A Night to Remember



Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1756-1791

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Overture to Lucio Silla, K. 135

Of all musical genres during Mozart’s lifetime, opera was king. The combination of music and spectacle – often with high-tech stage machinery and special effects – was idealized since its “invention” at the turn of the seventeenth century as the vehicle through which to achieve artistic transcendence. By the end of the eighteenth, however, the nature of the plots (generally based on real or imagined events in Ancient Greek or Roman history) and musical structure (the regular alternation of recitative and da capo arias) had become formulaic. But the inherent quality of any given opera was immaterial since performance often served primarily as background music for socializing, eating, card playing and amorous assignations. Audiences did, however, sit up and take notice of their favorite singers, who had the standing of today’s rock stars. The late eighteenth century also saw the transition between castrato and female singers. Any composer with serious ambitions would have to crank out a steady stream of operas, and under the strict tutelage of his stage-door mom of a father, Mozart began composing for the operatic stage at the age of 11.

In December 1769 13-year-old Wolfgang set out with his father on his first Italian trip. Their first stop was Milan, where Wolfgang received a commission for his first opera seria, Mitridate, ré di Ponto, which was premiered with great success a year later. As a result he received a new commission for an opera, Lucio Silla, which was to open the city’s 1773 carnival season. He embarked on his last trip to Milan in October 1772 to work on the opera. His letters home gripe about his endless juggling of the demands of singers, librettist (an influential politician) and musicians, none of whom could have been thrilled taking direction from a teenager. Then there were the unrelated ballets, which were inserted between the acts. As was Mozart’s habit, the overture came last – by then he knew the capabilities of the orchestra he had to work with.

The plot concerns the Roman dictator Lucio Silla (Lucius Sulla) who lusts after Giunia, the daughter of his enemy Caius Marius, who in turn loves the exiled senator Cecilio.

The overture is in the conventional form of the Italian operatic sinfonia, with three separate movements. This structure, however, had already gone out of favor well before the time of Lucio Silla; why Mozart used it, or even whether it was by his own choice, is unknown. The Overture is a miniature symphony: the first movement is in sonata allegro form with a short development; the main theme serves two purposes: to complement the importance and historic nature of the libretto, as well as to generate sufficient noise to alert the audience to take their seats.

The Andante conforms to the traditional ternary (ABA) structure of slow movements. It opens with a minuet;

the middle, or B, section although short offers the expected emotive contrast,

and the return to the minuet is varied. The last movement is a fast-moving rondo.

The themes have no relation to the music in the opera.



Aaron Copland
1900-1990

Aaron Copland
Appalachian Spring

During his long career, Aaron Copland composed in many diverse styles. Among his output were scores for films (The Red Pony, Our Town, The Heiress), works incorporating jazz (Piano Concerto, Music for the Theater) and the 12-tone technique (Piano Quartet, Piano Fantasy). But in the mid-1930s he began to feel “an increasing dissatisfaction with the relation of the music-loving public and the living composer.” In order to reach a wider audience he started simplifying his style and making it more accessible, but without sacrificing sound artistic values. The first work in this more popular vein was El Salón Mexico, finished in 1936. This was followed by the works by which he is best known today: his three American ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Appalachian Spring.

Copland composed the original ballet Appalachian Spring in 1944 for the great pioneer of modern dance, Martha Graham, to be performed at an evening of modern ballet at the Library of Congress (Other ballets on the program were by Paul Hindemith and Darius Milhaud.) Copland originally named it "Ballet for Martha," but Graham gave it its final title after a poem by Hart Crane (although the ballet bears no relation to the text of the poem). The size limitations of the stage at the Library dictated a small ensemble; consequently the original version was scored for thirteen instruments only (flute, clarinet, bassoon, piano and strings). Soon after the successful premiere, however, Copland extracted a somewhat shortened suite for full orchestra from the ballet, which is the version most frequently heard today.

In the preface to the score of the Suite, Copland summarized the story of the ballet using the words of the New York Herald Tribune review by Eric Denby, written after the New York premiere: “...A pioneer celebration in spring around a newly-built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invites... A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”

The sections of the Suite merge into each other without pause, but reflect distinctly different moods. The haunting but peaceful opening

gives way suddenly to an outburst of excitement comprising several different musical motives, demonstrating the open octaves and fifths that became the trademark of Copland's style:

The dance of the bride and groom, based on the opening clarinet theme;

the preacher's dance;

and a dance for the bride alone.

After building up to a frenzied climax, a solo clarinet interrupts plaintively with the Shaker tune “Simple Gifts.”

Copland uses the song as the theme for the set of variations, which themselves increase in intensity as more and more instruments are added to each new variation. And then, with another sudden shift in mood, we are transported back to the quiet introduction, and the Suite ends as it began.

“Simple Gifts” was composed by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett, Jr., in 1848 for dancing during Shaker worship. Copland’s five variations never veer far from the original melody which he found in a 1940 collection of Shaker songs compiled by Edward D. Andrews. While the tune was certainly perfect for Graham’s choreography, it didn’t exactly fit the story line, as the Shakers themselves were dedicated to a life of celibacy.



