Season The Philadelphia Orchestra. Saturday, March 24,, at 8:00. Thursday, March 22, at 8:00. James Conlon Conductor

Transcription

1 Season The Philadelphia Orchestra Thursday, March 22, at 8:00 Friday, March 23,, at 2:00 Saturday, March 24,, at 8:00 James Conlon Conductor Mozart Overtures to Don Giovanni, K. 527, Idomeneo, K. 366, and The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492 Mozart Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504 ( Prague ) I. Adagio Allegro II. Andante III. Presto Intermission Dvořák Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 I. Allegro maestoso II. Poco adagio III. Scherzo: Vivace IV. Finale: Allegro This program runs approximately 1 hour, 60 minutes. The March 22 concert is sponsored by the Louis N. Cassett Foundation.

2 James Conlon is currently music director of Los Angeles Opera, the Ravinia Festival (summer home of the Chicago Symphony), and the Cincinnati May Festival, America s oldest choral festival. He has served as principal conductor of the Paris National Opera (1995 to 2004); general music director of the City of Cologne, Germany (1989 to 2002), where he was music director of both the Gürzenich Orchestra-Cologne Philharmonic and the Cologne Opera; and music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (1983 to 1991). Since his first appearance as a guest conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in 1976, Mr. Conlon has led more than 250 performances there and has appeared at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Teatro di Roma, and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. This coming summer he continues a five-year series of six Mozart operas with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia; this follows a complete cycle of the Mozart piano concertos. In an effort to raise awareness of the significance of the lesser-known works of composers suppressed by the Nazi regime, Mr. Conlon has devoted himself to extensive programming of this music throughout Europe and North America. His work on behalf of these composers led to the creation of the OREL Foundation, a resource on the topic for music lovers, musicians, and scholars. Committed to working with pre-professional musicians, he has devoted much time to teaching at the Juilliard School, the New World Symphony, Ravinia s Steans Institute for Young Artists, the Aspen Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Cliburn Competition, and the Colburn Conservatory. Mr. Conlon s extensive discography and videography include releases on the EMI, Erato, Capriccio, Decca, and Sony Classical labels. He has won two Grammy awards and conducted the soundtrack for several opera movies, including Kenneth Branagh s The Magic Flute. Mr. Conlon holds several honorary doctorates, and he has received many awards, including France s Légion d Honneur in He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1976.

3 FRAMING THE PROGRAM Nowhere is [Mozart s] music better understood and executed than in Prague. So proclaimed a local critic in response to an all-mozart concert given in the Bohemian capital a couple years after the composer s death in Mozart had visited the city several times and enjoyed some of the greatest professional successes there. In January 1787 he offered the public his most recent and ambitious symphony to date, now known as the Prague Symphony, and returned later that year to conduct the premiere of his new opera Don Giovanni. The program today opens with a trio of overtures, first to that masterpiece before moving on seamlessly to his first great dramatic hit (Idomeneo from 1781) and to another favorite with the Prague public: The Marriage of Figaro. Antonín Dvořák and his older contemporary Bedřich Smetana were the preeminent Czech composers of the 19th century. They both aspired, however, to be viewed not just as colorful exotics but rather as serious composers within a broader European mainstream. Dvořák, who would eventually spend three years in America, achieved great acclaim abroad. His deeply felt and brooding Seventh Symphony (the second of his nine published in his lifetime) was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and premiered in London in 1885, the first time he conducted abroad and where it proved a triumph.

4 Parallel Events 1780 Mozart Idomeneo Music Gluck Flute Concerto Literature Claudius Lieder für das Volk Art Copley Death of Chatham History Joseph II becomes Holy Roman Emperor 1786 Mozart Symphony No. 38 Music Dittersdorf Doctor und Apotheker Literature Bourgoyne The Heiress Art Reynolds The Duchess of Devonshire History Shays Rebellion 1884 Dvořák Symphony No. 7 Music Brahms Symphony No. 4 Literature Ibsen The Wild Duck Art Seurat Une Baignade, Asnières History First subway, in London

