Simon MAYR Concerto bergamasco Keyboard Concerto in C • Trio Concertante Natalie Schwaabe • Andrea Steinberg Antonio Spiller • Yi Li • David van Dijk Bavarian Classical Players • Franz Hauk Simon Mayr (1763–1845) Simon Mayr’s Concerto in C major is usually described movements are by Mayr himself. Concerto bergamasco • Keyboard Concerto in C major • Trio Concertante as a piano concerto. The autograph score, which is housed Mayr probably wrote the Trio Concertante for Three in the Library of the Donizetti Institute in Bergamo, refers to Violins and Orchestra around 1820, although it is not known Simon Mayr, who was born in Mendorf near Ingolstadt, appreciated throughout Italy and especially here [in Naples] the solo instrument as a harpsichord. It goes without saying for what occasion. What is certain is that the work was first received his early music education from his father, a and in all respects he deserves to be so, yet as a man he that performances of it on a fortepiano, an instrument which heard under the auspices of the Lezioni Caritatevoli di schoolteacher and organist. The young Simon received is still a virtuous, modest and humble German. He is very was gaining ground in the last decades of the eighteenth Musica or of the Unione Filarmonica which was founded in further encouragement at the Weltenburg monastery and fond of his fatherland and seems only to regret the fact that century, and which gradually displaced the harpsichord, 1823. The Trio begins with an introduction in A minor, from the Jesuits in Ingolstadt, before going to Italy around fate did not allow him to make a career as a composer in cannot be ruled out. The work was probably written around sluggishly at first, and interrupted by pauses, rather like an 1790 with the help of Thomas von Bassus and his son Germany. In his adopted Bergamo, where he is maestro di 1800, possibly in Venice. Unfortunately, no title-page has operatic scena. The following Andantino gives the three Dominicus. Carlo Lenzi in Bergamo and Ferdinando Bertoni, cappella, he wants now (1817) to retire completely and write survived, but it can certainly be presumed that the work, like soloists the opportunity to introduce themselves one after maestro di cappella at St Mark’s in Venice, who was famous only for his church.” Mozart’s Piano Concertos K. 413, 414, 415 and 449, can be another in an expressive manner. A variation movement at that time, taught the young Bavarian composition and The Concerto per Flauto, Clarinetto, Corno bassetto ed performed with a string quartet or with oboes and horns as follows, whose theme is introduced by the soloists in a furthered his career. Mayr became so well known in Venice Ottavino, as the title on the autograph score has it, dates ad libitum instruments. The solo part plays along in the bright A major. In the following variations each of the through his oratorios, opera and countless works for the from 1820. An original feature of this work is that the four solo orchestral ritornelli, in the style of a basso continuo, and soloists is allowed to shine with his own individual virtuoso church that he was regarded as a “celebrated maestro”. In instruments take it in turns to play. Mayr wrote this concerto Mayr has written out the relevant parts. Something similar figures before they all embark on the Finale and indulge 1802 he was appointed maestro di cappella at Santa Maria “for Sig. Gio:[vanni] Sangiovanni”, who evidently was able to occurs, for example, in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major, once more in a communal and entertaining dialogue. Maggiore in Bergamo. He founded a music school there, the play all four instruments and with this work took the K 246. Stylistically however Mayr’s concertos are closer to Lezioni Caritatevoli di Musica, based on the model of the opportunity publicly to show his versatility. The work first those of Haydn, whom Mayr, especially in his early years, Franz Hauk monastery conservatories which had been largely dissolved, appeared in print in 1978 under the title Concerto berga- much revered. The cadenzas in the first and third English translation by David Stevens and he attracted distinguished musicians and teachers to masco, with some retouching by Heinrich Bauer. The first Bergamo, which became his adopted city. His most movement, which begins in D minor but ends in D major, is celebrated pupil was Gaetano Donizetti. About seventy devoted to the flute alone. Time and again the music-lover operas, which were heard in major opera houses throughout can hear in Mayr’s music thematic allusions to the work of Europe, established Mayr’s reputation as “the father of other composers, for example Beethoven. The second Italian opera”. In addition to opera, he produced an movement, which begins with atmospheric string pizzicati, enormous body of music for