HANDEL , BACH , AND MOZART amateurs , and professional instrumentalists who met to play music for their own pleasure and the delectation of an audience .
It was for this assemblage that he apparently created his seven concertos for solo harpsichord , revising them from pre-existing works . His E-major Harpsichord Concerto ( BWV 1053 ) consisted of movements previously used in cantatas he had unveiled in 1726 : the first two movements are borrowed from Cantata No . 169 , the third movement from Cantata No . 49 . But these quite likely did not represent the original form this music took . One school of thought imagines that these movements originated during his time as music director for the Prince of Anhalt- Cöthen as an Oboe Concerto in F major — and it is a reconstruction of that presumed original we hear in this concert .
This work follows the typical layout of Bach ’ s solo concertos , three movements in a fast-slow-fast arrangement . The buoyant fast movements adhere to ternary da capo plans , with lots of intertwining between the soloist and the accompanying ensemble . The earlier versions of the first movement lacked a tempo marking , although the nature of the music implies an Allegro . The highly chromatic slow movement is a siciliano , a movement in swaying compound duple time ; here it plumbs deep and poignant emotional territory . The third movement fairly dances , though its central section is so highly chromatic as to leave no doubt that this is a work of patently learned music , as opposed to a courtly dance of any sort .
Instrumentation Strings and harpsichord , in addition to the solo oboe .
André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry
Born February 8 , 1741 in Liège , Belgium Died September 24 , 1813 in Montmorency , France
SUITE FROM ZÉMIRE ET AZOR AND LA CARAVANE DU CAIRE [ 1771 ]
Eighteenth-century Europeans were fascinated by the Middle East and the Arab world . Literary and dramatic depictions of Middle Eastern characters were largely based on fantasy and sometimes involved stereotypes of the sort we would avoid today . Often Turks or Persians ( shorthand for people from that
Maximilian Franz part of the world ) were typically depicted as stock figures given to polygamy , bellicosity , and barbarity ; but on other occasions they were used to provide ironic observations on the shortcomings of Western society ( as the Sieur de Montesquieu did in his famous Persian Letters in 1722 ), even emerging as morally superior to Europeans .
Countless such stories became the basis for operas , Mozart ’ s The Abduction from the Seraglio being the one we are most likely to encounter . They were hugely popular in France , where in the 1770s and ’ 80s no opera composer was more esteemed than the prolific André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry . A native of what is now Belgium , he worked his way up to become a favorite of the French Court , where Marie Antionette appointed him as her music director . His nearly 70 operas include the two Orientalist works that supplied movements for the suite played here . Zémire et Azor ( 1771 ), which the composer styled as a comédie-ballet , is based on the “ Beauty and the Beast ” tale and became a huge international hit . When it was produced in St . Petersburg in 1774 , Catherine the Great was so smitten that she named a pet greyhound Zémire . La caravane du Caire ( The Caravan of Cairo , 1783 ) would also score a huge success , logging more than 500 performances at the Paris Opéra by 1829 . It received stagings in France even during the years of the Revolution , despite the fact that the Count of Provence ( later Louis XVIII ) was said to have had a hand in writing the libretto .
Instrumentation Two flutes , two oboes , two bassoons , two horns , and strings .
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
Born January 27 , 1756 in Salzburg , Austria Died December 5 , 1791 in Vienna , Austria
BALLET MUSIC FROM IDOMENEO [ 1780 – 1781 ]
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart was 25 when he composed his opera Idomeneo , in 1780 – 81 , and he had already been a full-fledged professional musician for two decades . As a youngster he toured from his home in Salzburg to the musical capitals of Europe , always accompanied by family members . The first time he left without a parental chaperone was when he traveled to the Electoral Court of Munich to unveil his tenth (!) opera , which opened on January 29 , 1781 , two days after his 25 th birthday . A mythology-derived opera seria of the sort favored by mid-18th-century audiences , it relates the story of Idomeneo , King of Crete , who survives a storm at sea and promises to thank Neptune by offering the first living being he meets on shore as a sacrifice . This unfortunately encountered person happens to be his own son , who is in love with … well , it gets convoluted , but all the romantic and political complications resolve in the end .
The opera is peppered with opportunities for sheer dramatic spectacle , none more than the ballet sequence at the very end . Mozart was well prepared to write this , having absorbed the French zeal for ballet during his Paris residency in 1778 , a passion that had spread from there to Munich . For the ballet sequence , he attached the names of of the dancers to the movements that would feature them , providing a substantial expanse , the Pas seul , for Monsieur Jean-Pierre Le Grand , the ballet-master . Mozart borrowed the theme of the Chaconne from Gluck ’ s opera Iphigénie en Aulide , and joins that movement without a break to Monsieur Le Grand ’ s Pas seul . If the Gavotte sounds familiar , it ’ s because nearly seven years later its melody would show up , slightly altered , in the finale of Mozart ’ s Piano Concerto No . 25 in C major , K . 503 .
Instrumentation : Two flutes , two oboes , two bassoons , two horns , two trumpets , timpani , and strings .
MAY-JUN 2024 / OVERTURE 19