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Mozart: Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, K.16
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Symphony
No. 1 in E-flat major, K.16 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756,
and died in Vienna on December 5, 1791. He wrote his first symphony just
before his ninth birthday, completing it in London in late 1764 or early
1765. This work runs about 15 minutes in performance. Mozart scored it for
2 oboes, 2 horns, and strings. The Cleveland Orchestra has previously performed Mozart's first symphony in October 1976, under the direction of Lorin Maazel.
Mozart wrote his first symphonies during a long journey his family undertook when he was between seven and ten years old. The goal of this odyssey, which took the Mozart family to various cities of Germany, to Brussels, Paris, London, The Hague, and Switzerland, was to show off the precocious genius of Wolfgang, as well as the keyboard artistry of his older sister Nannerl. Their father, Leopold, was a noted violinist and composer who had written the book on violin playing in the 18th century. He was also a shrewd businessman, eager to cash in on the talents of his children; and by all accounts, he was very successful indeed. Throughout this trip that lasted three years, five months, and twenty days, Wolfgang composed prolifically, and had his first works (a set of violin sonatas) published in Paris. He came into contact with some of the foremost musicians in Europe; no wonder that he advanced in his art by leaps and bounds. Contemporary reports of the boy's accomplishments are astounding; listeners simply couldn't believe their ears when they heard Wolfgang improvise, sight-read, play the piano, the organ, and the violin with equal mastery. Daines Barrington, a Fellow of the Royal Society in London, examined the young prodigy and wrote a detailed report, concluding: "It is well known that none but the most capital musicians are capable of accompanying in this superior stile." But Barrington also observed the child at play, and ended his report with these remarks:
Three symphonies by Wolfgang survive from the time of the grand tour,
although he may have written more. The first of these works has received
special attention partly because it is the very first, and partly because
its second movement contains, in what looks like an uncanny coincidence,
the four-note motif that, 24 years later, would serve as the fugal subject
in the finale of Mozart's last symphony, the "Jupiter." But
the symphony is remarkable even taken by itself, regardless of its position
within Mozart's oeuvre. The startling juxtaposition of a vigorous fanfare
and an extended slow chord progression at the very beginning establishes
a strong contrast from which the thematic material of the entire first
movement will flow. The "Jupiter" motif that appears in the second movement is
in fact a standard formula in the music of the time (it was also used
by Haydn). More interesting probably is the way Mozart sets groups of
three notes against groups of two, or his soloistic treatment of the horns
and the oboes throughout this movement that, despite its brevity, manages
to create a very special atmosphere. Symphonies in the 1760s usually ended with brief Prestos in a dance-like 3/8 time. (Haydn, whom Mozart did not know yet at this point, also used this type in many of his early symphonies.) Mozart's finale in K.16 slightly expands on the model by including a more substantial middle section with a striking series of accented descending notes. —Peter Laki |
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Triple Concerto in D major for
Oboe, Violin and Cello Antonio Salieri was born in Legnago,southwest of Venice, on August
18, 1750, and died in Vienna on May 7, 1825. He composed the present concerto
in 1770. It was first published in 1963. This work runs about 20 minutes in performance and is scored for solo
oboe, solo violin, solo cello, plus an orchestra of 2 oboes,bassoon, 2
horns, timpani, and strings. This is the first time The Cleveland Orchestra has performed a work by Salieri.
Such interest -- as anyone who has heard Salieri's music will probably
agree -- is more than warranted. Salieri was first and foremost an opera
composer, and a very prolific one: he wrote no fewer than 42 operas in
about 35 years, including Falstaff, a brilliant adaptation of Shakespeare's
Merry Wives of Windsor, about a hundred years before Verdi. Salieri
collaborated with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte on numerous projects, as
did Mozart. In addition to his native Italian, he also set librettos in
French for performances in Paris (something Mozart never had a chance
to do). He was a resident of Vienna for more than half a century, and
although it was said that he never quite mastered spoken German, he nevertheless
tried his hand at a German Singspiel or two. A longtime music director
for the Imperial Court, he was also a dedicated teacher all his life.
Beethoven came to him for advice on vocal music and singing technique;
Schubert and even a very young Franz Liszt were also among his students. Most of Salieri's instrumental music dates from his early years: around
1770 (when he was twenty years old), he composed two piano concertos,
an organ concerto, and two multiple concertos -- one for flute and oboe,
the other for oboe, violin, and cello. The latter are particularly interesting
as they belong to the then-fashionable genre of symphonie concertante.
This genre flourished roughly from the 1770s to the 1830s; thus, Salieri
was one of its early practitioners. His works in this form predate Mozart's
by a number of years. The present triple concerto opens with a surprise: there is no tutti
introduction; instead, the solo violin enters right away with a lyrical
melody, repeated in turn by the oboe and the cello. A second surprise
is the highly irregular structure of this melody, which is neither four
nor eight measures long as one would expect, but exactly six and a half.
