NOVEMBER 15 & 16, 2014 PROGRAM NOTES
Mozart embodies classical balance and perfection; Tchaikovsky is the soul of romanticism. A century may have separated their careers, but their music keeps excellent company on this weekend’s program. The combination has a pleasing symmetry. Mozart was Tchaikovsky’s favorite composer; his love for Mozart’s music inspired the Suite that closes the first half.
Ms. Tamarkin opens with Mozart’s Haffner Symphony, an ebullient, celebratory work from
summer 1782. Though he composed it for the ennoblement of his childhood friend Sigmund Haffner, Mozart’s optimism and high spirits in this Symphony surely also reflect his own frame of mind, for he and Constanze Weber had just married.
Tchaikovsky’s Mozartiana is a loving tribute: transcriptions, free arrangements and variations on
Mozart’s music. Mozartiana helps us make the transition from Salzburg to Russia. The brilliant colors of St.
Basil’s Cathedral and the fiery spirit of Cossack dances blaze through our anchor work, the magnificent Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor.
Symphony No. 35 in D, K.385 ("Haffner") Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
Born 27 January, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria Died 5 December, 1791 in Vienna
Friends of the family: a ticket to immortality
Throughout history, patrons of the arts have earned a small measure of immortality through their association with artists, whether painters, sculptors, writers or musicians of genius. One of the better-known names in the Mozart canon is Haffner. It is the subtitle of two beloved orchestral works: the “Haffner” Serenade, K. 250, and the symphony that opens this program. Both works are in D major, but their connections go far deeper than the shared tonality.
The Haffners were wealthy Salzburgers whose children Wolfgang had known since childhood. In 1776, the family commissioned him to write a serenade in honor of their daughter Elizabeth's marriage. When Elizabeth's brother Sigmund was ennobled in July 1782, he promptly sought out Leopold to request that Wolfgang compose another work for the occasion.
Full plate
By then, Wolfgang had settled in Vienna. He was busy preparing for the première of his opera The
Abduction from the Seraglio. He planned to marry Constanze Weber in August, and was moving to a new residence in anticipation of the wedding. Despite this jam-packed schedule, he found time to accommodate the Haffners’ request.
Metamorphosis from serenade to symphony
Letters between Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart make clear that the new piece was initially conceived as another serenade, for Mozart composed two minuets and a march in addition to the four movements we hear. Both the serenity of the Andante and the straightforward quality of the surviving Minuet are representative of the lighter serenade style: probably intended for outdoor performance, and likely as background music to a large party.
When he composed the ‘Haffner’ Symphony, Mozart’s star was ascendant in Vienna. Several months after he sent Leopold the score in Salzburg, he asked that it be returned to him so that he could present it at a concert of his music in the capital. He then incorporated flute and clarinet parts (instruments not available in Salzburg), suppressed the extra minuet and the march, and rearranged the symphony as we know it today.
About the music
In that form, its character is festive, ceremonial and positive: encapsulated by the bold octave leap and pronounced dotted rhythm of the famous opening motive, which dominates the entire first movement. The two inner movements are less assertive and more serenade-like, easy to imagine as ballroom or background music for a gathering of courtiers. Mozart’s finale, which he instructed his father was to be
played “as fast as possible,” bears a strong relationship to Osmin’s aria in Abduction. The connection with
opera was to manifest itself even more strongly in Mozart’s later instrumental music.
Six months after the Haffner Symphony’s first performance in Salzburg, Mozart made some minor revisions, principally in scoring, for a performance on 23 March, 1783 in Vienna that was attended by the Emperor. The ‘Haffner’ symphony achieved unusual renown during Mozart’s lifetime, including publication in Vienna and performance in Paris at the Concert spirituel.
Suite No. 4 in G, Op. 61, "Mozartiana" Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky
Born 7 May, 1840 in Votkinsk, Viatka District, Russia Died 6 November, 1893 in St. Petersburg, Russia
Tchaikovsky composed four orchestral suites during the ten years from 1878 to 1887. As a group, they have neither the musical weight nor the dramatic import of the six symphonies. Rather, they are an analog for large ensemble to the piano salon miniatures of which he composed so many. Yet the suites bear the unmistakable imprint of Tchaikovsky's genius for orchestration, each glittering with unexpectedly bright coloristic details that reward the listener.
The Fourth Suite was completed during the summer of 1887 when Tchaikovsky was on holiday in the Caucasus with his brothers Modest and Anatoly. Subtitled "Mozartiana" by the composer, Opus 61 differs from the earlier orchestral suites in that it is not original musical material. Tchaikovsky explained in a published note at the head of the score:
A large number of Mozart's most admirable small works are, incomprehensibly, very little known not only to the public, but even to the majority of musicians. The author of this
Suite, Mozartiana, wished to give a new impulse to the performance of those little
masterpieces, whose succinct form contains some incomparable beauties.
In this regard, Tchaikovsky's intent was oddly prescient of Igor Stravinsky's in The Fairy's Kiss, in which
Stravinsky endeavored to pay homage to Tchaikovsky's own lesser known salon works, orchestrating them into a fine ballet.
Mozartiana consists of four movements, each of which adapts a specific Mozart composition. The first two are largely straightforward transcriptions of piano pieces: the Gigue, K.574 (more Baroque than
classic in its roots) and the Minuet, K.355. The third movement, which Tchaikovsky subtitles "Preghiera"
[Prayer], is a free arrangement of Franz Liszt's transcription of the Ave Verum Corpus, K.618. As such, it is
twice removed from Mozart, a distance emphasized by the addition of a harp in the orchestration.
