UGA Symphony

Program Notes The University of Georgia By Steven Ledbetter Symphony Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Symphony No. 31 in D Major, Tuesday K. 297,

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb February 21 2017 Mozart, who began calling himself Wolfgang 8:00 p.m. Amadeo about 1770 and Wolfgang Amadè in 1777, was born in Salzburg, , on January 27, 1756, and died in Vienna on December 5, 1791. He composed his “Paris” conductorMark Cedel Symphony in the French capital during a concert tour in 1778; on June 12, he reported that he had just finished the work. The first assistant conductorClaudine Gamache performance took place at the Concerts Spi- rituels in Paris six days later; there was no conductor as such, the performance being as the Concerts Spirituels. The director, directed from the concertmaster’s place by Jean Le Gros, invited Mozart to compose PROGRAM the principal violinist Pierre Lahoussaye. The a symphony especially for one of its con- symphony is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, certs. Le Gros had failed to perform a sin- clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, as fonia concertante for four woodwinds and Mozart Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 297, Paris well as timpani and strings. Performance orchestra that Mozart had written shortly Allegro assai time is approximately seventeen minutes. before (the work is now lost). But when the Andantino impresario requested a new symphony for Pre-Revolutionary Paris was the greatest Allegro performance on the feast of Corpus Christi musical center of Europe, and a success (June 18), Mozart’s reply was “Why not?” Le there meant a chance to win fame and for- Gros: “Can I rely on this?” Mozart: “Oh yes, tune. Mozart had enjoyed a glorious suc- INTERMISSION if I may rely with certainty on its being per- cess when he appeared in Paris as a child formed, and that it will not have the same prodigy. He returned in 1778 – now twenty- fate as my sinfonia concertante.” two – as part of an extended concert tour Bruckner Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, Cahis 11, Romantic designed to recall to the minds of fickle au- Mozart clearly determined to write a sym- Bewegt, nicht zu schnell diences the musician who had so delighted phony in accordance with French musi- Andante quasi allegretto them not many years before. Alas, he dis- cal taste (which he regarded as very low) covered to his chagrin that a former prod- Scherzo: Bewegt while at the same time turning out the best igy has little drawing power. Worse still, he work of which he was capable. He reveled Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell had to admit to himself that the music lov- in the large orchestra, especially the fine ing aristocrats (through whom he hoped to woodwind section (it was the first time he make a good deal of money giving lessons had ever been able to include clarinets in and private concerts) were often unreliable a symphony), and he used the ensemble to when it came to paying their bills. brilliant effect. He followed the French taste in writing only three movements (omitting But there was one place, at least, where Mo- the Minuet) and in not calling for the repeat zart achieved a signal success during his Pa- of entire sections. On June 12, Mozart re- HODGSON CONCERT HALL risian stay – in the orchestral series known ported to his father that the symphony was