5 Overtures to Don Giovanni, Idomeneo, and The Marriage of Figaro Wolfgang Amadè Mozart Born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756 Died in Vienna, December 5, 1791 An overture in Mozart s time was often identical to a symphony; operas began with a sinfonia, usually in a fast-slow-fast arrangement of movements. Eventually symphonies grew in size and rose to the highest rank of instrumental music in which Beethoven and later 19th-century composers would achieve some of their greatest statements. The overture also began to assume a new role. It no longer served merely as an instrumental attention-getter, functioning to settle down the audience, but rather would introduce what was about to happen dramatically in the theater. Some of Mozart s overtures to his mature operas, such as Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and The Magic Flute, offer a foretaste of musical passages that will be heard in the course of the opera. Other composers did similar things, although the practice eventually degenerated (at least in Richard Wagner s later assessment) to mere potpourris, previews of catchy tunes as are now familiar from Broadway shows. Don Giovanni is perhaps the most integrated of Mozart s opera overtures in that the dramatic introduction (andante) in a frightening D minor returns in the final act when the statue of the Commandatore (who Don Giovanni killed in the first scene of the opera) arrives for dinner and the unrepentant title character is dragged to hell. In contrast to this harrowing introduction the following molto allegro is pure joy, reminding us that this is supposedly a comic opera. Il dissoluto punito, o sia il Don Giovanni (The Dissolute Punished, or Don Giovanni) was premiered as a drama giocoso (jocular drama), mixing comedy and tragedy. It was the composer s second collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. After the enormous success of their Marriage of Figaro in Prague, Mozart was commissioned to write a new work for the Bohemian capital, where he conducted the first performance of Don Giovanni on October 29, 1787 it proved a highlight of his career. Although Mozart had written most of the opera in Vienna he added some numbers while in rehearsal in Prague and composed the Overture last (legend has it the very day before the premiere). Idomeneo dates from seven years earlier, when Mozart was 24, and is considered by many his first dramatic masterpiece. (He had written his initial opera at age 11.) Premiered in Munich in January 1781, it was a piece Mozart cared about deeply and later revised for performances in Vienna. The story concerns Idomeneo, the King of Crete, who as he returns in triumph from the Trojan War is threatened by a storm at sea. To appease the god Neptune, he pledges to offer in sacrifice the first person he encounters at home, which turns out to be his own son, Idamante. Complicated by a love triangle between Idamante, his beloved Ilia, and the exiled Princess Elettra, who also loves him, everything ends up happily in the end when Idomeneo abdicates his throne to his son and Ilia. The Overture opens with majestic gestures befitting an opera about royalty (Mozart would later begin La clemenza di Tito, written for Prague, in a similar way): full orchestra in a bright D major. The second

6 theme, in A minor, foreshadows the darker side of the opera to follow and the Overture has a wonderful fade out to end. (In the opera this leads directly to a scene for Ilia, while in the performances today the three overtures are performed without pause.) Mozart finished The Marriage of Figaro, the first of his three operas with Da Ponte, in They based the work on Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais s revolutionary play, which was the middle offering in a trilogy containing The Barber of Seville and The Guilty Mother. Because of Figaro s pointed political and erotic content (less evident in the opera than in the original), Beaumarchais had difficulty getting the work performed in France. Mozart, in turn, took a risk in tackling a play banned in Austria. As with the two other overtures on the concert today, first things came last: Mozart wrote the Overture shortly before conducting the successful premiere on May 1, 1786, in Vienna s Burgtheater. The great popularity of Figaro became especially evident at the Prague premiere later that year. Mozart recounted, Here they talk about nothing but Figaro. Nothing is played, sung, or whistled but Figaro. No opera is drawing like Figaro. Nothing, nothing but Figaro. The plot takes off a few years after the ending of The Barber of Seville, in which Figaro s cunning successfully united Count Almaviva with his beloved Rosina. The upstairs/downstairs tale of the Count and Countess and their servants Figaro and Susanna involves a day of intrigue as the young couple prepare for their wedding. But when Susanna informs him that the Count is pursuing her, as he apparently does all young women, Figaro vows revenge. By the end everything works out just fine, with lessons learned by all, but there are many complications along the way. The atmosphere at the outset of the opera is all expectation and excitement. A new world is beginning for Figaro and Susanna, and the drama that unfolds will be breathless for at least the first act. The presto Overture perfectly sets the stage even though there are not direct musical connections to the opera itself. It opens not so much with a tune (just try to sing it) as with pure movement: florid strings bustling along, immediately eliding into a second melody in the oboes and horns, imitated by flutes and clarinets. The Overture is filled with a wide variety of tunes, which all dart by quickly. The manuscript indicates that Mozart originally included a slower middle section, but he deleted this part to proceed directly to the recapitulation of the opening string rumblings. There is no respite from beginning to end of the brief Overture. The audience now prepared, the curtain can rise. Christopher H. Gibbs The Overture to Don Giovanni was composed in 1787; the Overture to Idomeneo in 1780; and the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro in Leopold Stokowski conducted The Philadelphia Orchestra s first performances of the Don Giovanni Overture, in February The work s most recent appearance on subscription concerts was in November 2000, with Charles Dutoit conducting. Eugene Ormandy led the first, and only other, Orchestra performances of the Idomeneo Overture, in December Mozart s Marriage of Figaro Overture received its Philadelphia Orchestra premiere on

