More on Mozart & Mendelssohn

     Wolfgang Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn were musically precocious and prolific child prodigies. Throughout their relatively brief lives – Mozart lived to be 35, Mendelssohn 36 – both they and their music traveled well and far throughout Europe and beyond. Bach and his music, on the other hand, were little known in his time beyond the area of north central Europe in which he worked all his life. Although professional musicians, like Mozart and Mendelssohn, never quite allowed Bach to totally slip from hearing, it was not until the middle third of the 19th century that audiences of the musical capitals of the Western world began their discovery of this composer, largely - almost single-handedly, at first - through the efforts of Felix Mendelssohn when, as Music Director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, he regularly presented older music that he found gathering dust during his many European travels or was brought to his attention by colleagues. To him, Bach “finds” were highly treasured. The music of Bach and Mendelssohn open and close, respectively, this KSO Masterworks program.

     In between there is the music of Mozart, his C-Minor Piano Concerto, being heard for the first time on a KSO program. Happy Birthday, Mr. Mozart! He turns 253 later this month.  Speaking of birthdays, Mendelssohn turns 200 next month.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major for Strings and Continuo, BWV 1048

Johann Sebastian Bach, born March 21, 1685, at Eisenach; died July 28, 1750, at Leipzig.

Premiere: The date and circumstances of the first performance of this Brandenburg Concerto, or any of the Brandenburg Concertos, for that matter, are unknown. As discussed further below, they were all probably composed in their present form between 1717 and 1721.

KSO Performance History: This concerto was performed, perhaps for the first time by the KSO, during its 15^th Season (1949-50) with David Van Vactor conducting. The KSO has presented all six of the Brandenburg Concertos in the course of a single season on two occasions, during the 33^rd Season (1967-8) under David Van Vactor, and again during the 66^th Season (1990-1) with Kirk Trevor conducting. The most recent KSO performances occurred April 16 and 17, 1994 on the Chamber Classics Series, once more with Kirk Trevor conducting.  

Instrumentation: 3 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, and continuo of harpsichord and contrabass. Duration: 10 minutes.

     The works known today as Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos were first written to fulfill the composer’s duties as Kapellmeister at the Cöthen Court of Prince Leopold, a post Bach held from 1717 to 1723. From court records still extant, we know the instrumental forces available there to Bach, and the Brandenburg Concertos collectively utilized them all. In 1721, to satisfy what he perceived to be a request two years earlier by Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, for some unspecified compositions, Bach collected six of his instrumental pieces that he was certain would make a good effect, added a title page as well as a lengthy dedication and had the parcel delivered to the Margrave. As a result of this dedication, these works were first given the identifying title of “Brandenburg” by the Bach scholar who discovered them, Philipp Spitta (1841-94), in his definitive biography of the composer published in 1889, and the term has since been universally applied.

     There is no indication that the Margrave ever acknowledged receipt of the works or that the scores were ever performed at his court. In fact, any performance there was unlikely because the collective instrumentation of the six Brandenburgs far exceeded the meager musical resources in the Margrave’s employ. From Bach’s time until Spitta’s, the manuscripts given to the Margrave merely gathered dust on a shelf in a Berlin suburb.

     The Third Brandenburg Concerto is both the shortest and most often played of the set. The work is essentially in two movements, both in G major, connected by a two-chord, single-bar Adagio in the same key. The tempo of the opening movement is not indicated in the Brandenburg manuscript, but, in double time, it is assumed to be Allegro. The strings are in three groups - violins, violas and cellos - each of which are further subdivided into three parts. The movement is in tripartite sonata form - exposition, development and recapitulation - and its principal, recurring musical figures consist of three notes supported by quavers (eighth notes) moving in thirds. The composer’s apparent fascination with “threes” in the building blocks of this movement has often been tied by music writers to Bach’s piety, specifically as a reference to the Trinity. Perhaps it was inevitable that the composer would again use this music for the Lutheran Church service. Augmented in 1729 with two horns, two oboes and oboe da caccia, this music became the introductory Sinfonia to his cantata Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte (“I love the Almighty with all my spirit”), BWV 174, for use in Leipzig’s churches (where Bach was Music Director after 1723) on the Second Day of Pentecost, which that year fell on Monday, June 6th. The manuscript from which the copyists worked in preparing the 1729 Sinfonia appear to predate the set presented to the Margrave of Brandenburg, perhaps from as early as 1714.