44 Performance UGA February 2017 45 UGA Symphony Orchestra finished, adding his confident assertion that The dolorous letter of July 3 gives our only is probably Wolfgang’s calculated effort to performed is the manuscript version, which it would please “the few intelligent French direct report of the Parisian reaction to Mo- demonstrate to his worried father that he is people believe to be Mozart’s later An- people who may be there – and as for the zart’s new symphony. Wolfgang’s account not allowing the big city to corrupt his morals. dante, though there is still some dispute on stupid ones, I shall not consider it a great is filled with absorbing and even humor- this point. In any case, we have the com- misfortune if they are not pleased.” ous detail, which makes it hard to remem- The opening Allegro assai gave the Parisians poser’s word that he considered both slow ber that he wrote it sitting by his mother’s plenty of coup d’archet for their money. As movements to be worthy. He noted that he had taken special pains deathbed. But, then, the whole letter is es- expected, the entire symphony begins with a in one area that was de rigeur: “I have sentially an act for his father’s benefit. series of repeated chords on the stereotyped The last movement is another of Mozart’s been careful not to neglect le premier coup rhythmic pattern that signaled the very no- delicious jokes on the Paris audience. He d’archet.” Mozart had been warned – and It was performed . . . with great ap- tion of “symphony” to a Parisian audience. had noticed that last movements also start- had no doubt heard for himself in various plause . . . I was very nervous at the But after the opening bars, the audience had ed forte (if only to hush the conversation concerts – that Paris expected every sym- rehearsal, for never in my life have I no reason to expect to hear the premier coup that followed the applause between move- phony to begin with this gesture (literally, heard a worse performance. You have d’archet for the rest of the work. It had served ments). But he caught the audience off “the first stroke of the bow”) – a powerful no idea how they twice scraped and its primary purpose in getting the piece start- guard with a rushing figure in the second tutti, often in unison, featuring an energetic scrambled through it. I was really ed and shushing the audience. But Mozart violins followed by a gentle, off-the-beat downbow on all the stringed instruments. in a terrible way and would gladly playfully filled the entire movement with ref- sigh in the first violins, while no one else “What a fuss the oxen here make of this have had it rehearsed again, but as erences to that opening gesture, so that it is plays. The gambit worked: “The audience, as trick! The devil take me if I can see any dif- there was so much else to rehearse, never absent long: a brilliant demonstration I expected, said ‘hush’ at the soft beginning, ference! They all begin together, just as they there was no time left.* So I had to that even the most hackneyed stereotype can and when they heard the forte, began at do in other places. It is really too much of go to bed with an aching heart and become a fresh, new idea in the hands of a once to clap their hands.” Even more daring a joke.” Yet, even while bowing to popular in a discontented and angry frame of genius. (The Parisian audience, to its credit, was the second theme, a fugato which must taste, Mozart had his own fun with it in the mind. I decided next morning not to recognized the joke.) have struck the pleasure-loving Parisians first movement of his symphony, turning a go to the concert at all; but in the eve- as frightfully learned – yet Mozart wears convention on its ear to the delight of the ning . . . I at last made up my mind to The Andante also found favor during the his contrapuntal learning so lightly that we connoisseurs in the audience. go, determined that if my symphony performance, especially with knowledge- never for an instant lose our admiration went badly as it did at the rehearsal, I able musicians. But Le Gros felt that it was of his sense of timing. Clearly the “Paris” Leopold Mozart’s opinion of French taste would certainly make my way into the too complex to win real public approval. As Symphony is one of those fortunate works was no higher than his son’s. He wrote to orchestra, snatch the fiddle out of the Mozart reported to Leopold on July 9: that perfectly gauges its audience ability to Paris on June 29 (after the premiere but hands of Lahoussaye, the first violin, follow. We still delight in Mozart’s wit and before he had received any word about it), and conduct myself! I prayed God He declares that it has too many quicksilver brilliance as did the Parisians at “I hope that Wolfgang’s symphony for the that it might go well, for it is all to His modulations and that it is too long. the Concert Spirituel performance in 1778. Concert Spirituel was a success. To judge by greater honor and glory; and behold He derives this opinion, however, from the fact that the audience for- the Stamitz symphonies which have been the symphony began. [Mozart here Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) engraved in Paris, the Parisians must be offered an extensive description of got to clap their hands as loudly and fond of noisy music.” When Leopold wrote the effect, movement by movement; it to shout as much as they did at the Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, this letter, he did not know that his wife was went well.] I was so happy that as soon end of the first and last movements. Cahis 11, Romantic mortally ill in Paris; she died late on the af- as the symphony was over, I went off For indeed the Andante is a great fa- vorite with myself and with all con- ternoon of July 3. Wolfgang could not bring to the Palais Royal, where I had a large Joseph Anton Bruckner was born in Ans- himself to break the news directly to his fa- ice, said the rosary as I had vowed to noisseurs, lovers of music, and the majority of those who have heard it. felden, Upper Austria, on September 4, 1824, ther; instead, that very night he wrote a long do – and went home. and died in Vienna on October 11, 1896. He letter designed to prepare him for the worst, It is just the reverse of what Le Gros says – for it is quite simple and short. began composing his Fourth Symphony late by informing Leopold that his wife was seri- That last sentence – which emphasizes reli- in 1873, completing a preliminary version ously ill. But this news, grave though it was, gious exercise and an early return home – For Le Gros he composed a second Andan- in November of the following year. After a was in part camouflaged by light banter with thorough revision in 1878, he brought it to which Wolfgang ended his letter. When he te. His final judgment was “Each is good in * The idea of performing a brand new, unfamil- completion on June 5, 1880. The revision in- finished it, though, he wrote another letter its own way – for each has a different char- iar work after a single rehearsal, which seems acter. But the last pleases me even more.” volved a substantial reworking of the first and to a friend in Salzburg, an Abbé Bullinger, to have consisted of running through the score second movements, rewriting of the fourth, informing him of the true state of affairs so Two Andantes survive for this movement, twice, may strike us as an outrageously cavalier one in Mozart’s autograph score, and one and, finally, substitution of a completely new that he could be available to console Leop- treatment of a great composition or, for that third movement. Later changes, including old when he heard the worst. in a printed edition of the parts published matter, of any new score, but it was standard by Sieber in Paris. The one almost always some made for the unfortunate first edition procedure in Mozart’s day.