the church, Lieder and also is given to the clarinet, which is joined from time to time by several larger-scale instrumental compositions including a cheerfully sighing solo cello. After an introduction in D two completed piano concertos, the Concerto in D minor for minor, which is extended by the solo basset horn, the brief Flute, Clarinet, Basset Horn, Piccolo and Orchestra and a third movement presents a folk-like theme in the relative Terzetto in A minor for Three Violins and Orchestra. major before leading with barely a pause into the last In his memoirs the violinist, music director and composer movement, Tema con variazioni. The basset horn takes the Louis Spohr, one of the leading representatives of early lead up to the second variation and again in the fifth variation. German romanticism, gives a personal view of Simon Mayr. In the second, fourth and seventh variations the basset horn Mayr was certainly: “… deeply immersed in the Italian soloist takes a breather while the remaining orchestral manner and disowned the German almost completely. His instruments divide up the music between them-selves. In way of highlighting and orchestrating the singing line is pure the third variation the flute makes a return with boisterous Italian. One really should not be surprised at this, since he trills and leaping figures while the clarinet takes the sixth lived in Italy from the age of fourteen [in fact from the age variation con espressione in a sombre F minor. Finally the of 24] and wrote solely for Italian listeners. I believe that, piccolo also joins in with the abbreviated and, as it were, notwithstanding his inborn talent, he merely thereby raised impatient seventh variation and introduces the Finale with a himself above the others, that he sought always to get hold variant of the original variation theme. All the solo instruments of superior German works, studied and used them, and appear once again, playing in order, in a lively 6/8 rhythm indeed the last very often too much. He is much loved and while the orchestra follows and joins in dialogue. Natalie Schwaabe David van Dijk The flautist Natalie Schwaabe was born in Tokyo and grew up in Hong Kong, where she began her musical training. After David van Dijk was born in 1976 in Dirksland (The Netherlands), where he had his first violin lessons from the age of eight. finishing her secondary education at the Purcell School, London, she studied with Paul Meisen at the Munich He studied in Utrecht with Viktor Liberman, in Hamburg with Mark Lubotsky and in Rotterdam with Ilja Grubert, and won Musikhochschule where she completed her master-class diploma in 1993. She won an honorary prize in the 1996 various first and second prizes in national competitions. In 1995 he was awarded the Zilveren Vriedenskrans of the Prague Spring Competition and was a prize-winner in the Odense Carl Nielsen Flute Competition. She began her Amsterdam Concertgebouw. David van Dijk has collaborated with the pianist Léon Bak throughout The Netherlands and orchestral career in 1991 as principal flute in the Munich Symphony Orchestra. In 1993 she moved to the Munich Radio played in Paris, London and Nice. He was a member of the European Community Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Orchestra and since 1996 has served as flautist and piccolo-player in the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In Youth Orchestra. From 2001 to 2003 he held a scholarship from the Academy of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, autumn 1999 she was appointed to teach piccolo at the Munich Musikhochschule. of which he has been a member since 2004. He has served as a coach for the Bavarian Regional Youth Orchestra and in 2010, together with musicians from the Radio Symphony Orchestra and free-lance early music players, established Andrea Steinberg the baroque ensemble L’accademia giocosa. The Munich-born Andrea Steinberg had her first musical instruction at the age of five, first on the violin and then on the piano. She was taught the clarinet by Hans Schöneberger, principal clarinet of the Bavarian State Opera. She won a Franz Hauk regional prize in the 1995 Jugend musiziert Competition and in 1997 continued her studies with Hans-Dietrich Klaus at Born in 1955 in Neuburg on the Danube, Franz Hauk first studied church and school music, and piano and organ at the the Detmold Musikhochschule, going on to study with Martin Spangenberg at the Weimar Musikhochschule. She started Music High Schools in Munich and Salzburg, with teachers including Aldo Schoen, Gerhard Weinberger, Franz Lehrndorfer her orchestral career as clarinettist in the regional Rheinland-Pfalz Youth Orchestra and was later a member of the and Edgar Krapp. In 1981 he took his master-class diploma at the Munich Musikhochschule, followed by further German Youth Philharmonic.