The continuation of the movement brings some attractive virtuoso writing
for all three instruments, a few energetic orchestral moments and a written-out
trio-cadenza. The relationships of the three soloists evolve in interesting
ways, taking solo turns, forming ever-changing partnerships of two, or
appearing as a unified group against the orchestra. The theme of the second-movement "Cantabile" is introduced
by the orchestra The protagonist this time is clearly the oboe, which
has most of the solos, although there is a short cadenza for the violin,
in addition to a second cadenza for all three instruments at the end.
The orchestra weighs in with a characteristic syncopated figure which
functions as the concluding idea of the movement. The last movement is a set of seven variations on a theme with a distinctly Viennese flavor. After the orchestra has introduced the theme, the soloists are featured individually in the first three variations, in the order oboe - cello - violin. The cello variation stands out here because, instead of adding melodic ornaments and faster notes, it modifies the rhythm of the theme through constant syncopations. A chamber-music-like fourth variation, employing all three soloists, is followed by one in a slower tempo, where the cellist gets his chance to play a richly ornamented melodic line. There is one more virtuosic variation for violin before everyone, soloists and orchestra, joins in the final statement of the melody.
—Peter Laki |
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Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47.
Dmitri Dmitriyevich
Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg on September 25, 1906, and died in
Moscow on August 9, 1975.
Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1937. The first performance was given on
November 21 of that year as part of the celebration of the 20th
anniversary of the October Revolution, with the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted
by Yevgeny Mravinsky. The work was
introduced to the United States by Artur Rodzinski and the NBC Symphony on April
9, 1938.
This symphony runs about 45 minutes in performance. Shostakovich scored it for 2 flutes,
piccolo, 2 oboes, small clarinet in E-flat, 2 clarinet, 2 bassoons,
contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass
drum, snare drum, tam-tam, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, and xylophone), 2
harps, piano, and strings.
The Cleveland Orchestra first presented Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony in
October 1941 at Severance Hall concerts led by music director Artur Rodzinski.
In August 1985 Maxim Shostakovich, the composer’s son, led a performance at
Blossom Music Center. The most
recent performances were given in October 2000, under Assistant Conductor Steven
Smith. The work was last heard at
Blossom in July 1995, under guest conductor Sian Edwards.
The Cleveland Orchestra recorded Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony in 1942
with Artur Rodzinski and in 1981 with Lorin Maazel.
One of the most frequently performed symphonies from the 20th century, Shostakovich’s Fifth has certainly achieved the status of a modern classic. Western audiences have long admired its great dramatic power and melodic richness. But the history of the work and its deeply ambiguous Russian context reveal additional layers of meaning that, 63 years after the premiere, we are just about beginning to understand. Shostakovich wrote the Fifth Symphony in what was certainly the most difficult year of his life. On January 28, 1936, an unsigned editorial in the Pravda, the daily paper of the Communist Party, brutally attacked his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, denouncing it as “muddle instead of music." This condemnation resulted in a sharp decrease of performances of Shostakovich's music for about a year. What was worse, Shostakovich, whose first child was born in May 1936, had to live in constant fear of further reprisals. However, the Party soon realized that the country's music life couldn't afford to lose its greatest young talent, so Shostakovich was soon granted a comeback. Less than a year after being forced to withdraw his Fourth Symphony, Shostakovich heard his Fifth premiered with resounding success in Leningrad on November 21, 1937. By that time, however, the “Great Terror” had begun: political show trials resulting in numerous death sentences and mass deportations to the infamous labor camps. The Great Terror claimed the lives of some of the country’s greatest artists such as the poet Osip Mandelshtam, the novelist Isaac Babel, and the theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, Shostakovich was miraculously spared. Could it be that the qualities in the Fifth Symphony that are so admired today were the same ones that saved the composer’s life then? Shostakovich clearly made a major effort to write a “classical” piece here, one that would be acceptable to the authorities and was as far removed from the avant-gardistic Fourth as possible. Whether that makes it "A Soviet Artist's Creative Response to Just Criticism," as it was officially designated at the time, is another question. The work is so profound and sincere as to transcend any kind of political expediency. The symphony was definitely a response to something, but not in the sense of a chastised schoolboy mending his ways – rather as a great artist reacting to the cruelty and insanity of the times. A lot of ink has been spilled over the “meaning” of this symphony. That Shostakovich had a special message to communicate becomes clear at the very beginning, when the usual Allegro is replaced by a brooding first movement that stays in a slow tempo for half its length. (Shostakovich opened most of his later symphonies – Nos. 6, 8, and 10 -- in a similar way, making a habit of avoiding fast first movements.) The energetic dotted motif at the beginning of the Fifth Symphony is, no doubt, dramatic and ominous. A second theme, played by the violins in a high register, is warm and lyrical but at the same time eerie and distant. The music seems hesitant, until the horns begin a march theme that leads to motivic development and a speeding up of the tempo. It is not a funeral march, but it is not exactly triumphant either. Reminiscent of some of Mahler’s march melodies but even grimmer, its harmonies modulate freely from key to key which gives the march an oddly sarcastic character. At the climactic point of the march, the two earlier themes return. The dotted rhythms from the opening are even more powerful than before, but the second lyrical theme, now