The Suite concludes with a set of variations longer than the prior three movements combined.
These are loosely based on Mozart's piano variations, K.455 on a theme from Gluck's opera La rencontre
imprévu. Here the scoring incorporates cymbals and glockenspiel, lending a whimsical -- and decidedly un-Mozartean -- flavor to the music. Some of the variations conform to what we would expect – a switch to minor mode in Variation 5, for example, and the shift to lively triple meter in the concluding Variation 10
– but the most characteristic touches are in instrumentation. Tchaikovsky allocates his material judiciously, giving principal flute a solo in Var.3. The full woodwind section takes a star turn in Var.6; the strings follow with their own moment in Var.7.
All the variations are a minute or less – until Var.9, when Tchaikovsky steps outside of the box, so to speak. At the end of Var.8, solo violin interrupts the hurly-burly, silencing the rest of the orchestra. With a seamless transition, the concertmaster holds the spotlight for a breathtaking four minutes in an eloquent solo Adagio. This evening’s performance features concertmaster Daniel Sender. The lively finale that concludes the movement has an impressive clarinet cadenza, but it is the extended violin solo that will stay with you.
While the Suite remains a good faith effort on Tchaikovsky's part to pay tribute to the composer he revered above all others, it tells us more about him and his era than it does about Mozart. At its premiere,
Mozartiana was a huge success, earning praise and applause from critics and audiences and thus serving to reinforce the composer's flagging confidence. As a curiosity piece, it has value simply because of its authorship. Thanks to Tchaikovsky's native gift for instrumental color, the arrangements rise above the level of mere salon music.
Tchaikovsky scored the Suite for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, harp, cymbals, glockenspiel and strings.
Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 23 Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky
Born 7 May, 1840 in Votkinsk, Viatka district, Russia Died 6 November, 1893 in St. Petersburg, Russia
The Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto is a perennial audience favorite: one of those unforgettable works -- like the Beethoven Fifth Symphony -- whose opening gambit is immediately recognizable even to
the non-music lover. Musical scholar Joseph Kerman, in a wonderful book called Concerto Conversations, calls
it ‘the best known of all concerto incipits,’ and describes it thus:
The piano chords that crash in after four bars may or may not constitute what is usually thought of as a texture, but they certainly introduce a marvelous sonority. One gets to the point where those invincible ringing chords block out, if they do not drown out, the great
tune in the strings. In a stroke, Tchaikovsky has given the piano an edge it will never lose throughout the whole of this relatively contentious composition.
That very argumentative quality is at the heart of what a concerto is about: the fundamental conflict between a lone instrument and the large orchestral ensemble. Ironically,
those majestic keyboard chords that Kerman mentions are actually in D-flat, the relative major, although the concerto is nominally in B-flat minor. In fact, the odd opening in minor mode never recurs.
Tchaikovsky was at the most basic level a man both of the theatre and of theatrical instincts. He understood how to maximize the inherent drama of piano plus orchestra. He was not, however, a pianist, and that gap in his musical expertise led to a lack of self-confidence when composing for keyboard. His letters to his family and his patroness, Nadejhda von Meck, reflect his hesitation about writing a virtuoso work for an instrument he did not play well himself. Late in 1874, he consulted the Russian pianist Nikolai Rubinstein about a new concerto for piano and orchestra he had just completed. Rubinstein's initial reaction was scathing. His harsh criticism included accusing Tchaikovsky of writing unplayable music and stealing others' ideas.
Tchaikovsky was both incensed and deeply wounded. Three years after the fact, he was still smarting, writing to von Meck:
An independent witness of this scene must have concluded that I was a talentless maniac, a scribbler with no notion of composing, who had ventured to lay his rubbish before a famous man. . . . I was not only astounded, but deeply mortified, by the whole scene.
His immediate reaction was to erase Rubinstein's name from the dedication and substitute that of the German pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow. Bülow played the premiere of the B-flat minor concerto in October 1875 while on tour in the United States. In this country the reaction was quite the reverse of Rubinstein's summary judgment. Bülow reported that he was often cheered on to repeat the entire last movement. Shortly after his return to Europe, the piece was introduced to Russian audiences. Rubinstein recanted his initial judgment, and went on to become one of its most celebrated interpreters.
The Concerto's rough birthing process is an unlikely prologue to one of the greatest success stories in the history of music. This piece has captured and retained the popular imagination as have few others.
From the commanding chords that mark the soloist's entrance to the ferocious Cossack dance that closes the work, Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto seduces our ears with warmth, powerful emotions,
lyricism and a wealth of persuasive melodies. The familiar themes that anchor the outer movements have origins in Ukrainian folksong, making the concerto a legitimate contender as a nationalist work. The lovely slow movement, on the other hand, draws on French song material, and includes a scherzo-like middle section in elfin contrast and sharp relief to the flamboyant gestures of the opening movement. Tchaikovsky's biographer Edward Garden has written:
The superbly lyrical and gloriously beautiful slow movement -- with its amusingly frivolous
scurrying central section based on the French chansonette "Il faut s'amuser, danser et rire" --
acts as a crown to the whole work, or, to put it more appropriately, as an apex to the arch whose bases are the extrovert D-flat major themes.
While the first movement may be disproportionately long in comparison to the two that follow, the concerto as a whole is hugely successful. Tchaikovsky combines drama and sentiment with dazzling technique to produce a showpiece that is a classic of its kind.
Tchaikovsky's score calls for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, solo piano and strings.
This information is provided as a benefit to Charlottesville Symphony patrons. Reproduction or re-use in any form is expressly prohibited without written permission from the author.
