MOZART. Wiener Oktett. Five Divertimenti

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1 Eloq uence MOZART Five Divertimenti D major, KV 136 No. 7 in D major, KV 205 No. 10 in F major, KV 247 No. 15 in B flat major, KV 287 No. 17 in D major, KV 334 March in D major, KV 290 Wiener Oktett

2 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART ( ) CD Divertimento No. 15 in B flat major, KV I Allegro II Thema mit Variationen: Andante grazioso III Menuetto IV Adagio V Menuetto VI Andante Allegro molto 7 16 Anton Fietz, Philipp Matheis, violins Günther Breitenbach, viola Nikolaus Hübner, cello Johann Krump, double-bass Josef Veleba, Wolfgang Tomböck, horns Divertimento No. 7 in D major, KV 205 (KV 167A) 7 Largo Allegro II Menuetto III Adagio IV Menuetto 2 49! V Finale (Presto) 3 39 Anton Fietz, violin Günther Breitenbach, viola Nikolaus Hübner, cello Johann Krump, double-bass Josef Veleba Wolfgang Tomböck, horns Divertimento in D major, KV 136 (KV I Allegro 3 57 II Andante 3 59 $ III Presto 2 34 Anton Fietz, Philipp Matheis, violins Günther Breitenbach, viola Nikolaus Hübner, cello Johann Krump, double-bass

3 % March in D major, KV 290 (K167AB) 2 22 Anton Fietz, violin Günther Breitenbach, viola Nikolaus Hübner, cello Johann Krump, double-bass Josef Veleba, Wolfgang Tomböck, horns CD Divertimento No. 17 in D major, KV 334 (KV 320b) 1 I Allegro II Thema con variazioni (Andante) III Menuetto Trio Menuetto IV Adagio V Menuetto Trio I Menuetto Trio II Menuetto VI Rondo (Allegro) 8 34 Anton Fietz, Philipp Matheis, violins Günther Breitenbach, viola Nikolaus Hübner, cello Johann Krump, double-bass Josef Veleba, Otto Nitsch, horns Divertimento No. 10 in F major, KV I Allegro II Andante grazioso III Menuetto IV Adagio 5 30! V Menuetto 3 VI Andante Allegro assai 6 02 Anton Fietz, Philipp Matheis, violins Günther Breitenbach, viola Nikolaus Hübner, cello Johann Krump, double-bass Josef Veleba, Wolfgang Tomböck, horns Wiener Oktett Total timing: Those who campaign against background music in shops, restaurants, hotel lobbies and lifts do not have history on their side. A whole corpus of marvellous music, including the delightful Mozart Divertimenti on these discs, is not intended for serious listening. Its original performances were certainly given against a hum of conversation and probably in the open air. We can see an obvious family resemblance in KV 205 in D, with its associated March, KV 290; KV 247 in F, with its March, KV 248; KV 251 in D; KV 287 in B flat; and KV 334 in D the one with the popular Minuet and its March, KV 445. To these can be added KV 522, A Musical Joke. They are scored for two violins, viola, double bass and two horns, except that KV 205 has no second violin and adds a bassoon to the bass line, while KV 251 (absent here, along with KV 522) requires an oboe. All were written for family celebrations, usually for wealthy Salzburg gentry. It seems likely that each Divertimento had a March attached to it, but the Marches for KV 251 and KV 287 have not survived; and we offer just one sample March, for KV 205. Mozart seems to have been especially pleased with the threesome of KV 247, KV 287 and KV 334; and after performing some of his music, including KV 247, with friends in Munich in October 1777, he wrote to his father Leopold: I played as though I were the finest fiddler in all Europe. He also reported that he had run through several works from memory, including KV 247 and KV 287, before Count Joseph von Salern, chief manager of the Munich Court Opera, and that he really understands music, for all the time he kept on shouting Bravo, where other noblemen would take a pinch of snuff, blow their noses, clear their throats or start a conversation. How were these Divertimenti performed? And what was the function of the Marches? Let us visualise a performance in some rich family s garden. First the musicians would process out, playing the March, the bass player carrying his instrument before him by means of a strap an undignified process which, as the American bassist Thomas Martin has explained, would allow him to play in one position. Then the Divertimento would be performed, all the participants standing up to play. Finally the bassist would take up his unwieldy burden again and the players would march off. The sharp-eyed will note that there is no room in this scenario for a cellist, who would have to be seated, and yet a cellist is present on these recordings by the Vienna Octet. This point is a sore one with some scholars, including the

