|
Fathers, Sons & Brothers
November 19, 2016, 7pm Broadmoor Community Church November 20, 2:30pm First Christian Church |
Michael Haydn Overture from Andromeda ed Perseo, MH438
Franz Joseph Haydn Symphony No. 92 in G Major “Oxford” Leopold Mozart Alto Trombone Concerto in D Major Bron Wright, alto trombone Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphony No. 28 in C Major, K.200 Pre-concert lecture 45 minutes prior to each concert with Dr. Michael Grace, Colorado College Mozart and Haydn both followed in their fathers’ footsteps. They found their own unique, artistic voice, but never lost sight of their families’ musical traditions. Rare works by Michael Haydn and Leopold Mozart set the stage for timeless classics by Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with a special appearance by the Philharmonic’s outstanding principal trombonist, Bron Wright.
|
Our Guest Artist: BRON WRIGHT, ALTO TROMBONIST
Bron Wright currently serves as Principal Trombone with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, the Boulder Philharmonic, Opera Colorado and Central City Opera orchestras. In 2013 he served as Principal Trombone of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver. In 2010 he served as 2nd trombonist of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans and in 2006 as Principal Trombone with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina. In addition, he has performed with the Utah Symphony and Tucson Symphony orchestras and is a member of the renowned Boulder Brass.
He has performed and toured on numerous occasions with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, Robert Spano, James Conlin, and Sir Neville Marriner; the Boston Pops Orchestra under John Williams and Keith Lockhart; and the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson-Thomas. He has received fellowships with such festivals as the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan; the American Russian Artists Orchestra in St. Petersburg, Russia; the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria; and the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, MA. As a soloist, Bron has toured to over 35 countries including China, South Africa, Egypt, Poland, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Thailand. In 1993, he was selected to perform as a soloist for Queen Noor and King Hussein at the Jerash International Music Festival in Amman, Jordan. In 2005 Bron was invited by conductor Yutaka Sado and the Leonard Bernstein Foundation to perform in Japan for the 60th Anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.
An avid supporter of new music, Bron has commissioned nearly a dozen works for solo trombone, brass quintet and voice. In 2002 he premiered two works for solo trombone written by his good friend and renowned composer Daniel Pinkham. In 2003 he recorded those works for the Arsis Audio label of Schirmer Publishing. Most recently, he performed the Colorado premiere of Takemitsu’s Trombone Concerto with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. As founder of the Huntington Brass Quintet, Bron has received numerous grants from Chamber Music America, The American Composer’s Forum, The National Endowment for the Arts and has been featured on National Public Radio. He has conducted master classes and seminars on such topics as “Arts Management” and “Performance Anxiety” at The New England Conservatory of Music, The University of Maryland, Longy School of Music, and The University of Texas at Austin.
Bron received his Bachelors Degree in 2001 from the New England Conservatory of Music during which time he served as 2nd Trombonist of the Boston Lyric Opera orchestra. While at NEC he studied with both Norman Bolter and Douglas Yeo of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has taught low brass at the University of Colorado Denver since 2007 and as Affiliate Instructor of Trombone at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 2014.
Bron spends much of his free time skiing and mountain biking Colorado’s backcountry. Upon moving to Colorado, Bron cycled all 34 mountain passes in one summer totaling nearly 1,000 miles and over 100,000 feet of elevation gain. In addition to his outdoor activities he also enjoys rehabbing houses and is currently building a future home in Colorado Springs with his wife, Nena.
Bron Wright currently serves as Principal Trombone with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, the Boulder Philharmonic, Opera Colorado and Central City Opera orchestras. In 2013 he served as Principal Trombone of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Denver. In 2010 he served as 2nd trombonist of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans and in 2006 as Principal Trombone with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina. In addition, he has performed with the Utah Symphony and Tucson Symphony orchestras and is a member of the renowned Boulder Brass.
He has performed and toured on numerous occasions with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, Robert Spano, James Conlin, and Sir Neville Marriner; the Boston Pops Orchestra under John Williams and Keith Lockhart; and the New World Symphony under Michael Tilson-Thomas. He has received fellowships with such festivals as the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan; the American Russian Artists Orchestra in St. Petersburg, Russia; the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria; and the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, MA. As a soloist, Bron has toured to over 35 countries including China, South Africa, Egypt, Poland, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Thailand. In 1993, he was selected to perform as a soloist for Queen Noor and King Hussein at the Jerash International Music Festival in Amman, Jordan. In 2005 Bron was invited by conductor Yutaka Sado and the Leonard Bernstein Foundation to perform in Japan for the 60th Anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.
