Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Probably No Individual Composer Has Ever En- Gether, “I Was Leader of the Second Violins
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CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM NOTES Friday, February 25, 2011, 8pm Franz Schubert (1797–1828) anything else, he learned it all from God him- Zellerbach Hall Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, D. 125 self”) and the famed Antonio Salieri (“You can do everything, you are a genius”), but also by his Composed in 1815. fellow students. Josef von Spaun, who became a lifelong friend, wrote of their school days to- Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Probably no individual composer has ever en- gether, “I was leader of the second violins. Little gendered such an avalanche of new music as Schubert stood behind me and fiddled. [Many Semyon Bychkov, conductor flowed from Franz Schubert’s pen in 1815. There orchestras, except for the cellists, performed are almost 200 separate works from that one standing until the mid-19th century.] Very soon, year: the Second and Third Symphonies, a string I noticed that the little musician far surpassed quartet, two piano sonatas and four other large me in rhythmic surety. This aroused my interest PROGRAM piano works, two Masses, four choral composi- and made me realize with what animation the tions, five operas and 146 songs, eight coming in lad, who seemed otherwise quiet and indifferent, a single day in May. Schubert capped the year’s gave himself up to the impression of the beauti- Franz Schubert (1797–1828) Symphony No. 2 in B-flat major, D. 125 (1815) activities by producing Der Erlkönig on New ful symphonies which we played.” The school or- Year’s Eve. He was 18. chestra tackled works by Haydn, Mozart (“You Largo — Allegro vivace A year earlier, in the autumn of 1814, could hear the angels sing,” Schubert wrote of Andante Schubert had been exempted from compul- the G minor Symphony) and early Beethoven, Menuetto: Allegro vivace sory 13-year (!) military service because of his as well as such lesser masters as Krommer, Presto vivace short stature (barely five feet) and terrible eye- Kozeluch, Méhul and Weigl. Schubert wrote his sight. (Newman Flower, in his biography of First Symphony in 1813, the year his voice broke the gentle-natured Schubert, assessed that “as a and he left the Royal Chapel. INTERMISSION conscript it is very doubtful he would have been Schubert maintained many of his school worth the price of his uniform to the nation.”) friendships by taking part as violist and pia- Though intent on becoming a composer, he re- nist in informal amateur musical soirées which Richard Wagner (1813–1883) Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde luctantly took up a position as a teacher in his ranged from intimate evenings of song to con- (1854–1859) father’s school in the Viennese suburbs to help certs for full orchestra. It was apparently for just the family and to earn a modest living. (“Better such gatherings that he wrote his Second and an impoverished teacher than a starving com- Third Symphonies during those stolen hours at Béla Bartók (1881–1945) Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19 poser,” Papa Schubert admonished.) He must the schoolhouse. The works clearly show the in- (1918–1919) have been just awful in the classroom. He cared fluence of the Classical models that formed the not a jot about teaching, and planned his classes basis of his education, while at the same time so that his students would spend as much time looking forward to some of the qualities of the quietly writing as possible—they scribbled away encroaching Romantic era. Formally, they are at their lessons, he jotted down masterpieces. indebted to Haydn and Mozart. Their har- His only real concern at that time and, indeed, monic language, however, shows an expanded ROLEX throughout his life was in composing and mak- range and fluidity, and their instrumental treat- Exclusive Partner of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra ing music with his friends. (“The state should ment, especially of the woodwinds, points to- keep me,” he once told Josef Hüttenbrenner. “I ward later developments, not least in Schubert’s have come into this world for no purpose but to own works. This is music of grace, warmth and compose.”) Within a couple of years, he had had youthful good humor which reflects the com- his fill of teaching, quit, and lived a seemingly poser’s style as surely as do any of his other These performances are made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Kathryn and Scott Mercer carefree, Bohemian existence for the rest of his compositions. While they lack the insight and and with the support of our Lead Community Partner, Bank of America. too-few days. profundity of his later realizations of the genre, Schubert’s interest in orchestral music first