SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA A JACOBS MASTERWORKS CONCERT Markus Stenz, conductor November 17, 18 and 19, 2017 FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN Symphony No. 103 in E-flat Major: Paukenwirbel (Drumroll) Adagio Allegro con spirito Andante più tosto allegretto Menuet Allegro con spirito INTERMISSION WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Requiem, K. 626 I. Introitus - Requiem II. Kyrie III. Sequenz Dies irae Tuba mirum Rex tremendae Recordare Confutatis Lacrimosa IV. Offertorium Domine Jesu Hostias V. Sanctus VI. Benedictus VII. Agnus Dei VIII. Communio Jessica Rivera, soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo soprano Colin Balzer, tenor Adam Lau, bass
Symphony No. 103 in E-flat Major: Paukenwirbel (Drumroll) FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN Born March 31, 1732, Rohrau Died May 31, 1809, Vienna The death of Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy on September 28, 1790, transformed Haydn s life. Haydn had served as Nikolaus kapellmeister for 30 years in the prince s remote palaces at Eisenstadt and Esterhazy. The prince maintained a small professional orchestra, and Haydn conducted the orchestra, composed and directed the opera for those three decades. It was one of the most distinguished relationships ever between artist and patron, and it came to a sudden end with the prince s death because his successor, Prince Anton, had no interest in music. Anton promptly disbanded the orchestra and pushed Haydn into retirement (albeit with a generous pension). After 30 vigorous years with the Esterhazy family, the 58-year-old composer looked ahead to a quiet retirement. But it was not to be. The impresario Johann Peter Salomon invited Haydn to come to London and put on a series of concerts of his own music. Haydn set off for completely new territory and triumphed. He arrived in London in January 1791 and was astonished by everything about that city by the virtuosity of the orchestra Salomon had assembled for him, by London s large and enthusiastic audiences and by the discovery that he was famous. After decades of working in remote obscurity for the Esterhazy family, he found himself lionized by cheering crowds, enthusiastic reviews and by London s rich social life. His first visit, during the years 1791-92, was so successful that he returned for a second one in 1794-95. For each visit he composed six symphonies, and those twelve are known collectively as his London symphonies. Several factors shaped those symphonies. The first was the size and excellence of the orchestra that Salomon assembled for Haydn. His orchestra at Esterhazy had numbered only about 20 players, but in London he had a first-class orchestra of 60 players. The second factor was the London audience. After 30 years of performing before a prince and his invited guests, Haydn suddenly was performing in front of huge crowds made of up London s growing middle class. They lionized Haydn, and he in turn responded to them: his London symphonies are big-scale works full of color, excitement, virtuosity and sometimes novel effects. The Symphony No. 103, first performed at the King s Theatre on March 2, 1795, begins with one of the most striking of these effects: a one-measure timpani roll on a deep E-flat. That timpani roll has given this symphony its nickname, but everything about it is mysterious. Haydn left no dynamic
marking, and so conductors (and editors) have felt free to make what sense they can of it. The editor of the 1938 Eulenberg score felt that that roll should be very quiet and put a pianissimo marking inside parentheses. Most early recordings presented the opening this way, but in his 1970 recording Leonard Bernstein began the symphony with a timpani explosion so loud as to shake an audience s fillings loose. More recently, other conductors have taken very novel approaches to this solitary measure. (Those interested can explore some of these on YouTube). This timpani roll is followed by something just as striking: an ominous slow introduction led by the dark sound of the low strings. This eventually reaches a moment of pause (but not repose) on a deep unison G, and then the Allegro con spirito leaps out brightly on a dancing figure for violins, one of those melodies that seems to demand toe-tapping from the audience. A more flowing second idea arrives on the crystalline sound of solo oboe with first violins, and all seems set for a standard sonata-form movement. But Haydn is Haydn, and quickly we realize that more is going on here than it appears. That dancing Allegro con spirito theme is closely related to the dark slow introduction, and in fact that introduction now speeded up reappears as part of the development. Then a final surprise: just before the close Haydn brings matters to a stop and recalls the timpani roll and part of the introduction before the movement dances to its close on the violins spirited main idea. The Andante più tosto Allegretto is a set of double variations double because Haydn introduces two themes to be varied. But those two themes, reportedly based on Eastern European folksongs, are so similar that the second seems a variation on the first. Haydn moves easily between the firm C minor of the opening theme and the more relaxed C Major of the second, and the variations grow more complex as the movement proceeds one of them features a florid solo variation for the concertmaster. Haydn rounds off the movement unexpectedly with ringing fanfares in C Major. Some have heard the sound of a Swiss yodel in the wind calls of the Menuetto, while its stately trio section glides smoothly along the unusual sound of the violins and solo clarinet in unison. The concluding Allegro con spirito is spirited indeed and also one of Haydn s most brilliant finales. It opens with a hunting call from the two horns, followed by a long pause. That call is repeated, but this time Haydn combines it with the finale s propulsive main theme, first stated by the violins. Throughout his career, Haydn had been interested in writing movements based on one theme only, and this finale is such a movement; the horn call returns from time to time, but it is from the violin tune that Haydn builds the entire movement. Full of high spirits and contrapuntal complexity, the finale blazes its way to a conclusion that shows a master writing at the height of his powers.