46 Performance UGA February 2017 47 UGA Symphony Orchestra of 1891, are of dubious authenticity. The first of the hunt, and the joys of rural life. All of winds (who have barely been heard to this performance took place in Vienna on Febru- this can be found in the music, and would point). An abbreviated restatement of the ary 20, 1881, with Hans Richter . be found there whether Bruckner had as- opening leads to a lengthy coda with wide- The score calls for two each of flutes, oboes, signed the nickname or not. ranging expansion of the funeral march. clarinets, and bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, The first movement opens with a hushed The Scherzo was the last movement to be and strings. Performance time is approxi- rustle of string tremolos barely breaking composed when Bruckner wrote it to re- mately seventy minutes. the stillness. A solo horn call sounds the place an earlier, discarded movement. He notes B-flat, E-flat, B-flat, and then repeats himself described this as music for the hunt Anton Bruckner arrived in Vienna in 1868, the phrase, stretching the first note up an (with the Trio providing the musical enter- seeming to be an overgrown country bump- evocative half-step to C-flat, a note that will tainment at the hunt banquet). Again, the kin who somehow had become professor of play an important role, both melodic and musical gestures make this identification harmony and counterpoint at the Vienna harmonic, throughout the symphony. The self-evident. The Scherzo itself is a brilliant Conservatory. His technical expertise was most noticeable element of the first move- achievement, compounded of varying treat- unsurpassed, and he had attracted favorable ment’s contrasting theme is a folk-dance ments of the composer’s favorite rhythm, attention from Vienna’s most influential crit- figure in the first violins, but gradually an one beat divided into two even eighth-notes ic, Eduard Hanslick, with three Mass settings. interior line first heard in the takes followed by another divided into triplets. (He had also finished his Symphony No. 1, on greater significance. The development though it was not yet known in the capital). moves in grand, stately sequential steps The Finale begins in B-flat minor with a But this child of rural Upper Austria contin- through the harmonic universe culminat- melodic figure in the clarinets and first horn ued to dress like a simple country peasant. ing in a hushed string passage that treats the that will recall the C-flat to B-flat motion interior line of the secondary theme in heard at the very opening of the sympho- More important for its effect on his accep- an expressive expansion before moving – so ny. A lengthy crescendo leads to the main tance in Vienna was his characteristically version was also the last time that Bruck- quietly! – to the recapitulation with a new theme of the Finale, a forceful unison state- simple nature – pious, trusting, deferential, ner seriously attacked the score, so that the flute countermelody to the string tremolos ment in E-flat (with an important role for and naive. A true innocent, he never recog- inevitable problem of choosing an “authen- and horn calls. that insinuating C-flat). The Finale itself is nized the violent opposition in Vienna be- tic” version is, for No. 4 at least, a relatively an extremely complicated movement filled tween the proponents of Wagner and those simple one. The slow movement is a subdued funeral with diverse ideas. Bruckner engineers a of Brahms, and he failed to understand the march in C minor, first heard in the cellos grand, organ-like coda that sets the universe intricate pattern of backbiting, personal The first performance of the Fourth was against muted strings. At its restatement ringing in E-flat with a hint of the open- grudges, and quid pro quo that made up a considerable success, though it did not in the woodwinds, an accompaniment of ing fanfare now blared by the entire mass the Viennese musical scene. Early on he immediately overwhelm opposition. Still, plucked cellos and basses sets up the sound of brass instruments, while the single note made the fatal mistake of dedicating his it is the most frequently performed of all of steady marching that remains in the ear of C-flat (which represented the first pitch Third Symphony to Wagner, whose music Bruckner symphonies and the one that can even during a mysterious chorale followed outside of the tonic chord back at the begin- he greatly admired, thereby instantly losing be seen as bearing the closest links to the in its turn by sustained cantabile melody in ning) continues to assert its presence in the the support of Hanslick and bringing down earlier Viennese traditions of Haydn (an- the violas that ends finally in C major. These strings until the last possible moment. on himself attacks from entrenched Brahm- various materials are developed richly in ex- other gifted composer to have come from © Steven Ledbetter (www.stevenledbetter.com) sians, though Brahms himself seems to have the Austrian countryside) and Beethoven. tended keys exploiting the brass and wood- respected Bruckner’s work. The Fourth is the only symphony to which After a devastating performance in 1877 Bruckner gave any kind of programmatic of the Third Symphony, marked by catcalls guide, though the epithet “Romantic” hard- and jeers during the performance and the ly reveals anything that is not immediately departure of most of the audience before apparent in the music itself. The romanti- the end, Bruckner began to revise his previ- cism in question here is that “forest roman- ously composed symphonies in an attempt ticism” so characteristic of early nineteenth- to make them more accessible. The Fourth century German literature – a love of pure underwent this process without ever hav- unspoiled nature as depicted in the fresh- ing been heard in public. But unlike most ness of forest, field, and mountain, possibly of his other symphonies, the revisions of a touch of antiquarianism in a passion for 1878-1880 that produced the first definitive the simpler life of long ago, a celebration

