, including two of the composer’s cousins. Dvorˇák spent the summer of 1893 there, writing three chamber scores back-to-back: the string quartet dubbed the “American”: a sonatina for violin and piano; and the present work for two violins, two violas, and cello, a string quintet also sometimes referred to as the “American.” Upon his return to New York Dvorˇák composed his famous Cello Concerto, a close second 32 to the “New World” Symphony for popularity and without doubt the most widely performed cello concerto ever written.

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