An avid supporter of new music, Bron has commissioned nearly a dozen works for solo trombone, brass quintet and voice. In 2002 he premiered two works for solo trombone written by his good friend and renowned composer Daniel Pinkham. In 2003 he recorded those works for the Arsis Audio label of Schirmer Publishing. Most recently, he performed the Colorado premiere of Takemitsu’s Trombone Concerto with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. As founder of the Huntington Brass Quintet, Bron has received numerous grants from Chamber Music America, The American Composer’s Forum, The National Endowment for the Arts and has been featured on National Public Radio. He has conducted master classes and seminars on such topics as “Arts Management” and “Performance Anxiety” at The New England Conservatory of Music, The University of Maryland, Longy School of Music, and The University of Texas at Austin.
Bron received his Bachelors Degree in 2001 from the New England Conservatory of Music during which time he served as 2nd Trombonist of the Boston Lyric Opera orchestra. While at NEC he studied with both Norman Bolter and Douglas Yeo of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has taught low brass at the University of Colorado Denver since 2007 and as Affiliate Instructor of Trombone at Metropolitan State University of Denver since 2014.
Bron spends much of his free time skiing and mountain biking Colorado’s backcountry. Upon moving to Colorado, Bron cycled all 34 mountain passes in one summer totaling nearly 1,000 miles and over 100,000 feet of elevation gain. In addition to his outdoor activities he also enjoys rehabbing houses and is currently building a future home in Colorado Springs with his wife, Nena.
PROGRAM NOTES by Mark Arnest
Concert Overview
Genius can arise anywhere, of course, but when it does arise, nothing beats strong family support for developing it. The composers featured here, all of whom are Austrian, include one of music’s most famous father-and-son duos – Leopold and W.A. Mozart – and, in Joseph and Michael Haydn, one of its most famous pairs of siblings.
It’s unusual for a modern program to contain works that were all composed with this brief a time-frame: The earliest work is Leopold Mozart’s from 1756, a decade-and-a-half before his son and Joseph Haydn would perfect the Classical style; the latest is from 1789, and is one of that style’s masterpieces. While single-style programs are rare today, they were the norm at the time these pieces were composed. Indeed, at a concert in the 1780s it was rare to hear something as much as fifteen years old.
This repertoire is also a celebration of the sonata form, the Classical style’s most characteristic form. You’ll hear it in three movements each of the two symphonies (the exceptions are the minuets) and in the Michael Haydn overture, while the first movement of Leopold Mozart’s concerto is in the binary form that would evolve into the sonata.
There’s a textbook definition of the form – first theme, transition with change of key, second theme, closing theme, development section, recapitulation with all themes in the original key, coda – but a sonata is not a static sequence of elements, but a dynamic musical story. Unlike the preceding Baroque style (summed up in Bach's music), which generally establishes a groove and sticks to it, the Classical sonata gives us a changing world of varying moods and musical textures. It remains one of the most satisfying of musical forms.
Overview: Michael Haydn
Born Sept. 14, 1737, in Rohrau, Austria; died August 10 1806, Salzburg, Austria
Work Composed: 1787
Why It Matters: A rare performance of a piece by Joseph Haydn’s younger brother.
Some composers’ parents are remembered for the aid they gave their talented children. For instance, Leopold Mozart, besides the training he gave his brilliant son and daughter, also showcased them on lengthy tours. Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn rented orchestras to perform their prodigiously talented son Felix’s work at their house.
For Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright in the Austrian village of Rohrau, the greatest thing he and his wife Maria could do for their children was sending them away to realize their remarkable musical talents: They sent Joseph away when he was six, and his younger brother Michael when he was eight. Both sons became choirboys in Vienna’s St. Stephen's Cathedral. Neither would ever again live with their parents, though Mathias crucially intervened in Joseph’s life at least once again: He convinced his eldest son not to have the operation that would have turned him into a castrato – an adult male soprano.
