{ program notes was his position as concertmaster of the Archbishop of Salzburg’ s court orchestra. Although he always considered the piano to be his primary instrument, Mozart was also a virtuoso violinist who, at this period in his life, amazed listeners with the beauty and purity of his tone.
With the Third Concerto( September 1775), Mozart soared to a level of inspiration and craft that proclaimed the child prodigy had become a mature artist. Here orchestra and soloist are beautifully melded, and the composer’ s imagination and inventiveness never flag from one marvelous movement to the next.
The jewel of this concerto is the heartpiercingly beautiful Adagio middle movement, which taps a vein of yearning and sadness we encounter often in his later works. By nature, Mozart was high-spirited and extroverted, but he was also subject to deep bouts of melancholy, which he seldom discussed but transmuted into some of his greatest and most moving music. In this exquisitely scored slow movement, Mozart creates a nocturnal mood that mingles beauty with pain. Above the ghostly ensemble of muted strings, flute and plucked bass, the soloist sings a heartbreaking aria, which is intensified in the middle section by sighing figures in the strings.
The sonata-form opening movement features a bold principal theme taken from Mozart’ s opera Il re pastore( completed earlier that year) and a development section of exceptional length and imagination for so young a composer. Opera also inspires a passage of recitative-like dialogue between the soloist and ensemble leading into the recapitulation— one can almost hear the words the violinist must be saying.
The rondo finale is less carefree than many Mozart rondos, tinged with a shadow of the slow movement’ s sadness. It contains a pair of extraordinary central episodes— the first a lover’ s serenade in G minor over a plucked mandolin-like accompaniment, the second a faster Allegretto with a sturdy, rustic tune based on a folksong of either Hungarian or Alsatian origin.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two horns, strings.
The BSO
Overture in C Major,“ In the Italian Style”
Franz Schubert
Born in Vienna, Austria, January 31, 1797; died in Vienna, November 19, 1828
In the fall of 1816, the Italian Opera Company made its first appearances in Vienna, performing two of Gioachino Rossini’ s recent operas. The Viennese public, always eager for the latest musical discovery, went crazy for Rossini— an enthusiasm that would last for years and bring the Italian Opera Company back for many more performances.
Vienna’ s most revered composer Beethoven detested Rossini’ s effervescent operas as beneath the high moral purpose he believed music should serve. Despite his worship of Beethoven, however, the young Franz Schubert adored the Italian’ s music. And a year later, in October and November 1817, he created three works that were partially tributes to Rossini’ s style: his Sixth Symphony and the two overtures“ In the Italian Style”( although Schubert
did not give them this title) in D Major and C Major.
As regular concertgoers will know, the scintillating overtures Rossini wrote for his operas were a major contributor to their success. Schubert’ s two overtures, however, were conceived not as operatic preludes but as stand-alone concert overtures. They were among his first orchestral works to be performed publically in Vienna.
We will hear the Overture in C Major, which begins with a slow introduction reveling in beautiful writing for woodwinds, especially oboes and clarinets, framed by dramatic orchestral chords. As the tempo moves to Allegro for the overture’ s main section, the violins introduce a jaunty theme that would suit a comic opera perfectly; its blithe merriment is intensified as the flutes, oboes and clarinets join in. The entire overture is weightier and more Teutonic in character than Rossini’ s overtures, but it certainly captures the Italian’ s witty, high-energy spirit.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings.
January – February 2017 | Overture 37