     The closing movement is marked Allegro in the Brandenburg manuscript and, although the cello parts continue to be written out on three staves, they play in unison, reducing the moving parts to seven. It remains, however, a complex and unique structure. In 12/8 time, it is the only concerto movement in Bach’s œuvre to use an extended binary dance form in two sections, both repeated (A-A-BA’-BA’, A being twelve bars in length and each BA’ consisting of thirty-six bars). Again, this music was recycled from Bach’s past, his Pastorale in F Major for Organ, BWV 590, composed in 1710 while he was employed as church organist at Weimar, thus making it perhaps the earliest of Bach’s music that he arranged and assembled as part of the 1721 set of Brandenburg Concertos.

Concerto No. 24 in C Minor for Piano and Orchestra, K. 491

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born January 27, 1756, at Salzburg; died December 5, 1791, at Vienna.

Premiere: April 7, 1786, at Vienna’s Burgtheater with the composer both as soloist and conductor.

KSO Performance History: The present performances are the KSO premiere of this concerto.

Instrumentation: flute; pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets; plus timpani, and strings. Duration: 31 minutes.

     In May 1781, Mozart found himself in Vienna, unemployed and armed only with his considerable skills. Fortunately, it was possible for a freelance musician of Mozart’s caliber to survive in that city by presenting subscription concerts at his own risk,  expense and profit during Advent and Lent when performances by the Habsburg Court music establishments (except for church services and state occasions) were suspended. Beginning with the 1782-3 Lenten season, in four years Mozart composed and presented a string of fourteen piano concertos, beginning with his No. 11, K. 413, that left him without peer as a composer in the genré and, for the time, as a keyboard artist as well.

     For what turned out to be his final subscription series of three concerts, during the 1785-6 Lenten season, Mozart composed three piano concertos: No. 22 in E flat Major, K. 482; No. 23 in A Major, K. 488; and the present work, the second and final piano concerto Mozart composed in a minor key. In that season, Mozart’s subscription concerts were staged at the smaller Burgtheater to save costs due to shrinking audiences, the previous three Lenten seasons being presented at the Mehlgrube Theater. All three of these piano concertos are unique in that they are the only ones Mozart ever composed employing clarinets, an extraordinarily emotive instrument his hands. This trilogy also represented an aesthetic departure from his prior Lenten season series, as the composer’s keyboard music came to navigate deeper, more personal waters. Mozart’s audience continued to slip away. In the Lenten season that followed, Mozart made plans to move to the even smaller venue of Trattner’s casino and, yet, was forced to cancel when too few subscribers came forward to sustain the rental costs even for that modest establishment.

     The autograph of Mozart’s Twenty-fourth Piano Concerto is dated in his hand March 24, 1786, just two weeks before its premiere. The premiere was the last time Mozart ever performed at the Burgtheater venue, and the remainder of the program that evening is unknown. The autograph, which is the property of the Royal College of Music and on deposit at London’s British Library, shows some haste of completion in at least two regards. The first movement, in structure and weight, seems to require a cadenza; however, Mozart neither composed one nor even placed in the autograph the tell-tale trill which marks where one should be inserted. In the finale at the third variation, there is a piano passage which Mozart laid out in several versions, never indicating which, if any, was his final thought, and leaving each soloist to decide which passage works best for him or her.

     The accompanying orchestra is the largest that Mozart ever employed in a piano concerto, and the work is in three movements. The opening Allegro in three-quarter time is also, for a Mozart piano concerto, a huge and lengthy structure. Though spacious, the movement is passionate and Romantic, English musicologist Philip Radcliffe even calls it “stormy.” The middle Larghetto in E flat major, common time, in contrast, assumes a gentle, child-like simplicity in its main theme, a theme which Beethoven used fifteen years later to equally subtle effects in the first movement of his Sonata No. 13 in E flat Major for Piano, Op. 27, No. 1. In the Allegretto finale, Mozart returns, for the last time in a piano concerto, to a theme and variations format. There are eight variations, the third of which is a sublime “double” variation that evidences the brilliance of textures that can be juxtaposed by this technique in the unique hands of Mozart.

Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 (“Italian”)

Premiere: May 13, 1833, at London’s Hanover Square Rooms by the orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society with the composer conducting.

KSO Performance History: This symphony was first performed by the KSO during its 24^th Season (1958-9). It was last performed on this Masterworks series on March 13 and 14, 1986 with Kirk Trevor conducting. Since then, it has been performed on two Chamber Classics programs at the Bijou Theatre on November 23 and 24, 1991, and April 19 and 20, 1997, each time conducted by Kirk Trevor.

Instrumentation: pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets; plus timpani, and strings. Duration: 27 minutes.

