DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Composed 1773-1775

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN

Thursday, May 25, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. at Berman Theater

Friday, May 26, 2023 at 8 p.m. at NorthRidge Church, Plymouth

Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 8 p.m. at Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church

Sunday, May 28, 2023 at 3 p.m. at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church

KATHARINA WINCOR, conductor

HAI-XIN WU, violin

Franz Joseph Haydn Symphony No. 64 in A major, (1732 - 1809) “Tempora mutantur”

I. Allegro con spirito

II. Largo

III. Menuet: Allegretto

IV. Presto

Henri Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No. 5 in A minor, Op. 37 (1820 - 1881)

I. Allegro non troppo

II. Adagio

III. Allegro con fuoco

Hai-Xin Wu, violin

Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, “Italian” (1809 - 1847)

I. Allegro vivace

II. Andante con moto

III. Con moto moderato

IV. Saltarello: Presto

B. March 31, 1732, Rohrau, Lower Austria

D. May 31, 1809, Vienna, Austria

Scored for 2 oboes, bassoon, 2 horns, and strings. (Approx. 21 minutes)

Thephrase Sturm und Drang is commonly used to refer to Haydn’s symphonies of the late 1760s and early 1770s. The French musicologist

Theodor de Wyzewa was the first to make the connection between a German literary movement, which took its name from a play by F.M. Klinger, and a group of highly individual Haydn symphonies, many of them, atypically, in minor keys. Since Wyzewa’s time, Haydn studies have made possible much more accurate dating of the symphonies, and it appears that most of his so-called Sturm und Drang works were composed well before the plays and novels that share the same sensibility. Nevertheless, the term is convenient, and suitable, as long as one does not assume that the inspiration of the symphonies is specifically literary. The musical antecedents of these crucial Haydn symphonies are no less important. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was significant, with his strangely juxtaposed chords, strong dynamic contrasts, and irregular rhythms. If one work can be singled out as a forerunner to the stormy minor-key symphonies of the 1760s and 1770s, it is the finale to Gluck’s ballet Don Juan, first produced in Vienna in 1761. So great was the impression this made that Boccherini modeled on it his D minor symphony, subtitled “the devil’s house,” incorporating great swaths of Gluck’s music. There was a fruitful exchange between the theater and the concert hall in these years, and recently, several of Haydn’s quirkier symphonies have proved to have been written in connection with theatrical productions.

Symphony No. 64 falls into the Sturm und Drang period, and though it is in a major key, it shares some of the characteristics of its companions, not least a literary background suggested in the nickname Haydn himself gave it. The words tempora mutantur, often found inscribed on sundials, come from the Welsh epigrammatist John Owen (1565-1622).

The 17th century translation of Thomas Harvey reads: “The Times are Chang’d, and in them Chang’d are we.” A modern scholar has fitted the Latin words, syllable by syllable, to the opening notes of the finale of Haydn’s symphony.

The symphony itself proclaims a change from what Haydn had written before, with its skeletal textures and sudden changes of dynamics. If the first movement is startling, the second is positively bizarre, with pauses for breath where the listener expects a chord to resolve, and melodies that hurtle unexpectedly into far regions. The menuet is filled with wide leaps and sudden stops, and the finale, in the words of Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon, is “one of the most atypical rondos of the period.”

The DSO most recently performed Haydn’s Symphony No. 64 in February 1998, conducted by Neeme Järvi.

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A minor, Op. 37

Composed 1858-1859 | Premiered September, 1861

B. February 17, 1820, Verviers, Belgium

D. June 6, 1881, Mustapha, Algeria

Scored for solo violin, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 20 minutes)

AfterPaganini, what was a violinist to do?

As a player, he had pushed technique to the limits, and as a composer of concertos, he had established the fiddle as a monarch, to which an orchestra could only bend the knee. There seemed to be only two avenues of escape: to turn one’s back on the whole Paganini enterprise, reasserting a Beethovian balance between soloist and orchestra (none dared this before Brahms, who was, significantly, not a violinist); or to accept the notion that the violin concerto was a framework for virtuoso display, a form of amusement, but on no account a serious musical gesture. Among the violinist-composers who followed Paganini, only one made a stab at reconciling the old concerto style and the new: the Belgian-born Henry Vieuxtemps. “The works he has written for his own instrument and orchestra are conspicuous examples of qualities once thought mutually excusive—brilliant technical display and sustained symphonic interest,” Berlioz wrote in his memoirs. “Beethoven was the first to find a successful solution to the problem of how to give a solo instrument full scope without reducing the orchestra to a minor role. Beethoven himself, it can be argued, let the orchestra overpower the soloist; whereas the plan adopted by Ernst, Vieuxtemps, Liszt, and one or two others seems to me to strike the balance exactly.”

