WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major, K. 207 (1773)
For decades, Mozart’s five violin concertos were attributed to one glorious year of composition—1775, when the composer was just 19 years old. But apparently, inquiring minds delved more deeply into the matter (studying handwriting samples, manuscript paper, and matters structural and musicological), and it is now thought that K. 207 may have been written two years earlier, just after Mozart became concertmaster at the Salzburg court. Although the autograph scores are dated, these dates seem to have been tampered with. There is also continuing uncertainty as to who the concertos were written for. While Mozart played them, of course, they may have been composed for Antonio Brunetti, a violinist and later Mozart’s successor as concertmaster of the Salzburg court orchestra—an assertion that has been challenged, as Brunetti did not become concertmaster until 1776. There’s another fascinating side-light to the creation of this concerto: its two possible final movements—the Presto Mozart composed first, and another, now known as the Rondo No. 1 in B-flat Major, K. 269, written in 1776 at the recommendation of Brunetti, to replace the original finale. (The concerto typically tends to be performed with the original final movement, with the Rondo considered a separate piece.) It is noteworthy that the finale in all of Mozart’s concertos following the K. 207 and K. 269 would be in rondo or variation form. The First Violin Concerto is a spirited work that gives the soloist, Anne-Sophie Mutter, plenty of opportunities to shine.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216, “Strassburg” (1775)
Incredible as it may seem, Mozart composed four of his five violin concertos in the space of just a few months in 1775, when he was only 19. But even within that small time span they show an amazing development and maturation, particularly between the second and the present third concerto. He was an accomplished violinist in his youth, but didn’t particularly enjoy playing the instrument. Mozart’s authoritarian father Leopold, author of the famed Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing, encouraged his son to put more effort into his performances: “You yourself do not know how well you play the violin. If only you would do yourself justice and play with energy, with your whole heart and mind, you could be the best violinist in Europe.” Reflecting on a performance two years later, he wrote to his father: “…In the evening at supper I played my Strassburger Concerto, which went like oil. Everyone praised my beautiful, pure tone.” (The nickname suggests a Hungarian folk tune in the finale, “The Strassburger,” which was later confirmed in a Hungarian song manuscript that references such a melody.) But once he moved to Vienna, away from his father’s hectoring, he stopped performing on the violin (even in private performances of chamber music he preferred the viola). From vigorous opening, to the brief but sublime adagio (Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein said that it “could have fallen straight from heaven”), to sparkling rondo finale, this elegant, tuneful work is astonishing evidence of the teenaged genius.
WOLFGANG RIHM, born in 1952 in Karlsruhe, Germany
Lichtes Spiel (Light Game) (2010)
Wolfgang Rihm is one of today’s foremost composers having created more than 350 stage, orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal, and piano works. His new piece, Lichtes Spiel (German: Light Game), is receiving its world premiere today, performed by our Artist-in-Residence, Anne-Sophie Mutter. It came about at the request of Ms. Mutter, to whom he had already dedicated the violin concerto, Gesungene Zeit (Time Chant), premiered in 1992. It will be reprised by her with the Vienna Philharmonic under Riccardo Chailly at the upcoming Salzburg Festival. “I composed Gesungene Zeit for her in particular because she possesses a unique ability to play cantabile in the highest registers,” says the composer. The orchestra for Lichtes Spiel is reminiscent of a Mozart-style ensemble. “I wanted to write a transparent orchestral movement…something light, but not ‘light-weight’.” Even as a small boy, Wolfgang Rihm was interested in art, painting, writing stories, and music—interests his parents fostered. His first experience “playing for an audience” came at age 11, when he got permission to play the organ in a small village near his native city. For hours he played tunes he had improvised on the piano. “Suddenly—by then it had become evening—the motor stopped working. The inhabitants of the village were so upset by my playing that they cut off the electricity. That was my first experience of public response. Until then, my audience had been made up of schoolmates, teddy bears and family—that is, all positively inclined.” Today he is a much-lauded composer who holds audiences spellbound with his magical creations.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, “Turkish” (1775)
Mozart’s violin concertos, composed when he was still a teen, provide ample substantiation that the young man understood the instrument; yet he didn’t enjoy playing it. Still, in 1772 the 16-year-old accepted the post of concertmaster in the court orchestra of Hieronymus Colloredo, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, hated by the young composer. He eventually gave up performing violin in public in favor of the piano, after finally quitting the employ of the court (and receiving a literal kick in the pants from Count Karl Arco, Colloredo’s chief chamberlain; the archbishop is said to have added: “Let him go; I don’t need him!”). In this final violin concerto Mozart surprises the listener with some unexpected techniques right in the first movement, when he introduces the solo violin—not echoing the first theme of the orchestral introduction, but rather with an expressive slow theme that arises from it. After a sublime Adagio, Mozart gives us a taste of Turkish music in the last movement (very fashionable and a source of fascination in the18th century), thus accounting for the concerto’s nickname. Watch for special effects from the low strings playing with the backs of their bows to imitate the sound of drums beaten with wooden sticks, as the Janissaries (elite soldiers of the Ottoman Empire) go marching past. The concerto ends with a delightful and unexpectedly understated cadence.
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MICHAEL FRANCIS, conductor, born in 1976 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England