Today, Michael Haydn is remembered – when he’s remembered at all – as the other Haydn. But during their lifetimes, he was widely respected, though not as highly regarded as his brother. Among those who admired him was Mozart, who preceded him as court musician for Count Hieronymus von Colloredo in Salzburg. (In an eerie parallel, Michael Haydn’s final, unfinished work – like Mozart’s – was a Requiem.)
Michael Haydn was not as prolific as his older brother, but he was prolific, especially in the genre of sacred music. He also composed over 40 symphonies and ten singspiels – operas with spoken dialogue. Andromeda ed Perseo is his only grand opera, requested by Colloredo to celebrate his 15th anniversary as Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.
This brief overture is in sonata form, with a first theme, a change of key that’s dramatized with a new theme, a suspense-building development section, and a recapitulation of the opening section with the change of key removed, rounding off the sense of a tonal journey. There are numerous short themes besides the two main ones, harkening back to the Galant style that had only recently evolved into Classicism. The central development section is brief: Haydn shifts most of the development into the recapitulation, adding new music both between the two main themes and in a surprisingly long coda.
Overview: Joseph Haydn
Born: March 31, 1732, Rohrau, Austria; died May 31, 1809, Vienna, Austria
Work Composed: 1789
Why It Matters: “With this work and Mozart’s Prague, the classical symphony finally attained the same seriousness and grandeur as the great public genres of the Baroque, oratorio and opera ... Haydn equalled but never surpassed the Oxford Symphony.” – Charles Rosen
From 1757 until 1790, Joseph Haydn worked as a Kapellmeister – music director – for Austrian princes, first the Count Morzin, and later (and more famously) for the Esterházy family. At first, his work was the property of his employers, but in 1779, he acquired the rights to his subsequent compositions, and in the following decade became famous throughout Europe – which turned out to be crucial for Haydn, because in 1790, the Esterházy orchestra was disbanded. At the age of 58, Haydn became a musical freelancer.
He was promptly invited by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon to visit London for a series of concerts. Haydn would compose his final dozen symphonies – the “London” symphonies – for these concerts; but despite its English title, the “Oxford” symphony is not one of them. It was commissioned by the French Count d'Ogny, who also commissioned symphonies 82-87 and 90-91, and premiered in Paris in 1789. But in July 1791, when Haydn needed a symphony to celebrate being awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford, it was the newest and best symphony he had at his disposal. Thus its famous but misleading title.
Of Haydn’s late works, Charles Rosen wrote, “There is not a measure, even the most serious, of these great works which is not marked by Haydn’s wit; and his wit has now grown so powerful and so efficient that it has become a sort of passion, a force at once omnivorous and creative.” The “Oxford” symphony abounds with examples of Haydn’s wit, beginning with its main theme, which has a charming effect by sneaking in on an unexpected chord.
The first movement is richly imaginative, beginning with a tender introduction that leads seamlessly to the opening theme. (It also foreshadows several important thematic elements, including the first theme’s falling scale and the second theme’s repeated-note upbeats.) Haydn’s sonata forms are often misleadingly described as “monothematic.” In fact, there are always multiple themes, as with other composers’ sonata forms; however, it is true that Haydn often uses his main theme in two different places – both to highlight the first key area, and also to highlight the beginning of the new key, where most composers use a new theme.
This movement combines elements of both approaches. The first theme is divided into two halves – the unexpected chord, which accompanies a falling scale fragment; and a bold leap upwards over the more usual tonic chord. The second theme borrows the first theme’s falling scale fragment but continues with an entirely different theme that’s characterized by three upbeats. The development section is elaborate, but not elaborate enough to exhaust Haydn’s inventiveness: He adds a secondary development section in the middle of the recapitulation.
The second movement is in an A-B-A form, with a charming melody on either side of a comparatively stormy middle section. The orchestration is delicate and colorful, especially considering that there are no clarinets, which Haydn would not begin using until Symphony No. 99. For instance, you’ll hear the opening theme played first by violins, later by violins plus flute, and still later by violins plus oboe. Each change both changes the melody’s color and increases its intensity.
Pianist/musicologist Charles Rosen called the minuet “the greatest of all practical jokes in music,” and its central trio “high farce,” as Haydn makes it difficult to know where the downbeat lies.
