Concerts & Tickets

Programme note

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Symphony No 39 in E-flat, K 543 (1788)

Adagio - Allegro
Andante con moto
Menuetto; Trio
Finale: Allegro

In 1787, Emperor Joseph II took Austria into a war against Turkey in order to support its ally Russia: in all his long reign, few of his actions made him less popular  The fighting may have taken place far from home, but its economic impact in Vienna was debilitating. Many of the rich abandoned the city – either because the men were called up to fight, or to avoid being called up in their estates. The resultant surge in unemployment combined with rampant inflation and general anger about the unpopular war to spark social unrest. Two opera companies closed, and the number of concerts, balls and salons taking place in Vienna plummeted. For Mozart this must all have been tryingly bad news – and as the war continued until August 1791 (just 4 month before Mozart himself died) it helps explain some of the struggles that he faced during his last years. It may also go some way to explaining why it was that Mozart found the time and the inclination during the Summer of 1788 to turn his attention to writing three enormous symphonies of a scale and weight that surpassed all but two of his earlier symphonies; and why, having composed them, he then ignored the genre and wrote no more before he died in 1791. It seems unlikely that he hoped for performances – though he was an optimist. Instead, perhaps he hoped to make money through dedications or for publication, rather than performance. The fact that there are three symphonies supports this view as it was common to publish works in threes or sixes.

The year of the symphonies, 1788, is fascinating for Mozart scholars. Cast an eye across the catalogue of works he created in any given year and most of what you find is an astounding number of one-off occasional pieces which Mozart seemed to churn out constantly. Among these, the three major symphonies stand out as does an unusually large number of canons. These were essentially technical exercises undertaken to test his skill in counterpoint and harmony. Again, they may have been a response to enforced leisure, but they show the man inclined to hone technique at this time, to challenge himself. The marvellous hallmark of all three (or even the last four) of the last symphonies is the extent to which Mozart married just such ‘learned’ thinking with the drama that characterises his operas at their most glorious.

This symphony has long had the misfortune to be overshadowed by its fellows: No 40 with its tempestuous minor key drama captivated the Romantics, while the glories of the ‘Jupiter’, together with its status as Mozart’s final symphony, guarantee it a supreme position in the canon. Yet this wonderful piece shows, perhaps more than any other, Mozart the dramatist masterfully building tensions and easing them; moving effortlessly between sunlight and threat. Hear how the splendid opening darkens within a minute to reach a point of crisis, only to find a more equitable bearing once the first movement proper begins.  The control and pacing are impeccable. One other feature gives this symphony a special place among Mozart’s symphonies. It was the first in which he opted for clarinets in place  of oboes, They step into the limelight in the Trio, which is an actual folk tune (a Ländler) that Mozart adapted. But elsewhere they are ubiquituous, adding a glow to the texture. which gives it what Sir Charles Mackerras called ‘an orchestral colour unique in Mozart’s symphonies’ in his note to his recording of this piece with the SCO.

© Svend Brown

Programme note

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto in B flat major, K595 (1791)

Allegro
Larghetto
Allegro

"Everything is cold for me – ice cold," wrote Mozart at the start of what was to be the last year of his life. He was not referring to the Viennese weather.  His fame as Europe’s finest pianist-composer, who had brought the art of the piano concerto to its zenith, was dwindling. He had cash-flow problems, though these were in the process of being resolved.  He was suffering from depression. But, as Meynard Solomon declared in his great Mozart biography, he "somehow managed to stem the drift into silence".  He did so with a chain of masterpieces whose sheer quantity and variety - from The Magic Flute to the most subtle sequences of ballroom dances - he had not previously surpassed.

At the beginning of January he completed the last of his piano concertos, K595 in B flat major.  His Clarinet Concerto, his last great string quintet, his last two operas, and a group of haunting miniatures - the Little German Cantata, the touching Ave Verum Corpus, the music for mechanical organ, the last few songs - still lay ahead, as also did the great unfinished Requiem.  Though the last piano concerto has been thought to possess the quality of a 'transfigured farewell' - a very apt phrase with which to describe it - there is not the slightest evidence that Mozart himself thought about it that way, or that when he wrote it he was more than usually aware of his own impending demise. Those who say the music contains intimations of Mozart’s death are merely being wise after the event.  His death-consciousness applied to the fate of all humanity.

Yet after the glitter of the ceremonial Coronation concerto, written three years previously, there is undoubtedly something very pared-down about K595, something conspicuously inward-looking about its mood.  Its orchestration, with just a single flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns and strings, but no clarinets and certainly no trumpets and drums, is almost minimalist by Mozart’s standards at the time.  Even the movement headings - 'Allegro', 'Larghetto', 'Allegro' - are reduced to single words.  All this seems significant, but whether it signifies death or what might have been the start of a new phase in Mozart’s output of concertos is another matter.

