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PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, February 19, 2015, at 8:00 Friday, February 20, 2015, at 1:30 Saturday, February 21, 2015, at 8:00 Tuesday, February 24, 2015, at 7:30 Riccardo Muti Conductor Rudolf Buchbinder Piano Rosa Feola Soprano Alisa Kolosova Mezzo-soprano Saimir Pirgu Tenor Michele Pertusi Bass Chicago Symphony Chorus Duain Wolfe Director Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491 Allegro Larghetto Allegretto RUDOLF BUCHBINDER INTERMISSION Mozart Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 Introitus Requiem Kyrie Sequenz Dies irae Tuba mirum Rex tremendae Recordare Confutatis Lacrimosa Offertorium Domine Jesu Hostias Sanctus Benedictus Agnus Dei Communio Lux aeterna ROSA FEOLA ALISA KOLOSOVA SAIMIR PIRGU MICHELE PERTUSI CHICAGO SYMPHONY CHORUS These concerts are generously sponsored by Mr. & Mrs. Dietrich M. Gross. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 2 COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher Wolfgang Mozart Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria. Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria. Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491 In the winter of 1785–86, on April 29. One of the remarkable things about Mozart wrote three piano this concerto—along with the harried circum- concertos while also stances of its creation—is the way it penetrates working on The Marriage the unusually dark world of C minor, while of Figaro. This was the Figaro—with which it shared space on Mozart’s most productive period in writing desk every day—is so unrelenting in its his life, and the only fondness for bright major keys. reasonable way to explain In the eighteenth century, a composer rarely the enormous and varied chose to write in a minor key. Only two of output of these six months Mozart’s piano concertos are in minor keys, and is to assume that the intense work on the compli- because of their power and emotional depth, cated musical and dramatic structures of the they remained favorites of the romantic era, opera set his mind racing with more ideas than a when it was tempting to dismiss Mozart as a single four-act opera could contain. It has been sweet, facile, lightweight talent. The Concerto in suggested that the purely mechanical task of D minor (K. 466) was Beethoven’s favorite. (It’s writing down this much music would produce the only one he played publicly, and the only one only six full pages per day. Neither that chal- for which he wrote cadenzas.) But we know he lenge, nor the infinitely greater one of conceiving also greatly admired this concerto in C minor. so much magnificent music, appears to have After hearing a performance, he remarked to a inconvenienced Mozart in the least. Throughout fellow pianist and composer, “Cramer! Cramer! the winter, he kept to his regular routine of We shall never be able to do anything like teaching and performing, while also enjoying a that”—though in his own C minor piano con- full social calendar. The only activity that seems certo (no. 3), Beethoven blatantly and lovingly to have suffered was his letter writing, so we have imitates the coda to Mozart’s first movement. At only a sketchy account of his daily life at the time. the other end of the nineteenth century, Mozart’s Mozart entered the C minor piano concerto C minor concerto was still highly valued: (K. 491) in his catalog on March 24, 1786 (it Richard Strauss made his debut playing this had only been twenty-two days since he finished work and composed cadenzas for it as well. (At his last piano concerto, in A major, K. 488); the these performances, Rudolf Buchbinder plays his next line lists The Marriage of Figaro, completed own cadenza in the first movement.) COMPOSED FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES July 23, 2006, Ravinia Festival. entered in Mozart’s catalog on April 7 & 8, 1911, Orchestra Hall. Fannie Andreas Haefliger as soloist, James March 24, 1786 Bloomfield Zeisler as soloist, Frederick Conlon conducting Stock conducting September 13, 2008, Kultur- & FIRST PERFORMANCE July 14, 1942, Ravinia Festival. Kongresszentrum, Lucerne, unknown, possibly March 24, 1786; Artur Schnabel as soloist, George Switzerland. Murray Perahia as soloist, Vienna, Austria Szell conducting Bernard Haitink conducting INSTRUMENTATION MOST RECENT CADENZA solo piano, one flute, two oboes, two CSO PERFORMANCES Rudolf Buchbinder clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, October 6, 7 & 8, 2005, Orchestra two trumpets, timpani, strings Hall. Lang Lang as soloist, Daniel APPROXIMATE Barenboim conducting PERFORMANCE TIME 31 minutes 3 The most extraordinary thing about the first death, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (the virtuoso movement—once we have adjusted our ears to pianist-composer who had once studied with the dark and sober key and to the sounds of both Mozart) published his own arrangements of clarinets and oboes (appearing together in one eight important Mozart concertos, in which he of Mozart’s concertos for the first time)—is how redecorated virtually every measure of the solo Mozart seems to be inventing his form as he goes part. But he stopped short at this movement, along—the solo lines, in particular, have a won- recognizing that even the piano’s opening unac- derful improvisatory quality—even though he companied phrase, with its sing-song melody is making the most carefully considered choices and repeated chords, was perfect as it stands. throughout. At the very end of the movement, The finale, a series of variations both playful the piano unexpectedly reenters with quiet and serious, begins and ends in C minor (even arpeggios that carry to the last measure (this is the D minor concerto ultimately broke away to the moment Beethoven recaptures in his Third end happily in D major), although Mozart gives Piano Concerto). the conclusion an unexpected twist by switch- The slow movement, in E-flat major, speaks ing, at the last minute, to a particularly lilting with childlike simplicity. Years after Mozart’s 6/8 meter. Wolfgang Mozart Requiem in D Minor, K. 626 Completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr This requiem is Mozart’s behalf of his anonymous master, inquiring if last, unfinished composi- Mozart would write a requiem mass, and if so, tion. It is one of the how long he would need and what fee he would greatest and most accept. Although no single event in Mozart’s life mysterious torsos in has been dissected as carefully as this one, we Western art. Because still are not certain of the details of the verbal Mozart died so young contract negotiated that day. Mozart did agree to while working on a mass the commission, and probably accepted a fee of for the dead, this music fifty ducats, half payable in advance. Apparently has attracted an unfair, the messenger did warn Mozart to respect the though inevitable, amount of myth and popular secrecy of his patron. drama. And because the requiem was completed Mozart was a busy man in 1791. He went to in relative secrecy after the composer’s death and Prague in late August, accompanied by his wife presented as Mozart’s own, separating fact from Constanze and his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr, fiction is complicated. The stories invented by any to prepare for the premiere of La clemenza di number of fine and reasonable writers over the Tito. (He wrote much of the score in the coach.) years, from Alexander Pushkin in the nineteenth He returned to Vienna immediately after the century to Peter Shaffer, whose Amadeus made premiere on September 6 to finish The Magic Mozart king of the Cineplex in the 1980s, have Flute, which he conducted on September 30 at become nearly as famous and beloved as the the Theater auf der Wieden. Antonio Salieri music itself. Although it is hard and potentially appears just once in this story, on October 13, disappointing to stick to the truth, even that, it when Mozart took the composer and soprano turns out, tells a remarkable tale. Catarina Cavalieri to a performance of The Indeed there was a messenger, apparently Magic Flute. “Salieri listened and watched most dressed in gray, who appeared at Mozart’s door. attentively,” Mozart wrote to Constanze, “and This must have been some time during the from the overture to the last chorus there was summer of 1791, Mozart’s last. He came on not a single number that did not call forth from 4 him a bravo! or bello. It seemed as if they could suggests. Just the mouthing of the timpani part, not thank me enough for my kindness.” And on and the quiet tragedy of a young man dying in that genial note, untroubled by any undercurrents the prime of his life. Mozart died at fifty-five other than the simple envy a decent composer minutes past midnight on December 5. Sophie might reasonably feel confronted by Mozart’s Haibel recalls that her sister was inconsolable and genius, Salieri slipped from Mozart’s life. could not tear herself away from Mozart. During these same weeks, Mozart completed a clarinet concerto for Anton Stadler and wrote ow begins a new drama. Constanze, a little Masonic cantata, dated November 15, in serious debt, recognized that the which was the last work he entered in his per- requiem must be finished and deliv- sonal catalog. He conducted the piece three days Nered, and presented as Mozart’s final work. She later to dedicate a new temple for his lodge.