The Peninsula Music Festival - 59th Season 2011 - Program Notes
Program 4 - Tuesday, August 9, 2011 - Baroque & Classics
Harpsichord Concerto No. 4 for in A major, BWV 1055
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Composed before 1720; transcribed for keyboard around 1730.
First performed at PMF in 1970 with Ralph Kirkpatrick, soloist, and Thor Johnson conducting. Most recent performance was in 1996 with Victor Yampolsky conducting
It is said that when the Viennese were finally able to drive the Turks from their walls in 1683, the fleeing legions left behind an unforeseen legacy — coffee. The rage for the stimulating new beverage swept through Austria and into Germany, where coffee houses became important centers of society and amusement. In order to give public concerts of instrumental music at one of the local coffee houses in Leipzig, in 1704 Georg Philipp Telemann organized some of his fellow students at the city’s university into a performing group known as the “Collegium Musicum,” a “Musical College (or Society).” So popular did their programs prove to be that they were continued after the close of the school term, though the proceedings were moved into the coffee house garden during the clement summer weather so the patrons could enjoy the pleasant outdoor setting without sacrificing propinquity to the brewing pot. Those Friday afternoon concerts became a fixture of life in Leipzig, and they were still popular when Bach arrived in 1723 to assume the position of cantor and organist at the Thomas Church. In 1729, he took over the leadership of the Collegium Musicum, and continued in the post for seven years. In addition to his work at the Thomas Church and with the Collegium during those years, Bach also derived special delight from making music at home with his family. He wrote to his old friend Georg Erdmann in 1730, “Altogether, [the children] are born musicians, and I can assure you that I am already able to form a concert, both vocal and instrumental, with my family, especially since my present wife sings with a very clear soprano, and my eldest daughter too does not join in badly.” It was for use at both his home entertainments and at the Collegium concerts that Bach created his concertos for keyboard.
Thirteen of Bach’s keyboard concertos have survived. Seven are for solo clavier (only the beginning of an eighth is extant), three for two claviers, two for three, and one for four. (The multiple-keyboard works were probably for performance by him and his oldest sons — Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philip Emanuel and Johann Gottfried Bernhard — who began leaving home in 1733 to start their own careers.) Though Bach is not usually looked upon as an innovator, these concertos were the first works written for solo keyboards and orchestra, a stylistic advance previewed by the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, which, about a decade earlier, had raised the clavier from its traditional accompanimental role to that of a peer to the other solo instruments. Rather than compose completely original music for these Leipzig keyboard concertos, however, Bach turned to earlier concerted pieces for violin and solo wind instruments, and reworked them for clavier. The Italian concertos of Vivaldi and his contemporaries were very much the fashion in Germany during the first half of the 18th century, and Bach had been studying them for years: he transcribed no fewer than sixteen such works for organ. For these keyboard concertos, however, he seems to have used mostly his own music, some of which has been identified, some conjectured. The Third and Seventh Concertos, for example, are arrangements of the E major and A minor Violin Concertos; the Sixth corresponds to the Fourth Brandenburg. Some of the music was used yet again in other works — parts of the D minor Concerto reappear in two cantatas; the slow movement of the F minor Concerto was used in another vocal work. Though the keyboard concertos are modeled on earlier works for solo melody instruments, they show richer textures, greater integration of soloist and accompaniment, and more idiomatic writing for the keyboard than is heard in their predecessors.
Though the model works for most of the clavier concertos were originally for solo violin, Sir Donald Tovey showed that the Concerto in A major (BWV 1055) was written for oboe d’amore, an ancestor of the modern English horn. The original manuscript of the oboe d’amore concerto is lost, but the score of the clavier concerto based on it clearly differentiates between the neat notation copied from the earlier version, and the ornaments and elaborations later added to adapt the solo line to the keyboard. (The orchestral accompaniment remained largely unchanged in all these concerted works.) The opening movement of the A major Concerto begins with a vivacious orchestral ritornello whose “returns” (“ritornelli” in Italian), like the supporting pillars of a cathedral, give the form both its structure and its name. Between the columns of the ritornelli, like sparkling stained glass windows, the solo instrument develops a complementary motive. The regular phrases, disposed in eight-measure blocks, give this movement a dance-like quality. The following Larghetto offers a stark contrast in mood from the jolly opening movement. Above a chromatically descending, passacaglia-like bass, the soloist plays a mournful song full of rich emotion. (Such music is a reminder that the art of the Baroque era was essentially a romantic age in its deeply expressive nature.) The jubilant finale, modeled perhaps on the gigue, returns the dancing motion and high spirits of the first movement.
Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219, “Turkish”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Composed in December 1775.
First performed at PMF in 1982 with William Preucil, Jr, soloist, and Michael Charry conducting. Most recent performance was in 2004 with Maria Bachmann, soloist, and Victor Yampolsky conducting.
The name of Mozart first calls to mind the breathtaking array of compositions he left to posterity. To his contemporaries, however, he was almost equally well known as one of the foremost performers of his day. His masterful piano playing was lauded in Vienna and elsewhere, and his reputation for excellent musicianship was common knowledge for several decades after his death. Less known than Mozart’s keyboard ability was his extraordinary talent on the violin. His father, Leopold, was a renowned teacher of the instrument who issued a popular tutor for violin instruction in 1756, the year of Wolfgang’s birth. Young Mozart learned to play the violin early and well, and it was one of the chief accomplishments with which he dazzled his listeners on his first tour, in 1763. He was seven. On his initial trip to Italy seven years later, two of the greatest violinist-composers — Giovanni Sammartini and Pietro Nardini — were so impressed with the boy’s playing that they each wrote special sets of exercises for him.
Back in Salzburg after his southern travels, Mozart was appointed concertmaster of the Court Orchestra on November 27, 1770, a position he held until he moved to Vienna in 1781. Leopold had a justifiably high opinion of his son’s ability, and told him, “You have no idea how well you play the violin. If you would only do yourself justice, and play with boldness, spirit and fire, you would be the first violinist in Europe.” Wolfgang was, however, more interested in the keyboard than in the violin, and replied tartly, “When performing is necessary, I decidedly prefer the piano and I probably always shall.” Even Leopold’s argument that, since the violin was the most popular instrument of the time, he could gain greater financial success as a violinist-composer than as a pianist-composer, did not sway Wolfgang. After Wolfgang left Salzburg in 1781, he refused to touch the violin again, even preferring to play the viola in his informal string quartet sessions in Vienna.
Mozart’s five authentic Violin Concertos were all products of a single year — 1775. At nineteen he was already a veteran of five years experience as concertmaster of the archiepiscopal court in Salzburg, for which his duties included not only playing, but also composing, acting as co-conductor with the keyboard player (modern orchestral conducting was not to originate for at least two more decades) and soloing in concertos. It was for this last function that Mozart wrote these concertos. He was, of course, a quick study at everything that he did, and each of these works builds on the knowledge gained from its predecessors. It was with the last three (K. 216, 218, 219) that something more than simple experience emerged, however, because it was with these compositions that Mozart indisputably entered the era of his musical maturity. These are his earliest pieces now regularly heard in the concert hall, and the last one, No. 5 in A major, is the greatest of the set. A. Hyatt King wrote that this is not only the best of Mozart’s concertos for violin, “but has no rival throughout the second half of the 18th century.”
The opening movement is in sonata-concerto form, but has some curious structural experiments more usually associated with the music of Haydn than with that of Mozart. After the initial presentation of the thematic material by the orchestra, the soloist is introduced with the surprising device of a brief, stately Adagio, a technique perhaps derived from the D major Clavier Concerto of C.P.E. Bach, Johann Sebastian’s musically adventurous Son No. 2. When the Allegro tempo resumes, the soloist plays not the main theme already announced by the ensemble, but a new lyrical melody for which the original main theme becomes the accompaniment. More new material fills the remainder of the exposition. The development section is invested with passages of dark harmonic color which cast expressive shadows across the generally sunny landscape of the movement, and lend it emotional weight. The recapitulation calls for restrained, elegant virtuosity from the soloist.
The second movement is a graceful song in sonatina form (sonata-allegro without development). The final movement is an extended rondo in the style and rhythm of a minuet. It is from one of the episodes separating the returns of the theme that the work acquired its sobriquet, “Turkish.” This passage occurs before the theme is heard for the last time, and stands in surprising contrast to its elegant surroundings by changing its tempo, meter and mood to recreate a vivacious contradance in the style popular at the time in the dance halls of Vienna. A number of short tunes comprise this section. Most are, according to A. Hyatt King, derived from Hungarian folk music (known, vaguely, as “Turkish” in the 18th century), though one was part of a ballet titled “Harem Jealousies” that Mozart borrowed from his 1773 opera, Lucio Silla. After the wonderful clangor of this episode, which even calls for the basses to strike their strings with the wood of the bow, the return of the minuet theme is guaranteed to bring a smile — as though the dancers had collapsed from exertion and had only enough strength left for something slow and easy. The end of the work is quiet, and wistful, and unforgettable.
Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 99
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)
Composed in 1939.
Premiered in 1939 in Montevideo, Uruguay, with Andrés Segovia as soloist.
This is the first PMF performance.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s large and varied catalog of musical works is ample testimony to his skill as a composer and the wide range of his interests. Totaling over 200 works with opus numbers, it includes five operas, four ballets, at least twenty film scores, a dozen orchestral pieces and an equal number of concertos, plus a vast amount of music for choir and solo voice, chamber ensembles, solo piano and solo guitar. The writings of Shakespeare remained a source of inspiration to him throughout his career. He based operas on The Merchant of Venice and All’s Well That Ends Well, wrote overtures for eleven other of the plays, and made various vocal settings of Shakespeare’s lyrics. Equally important to him were the inspirations generated by the sounds and sights of his native Tuscany. Italian tunes and Italian texts are found frequently in his work, but his music had an even deeper affinity with his homeland, as the eminent critic Guido Gatti noted: “The general physiognomy of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s work bears a striking resemblance to the region about his native Florence, rich in soft, undulating lines, all delicately traced by the whole gamut of colors, grays and greens of every value.” Other important streams flowing into his abundant output are the Spanish, notably in the guitar works that were inspired by the artistry of Andrés Segovia (today among the most popular of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music), the old Hebrew of his family’s patrimony, and the American, celebrated in pieces based on Indian melodies and the songs of Stephen Foster.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was born in 1895 in Florence, and as a young boy showed a talent for music. He enrolled in the Florence Conservatory and studied piano with del Valle de Paz and composition with Pizzetti. Some of his early works gained the attention of Alfredo Casella, a leader of the progressive movement in Italian music, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco made a quick rise to fame through the performances that Casella arranged of his music. During the years between the Wars, when Castelnuovo-Tedesco remained in Florence as a free-lance composer and pianist, his music was espoused by such distinguished performers as Toscanini, Heifetz and Piatigorsky. Being a Jew, he prudently fled Italy in 1939 and moved to the United States. He settled first in Larchmont, New York and from 1940 until his death he made his home in Los Angeles, returning to his native Tuscany for summer visits after the War. He became a United States citizen in 1946. Beside continuing to write concert works and appear occasionally as pianist and conductor during his American years, he was also active as a composer for films from the time of his arrival in California until the mid-1950s, producing scores for And Then There Were None, The Day of the Fox, Time Out of Mind and others. Of his musical style, Burnett James wrote, “The characteristics of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music are a distinctive lyricism, a sharp sense of irony, humor and unfailing craftsmanship. He once described it as a combination of neo-classicism and neo-romanticism, a somewhat alarming conjunction that might easily have become indigestible but for his sense of style and alert artistic intelligence.”
Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s long interest in Spanish music, dating from the song cycle Coplas of 1915, was further stimulated when he met the legendary guitarist Andrés Segovia at the 1932 festival of the International Society of Contemporary Music in Venice. It was for Segovia that he wrote several guitar pieces in the 1930s, including this Concerto in D major of 1939, perhaps Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s most often-heard work. The Concerto was among the last works that he wrote before leaving Italy, and Segovia heard in it “a tender farewell to the hills of Tuscany.” Italian lyrical melody is masterfully infused with characteristic Spanish rhythms and harmonies throughout the work. The opening movement begins with a pleasant dance melody announced by the orchestra and then taken over by the soloist. A contrasting theme is introduced, heralded by flashing arpeggios for the soloist. The themes are decorated with virtuosic adornments in the center of the movement, and the recapitulation includes a brilliant cadenza for the guitar. The atmospheric second movement is a moonlit Romanza, with the soloist by turns leading the song or providing a poignant accompaniment. The finale, marked “Rhythmic and chivalrous,” is in three large sections. The first and last sections use a heavy, stomping melody that invokes the smoky passions of the flamenco dancer, while the central portion is slow and dreamy, with an extended cadenza for the soloist.
Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Composed in September-October 1816.
First performed at PMF in the first season in 1953 with Thor Johnson conducting. Most recently performed in 1979 with Louis Lane conducting.