48 Performance UGA February 2017 49 The University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra conductorMark Cedel assistant conductorClaudine Gamache

VIOLIN I VIOLA FLUTE TRUMPET Serena Scibelli Elitsa Atanasova Becky Neal Deborah Caldwell Co-Concertmaster Co-Principal Principal Principal Teresa Grynia Chris Williams Emily Cho Michael Edalgo Rogerio Nunes Co-Principal Rachel Anders Victoria Bethel Co-Concertmaster Wesley Hamilton Shaun Branam Moises Cunha John Cooper OBOE Minhye Park Seonkyu Kim Amelia Merriman TROMBONE Sahada Buckley Kuan Hua Chen Principal Steve Jessup, Principal Daniel Allen Sean Askin Garrett McCloskey Luke Anders Pedro Miszewski Will Ruff Kenny Bader Noah Jackson Lourenço De Nardin Budó Victor Wu Jordan Stone, Caroline Dorr Dillon Enge CLARINET Nicole Valerioti Clarence Golden Gregg Hamilton TUBA Yeasol Kang Principal Matt Johnson Sydney Doemel CELLO Jake Senter Bruno Lunkes Noah Johnson Yujin Chang HARP Principal Lauren Hemerlein VIOLIN II Ana Cristina Abrantes BASSOON JP Brien-Slack Alina Vazquez Nib McKinney Percussion Principal Andrew Short Principal Kamran Mian Nicholas Lindell Justin Jeon Nik Bacote Keller Steinson Audrey Butler Jessica Osbrink Jennifer Grubbs Scott Davis Valery Mikhaylovich Khalilov Vivian Cheng Ian Connolly (1952-2016) Monica Corliss Julia Chun HORN Library Sam Ferguson Conner Hart Addison Whitney Ana Cristina Abrantes, Annie Leeth Principal Head Librarian Erin Lollar BASS Stefan Williams Teresa Grynia General made a rich and lasting impression Ian Chen Leonard Ligon Principal on UGA musicians and audience members alike during his Alex Butenko Principal Meridith Boyd Personnel Manager Kellie Shaw Nahee Song Lizzie DiGiovanni Ana Cristina Abrantes residency with the UGA Symphony Orchestra and the Rebecca Huong Mattia Beccari Brooke Martin Claudine Gamache Hodgson Wind Ensemble from November 8 through 16, 2016. Richard Gary Claudia Amaral Sarah Mendes General Khalilov, Conductor of the famous , Meghan O’Keefe Kevin Sheldon Anna Zurawski PRODUCTION Baylee Culverhouse Quentin Smith Seonkyu Kim was among the 92 people who died in the tragic crash of the Russian Jeffrey Mann JP Brien-Slack military transport plane near , , on , 2016. Armaan Eric Najhawan

- General Valery Khalilov conducting the Hodgson Wind Ensemble. Photo by Kent Hannon. 50 Performance UGA