Berlioz’s praise may seem overly generous today, but other critics of the time echoed him. When Vieuxtemps was 20, Schumann wrote that he “already stands so high that we can scarcely think of his future without experiencing a secret terror.” And in 1854, Hanslick said that “listening to Vieuxtemps is one of the greatest, most unqualified pleasures music has to offer,” going on to compare him with the sainted Joachim.

Who was this phenomenon who drew praise from all quarters? He was born into a family of weavers, his father being an amateur violinist as well. Vieuxtemps made his first public appearance at the age of six in his hometown of Verviers. He soon attracted the attention of Beriot, who took Vieuxtemps under him to Paris, where he made his debut in Rode’s Seventh Concerto.

The A minor concerto was written as a test piece for the Brussels Conservatory. Scintillating as the solo part is, it does not overwhelm the orchestra, and it is remarkably free from the sort of trickery that was Paganini’s stock-in-trade. In the Fourth Concerto, Vieuxtemps had begun to experiment with the traditional three-movement form, turning the first movement into a quasi-cadenza and adding a scherzo. In the Fifth, he joins all three movements into one.

Most of the weight falls on the first section, which corresponds roughly to the sonata-ritornello scheme of Classical tradition. There is no pretense of equality between the soloist and the orchestra, but Vieuxtemps treats the accompanying instruments so knowingly that the orchestra at least does not seem an intruder, as it often does in the Paganini concertos. After a cadenza supplied by the composer, there is a sentimental slow section from which excessive display is banished.

This leads directly to an extroverted final section that is too short to be called a movement, but which is psychologically just right, reestablishing the soloist’s virtuoso credentials without shifting the center of gravity too near the end. The DSO most recently performed Vieuxtemps’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in October 1985, conducted by Günther Herbig and featuring violinist Isabella Van Keulen. The DSO first performed the piece in March 1930, conducted Victor Kolar and featuring DSO concertmaster Ilya Schkolnik as soloist.

Composed 1833 | Premiered May 1833

B. February 3, 1809, Hamburg, Germany

D. November 4, 1847, Leipzig, Germany

Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 26 minutes)

Mendelssohn, the intrepid traveler, undertook a major tour of Europe between 1829 and 1831. At the suggestion of German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (great company indeed), the composer included Italy on this journey, and ended up remaining in the country for about a year and a half. A man of broad culture and education, Mendelssohn took an interest in everything Italy had to offer and used its endless inspiration as the base of his Fourth Symphony.

Completed two years after his return to Germany, Symphony No. 4 caused Mendelssohn (a perfectionist) great anguish—he was especially troubled by the final movement. Consequently, the work was never published or made widely available during the composer’s lifetime. Critics today champion the work’s brilliance, however, and it remains a favorite both among Mendelssohn’s works and in the whole of the orchestral literature.

The work’s first movement suggests inspirations from an Italian dance, the tarantella, with bright themes from the violins and woodwinds expressed in an updated Classical first-movement form. The second movement is reminiscent of an ancient pilgrim’s march, possibly drawing from Mendelssohn’s experience of religious processionals in the streets of Naples. The third movement is a smooth-flowing minuet, its principal idea framing a central “Trio” section featuring the horns. Vigorous rhythms in the Presto finale combined with minor- key harmonies suggest the saltarello, a 16th century Neapolitan country-dance. A sense of excitement is maintained as Mendelssohn uses long orchestral crescendos throughout the movement. There is a subdued reference to the melody that opened the symphony, before the movement concludes with a last glance at its dark initial theme.

The DSO most recently performed Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony in February 2017, conducted by Elim Chan. The DSO first performed the piece in November 1916, conducted by Weston Gales.