     In October 1830, Mendelssohn arrived in Venice and almost immediately began to compose his Italian Symphony amid other works still in progress from his travels to England and Scotland the previous year. In late February 1831, from Rome Mendelssohn corresponded home to his two sisters, Fanny and Rebecka: “The ‘Italian’ Symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement. For the slow movement I have not yet found anything, and I think I will keep that for Naples.” While in Rome, Mendelssohn observed the ceremonies and music associated with the coronation of Pope Gregory XVI, and in Naples he was deeply moved by one religious procession he saw there. These events unquestionably suggested the chorale-like D-minor Andante of the Italian Symphony.

     By October 1831, Mendelssohn was back in Germany and still at work on this composition. Not until commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society of London to compose and conduct a new symphony did Mendelssohn ready his Italian Symphony for performance, completing the initial autograph score in Berlin on March 13, 1833. The Royal Philharmonic Society premiere was an unqualified success and, on that occasion, Mendelssohn was also the soloist in a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D Minor, K. 466. As part of the commission, Mendelssohn deposited the original autograph of the symphony with the Society. Although Mendelssohn reworked and conducted the piece several more times during the remaining fourteen and one-half years of his life, he, surprisingly, never performed it in a German city nor released it for publication. The most substantial revisions occurred in 1834, and these survive today in autograph as part of the collection at the German State Library in Berlin. Nonetheless, all editions of this work published after Mendelssohn's death to date are based on the score he entrusted to the Royal Philharmonic Society.

     Frankly, it is hard to imagine what caused Mendelssohn to equivocate in his completion of this symphony, truly one of his “jolliest” and, since its publication, most popular pieces. The opening Allegro is a youthful, unbridled call to adventure, and it appears that this movement was left virtually untouched in the composer’s subsequent revisions of the work. The second-movement Andante, the one inspired by the religious processions Mendelssohn observed in Rome and Naples, contains a melody, believed to be from a Czech hymn, that is masterfully carried forward with a pizzicato “walking bass” doubled by the cellos and is stated in an enriched texture of violas, clarinets and bassoons playing in octaves.

     One would expect the third movement to be a scherzo, since we are dealing with a work from one of the masters of symphonic scherzos; but, we hear, instead, a more classical minuet and trio. Perhaps Mendelssohn felt this was a more fitting bridge from the solemn character of the Andante to the finale. The trio contains a fanfare-like figure from the bassoons and horns that, in the second strain, takes on a martial cast when repeated with trumpets and timpani. This leads directly into an unbridled finale that American musicologist and conductor D. Kern Holoman has called a “super-scherzo.” It is a swirling Saltarello, an old popular dance seen in piazzas on festival days throughout Italy for centuries. It is here that Mendelssohn’s powers of orchestral composition are most evident as the music manages to exude unbridled brilliance and gaiety while cast in the key of A minor from beginning to end. 

Notes by Rudy Ennis
                    © 2008 The Mozart Works

Navah Perlman, Piano

Known for her lyrical eloquence on the stage, Navah Perlman has established herself as one of the most poetic and admired pianists of her generation. She has performed to critical acclaim in major concert venues throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

Ms. Perlman began her piano studies at age six with Ronit Amir Lowenthal and later attended the Juilliard School where she worked with Herbert Stessin. She also studied chamber music with Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, and Dorothy DeLay. Ms. Perlman holds an honors degree in Art History from Brown University.

Ms. Perlman has appeared with numerous orchestras throughout North America including the Chicago Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, Montreal Symphony, and Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Internationally, Ms. Perlman has appeared with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Mexico, the Israel Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony and the New Japan Philharmonic in Suntory Hall. She has given recitals in Washington, D.C., Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Scottsdale, and Baltimore.

In addition to her successful solo career, Ms. Perlman collaborates frequently in chamber music with violinist Giora Schmidt and cellist Zuill Bailey as the Perlman/Schmidt/Bailey Trio. They continue to present energetic and passionate performances at major halls, festivals, and universities across America, including at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the Ravinia Festival as well as in cities across North America such as San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Phoenix, Houston, and Mexico City.

Ms. Perlman is an active and respected performer of residency and educational outreach activities. Communities in which she has given extended residencies include Raleigh, North Carolina and Vancouver, British Columbia. While in residence, Ms. Perlman teaches students of all ages in master classes, speaks to school assemblies and has also conducted pedagogy workshops for teachers. Ms. Perlman has participated in several chamber music residency programs, including those at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, the University of California at Davis, and Stanford University.

Ms. Perlman's recital recording of Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin and Prokofiev is available on EMI Classics.

Discounts up to 20% are available for groups of 10 or more!  To bring your group to a KSO performance call Lusada at 865-521-2337.