there is nothing immature or ill-considered Cal Performances’ 2010–2011 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. surfaced while he was a student at the Imperial about the early symphonies. They are bright, Chapel. His talents were recognized not only by melodious and ingratiating, and almost too easy his teachers, Wenzel Ruzicka (“I can’t teach him to love. 4 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 5 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Schubert’s Second Symphony is surpris- rousing closing section of the Symphony stays of the inner mind at the beginning of the cen- she allows the couple to taste of the love po- ingly large in conception and daring in its har- firmly rooted in the home key, except for two tury, most notably in the midnight conjurings tion which, in accordance with the custom of monic experiments. It opens with a stately slow brief detours through distant G-flat major. Solid of Fuseli and the disquieting visions of Goya, the times, and by way of precaution, the mother introduction reminiscent of that which begins cadential harmonies set against energetic rhyth- but it was Wagner who took it upon himself to had prepared for the husband who should marry Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major mic activity bring this buoyant and charming devise a tonal language that could open these her daughter from political motives, and which, (K. 543). The main body of the movement is a work to a close. same vistas to music. “Every theory was quite by the burning desire which suddenly inflames lengthy and tonally unconventional sonata form forgotten,” he wrote. “During the working- them after tasting it, opens their eyes to the propelled by an almost incessant rhythmic mo- out, I myself became aware how far I had out- truth and leads to the avowal that for the future tion in the strings. The fleet main theme enters Richard Wagner (1813–1883) soared my system.” they belong only to each other. in the first violins, and is repeated immediately Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde Wagner’s new musical speech allowed an “Henceforth, there is no end to the longings, by the full orchestra. Moving by way of the key unprecedented laying-open of an unfathomed the demands, the joys and woes of love. The of C minor, the music spills into E-flat major, in Composed 1854–1859. Premiered on June 10, 1865, emotional world. “Here,” he wrote, “I plunged world, power, fame, splendor, honor, knight- which tonality the lyrical second theme appears. in Munich, conducted by Hans von Bülow. into the inner depths of soul-events and from the hood, fidelity, friendship—all are dissipated It is several pages before the expected dominant innermost center of the world I fearlessly built like an empty dream. One thing only remains: key of F major makes its entry, and when it fi- Not all revolutions are made with the gun— up to its outer form.... Life and death, the whole longing, longing, insatiable longing, forever nally arrives, it carries with it not a new melody some of the most important have been inspired meaning and existence of the outer world, here springing up anew, pining and thirsting. Death, but another foray by the main theme, now serv- by the pen. A pair of such nonviolent salvos were hang on nothing but the inner movements of which means passing away, perishing, never ing to round out the exposition. The brief devel- fired off in the year 1859 by two of the great- the soul.” It is wholly appropriate that Sigmund awakening, their only deliverance.... Powerless, opment section combines the rhythmic bustle of est intellectual giants of the 19th century— Freud, whose most important work was based the heart sinks back to languish in longing, in the main theme with the lyrical melody of the Charles Darwin and Richard Wagner. In that on this same belief in subconscious motivations, longing without attaining; for each attainment subsidiary theme. The recapitulation begins year, Darwin published his epochal The Origin should have been born in 1856, the year Wagner only begets new longing, until in the last stage plainly enough, with quiet strings followed by a of Species and Wagner finished his monumen- wrote the first notes of Tristan. As the opera of weariness the foreboding of the highest joy of full orchestral repetition of the main theme. Its tal music-drama Tristan und Isolde. Though a progressed, Wagner became aware of the power dying, of no longer existing, of the last escape key, however, is not the expected tonic of B-flat greater contrast in personalities could hardly be of his creation. To Mathilde Wesendonck, with into that wonderful kingdom from which we are major, but is rather the persistent E-flat major imagined than that between the gentle and re- whom he was having an extended affair while furthest off when we are most strenuously striv- carried over from the exposition’s second theme.