7 December 19, 1913, with Leopold Stokowski conducting; the last subscription performances were in January 2003, with Bobby McFerrin on the podium. All three overtures are scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, timpani, and strings. The Overture to Don Giovanni runs approximately six minutes in performance; the Overture to Idomeneo approximately five minutes; and the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro approximately four minutes.

8 Symphony No. 38 ( Prague ) Wolfgang Amadè Mozart As greatly as Mozart long yearned to leave his native Salzburg and live in Vienna, which he eventually succeeded in doing in 1781, his final decade in the capital city was not uniformly happy. At first his music was widely performed and praised, and his skills as a pianist equally lauded, but opportunities declined in the second half of the 1780s, due partly to war and inflation. Mozart never won the broad public recognition or the official position he deserved. As he is said famously to have remarked when he was appointed Court Kammermusicus (chamber musician), he was paid too much for what I do, too little for what I can do. Beloved in Prague But Mozart enjoyed enthusiastic triumphs elsewhere: most notably in Prague, the Bohemian capital and the Austrian Empire s second largest city. His first visit in January 1787 was announced in a local newspaper and hopes expressed that he would perform in public ( discerning inhabitants of Prague will surely assemble in large numbers ). For his part, Mozart reported that everyone was whistling tunes from The Figaro of Figaro, which he conducted there, and that he was showered with honors. A week after his arrival he obliged public demand by presenting a concert on which he offered a major new piece, the Symphony in D major, now fittingly known as the Prague, a work he had finished just the month before and probably not yet performed. On this concert he also dazzled with extensive piano improvisations, including on a favorite aria from Figaro. The month-long stay was so successful that later that year he rewarded the city with a special present: the premiere of Don Giovanni, which he returned to conduct himself in October. The love affair between Mozart and Prague continued and the composer made further trips (about a three-day journey of 150 miles) before he died at age 35; the last time was in 1791 to conduct the premiere of this final opera, La clemenza di Tito. A few years after his death, the Prague Symphony was heard at an all-mozart concert. A local critic commented: It is easy to imagine how full the hall was, if one knows Prague s artistic sense and its love for Mozart s music. Mozart s widow and son both wept tears of grief at their loss, and of gratitude towards a noble nation. Thus this evening was fittingly and admirably devoted to an act of homage to merit and genius; it was a rewarding feast for sensitive hearts and a small tribute to the unspeakable delight that Mozart s divine tones often drew from us. From many a noble eye there flowed a silent tear for this well-loved man! It is as though Mozart had composed especially for Bohemia; nowhere is his music better understood and executed than in Prague, and even out in the country it is universally popular. A Closer Look The Prague Symphony was Mozart s most serious and ambitious work in the genre to date, and came following a three-year hiatus after his Linz Symphony, No. 36. (Audiences and record collectors often wonder what happened to No. 37, which it turns out was written primarily by Michael Haydn; Mozart only contributed the slow introduction to its opening movement.) The genre of the symphony, which historically had primarily been