On paper, the finale is is another of Haydn’s “monothematic” sonata forms, but it displays Haydn’s seemingly inexhaustible formal imagination. The second theme area is tonally unstable, and Haydn doesn’t give us the satisfaction of a cadence in the key of D until the very end of the exposition. As is often the case with Haydn, the simpler and more rustic the theme, the more complex the hoops through which he makes it jump. Here it’s the development section, which begins with short phrases separated by long rests, and continues with a masterful display of Haydn’s contrapuntal skill.
Overview: Leopold Mozart
Born November 14, 1719, Augsburg, Austria, died May 28, 1787, Salzburg, Austria
Work Composed: 1756
Why It Matters: A document from the brief florescence of trombone music in the mid-18th Century
Modern Americans, if they have any sense of Leopold Mozart as a person, probably know him as the unseen but terrifying father in Peter Schaffer’s play – and especially Miloš Forman’s movie – “Amadeus.” The real Leopold was a hard-working musician of no outstanding talent, who had a special interest in pedagogy – the year of Wolfgang’s birth Leopold published a treatise on violin playing that became enormously influential – and who hit the jackpot with his children, the extraordinarily precious Wolfgang Amadeus and his not-much-less-talented older sister, Nannerl.
Hermann Abert, in his massive biography Wolfgang, describes Leopold as tenacious to the point of stubbornness, shrewd, and “forever trying to gain a clearer understanding of people and their lives, the better to be able to use them for his own advantage, and as a result gradually coming to despise and, finally, to hate his fellow human beings.”
Of Leopold’s relationship with his famous son, we have little besides inference and conjecture. Wolfgang often wrote to his father, but never about him, aside from a brief reference to Leopold’s death in a letter to a friend: “I inform you that on returning home today I received the sad news of my most beloved father's death. You can imagine the state I am in.”
The Trombone Concerto was not conceived as a concerto; rather, it consists of three movements pulled from a nine-movement serenade. It exists because in 1756 Mozart came into contact with Thomas Gschladt, an Austrian trombonist sufficiently remarkable that until recently musicologists thought one of the concertos composed for him must have actually been composed for French horn. Leopold Mozart honored him with what was at that time a decidedly difficult trombone part. Aware of what a special talent Gschladt was, Leopold wrote in the manuscript of the serenade, “In the absence of a good trombonist, a good violinist can play it on the viola.”
Considering its origins as movements of a serenade and its date – a few years before the forms we associate with the Classical period became standardized – it’s not surprising that the first movement lacks the double-exposition concerto form we associate with Leopold’s son. Instead, it’s a standard binary form, with a modulation to the dominant, a brief development section, and a return to the opening key. It’s appealing, but doesn’t have the sense of drive or drama that Haydn and the younger Mozart would bring to the mature sonata form.
The second movement successfully plays against type, presenting the trombone in an uncharacteristically lyrical, even melancholy mood. The third movement is somewhat anticlimactic: It was not originally the serenade’s finale, and doesn’t have the zest usually associated with finales. It’s in an A-B-A form, with the trombone playing only in the minor-key middle section.
Overview: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria, died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria
Work Composed: 1773 or 1774
Why It Matters:
From the standpoint of programming, Mozart is his own worst enemy. His output is so vast, and of such consistently high quality, that many excellent pieces get neglected in favor of even better ones. Thus it’s rare to hear live performances of any of the first 34 symphonies.
Symphony No. 28 was composed between November 12 and 17 of either 1773 or 1774 (the year on the manuscript has been tampered with; 1774 is more likely). Mozart was still a teenager, but already a master. As is common in music of this era, the opening theme has two contrasting parts: A proclamatory two-bar descending arpeggio followed by a quietly playful four-bar phrase. Irregular phrase lengths keep listeners on their toes, and Mozart overlaps phrases in such a way that the music doesn’t pause for breath until the relaxed second theme.
The delicate Andante is also in sonata form, though it’s more straightforward. Effective use of the brass in the good-humored Minuet makes for a strong contrast with the central trio. The work’s most memorable movement is the rollicking finale – bursting with rhythmic energy as it delights in strong dynamic contrasts. It’s another sonata form, with Mozart preparing for the genial second theme with an impressive build-up followed by a brief but dramatic pause.
