Basel Chamber - Program Notes 92Y

BASEL CHAMBER/ANDERSZEWSKI program notes

FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT Born in Vienna, January 31, 1797 Died in Vienna, November 19, 1828 SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN B-FLAT MAJOR, D. 485 Composed in 1816; 30 minutes

Schubert enjoyed a childhood rich with music—singing in the court choir, playing string quartets with his family, and participating in the school orchestra—and he began composing around the age of 12 or 13. Like his father and brothers, he trained as a teacher, and at 17 he began working as a teaching assistant at an elite Viennese school, while also keeping up twice-weekly composition lessons with Antonio Salieri.

Schubert’s accomplishments in the next two years must rank as the greatest growth spurt in musical history: he composed some 300 songs, plus four symphonies, three masses, five musical dramas, three string quartets, three violin sonatas and dozens of other works. This flurry all come before Schubert reached his 20th birthday, while he was working full-time, and before the Viennese public had seen or heard a single note of his music.

Schubert completed the Symphony in B-flat Major on October 3, 1816. Aside from a private reading that fall, the symphony sat dormant until long after his death, with the first public performance mounted in 1841, and the published score only appearing in 1885. Of all of Schubert’s symphonies, finished and unfinished, this is the only one that omits clarinets, trumpets and timpani from the orchestration, essentially turning back the clock to the symphonic customs of the 1780s. Schubert’s crisp musical material matches the economical scoring, with a first theme built out of a two-measure cell, and a second theme that incorporates the same distinctive rhythm from the earlier motive.

The slow movement becomes more expansive in its melodies, and a contrasting section that moves to a surprising key has Schubert’s clear imprint, with singing themes set over pulsing accompaniments as found in many of his lieder. The Menuetto is quick and boisterous enough to qualify as a scherzo, Beethoven’s rowdy answer to Haydn’s more polite minuets, while the key of G-minor recalls Mozart’s stormy Symphony No. 40. The finale closes the symphony on a lively note, honoring Schubert’s debt to the masters of the previous generation.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born in Salzburg, January 27, 1756 Died in Vienna, December 5, 1791 PIANO CONCERTO NO. 12 IN A MAJOR, K. 414 Composed in 1782; 25 minutes

Fed up with his hometown of Salzburg and unable to find a suitable job elsewhere, the 25-yearold Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781. It didn’t take long for the onetime child prodigy to gain notice as the best keyboard player in the city, and he built up a loyal following of patrons who subscribed to his self-produced concerts. His piano concertos proved to be his greatest draw,

leading him to compose and introduce 15 of them (out of a lifetime total of 27) just in the period from 1782 to 1786.

The Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414 was the first Mozart created wholly in Vienna.

Later he packaged this concerto and two others from the same period for publication, advertising that the concertos could be played with just a string quartet accompanying the piano, in an attempt to appeal to amateurs who wouldn’t be able to muster an orchestra at home.

The elegant first movement, starting from the quiet opening of its initial tutti section, develops the type of singing melodies that Mozart, the consummate opera composer, transferred into his piano concertos. The oboes and horns add noble flourishes and extra emphasis to points of arrival without carrying any responsibility so great that their absence would disrupt the proceedings.

For the central Andante, Mozart began with a tender quotation from an opera overture by J. C. Bach, who had died earlier in the year. Back when Mozart was a seven-year-old prodigy passing through London in 1763, he had struck up an influential and lasting friendship with J. S. Bach’s youngest son, whose balance and refinement helped define what we now know as the Classical style. Mozart’s recent encounters with the all-but-forgotten fugues of the elder Bach made their mark on the finale of the A-Major Concerto, with its imitative counterpoint in the piano writing and stark unison phrases from the strings.

HEINZ HOLLIGER Born in Langenthal, Switzerland, May 21, 1939 META ARCA Composed in 2012; 9 minutes

While Heinz Holliger was launching his international career as an oboe virtuoso, the young Swiss musician continued to study composition with Pierre Boulez, reinforcing the sense of rigor and symmetry he had developed in his earlier lessons with Sándor Veress, a Bartók disciple. Holliger also added conducting to his resume, including guest appearances with the Basel Chamber Orchestra, and he has continued to compose new music that reflects a performer’s sensitivity to how individuals and ensembles generate sound.

Holliger created Meta arca in 2012 for Camerata Bern, another Swiss chamber orchestra. This chamber concerto for solo violin and strings pays homage to six former concertmasters of that orchestra, with their initials tied to particular gestures in the highly virtuosic solo part. Even the ensemble parts are quite individualistic, with separate lines for the 12 other strings (plus an option to double the second cello and bass), and each participant is asked to execute complex slides, plucks, harmonics and other exacting methods of tone production. After so many otherworldly sounds, it is all the more surprising when the music descends into a slow, tipsy waltz.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART PIANO CONCERTO NO. 17 IN G MAJOR, K. 453

Composed in 1784; 29 minutes

The log of compositions Mozart began keeping early in 1784 provides a staggering snapshot of his working life at the peak of his popularity in Vienna. He made his first entry on February 9, the day he completed the Piano Concerto in E-flat, K. 449 for his student Barbara von Ployer. He logged another new concerto on March 15, and yet another the next week, followed the week after that by the massive Quintet for Piano and Winds. He polished off one more concerto about two weeks later, again for Barbara von Ployer, and since he wouldn’t be performing it himself, he had the added task of writing out cadenzas he ordinarily would have improvised.

Ployer performed the latest concerto on June 13 at her home, with a private orchestra hired for the occasion. Mozart joined his student to perform a challenging sonata for two pianos (K. 448), in what amounted to just another day in the dizzying concert life of Vienna’s leading composer/performer. Mozart must have managed at least a little leisure time during this stretch, because on May 27 he bought a pet starling. He was delighted when it learned to repeat back the finale’s opening theme from the latest concerto.

The Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453 begins with an unexpected measure of bare violins, with the accompaniment joining in at the second measure. Echoes of this delayed impact ripple throughout the movement, as heard in accompaniment figures that omit the first beat, phrases that accent the second measure and melodies that resolve suspensions on the offbeat.

The Andante movement channels the operatic side of Mozart, with achingly beautiful tunes, well-timed pauses and dramatic mood changes that travel to unexpected keys. The finale, opening with that starling’s favorite tune, starts out charming and a little dainty, in line with the image of Mozart’s teenaged protégé at the piano. But Ployer was a serious talent, and Mozart’s trust in her can be deduced through the diverse and sprightly variations that cap the concerto.

© 2019 Aaron Grad