Overture Magazine: 2017-2018 Season January-February 2018

MOZART ’S JUPITER hostilities that were then curtailing Mozart’s concert activities. Next, lyrical music of tenderness for the violins and woodwinds. Finally, a sassy little melody, also launched by the violins; this is taken from a comic aria, “Il bacio di mano” (“A Kiss of the Hand”), Mozart had recently written. Interestingly, it is this impudent tune that generates one of Mozart’s most exciting development sections, in which we hear the first stirrings of the contrapuntal excitement he will unleash in the finale. In the slow movements of his last three symphonies, Mozart sent initially innocent-sounding melodies on dangerous journeys. Here, a melancholy theme in F major soon enters a dark and agitated world in C minor. The movement’s development section travels farther into this thicket, full of painful dissonance. When the opening music finally returns, the innocent melody has taken on new dimensions of maturity and wisdom. A lovely coda, apparently added by Mozart as an afterthought, closes this movement. The third-movement minuet provides the symphony’s most conventional music: a formal dance for an imperial ballroom. Notice, however, the Mozartean touch of beautiful music for the woodwinds near the end of the minuet. In the middle trio section, Mozart slyly puts the cart before the horse by beginning most phrases with a closing cadence in the woodwinds, to which the violins must provide a suitable opening. Here, too, listen for a loud preview of the famous four-note theme that will spark the finale. Mozart leaves the best for last. Throughout the 1780s, he had studied counterpoint—the art of weaving together many independent musical lines—with passionate interest and had poured over the scores of J.S. Bach. But rather than a display of contrapuntal erudition, he uses the intricate interplay of his instrumental lines here to create an overwhelming sense of richness, splendor and excitement. Mozart weaves his magic with a half-dozen pithy themes, beginning with the sturdy opening four- note motive. Derived from Gregorian chant, this theme was a musical cliché of the period, used frequently by other composers as well. But again, the artistry is not in the “what” but in the “how.” The apotheosis comes in the closing moments of the symphony when Mozart sets five of his themes spinning together in a double fugue, revealing, in Elaine Sisman’s words, “vistas of contrapuntal infinity.” Even if Mozart had known this would be his last symphony—and at age 32, surely he did not! —he could not have contrived a more glorious finish to his symphonic career. CONCERTS THAT EXHILARATE SUBSCRIPTION SERIES BORROMEO STRING QUARTET BENJAMIN HOCHMAN, PIANO Sun, Jan 28 | 5:30pm PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD, PIANO Sun, Mar 11 | 5:30pm ERIC OWENS, BASS-BARITONE MYRA HUANG, PIANO Sun, Mar 25 | 5:30pm TRULS MØRK, CELLO BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV, PIANO Sun, May 6 | 5:30pm FREIBURG BAROQUE ORCHESTRA KRISTIAN BEZUIDENHOUT, DIRECTOR, FORTEPIANO Instrumentation: Flute, two oboes, Sun, May 20 | 5:30pm two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, * Due to ongoing renovations of Shriver Hall, please check shriverconcerts.org for concert locations. timpani and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 201 8 DISCOVERY SERIES FREE! The BSO BENJAMIN BEILMAN, VIOLIN ORION WEISS, PIANO UMBC Linehan Concert Hall Sat, Mar 3 | 3pm XIAOHUI YANG, PIANO WINNER OF THE 2017 YALE GORDON COMPETITION Baltimore Museum of Art Sat, Apr 14, | 3pm GET YOUR TICKETS TODAY! SHRIVERCONCERTS.ORG 410.516.7164 JA N – F E B 2018 / OV E R T U R E 15

Overture Magazine: 2017-2018 Season January-February 2018 | Page 17