Mozart would get better: His themes would acquire greater individuality, his textures would get richer, his formal sense more expansive and adventurous, and his instrumentation – especially for woodwinds – bolder. But Mozart’s craftsmanship is already impeccable. Transitions – one of the most challenging components of a composer’s technique – are masterfully handled. And we hear Mozart beginning to weave the complex yet transparent thematic webs that unify many of his later compositions.
For instance, the stepwise rising third from the first theme’s second phrase reappears, transformed, in the second theme, while the third movement’s trio and the finale’s main theme are also subtly related to the same theme. A motive in the first movement’s development section looks as if it’s brand new, but Mozart has created it by combining two motifs from the exposition, one from the French horns and the other from the first violins. This is the sort of thing to which Mozart biographer Hermann Abert was referring when he wrote of this group of symphonies that “the desire to impose a sense of conceptual unity on all four movements is particularly noticeable here.”
Concert Overview
Genius can arise anywhere, of course, but when it does arise, nothing beats strong family support for developing it. The composers featured here, all of whom are Austrian, include one of music’s most famous father-and-son duos – Leopold and W.A. Mozart – and, in Joseph and Michael Haydn, one of its most famous pairs of siblings.
It’s unusual for a modern program to contain works that were all composed with this brief a time-frame: The earliest work is Leopold Mozart’s from 1756, a decade-and-a-half before his son and Joseph Haydn would perfect the Classical style; the latest is from 1789, and is one of that style’s masterpieces. While single-style programs are rare today, they were the norm at the time these pieces were composed. Indeed, at a concert in the 1780s it was rare to hear something as much as fifteen years old.
This repertoire is also a celebration of the sonata form, the Classical style’s most characteristic form. You’ll hear it in three movements each of the two symphonies (the exceptions are the minuets) and in the Michael Haydn overture, while the first movement of Leopold Mozart’s concerto is in the binary form that would evolve into the sonata.
There’s a textbook definition of the form – first theme, transition with change of key, second theme, closing theme, development section, recapitulation with all themes in the original key, coda – but a sonata is not a static sequence of elements, but a dynamic musical story. Unlike the preceding Baroque style (summed up in Bach's music), which generally establishes a groove and sticks to it, the Classical sonata gives us a changing world of varying moods and musical textures. It remains one of the most satisfying of musical forms.
Overview: Michael Haydn
Born Sept. 14, 1737, in Rohrau, Austria; died August 10 1806, Salzburg, Austria
Work Composed: 1787
Why It Matters: A rare performance of a piece by Joseph Haydn’s younger brother.
Some composers’ parents are remembered for the aid they gave their talented children. For instance, Leopold Mozart, besides the training he gave his brilliant son and daughter, also showcased them on lengthy tours. Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn rented orchestras to perform their prodigiously talented son Felix’s work at their house.
For Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright in the Austrian village of Rohrau, the greatest thing he and his wife Maria could do for their children was sending them away to realize their remarkable musical talents: They sent Joseph away when he was six, and his younger brother Michael when he was eight. Both sons became choirboys in Vienna’s St. Stephen's Cathedral. Neither would ever again live with their parents, though Mathias crucially intervened in Joseph’s life at least once again: He convinced his eldest son not to have the operation that would have turned him into a castrato – an adult male soprano.
Today, Michael Haydn is remembered – when he’s remembered at all – as the other Haydn. But during their lifetimes, he was widely respected, though not as highly regarded as his brother. Among those who admired him was Mozart, who preceded him as court musician for Count Hieronymus von Colloredo in Salzburg. (In an eerie parallel, Michael Haydn’s final, unfinished work – like Mozart’s – was a Requiem.)
Michael Haydn was not as prolific as his older brother, but he was prolific, especially in the genre of sacred music. He also composed over 40 symphonies and ten singspiels – operas with spoken dialogue. Andromeda ed Perseo is his only grand opera, requested by Colloredo to celebrate his 15th anniversary as Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.
This brief overture is in sonata form, with a first theme, a change of key that’s dramatized with a new theme, a suspense-building development section, and a recapitulation of the opening section with the change of key removed, rounding off the sense of a tonal journey. There are numerous short themes besides the two main ones, harkening back to the Galant style that had only recently evolved into Classicism. The central development section is brief: Haydn shifts most of the development into the recapitulation, adding new music both between the two main themes and in a surprisingly long coda.