4 present writer. Mozart was working in a tradition which still continues in Vienna (where a small group with double-bass, but no cello, will perform Lanner and Strauss dances). In his letters, Mozart calls these works Cassations, which implies street or outdoor performance ( Cassatio comes from Gasse, meaning street). Consider, too, his lovely Serenata notturna, KV 239, which is unusual in two ways. Along with its basic string orchestra it calls for timpani without trumpets; and as it was written for New Year s Day 1776, it was intended for indoors, so Mozart could have had a cello soloist if he had wanted one. But no, his designated soloists are the classic two violins, viola and bass. In addition, a contemporary engraving of a performance of A Musical Joke, with the musicians all standing, does not include a cellist. At least one Viennese group of today has successfully presented the Divertimenti without a cello, giving more freedom to the bassist, who need not worry about combining with a cellist. But a tradition grew up for a cello to be included, sometimes even in the Serenata notturna, and Hübner and Krump of the Vienna Octet achieve wonders of ensemble. The main point is that these great Viennese musicians play all except the bass line of the Divertimenti one-to-a-part, as intended. Employing an orchestra is dubious KV 287 in particular has a glorious violin solo which is ruined if an entire first violin section plays it. Mozart s finales have a popular style sometimes they are based on actual tunes of the day and they lose their piquant flavour in an orchestral performance. In general, Mozart used the term Divertimento for a work with a number of movements, including two minuets. The most bizarre example is the wonderful Divertimento in E flat for string trio, KV 563, which is far from being entertainment music and repays careful listening (Beethoven paid it the compliment of copying it closely for his Op. 3). Eine kleine Nachtmusik, which had five movements but lost a minuet along the way, is termed a Serenade; and as we have seen, for Mozart the titles Cassation and Divertimento were interchangeable. A few curiosities remain. The first of the piano trios, KV 254 in B flat, is called a Divertimento although it is in Mozart s usual three-movement trio form. And the three Salzburg Divertimenti, KV , are really three-movement string quartets which can be played by a small orchestra. They sound best, however, when played in chamber style, as KV 136 is here. The original Wiener Oktett PHOTO: TULLY POTTER COLLECTION

5 Although the Mozart Divertimenti are ideal for home listening, the recorded legacy was thin until the 1950s. Before the war the Quatuor Pro Arte, a famed Brussels string quartet, recorded Eine kleine Nachtmusik with the English bassist Claude Hobday; but no bass player was on hand when the Kolisch Quartet did Ein musikalischer Spass with American hornists. The Léner Quartet of Budapest recorded KV 334 with Dennis Brain and his father Aubrey. Authenticity came a step closer in 1947, when the Boskovsky brothers founded the Wiener Oktett (Vienna Octet), a group based on the instrumentation of the Schubert Octet. Willi Boskovsky ( ) was a concertmaster of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, which appeared in concert as the Vienna Philharmonic, and after Wolfgang Schneiderhan s resignation from the orchestra in 1951 he became first concertmaster. One of the most distinctive violinists to emerge from Vienna, he was the embodiment of the Viennese style for more than three decades. His younger brother Alfred was a superb clarinettist who had studied the violin as a boy; and their colleagues in the Octet were handpicked: Philipp Matheis (second violin), Günther Breitenbach (viola), Nikolaus Hübner (cello), Johann Krump (double-bass), Josef Veleba (horn), and Rudolf Hanzl (bassoon). All were from the Philharmonic except Breitenbach and Hübner, who were from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra the city s main concert ensemble. The Vienna Octet was soon travelling abroad. At the 1947 Lucerne Festival the players shared a programme with the winds of the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra and their performances of Mozart s Divertimento in D, KV 334 and Schubert s Octet found favour with the aged Richard Strauss. The following year the Octet became the first of many Viennese ensembles to record for Decca, initiating a quarter of a century of collaboration with the English company s engineering and production team. Of course the Decca folk had their eyes on an even bigger prize, the Vienna Philharmonic itself; and working with the Octet was a useful bridge, as Alfred Boskovsky was chairman of the orchestra. But a genuine rapport was quickly built up with the members of the Octet and an amazing number of recordings were made. At first the studios for the sessions were chosen on an ad hoc basis and the Octet was captured in Switzerland and London, as well as at home. But gradually Decca built up an expertise in recording at two Viennese venues, the Musikverein and the Sofiensaal; and by the end of the 1950s the engineers were capturing the famous Viennese string sound with a gorgeous glow. Inevitably the group s first recordings, made in 1948 for issue on 78rpm discs, were of the Beethoven Septet and Schubert Octet. That year also saw its first commission, an extrovert Octet by the Belgian composer Marcel Poot. In the early days of LP its two warhorses were recorded again the Schubert being especially admired along with the Trout Quintet (with regular guest pianist Walter Panhofer), Mendelssohn s Octet (for which four string colleagues were co-opted), the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets, Spohr s Nonet (with flautist Josef Niedermayr and oboist Karl Mayrhofer) and Octet (Matheis taking the second viola part) and Kreutzer s Septet, among other things. The Vienna Octet s records and tours were vastly influential and inspired the establishment of the Philharmonic Octet in Berlin and the Melos Ensemble in London. Mozart s three best-known Divertimenti were staples of the Vienna Octet repertoire and were duly recorded; but the first to be documented, KV 334 (in 1950), suffered a cut in the finale which removed what the violinist-scholar Graham Silcock has called one of Mozart s more exotic passages, in the very un-classical key of B minor. The cut was restored when the group re-recorded the Divertimento in 1961 and which appears on this collection. Interestingly, KV 287 was recorded without a cellist. The advent of stereo saw the group re-record its core repertoire, including the Beethoven Septet and Schubert Octet. This time the Beethoven won more plaudits, being acclaimed for its recording quality as well as the spontaneity of the playing; but both became best-sellers. So did remakes of the Trout Quintet, with Clifford Curzon at the piano, the Spohr Octet and the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets. In 1959 Willi Boskovsky, who had turned 50 and was diversifying into conducting, left the group, although for a time he continued to lead his Boskovsky Ensemble, based on the Octet, with which he made records of waltzes, polkas and ländler by Lanner and the Strauss family. He became known for directing the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year Concert, with violin and bow in his hands, and for making records for Decca of these concerts and of serenades, dances and marches by Mozart. For the last phase of the Vienna Octet s career it was led by Anton Fietz ( ), like Boskovsky a legendary Viennese violinist but