played by the flute and the horn to the soothing harmonies of the harp, has lost the edge it previously had and brings the movement to a peaceful, almost otherworldly close. The brief second-movement Scherzo brings some relief after the preceding drama. Its Ländler-like melodies again bespeak Mahler's influence, both in the Scherzo proper and the Trio, whose theme is played by a solo violin and then by the flute. The third movement is an expansive Largo in which the brass is silent and the violins are divided not into two sections as usual but three. It begins with an espressivo melody, scored for strings only. Two flutes and harp play the next subject, in which the first movement’s march rhythm is transformed into a lament. The oboe, the clarinet, and the flute intone desolate solo melodies, interspersed with a near-quote from a Russian Orthodox funeral chant, played by the strings. The tension grows and finally erupts, about two-thirds through the movement; the opening melody then returns in a passionate rendering by the cello section in a high register. At the end, the music falls back into the lament mode of the earlier woodwind passages. Generally accepted as the greatest of the symphony’s movements, the Largo was widely understood as a lament for the Soviet Army marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who fell victim to the Stalinist purges in 1937, at the very time Shostakovich was working on his symphony. (Tukhachevsky had been a benefactor and a personal friend of the composer’s.) At the first performance, many people wept openly during the Largo, perhaps thinking of their own loved ones who had disappeared. The last movement finally resolves the tensions that have built up in the first three movements (or so it seems at first) by introducing a march tune that is much simpler and more straightforward than most of the symphony's earlier themes. Yet after an exciting development, the music suddenly stops on a set of harsh fortissimo chords, and a slower, more introspective section begins with a haunting horn solo. Musicologist Richard Taruskin has shown that this section quotes from a song for voice and piano on a Pushkin poem (“Vozrozhdenie” or “Rebirth,” Op. 46, No.1) Shostakovich had written just before the Fifth Symphony. (“Delusions vanish from my wearied soul, and visions arise within it of pure primeval days” – says Pushkin’s poem.) This quiet intermezzo ends abruptly with the entrance of the timpani and snare drum, ushering in the recapitulation of the march tune, played at half its original tempo. Merely a shadow of its former self, the melody is elaborated contrapuntally until it suddenly alights on a bright D-major chord in full orchestral splendor, which then remains unchanged for more than a minute, until the end of the symphony.
The official interpretation of Fifth Symphony was propounded by the novelist Alexey Tolstoy, who, even though he was a count (and a relative of Lev Tolstoy) was loyal to the Soviet regime. In an influential article, Count Tolstoy viewed the symphony as a kind of musical Bildungsroman (a literary genre describing the a person’s evolution in terms of education, experience, social consciousness, etc.) This interpretation was echoed in an often-quoted article published under Shostakovich’s name but probably not written by him:
The theme of my symphony is the formation of a personality. At the center of the work’s conception I envisioned just that: a man in all his suffering… The symphony’s finale resolves the tense and tragic moments of the preceding movements in a joyous, optimistic fashion.
Yet critics – even Soviet ones -- have had an extremely hard time reconciling this with what they actually heard. The famous passage in Testimony, Shostakovich’s purported memoirs as edited (and significantly tampered with) by Solomon Volkov, reflects a radically different view:
It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing."
As Taruskin has noted, this interpretation was actually shared by many people present at the premiere, who had serious doubts about the “optimism” of the finale. To some, this was a flaw in the work, to others, its greatest strength and hidden message. On both sides of the political fence, it was felt that the finale did not entirely dispel the devastating effects of the third-movement Largo. As a matter of fact, writing a triumphant finale had never been an easy matter since Beethoven’s Fifth. That masterpiece has inspired later composers to devote their Fifth Symphonies to human tragedies on a large scale, as in the case of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Sibelius. Yet none of the finales in those symphonies can be described as unambiguously “triumphant” as Beethoven’s was, a fact that obviously cannot be blamed on politics alone. (Other reasons had to do with the pessimistic side of the Romantic mindset and the increasing complexity of the world surrounding the artist.) In Shostakovich’s case, at any rate, politics clearly complicated an already difficult artistic issue even further. The “meaning” of the music can rarely be put into words, and under normal circumstances, there would be no need to even try. The circumstances under which Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony were, however, far from normal. The powers-that-be demanded triumphant optimism of the composers, and failure to deliver it could result in severe criticism and worse. Even so, and despite the efforts of those who have tried to cast Shostakovich as either a Communist sympathizer or a secret dissident, the music resists simple black-and-white labels. Shostakovich’s generation had grown up around the time of the 1917 revolution and had never known a political reality other than Communism. In the 1920s, they naturally believed in the better world the Communists had promised. It did seem at first that the new power was in many ways a real improvement over the Czarist regime. Yet by the time of the Stalinist purges at the latest, many of the country’s best minds had become profoundly disillusioned, in view of the enormous sacrifices in human lives that the Party was trying to pass off as the price of progress. They were facing a horrible situation, but saw no viable political alternatives for the country. Voicing the slightest dissent with the regime, of course, resulted in instant deportation and, possibly, death. The irreconcilable conflict between hopes and realities was a defining factor of people’s mentalities, and perhaps Shostakovich’s Fifth can best be seen as a gripping expression of that ambivalence. |
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