9 geared toward entertainment, becomes more substantial and serious. Mozart s new attitude, further realized in his miraculous final three symphonies from the summer of 1788, is evident in the rich orchestration, the weighty introduction to the first movement, and in the absence of a minuet. Most of his symphonies display the traditional four movements, but here he seems to question the vestige of older Baroque suites and dispenses with a dance movement altogether. The extended Adagio introduction of the first movement, lasting some three minutes, immediately indicates the ambition of the Symphony. (Unlike Haydn, Mozart relatively rarely used slow introductions.) It leads to a syncopated Allegro theme that bears some resemblance to the principal theme of the Overture to The Magic Flute with its insistent repeated notes and it undergoes elaborate contrapuntal development of great intensity. The second movement Andante is in G major and a 6/8 meter with alluring use of chromatic scales to give color. Mozart the great composer of comic opera is fully evident in the breathless concluding Presto, which is back in D major and more straightforward and carefree than the earlier two movements. The Prague audience no doubt delighted in the similarity of the principal theme with the brief duettino Aprite presto sung by Susanna and Cherubino in Act II of The Marriage of Figaro. Mozart composed the Prague Symphony in Christopher H. Gibbs Fritz Reiner was on the podium for the first Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the Symphony, in December The most recent subscription appearance of the work was in March 1991, with Kurt Masur. The score calls for two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. Performance time is approximately 26 minutes.

10 Symphony No. 7 Antonín Dvořák Born in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, September 8, 1841 Died in Prague, May 1, 1904 Dvořák lived in a bicultural Bohemia where Czechs and Germans coexisted as they had for centuries. Since cross-cultural influences were strong, Germany and Austria were essential proving grounds for native Bohemian Czechs. Thus Dvořák was thrown into an acute depression in 1883 when, the year before he began composing his Seventh Symphony, the Vienna Court Opera rejected his Czech operas The Cunning Peasant and Dimitrij, which had scored huge successes in Prague. The management requested that he write a German opera, which understandably rankled even though he spoke the language fluently. To make matters worse, the Berlin publisher Fritz Simrock, who had issued the composer s first set of Slavonic Dances at Brahms s urging, wanted him to compose more of these folk-like, exotic collections which did brisk sales in German-speaking lands. Bigger Ideas Dvořák had his sights on bigger things: His Stabat Mater had been a huge success in England, and his operas were celebrated in Prague. He was eager to make his mark in German-speaking lands with large-scale works. If we view this from the standpoint of common sense, he wrote to Simrock, considering all you have written in your last letter, we are led to the clear conclusion that I should write no symphonies, no large vocal works, and no instrumental music only occasional lieder, piano pieces, dances, and who knows what sort of publishable works. Well, as an artist who wants to amount to something, I simply cannot do it! Indeed, my dear friend, this is how I see it from my standpoint as an artist, a poor artist, and the father of a family. Instead of deciding to appease publishers or opera companies or the press, Dvořák composed the Seventh Symphony, a work whose truculent defiance and high Brahmsian tragedy seemed to reflect the composer s state of mind in With the Seventh Dvořák saw the opportunity to compose a serious, large-scale work that was true to his own stylistic standards and at the same time pleasing to audiences from Hamburg to Vienna. I am occupied at present with my new symphony, he wrote while composing the piece. And wherever I go I think of nothing but my work, which must be capable of stirring the world, and may God grant that it will. Written mostly in late 1884 and early 1885, the Symphony is indeed a Brahmsian work, based on pregnant and propulsively forward-moving thematic material that is worked out on a scale that could only have made his mentor proud. More than one critic has dubbed the Seventh Brahms s Fifth, and it is clear from Dvořák s correspondence that Brahms s music was lurking at the back of his consciousness when he began writing the piece. I have been busy for a long, long time over my new symphony, he wrote to Simrock in February 1885, but I want to justify Brahms s words when he said, I imagine your new symphony will be quite unlike the D major [No. 6]. There shall be no grounds for thinking he was wrong.