6 with his own characteristic, more clean-cut style. After winning second prize in the violin section of the 1946 international competition in Geneva, he made his career largely in Switzerland. By 1949 he was working as concertmaster of the Radio-Orchester Beromünster and in 1953 he became leader of the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra and its Quartet. He stayed there for decades, also teaching at the Zürich Conservatoire. Fietz presided over all of these beautiful stereo recordings of Mozart Divertimenti the performance of KV 205 is particularly magical and KV 334 is complete this time, while the cello of Hübner is heard in all the works with two horns, even KV 287. BEETHOVEN: Sextet; Septet (rec.1959); Piano Quintet SCHUBERT: Octet (rec.1957) (2CD) (2CD) wiener oktett THE DECCA LEGACY (2CD) (2CD) BRAHMS: Clarinet Quintet (rec.1953) MOZART: Clarinet Quintet (rec.1954) BAERMANN: Adagio Alfred Boskovsky, clarinet (2CD) Tully Potter DVOŘÁK: Sextet Op. 48 String Quintets Opp. 77 & 97 String Quartet Op. 96 American * Bagatelles Op.47 Vienna Philharmonia Quintet *Janáček Quartet MENDELSSOHN: Octet (rec.1953); SCHUBERT: Piano Quintet Trout (rec.1950) SCHUBERT: Octet (rec.1953) MOZART: Divertimenti Nos. 7, 10 (rec.1963), 15 (rec.1962), 17 (rec.1961), KV136; March in D, K290 MOZART FROM A GOLDEN AGE Divertimenti Nos. 1 (rec.1957), 10 (rec.1952), 15 (rec.1955), 17 (rec.1950) (2CD) (2CD) (2CD) (2CD) Recording producers: Christopher Raeburn (KV 287); Erik Smith (KV 205, KV 136, KV 290, KV 334, KV 247) Recording engineers: James Brown (KV 287, KV 136, KV 334, KV 247); Jack Law (KV 205, KV 290) Recording location: Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, April 1961 (KV 136, KV 334); September 1962 (KV 287); October 1963 (KV 247); October 1964 (KV 205, KV 290) Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji Art direction: Chilu Tong Booklet editor: Bruce Raggatt MOZART: Clarinet Quintet (rec.1963) Clarinet Trio; Cassation; Piano Quintet BEETHOVEN: Piano Quintet MICHAEL HAYDN: Divertimento in G major Alfred Boskovsky, clarinet SPOHR: Piano Quintet Double Quartet; Octet (rec.1959); Nonet (rec.1966) Romantic Chamber Music MENDELSSOHN: Sextet. BERWALD: Septet KREUTZER: Grand Septet Op. 62 (rec.1968). BORODIN: Piano Quintet RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Piano Quintet Recording dates are indicated where the Wiener Oktett made multiple recordings of a given work. 20th-century Chamber Music BRITTEN: Sinfonietta HINDEMITH: Octet POOT: Octet. BADINGS: Octet WELLESZ: Octet

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