Overview: Joseph Haydn
Born: March 31, 1732, Rohrau, Austria; died May 31, 1809, Vienna, Austria
Work Composed: 1789
Why It Matters: “With this work and Mozart’s Prague, the classical symphony finally attained the same seriousness and grandeur as the great public genres of the Baroque, oratorio and opera ... Haydn equalled but never surpassed the Oxford Symphony.” – Charles Rosen
From 1757 until 1790, Joseph Haydn worked as a Kapellmeister – music director – for Austrian princes, first the Count Morzin, and later (and more famously) for the Esterházy family. At first, his work was the property of his employers, but in 1779, he acquired the rights to his subsequent compositions, and in the following decade became famous throughout Europe – which turned out to be crucial for Haydn, because in 1790, the Esterházy orchestra was disbanded. At the age of 58, Haydn became a musical freelancer.
He was promptly invited by the impresario Johann Peter Salomon to visit London for a series of concerts. Haydn would compose his final dozen symphonies – the “London” symphonies – for these concerts; but despite its English title, the “Oxford” symphony is not one of them. It was commissioned by the French Count d'Ogny, who also commissioned symphonies 82-87 and 90-91, and premiered in Paris in 1789. But in July 1791, when Haydn needed a symphony to celebrate being awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford, it was the newest and best symphony he had at his disposal. Thus its famous but misleading title.
Of Haydn’s late works, Charles Rosen wrote, “There is not a measure, even the most serious, of these great works which is not marked by Haydn’s wit; and his wit has now grown so powerful and so efficient that it has become a sort of passion, a force at once omnivorous and creative.” The “Oxford” symphony abounds with examples of Haydn’s wit, beginning with its main theme, which has a charming effect by sneaking in on an unexpected chord.
The first movement is richly imaginative, beginning with a tender introduction that leads seamlessly to the opening theme. (It also foreshadows several important thematic elements, including the first theme’s falling scale and the second theme’s repeated-note upbeats.) Haydn’s sonata forms are often misleadingly described as “monothematic.” In fact, there are always multiple themes, as with other composers’ sonata forms; however, it is true that Haydn often uses his main theme in two different places – both to highlight the first key area, and also to highlight the beginning of the new key, where most composers use a new theme.
This movement combines elements of both approaches. The first theme is divided into two halves – the unexpected chord, which accompanies a falling scale fragment; and a bold leap upwards over the more usual tonic chord. The second theme borrows the first theme’s falling scale fragment but continues with an entirely different theme that’s characterized by three upbeats. The development section is elaborate, but not elaborate enough to exhaust Haydn’s inventiveness: He adds a secondary development section in the middle of the recapitulation.
The second movement is in an A-B-A form, with a charming melody on either side of a comparatively stormy middle section. The orchestration is delicate and colorful, especially considering that there are no clarinets, which Haydn would not begin using until Symphony No. 99. For instance, you’ll hear the opening theme played first by violins, later by violins plus flute, and still later by violins plus oboe. Each change both changes the melody’s color and increases its intensity.
Pianist/musicologist Charles Rosen called the minuet “the greatest of all practical jokes in music,” and its central trio “high farce,” as Haydn makes it difficult to know where the downbeat lies.
On paper, the finale is is another of Haydn’s “monothematic” sonata forms, but it displays Haydn’s seemingly inexhaustible formal imagination. The second theme area is tonally unstable, and Haydn doesn’t give us the satisfaction of a cadence in the key of D until the very end of the exposition. As is often the case with Haydn, the simpler and more rustic the theme, the more complex the hoops through which he makes it jump. Here it’s the development section, which begins with short phrases separated by long rests, and continues with a masterful display of Haydn’s contrapuntal skill.
Overview: Leopold Mozart
Born November 14, 1719, Augsburg, Austria, died May 28, 1787, Salzburg, Austria
Work Composed: 1756
Why It Matters: A document from the brief florescence of trombone music in the mid-18th Century
Modern Americans, if they have any sense of Leopold Mozart as a person, probably know him as the unseen but terrifying father in Peter Schaffer’s play – and especially Miloš Forman’s movie – “Amadeus.” The real Leopold was a hard-working musician of no outstanding talent, who had a special interest in pedagogy – the year of Wolfgang’s birth Leopold published a treatise on violin playing that became enormously influential – and who hit the jackpot with his children, the extraordinarily precious Wolfgang Amadeus and his not-much-less-talented older sister, Nannerl.