Arthur Honegger
1892-1955

Arthur Honegger
Pastorale d'été

Arthur Honegger, the son of Swiss parents but born in France, has been described as "French by culture and adoption." In addition to his passion for all things French, Honegger – despite the anti-establishment dicta of his cronies – was greatly influenced by his exposure to German culture, acknowledging his debt to German music, especially the great works of Beethoven and Bach. He once said "I attach great importance to musical structure...I have a perhaps exaggerated tendency to look for polyphonic complexity. My great model is Johann Sebastian Bach."

Honegger was a member of Les six, the group of anti-establishment French composers who rejected the “false sublimity” of the impressionists. They claimed the right to express themselves in their own unique way without adhering to any musical or aesthetic creed. Indeed, their individual styles, as well as the genres through which they sought to express themselves, are diverse and immediately recognizable.

Honegger’s most enduring works are his oratorios, particularly Jeanne d’Arc au bucher (Joan of Arc at the stake), and 43 film scores, a medium little explored by his colleagues. His works are mostly tonal, spiked with idiosyncratic dissonances.

Inspired by a stay in the Swiss Alps in the summer of 1920, the symphonic poem Pastorale d'été (Summer pastoral) was Honegger’s first significant orchestral work. It is headed by a quotation from French nineteenth century poet Arthur Rimbaud: “J’ai embrassé l’aube d’été” (I have embraced the summer dawn). In its way, Pastorale d'été is more conservative than most of Debussy’s works.

The mood is that of a languid summer afternoon. A horn introduces both themes, perhaps in reference to the alpine horn associated with Switzerland.

. As if stirred by a slight breeze, the pace picks up slightly in the middle of the Pastorale.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 41 in C major. K. 551

Mozart composed his three last symphonies – or at least finished them – in the short span of 6 weeks in June-August 1788. In spite of the ceaseless flow of his musical output, he had composed no symphonies in the preceding two years, nor was he to write any in the following three, the last years of his life.

These three symphonies were not composed on commission but were probably written for a series of subscription concerts that Mozart planned for 1788-89 in Vienna and that apparently never materialized for lack of support. At this point in his career his star was already in decline despite the success of his two great operas in collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro. He was desperately in need of money – in large part because he was constitutionally unable to curb his extravagant spending habit. However, the notion that Mozart never heard these symphonies performed is the creation of nineteenth-century romanticism; in fact, Mozart probably scheduled the C Major symphony for a concert in Frankfurt in October 1790.

The three symphonies reflect very different moods, the darkest being that of No. 40. It is almost as if the tragedy of this symphony saw its resolution only the in triumph of “The Jupiter,” No. 41. The nickname "Jupiter" is a late addition by a hand unknown and mercifully forgotten, inspired probably by the majestic-sounding first movement. Olympian it may sound to us, but according to Eric Blom, Mozart borrowed the little auxiliary theme in G Major in the first movement from his comic bass arietta "Un bacio di mano" (K. 541), some of the words to which run, "You are a little dense, my dear Pompeo..."

Unlike No. 40, this symphony breaks no new ground either in form or content; its greatness lies not with its novelty but with its classic elegance. Despite the fact that he composed 41 symphonies, it was not the vehicle Mozart chose as an outlet for his greatest creative inspirations; many of them were among his earliest compositions. Haydn, on the other hand, was constantly tweaking the form throughout his long life to make each symphony different in some way – often even quirky.

Although Haydn was partial to the slow introduction, Mozart used the device rarely in his later symphonies, of the final three, only in No. 39. Number 41 begins with its own kind of contrast in microcosm – in the first few measures – with abrupt shift in dynamics and texture.

The movement proceeds to lay out two additional themes, both of which contain within theme transformations of motivic elements from the opening figure.

The second movement, marked Andante cantabile, is unusual for a slow movement in that it is in sonata form rather than the customary ABA song form. Instead, it incorporates the form with its contrasting B section into the exposition. The opening contains one of those ravishing Mozartian themes that begins with almost banal simplicity but concludes with gentle melancholy.

Mozart ramps up the drama with a second theme in the minor,

finally resolving the crisis in a closing theme. But the development opens the topic all over again.

Never one to write foot-stomping Ländler as was Haydn, Mozart created one of his most lyric and flowing minuet and trio movements for this Symphony. The Minuet features a legato descending chromatic motive that Mozart uses throughout the section.

In the Trio, by contrast, the upper winds play a tongued, detached theme.

As in the beginning of the Symphony there is a continual alternation between legato and staccato textures.

Of particular interest in Finale to the Symphony No 41 is Mozart’s use of the four-note opening motive of the final movement, which he then develops into a fugue.

When Mozart first presents the theme, he does not treat it contrapuntally and, therefore, finishes it off as if he were going to proceed with a rondo or sonata form movement.

This theme contains within it a decorated descending scale motive

that Mozart later combines contrapuntally with his principal subject.

Mozart was partial to his little four-note fugue subject and had previously used it in two masses and his B-flat Symphony K. 319 (No. 33). Other composers, mostly notably Felix Mendelssohn, used the motive as well, either in imitation of or tribute to the composer who was valued more after his death than during his lifetime.