Concert I Program Notes

by Robert Hurwitz

Four weeks after completing the turbulent and disturbing D Minor Concerto, K.466, in March of 1786, Mozart produced a work that contrasts with it to the greatest degree. Where the D Minor is a passionate work full of pathos and conflict, the C Major is calm, majestic and noble.

Mozart had taken great strides forward in the D Minor concerto, creating a work unlike any of its predecessors, a work on a truly grand scale. The C Major continues this concept, for it is indeed a work expansive in concept. The orchestra is augmented to include flute, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets and two timpani, in addition to the strings. Matching this powerful body is a piano solo part in which Mozart endowed great subtlety, strength and dignity.

The opening allegro is aptly subtitled maestoso. It begins with an idealized march, and the march-like motive becomes the standard bearer for the movement. A contrasting string response is lighter, but lasts only two measures before the winds and timpani provide a confident, albeit brief, fanfare. The opening motive soon reappears in the bass, with a grand countermelody soaring above it, and it is here that the listener begins to understand the scope of the movement as a whole. Secondary and closing themes follow at their appointed times, and each provides lyrical contrast to the principal material. A quiet closing phrase, announced by the oboe and taken up first by the bassoon and then the flute, leads to the entrance of the soloist.

The piano offers first a prelude of improvisatory runs, ending with a sustaining trill, against which the opening march motive is heard in the strings. The soloist then takes up the continuation of this theme, playing music that grows freely out of the first two measures, until the fanfare of winds and timpani interrupts and brings the passage to a close.

The piano and orchestra then alternate with transitional material until the piano moves unexpectedly to G minor and introduces a curious little melody reminiscent of the opening of the great G minor symphony (a work which was not to appear for another three years). This melody remains a part of the transition, however, and the true "second theme" arrives in the expected key of G major. The supporting theme is the essence of innocent naïveté, a melody of the kind only Mozart could conceive. A dialogue between piano and orchestra ensues and is developed brilliantly by the piano to close the exposition.

The development section follows an orchestra ritornello, with piano and orchestra alternating passages of darkness and light, until the piano heads back to the home key of C. The recapitulation is a model of formal clarity, and the music proceeds with utter logic to the cadenza, after which the orchestra provides an emphatic and determined conclusion.

The slow movement of this concerto has become famous not only to lovers of Classical music, but to the world at large. It was used to great effect in the film "Elvira Madigan," and is as familiar to the general public as the Pachelbel Kanon. The main theme, with its muted strings, its pulsating triplet figures, its pizzicato accompaniment set against the expansive arch of the soloist's melodic line, is what Einstein has called "an ideal aria freed of all the limitations of the human voice."

The finale is a sparkling, happy piece, full of positive energy and excitement. The movement is in sonata form, and each theme displays sprightliness and good humor. Eventually the piano's exuberance pushes it into a vigorous cadenza, from which it emerges with the principal theme. A closing orchestral passage brings the work to a brilliant close.

The music of Latin America had a particular appeal for Copland. Although his so-called "American" style (Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, The Tender Land, et al.) is his most famous, it was Copland's interest in the music of Latin America that first brought him to a love of a more accessible style of composition. His first major orchestral success in this style was the wonderfully evocative El Salón Mexico, composed in 1936.

In the twilight of Copland's career, after he had spent a considerable amount of time and energy focused on the production of austere music in the twelve-tone style, he allowed himself to return to Latin-American influence, producing the Three Latin-American Sketches on commission from Andre Kostelanetz and the New York Philharmonic in 1971.

Copland based the bulk of his new piece on music he had written earlier, including the Two Mexican Pieces, composed in 1959. To this he added a newly composed first movement. This movement, Estribillo ("Refrain"), features a dancing refrain, first appearing in the lower strings and then moving through the orchestra. The second movement, Paisaje Mexicano ("Mexican Countryside") is a "soft and sad" portrayal of rural Mexico, employing luxuriant string textures and expressive woodwind melodies. Danza de Jalisco (Dance from the Mexican state of Jalisco) shows the influence of Flamenco music.

Copland wrote of this piece, "The tunes, the rhythms, and the temperament of the pieces are folksy, while the orchestration is bright and snappy and the music sizzles along…."

Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer, conductor and teacher, a contemporary of both Mozart and Beethoven, who lived and worked in France. He assumed French citizenship and was for half a century a major figure in Parisian musical life. A successful composer of opera and religious music, he became director of the Paris Conservatoire and consolidated its preeminent position in music education.

In 1815 Cherubini received a commission from the Royal Society of Music in London to compose a symphony and several other works. In response he produced the Symphony in D, a work that was to be his only venture into the genre.

Cherubini thought of himself primarily as a composer of operas and religious works, declaring that he had no intention of writing another symphony. He simply did not want to appear to be a competitor to Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven. Overall, however, Cherubini was held in the highest regard by his contemporaries, including Beethoven, who considered him to be the greatest of the composers living at that time.

Cherubini's symphony is far from a mediocre composition. It reveals a contrapuntal quality that exists in virtually no other works by minor composers of the time. Richly sounding textures, intricate detail, and contrapuntal passages alternate with poetic sections of singular melodic beauty. With its echoes of Schubert and Rossini and the presence of a brilliant closing movement, Cherubini's only symphony must be seen as a successful venture into the realm of symphonic writing. Indeed, it is a highly imaginative and beautifully balanced work.