Requiem, K. 626 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna More mystery surrounds Mozart s Requiem than any other piece he wrote, and the fantastic story of its creation has become part of the legend. After several difficult years, Mozart s fortunes seemed to have taken a turn for the better in the summer of 1791. Already at work on Die Zauberflöte, he received a commission in July to compose an opera for the September celebration in Prague of the coronation of Leopold II this would be La Clemenza di Tito. While at work on Die Zauberflöte, Mozart was visited one day at his lodgings in Vienna by a stranger in gray, who proposed a mysterious arrangement. The stranger was a representative from someone who wished to commission a Requiem. The pay would be handsome, but there was one important stipulation: the identity of the composer was to be kept an absolute secret. Over the next several months, Mozart began to plan and compose this Requiem. This was a difficult time for the composer, who composed most of La Clemenza di Tito in the space of 18 days and went to Prague to lead the premiere. In the course of these months, Mozart became ill and began to believe certain fantastic notions: that he was being poisoned, that the stranger in gray was a visitor from another world, and that the Requiem he was composing would be for himself. Mozart s health and spirits improved briefly after he returned to Vienna and completed the Clarinet Concerto in October, and he was able to get beyond these obsessions and work on the Requiem. About November 20, however, his health deteriorated sharply: he grew weak, his joints and limbs swelled badly, and he struggled to work. On December 4, friends gathered round his bed to sing through the vocal parts of the Requiem from his manuscript (Mozart himself sang the alto part), but he collapsed when they reached the Lacrimosa and died early the next morning, seven weeks short of his thirty-sixth birthday. The manuscript of the Requiem lay unfinished beside him. From this dismal and confused situation, certain facts can be established. The stranger in gray was not a visitor from another world, but a representative of Count Franz von Walsegg-Stuppach, a nobleman whose wife Anna had died in February 1791 and who wished now to commission the Requiem and pass it off as his own, hence the condition of secrecy. (Mozart may not have found that stipulation as surprising as we do: he had in 1787 composed the song Als Luise die Briefe for a friend to
pass off as his own). The actual facts of Mozart s death continue to be mysterious, but there is no evidence to suggest that he was poisoned. (He appears to have died of acute rheumatic fever, accelerated in its final stages by overwhelming sepsis). And though he worked on the Requiem up to within hours of his death, he did not dictate any of the music, as a recent motion picture would have us believe (and certainly did not dictate it to Salieri). But when Mozart died early on the morning of December 5, the Requiem existed only fragmentarily, and some movements had apparently not even been begun. Mozart s widow, Costanze, turned the manuscript and sketches over, first, to Johann Eybler and then to Mozart s pupil Francis Xaver Süssmayr (1766-1803), who created a performing version from them; this version that has been performed and loved as the Mozart Requiem for the last two centuries. Given the incomplete state of the Requiem at the time of Mozart s death, however, questions inevitably remain: how much of the Requiem is authentically Mozart and how much of it is by Süssmayr? And tantalizingly how would the Requiem have been different if Mozart had lived to complete it? It is known that Mozart composed and (largely) orchestrated the Introit and Kyrie and that he had written the vocal parts and figured bass for the next several sections, up through the Hostias. At some points he also wrote in instrumental parts or cues, so there is at least a suggestion of his orchestration. And so it was not difficult for Süssmayr to create a performing version of these sections. The situation becomes more problematic with the final sections. Süssmayr claimed that the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei were his own work, but Costanze disputed this, claiming that the work was complete in her husband s sketches and that Süssmayr had merely put them in performing shape. This situation makes for a certain amount of uncertainty. While Süssmayr s version has been widely accepted, there have in fact been a number of alternate completions, most recently by Richard Maunder, Duncan Druce and Robert Levin, and these are sometimes performed today. The Süssmayr version, perhaps because of its direct association with Mozart, remains the standard version, and it is this version that is performed at these concerts. One of the most striking features of the Mozart Requiem is its distinctively dark sonority, which results from Mozart s unusual orchestration, one without flutes, oboes or French horns. Instead, the Requiem emphasizes the lower voices, particularly the smooth, dark sound of basset horns (a part normally taken by clarinets in modern performances, but for these concerts you ll see and hear actual basset horns!) and bassoons. The absence of French horns is surprising, but in their place three trombones give the climaxes a sonic punch rare in Mozart s music.
The Requiem offers some extraordinarily powerful music, particularly in the sections that Mozart did complete, and these include the dark solemnity of the Introitus, the magnificent fugue that opens the Kyrie, the driving fury of the Dies Irae and the solo trombone in the Tuba Mirum. The final sections Mozart sketched are some of the most memorable: the Confutatis, which leaps between the flames of damnation and prayers for salvation, and the expressive Lacrimosa, virtually the last music he composed. Despite the mystery and uncertainty, Mozart s Requiem even in what Robert Levin calls its torso state is a magnificent work. Beethoven is reported to have said that If Mozart did not write this music, the man who wrote it was a Mozart. No performing version can be quite the way Mozart himself would have completed it, but as with certain other works left unfinished and completed by others such as Mahler s Tenth Symphony or Puccini s Turandot enough remains complete to give some idea how powerful and moving were Mozart s final thoughts. -Program notes by Eric Bromberger WHY THIS PROGRAM? by Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist The Haydn Symphony No. 103 (Drumroll) has never before been played by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. The Requiem by Mozart had been conducted during the 1989-90 season by John Nelson, and it was repeated two seasons later when Yoav Talmi led it during a Mozart Festival. Two more performances have since been given here, first conducted by Julian Wachner in the season of 2003-04, and then next led by Jahja Ling in the 2009-10 season.