11 The work was completed by the spring of 1885, and Dvořák conducted the Royal Philharmonic in the first performance, in London on April 22, The Symphony is indeed worthy of standing side-by-side with other essential works in the genre. I have no hesitation, writes the critic Donald Francis Tovey, in setting Dvořák s Seventh along with the C-major Symphony of Schubert and the four symphonies of Brahms as among the greatest and purest examples in this art form since Beethoven. A Closer Look The Seventh moves far beyond the realm of the composer s earlier symphonies. ( The longer I live, the more I become convinced that composers, like authors, mostly follow the impulse of writing too much, Dvořák wrote, in a discussion of the music of Schubert though he might just as well have been talking about himself.) The Seventh is particularly dense with ideas, with such a wealth of thematic material that even the composer himself seems to have struggled to give each its proper elaboration. Like Brahms, Dvořák knew the art of drawing the listener into a work by presenting concise, easily grasped motivic material in the opening measures of the piece. The Symphony s opening movement, Allegro maestoso, with its puzzlingly incomplete first theme, seems to invite the listener on a long journey. The tripartite (A-B-A) slow movement, Poco adagio, is one of the composer s most tuneful songs; but it, too, contains storm clouds and dense drama. The skipping, majestic Vivace is the most tension-charged scherzo since Beethoven s Ninth the scherzo of which it resembles, in fact. Like the first movement, the final Allegro opens with an unstable diminished chord, again setting the listener s ear on edge. The clouds of this untamed Symphony are never dispersed entirely, though its D-major conclusion comes as a marked relief from the relentless D-minor tension. Dvořák s Seventh Symphony was composed from 1884 to Paul J. Horsley The first Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the Seventh were not until February 1965, when Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt conducted the work. Most recently Christoph Eschenbach led the Symphony in March The Philadelphians have recorded the work twice: in 1976 with Eugene Ormandy for RCA and in 1989 with Wolfgang Sawallisch for Angel/EMI. Dvořák scored the piece for two flutes (II doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. The Symphony runs approximately 40 minutes in performance. Program notes All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association.

12 GENERAL TERMS Cadence: The conclusion to a phrase, movement, or piece based on a recognizable melodic formula, harmonic progression, or dissonance resolution Cadenza: A passage or section in a style of brilliant improvisation, usually inserted near the end of a movement or composition Chord: The simultaneous sounding of three or more tones Chromatic: Relating to tones foreign to a given key (scale) or chord Coda: A concluding section or passage added in order to confirm the impression of finality Contrapuntal: See counterpoint Counterpoint: A term that describes the combination of simultaneously sounding musical lines Diminished interval: A perfect or minor interval contracted by a chromatic semitone Divertimento: A piece of entertaining music in several movements, often scored for a mixed ensemble and having no fixed form K.: Abbreviation for Köchel, the chronological list of all the works of Mozart made by Ludwig von Köchel Lieder: Songs Minuet: A dance in triple time commonly used up to the beginning of the 19th century as the lightest movement of a symphony Recapitulation: See sonata form Rondo: A form frequently used in symphonies and concertos for the final movement. It consists of a main section that alternates with a variety of contrasting sections (A-B-A-C-A etc.). Scale: The series of tones which form (a) any major or minor key or (b) the chromatic scale of successive semi-tonic steps Scherzo: Literally a joke. Usually the third movement of symphonies and quartets that was introduced by Beethoven to replace the minuet. The scherzo is followed by a gentler section called a trio, after which the scherzo is repeated. Its characteristics are a rapid tempo in triple time, vigorous rhythm, and humorous contrasts. Sinfonia: A short introductory instrumental piece Sonata form: The form in which the first movements (and sometimes others) of symphonies are usually cast. The sections are exposition, development, and recapitulation, the last sometimes followed by a coda. The exposition is the introduction of the musical ideas, which are then developed. In the recapitulation, the exposition is repeated with modifications. Suite: A set or series of pieces in various dance-forms. The modern orchestral suite is more like a divertimento. Syncopation: A shift of rhythmic emphasis off the beat THE SPEED OF MUSIC (Tempo) Adagio: Leisurely, slow Allegro: Bright, fast Andante: Walking speed Maestoso: Majestic Presto: Very fast Vivace: Lively

13 TEMPO MODIFIERS Molto: Very Poco: Little, a bit