Whatever else he had in mind - and it looked like quite a lot - further piano concertos at that point looked unlikely.  When he played K595 on 4 March 1791, it was destined to be his last public appearance as a solo pianist before his death nine months later.  The person who made it possible was an old acquaintance - the successful clarinettist Joseph Baehr - who slotted it into a concert in which Mozart was quite clearly not the star.  The programme, given in the hall of a restaurant owner round the corner from Mozart’s apartment, featured Baehr himself as the main attraction.  Next in importance was the singer Aloysia Lange, Mozart’s sister-in-law, whom he had loved and once hoped to marry.  The information that "Herr Kapellmeister Mozart will play a concerto on the fortepiano" came third in line.

Did the work’s murmuring, unhurried opening make its mark?  Were the downward scales and chromaticisms thought to possess a forlorn wraithlike eloquence? Was the flow of the music, in which one theme merges with the next, perceived to be beautifully sustained or did the audience fail to grasp such extraordinary continuity of line?  Mozart’s own cadenza, written into the score, adds to the first movement’s special unity, as does the similarly personal cadenza in the finale.

The simplicity of the slow movement, which one distinguished but sometimes imperceptive authority on Mozart’s concertos has deemed to be a sign of waning inspiration, is perfectly in keeping with the veiled beauty of the rest of the work.  Even the buoyant main theme of the rondo finale, which in an earlier concerto might have sounded like a vigorous hunting motif, has a delicacy appropriate to the intimacy of the music. It is no surprise that Mozart employed almost the same melody in one of his last songs, entitled 'Longing for Spring'.

Though it might seem sentimental to point out that 1791’s was to be Mozart’s last spring, the poignancy of the music makes the temptation irresistible. Yet there is also a lightweight muscularity about this movement which makes it possible to draw quite different conclusions about its meaning. In Mozart's last piano concerto, as in so many of its great predecessors, ambiguity reigned supreme.

© Conrad Wilson

Programme note

Borodin, the illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian prince, was born in 1833, brought up in St Petersburg, and forced to study medicine. He was not really suited to this profession as the sight of blood caused him to faint and, following a short time as a military doctor, became a laboratory assistant, later distinguishing himself as a research chemist.

He began work on Prince Igor in 1869, but he was so busy outside music that it was postponed, though, between 1871 and 1874, he incorporated some of his operatic sketches from the opera in his Second Symphony. When he resumed work on the opera in 1874, the Polovtsian Dances were among the first numbers to be written. However, he never completed the piece and it was left to Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, two of the other members of the 'Mighty Handful' of young Russian composers, to orchestrate the whole opera for its premiere performances in St Petersburg in 1890.

The version you hear tonight has been arranged for orchestral wind by Peter Franks.

© Peter Franks

Programme note

Borodin, the illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian prince, was born in 1833, brought up in St Petersburg, and forced to study medicine. He was not really suited to this profession as the sight of blood caused him to faint and, following a short time as a military doctor, became a laboratory assistant, later distinguishing himself as a research chemist.

He began work on Prince Igor in 1869, but he was so busy outside music that it was postponed, though, between 1871 and 1874, he incorporated some of his operatic sketches from the opera in his Second Symphony. When he resumed work on the opera in 1874, the Polovtsian Dances were among the first numbers to be written. However, he never completed the piece and it was left to Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, two of the other members of the 'Mighty Handful' of young Russian composers, to orchestrate the whole opera for its premiere performances in St Petersburg in 1890.

The version you hear tonight has been arranged for orchestral wind by Peter Franks.

© Peter Franks

Programme note

Borodin, the illegitimate son of a 62-year-old Georgian prince, was born in 1833, brought up in St Petersburg, and forced to study medicine. He was not really suited to this profession as the sight of blood caused him to faint and, following a short time as a military doctor, became a laboratory assistant, later distinguishing himself as a research chemist.

He began work on Prince Igor in 1869, but he was so busy outside music that it was postponed, though, between 1871 and 1874, he incorporated some of his operatic sketches from the opera in his Second Symphony. When he resumed work on the opera in 1874, the Polovtsian Dances were among the first numbers to be written. However, he never completed the piece and it was left to Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, two of the other members of the 'Mighty Handful' of young Russian composers, to orchestrate the whole opera for its premiere performances in St Petersburg in 1890.

The version you hear tonight has been arranged for orchestral wind by Peter Franks.

© Peter Franks