Hermann Abert, in his massive biography Wolfgang, describes Leopold as tenacious to the point of stubbornness, shrewd, and “forever trying to gain a clearer understanding of people and their lives, the better to be able to use them for his own advantage, and as a result gradually coming to despise and, finally, to hate his fellow human beings.”
Of Leopold’s relationship with his famous son, we have little besides inference and conjecture. Wolfgang often wrote to his father, but never about him, aside from a brief reference to Leopold’s death in a letter to a friend: “I inform you that on returning home today I received the sad news of my most beloved father's death. You can imagine the state I am in.”
The Trombone Concerto was not conceived as a concerto; rather, it consists of three movements pulled from a nine-movement serenade. It exists because in 1756 Mozart came into contact with Thomas Gschladt, an Austrian trombonist sufficiently remarkable that until recently musicologists thought one of the concertos composed for him must have actually been composed for French horn. Leopold Mozart honored him with what was at that time a decidedly difficult trombone part. Aware of what a special talent Gschladt was, Leopold wrote in the manuscript of the serenade, “In the absence of a good trombonist, a good violinist can play it on the viola.”
Considering its origins as movements of a serenade and its date – a few years before the forms we associate with the Classical period became standardized – it’s not surprising that the first movement lacks the double-exposition concerto form we associate with Leopold’s son. Instead, it’s a standard binary form, with a modulation to the dominant, a brief development section, and a return to the opening key. It’s appealing, but doesn’t have the sense of drive or drama that Haydn and the younger Mozart would bring to the mature sonata form.
The second movement successfully plays against type, presenting the trombone in an uncharacteristically lyrical, even melancholy mood. The third movement is somewhat anticlimactic: It was not originally the serenade’s finale, and doesn’t have the zest usually associated with finales. It’s in an A-B-A form, with the trombone playing only in the minor-key middle section.
Overview: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria, died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria
Work Composed: 1773 or 1774
Why It Matters:
From the standpoint of programming, Mozart is his own worst enemy. His output is so vast, and of such consistently high quality, that many excellent pieces get neglected in favor of even better ones. Thus it’s rare to hear live performances of any of the first 34 symphonies.
Symphony No. 28 was composed between November 12 and 17 of either 1773 or 1774 (the year on the manuscript has been tampered with; 1774 is more likely). Mozart was still a teenager, but already a master. As is common in music of this era, the opening theme has two contrasting parts: A proclamatory two-bar descending arpeggio followed by a quietly playful four-bar phrase. Irregular phrase lengths keep listeners on their toes, and Mozart overlaps phrases in such a way that the music doesn’t pause for breath until the relaxed second theme.
The delicate Andante is also in sonata form, though it’s more straightforward. Effective use of the brass in the good-humored Minuet makes for a strong contrast with the central trio. The work’s most memorable movement is the rollicking finale – bursting with rhythmic energy as it delights in strong dynamic contrasts. It’s another sonata form, with Mozart preparing for the genial second theme with an impressive build-up followed by a brief but dramatic pause.
Mozart would get better: His themes would acquire greater individuality, his textures would get richer, his formal sense more expansive and adventurous, and his instrumentation – especially for woodwinds – bolder. But Mozart’s craftsmanship is already impeccable. Transitions – one of the most challenging components of a composer’s technique – are masterfully handled. And we hear Mozart beginning to weave the complex yet transparent thematic webs that unify many of his later compositions.
For instance, the stepwise rising third from the first theme’s second phrase reappears, transformed, in the second theme, while the third movement’s trio and the finale’s main theme are also subtly related to the same theme. A motive in the first movement’s development section looks as if it’s brand new, but Mozart has created it by combining two motifs from the exposition, one from the French horns and the other from the first violins. This is the sort of thing to which Mozart biographer Hermann Abert was referring when he wrote of this group of symphonies that “the desire to impose a sense of conceptual unity on all four movements is particularly noticeable here.”
