PROGRAM NOTES

JOSHUA BELL

Mendelssohn grew fond of dovetailing the separate movements of his large-scale pieces, a device he had used to great effect in the two piano concertos of his maturity. He maintains that preference in this last of his orchestral works, such that the three movements connect into a single span. Subtle mirroring of tonal architecture and fleeting reminiscences of earlier themes at key moments of transition help invest a sense of the organic and inevitable in this most Classical of the great Romantic violin concertos.

The Cadenza

Most concertos include cadenzas, unaccompanied sections in which soloists demonstrate their technical prowess while manipulating themes from the body of the piece. In the 18th and veryearly-19th centuries these sections were usually improvised (at least ostensibly) by the soloist, but in the course of the 19th century it became normal for composers to write out their suggestions for cadenzas, allowing soloists to decide whether to follow those ideas or invent their own. Although Mendelssohn wrote out the first-movement cadenza in his E-minor Violin Concerto, he maintained an element of surprise by inserting it considerably earlier in the movement than one would expect—most first-movement cadenzas fall just before the end—and by dovetailing its beginning and end with the ongoing flow of the movement. When the score was published, it included not that original cadenza (which some consider too “brainy” in its contrapuntal complexity) but rather a slightly streamlined version adjusted by Ferdinand David (who played the work’s premiere), and it is David’s adaptation that remains standard today. Joshua Bell, however, has created his own cadenza, an option that honors the spirit of what cadenzas were intended to be and that invites audiences to listen with fresh ears..

—JMK

Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 Ludwig van Beethoven

First Performance: 11/25/1940

Conductor: Victor Alessandro

Last Performance: 11/20/2010

Conductor: Joel Levine

Born: Probably on December 16, 1770 (he was baptized on the 17th), in Bonn, then an independent electorate of Germany

Died: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria

Work composed: 1811 through April 13, 1812

Work premiered: December 8, 1813, at the University of Vienna, with Beethoven conducting

Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings

The Age of Beethoven coincided in large part with the Age of Napoleon. At the time it must have often seemed that Beethoven was wreaking as much havoc in the musical world of the early 19th century as Napoleon was in the political universe of the same time. Beethoven was enthusiastic about Napoleon at first, supposing that the Frenchman would abolish the aristocratic tyranny that reigned over Europe in favor of a more humanitarian social order. But in the spring of 1804, just as Beethoven completed his Third Symphony, intended as a symphonic tribute to Napoleon, news arrived that Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor, that the standard-bearer of republicanism had seized power as a dictator of absolutism. Beethoven’s fervor collapsed, and he famously scratched Napoleon’s name from the manuscript of what would from then on be dubbed the Sinfonia eroica.

Napoleon seemed unstoppable until 1812, when the tide began to turn. His armies were repulsed from Moscow