Schubert kept a perfunctory diary for a few months during 1816. Among the scraps of home-spun philosophy (“Man resembles a ball, to be played with by chance and passion.” “Happier he who finds a true man-friend. Happier still he who finds a true friend in his wife.”) is an entry for June 17th: “Today I composed for money for the first time. Namely, a cantata for the name-day of Professor Watteroth. The fee is 100 florins.” Schubert, age nineteen, had metamorphosed into a professional composer. At least he thought that there was sufficient reason at the time to leave his irksome teaching post at his father’s school in order to live the life of an artist. Thus began the bohemian existence of his last dozen years — living by the gladly proffered aid of friends, daily climbing up to Grinzing to haunt the cafés, avoiding society for dislike of buying and wearing good clothes. And music, always music. He composed incessantly. Out of bed shortly after dawn (sometimes he slept with his glasses on so as not to waste any time getting started in the morning), pouring out music until early afternoon, then off to who-knows-where for a bit too much Heuriger wine and a few pipes of cheap tobacco. Compositions filled his head all the while, sometimes scratched out on napkins or envelopes if they could not wait until the next morning. Evenings were spent making music. His devoted band of friends were delighted to sing and play what he wrote. Franz von Hartmann recorded of one of these Schubertiads, “There was a huge gathering [including] Gahy, who played four-hand piano music gloriously with Schubert, and Vogl, who sang almost thirty splendid songs. . . . When the music was over there was grand feeding and dancing. At 12:30 [we went] home. To bed at 1 o’clock.”
Supplementing the songs and piano works for these Schubertiads was a growing collection of orchestral pieces composed for other amateur musical soirées. A family string quartet, comprising his brothers Ferdinand and Ignaz on violins, his father on cello and Franz on viola, attracted other players and soon evolved into a small orchestra. They rehearsed at first in the Schubert household, but as the membership grew new quarters had to be found for their activities, and they moved in 1816 to the apartments of Leopold von Sonnleithner. It was for one of those informal evenings that Schubert composed the sparkling B-flat Symphony.
Most important in the repertory of the Schubert family orchestra were the works of Mozart and Haydn. Mozart, especially, was regarded by the young composer as a musical god. In his 1816 diary, he wrote, “O Mozart, immortal Mozart, what countless images of a brighter and better world thou hast stamped upon our souls!” The Symphony in B-flat joins the sparkling elegance of Mozart with Schubert’s characteristic melodic fecundity and harmonic daring. “[The Symphony] is full of Schubert’s peculiar delicacy,” wrote Donald Tovey, “and its form escapes stiffness like a delightful child overawed into perfect behavior, not by fear of priggishness but by sheer delight in giving pleasure.” Tovey concludes that the work is “a pearl of great price.”
The Symphony opens with a delicate curtain of woodwind harmonies. The violins present the main theme, a gracious melody built on the notes of the common chords. A shadow passes quickly over the music (technically, a brief excursion into the minor key — an expressive device Schubert learned from Mozart) before the main theme is repeated and extended (more shadows) as transition to the second theme. The compact development begins with a decorated version of the opening woodwind harmonies; a discussion of the decorating figure ensues. The main theme is recapitulated not in the tonic key of B-flat, but in the brighter tonality of E-flat. This bit of harmonic legerdemain allows the second theme to reappear in the “proper” key of B-flat with virtually no alteration of the music from the exposition. A brief, lively coda brings this buoyant movement to a close.
The lovely second movement not only breathes the sweet Mozartian air, but may even derive its melodic inspiration from that composer’s Violin Sonata in F, K. 377. The movement is built on two extended themes: the first (in E-flat) is given immediately by the strings; the second (in C-flat) is also played by the strings, with obbligato phrases from the oboe and bassoon. Eschewing a development, the second half of the movement is simply a restatement of the two themes. Though the third movement (G minor) is marked “Menuetto,” in tempo and temperament it is truly a scherzo. The bucolic trio, in which the bassoon figures prominently, is in G major. The closing movement recalls the vibrant finales of Haydn in its clear melodic structure, rhythmic vivacity and witty use of dynamics.
Milton Cross’ words about Schubert’s musical style apply precisely to this wonderful B-flat Symphony. “There is about a Schubert work the radiant joy of creation,” Cross wrote. “Everything flows naturally and without obstruction — not only his copious ideas and his warm sentiments, but even his frequently novel effects, his poignant and striking modulations, an unexpected harmony, a breath-taking progression. He wrote only for his delight and according to his own conscience; that delight shines on every page.”
©2011 Dr. Richard E. Rodda