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Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527 Throughout his short career, Mozart wrote nearly 20 operas, many of which – especially the three with libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosí fan tutte – changed the face of opera forever and raised the bar for future composers. By the time Mozart died, the old form of the opera seria, with its formulaic libretti, strict dramatic and musical constraints, the casting of castrati as the hero/lovers and the proliferation of da capo (ABA) arias, was dead as well. Mozart’s groundbreaking operas demanded new ears and open minds; their plots often challenged the accepted social and political order; and the music blossomed into a wealth of new aria forms and stunning ensembles. Many poets, playwrights and composers have tackled the popular story of Don Juan, the rake who seduced his way across Europe only to end up dragged into hell unrepentant by the statue of the murdered father of one of his victims. Mozart composed his opera Don Giovanni in 1787 on a commission from Prague, subtitling it “A Comic Opera.” In reality, Da Ponte and Mozart made the opera as amusing as possible within a serious dramatic setting, transforming the mood of the source play, El burlador de Sevilla (The Trickster of Seville) by seventeenth century playwright Tirso de Molina. Maintaining this balance has always been the challenge to conductors and stage directors. This concise overture to one of the greatest musical dramas ever composed, manages to convey the intensity of the drama, and hint at its highlights, without giving away the elements of surprise and excitement of the music and the action. Mozart combines “atmospheric” music reflecting both the horrific and comic elements in the opera but most of it not taken from the opera itself. The Overture opens with a sustained chord for the entire orchestra in d minor, portending the doom of the hero.  Unlike his other opera overtures, however, he incorporates one theme from the opera itself, the sweeping scales that accompany the denouement as the Commendatore drags Don Giovanni down to Hell. After setting up the tragedy, Mozart then goes on to lighten the mood, although still not suggesting broad comedy. Don Giovanni, after all, is only "comic" in the sense that by the end, the villain gets his just deserts and the majority of the rest of the cast is still alive. | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Exsultate, Jubilate, K. 165 A native of the provincial town of Salzburg in Austria, Mozart disliked the atmosphere of his hometown where he settled reluctantly as one of a number of low-level musical employees of the church. He considered Salzburg reactionary, narrow-minded and stifling. The election in 1772 of the autocratic Hieronymus, Count Colloredo as the new Archbishop, kicked off a running war between the two that lasted nearly a decade. Colloredo valued the exceptional talents of the Mozarts – both father and son – but was domineering and controlling. Wolfgang bridled under Colloredo’s rigid rule, escaping Salzburg whenever he could to tour Europe, openly – but unsuccessfully – seeking a better job in more culturally congenial environment. Nevertheless, while in Salzburg, he composed many works for his city and unsympathetic master. The motet Exsultate, Jubilate is one of Mozart's most well known and popular works – even for a composer with a slew of listings on the classical top 100. The final movement of this three-part work, "Alleluia," has been trotted out to celebrate joyous occasions from weddings to peace treaties. Mozart composed Exsultate, Jubilate in 1773 for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, who had also starred in Mozart's opera Lucio Silla. Both the motet and the opera seria were written during the twilight of the age when castrati ruled the operatic stage. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most operatic roles – both male and female – were performed by castrati, who as boys had been emasculated when they showed outstanding talent as sopranos or altos. When – and if – they were properly trained into adulthood, the castrati displayed amazing vocal power and flexibility. They also commanded exorbitant fees – probably in exchange for their childhood sacrifice. Although unable to sire children, castrati were often "safe" lovers for society women. Despite the Catholic Church’s official disapproval, until the mid nineteenth century castrati were the mainstay of major cathedral choirs, including the Sistine Chapel. Exsultate, Jubilate has been described as a vocal concerto because its structure resembles the instrumental concerto more closely than it does the operatic scena or cantata. As with nearly all vocal music of this period, each new idea in the text receives its own musical treatment. After an instrumental introduction, the soprano repeats the principal theme on the opening words, “Exsultate, jubilate,O vos anime beate” , then progressing to new music for the new text, “Dulcia cantica canendo.” As if she were an instrument, the soprano gets a true cadenza. The recitative that precedes the next section is common practice in cantatas; as in opera, the recitative moves the story along while the arias handle the emotions. The following slower section is a prayer for peace, addressed to the Virgin Mary. Once gain, the orchestra introduces the theme before the soprano enters. The word “alleluia” defies an exact translation; since the early history of the Church, it has been used as an exclamation of joy. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Symphony No. 4 in G major Gustav Mahler, one of the last great figures of the late Romantic movement, was at the same time one of the harbingers of twentieth-century music. Despite his conversion to Roman Catholicism, his Jewish birth and volatile, eccentric, hypochondriacal personality made him a social misfit. Most of Mahler’s music expresses his battle against fate and the uncertainty of existence – which may explain how he could have written two of the Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children) immediately following the birth of his second daughter. In spite of his difficult personality, his brilliant conducting outweighed his negative qualities and his star rose fast. Born to a Jewish family in a small town in what is now the Czech Republic, Mahler showed early musical gifts. He entered the Vienna Conservatory at age 15 and in the summer of 1880, at 20, he landed the first of a series of minor conducting jobs in a summer theater in Austria, an apprenticeship which was essential for advancement in the world of opera. From 1891 to 1897, he was conductor at the Hamburg Opera and in 1894, of the subscription concerts there as well. By 1897 he was named Kapellmeister and then Director of the most prestigious musical organization of the time, the Vienna Hofoper. He left the post in acrimony in 1907, the result of Vienna’s virulent anti-Semitism and Mahler’s abrasive personality. Such a meteoric rise and hectic schedule left little time for composing, usually only during the summer recess. Mahler nevertheless completed nine massive symphonies and numerous songs and song cycles. These works, especially the symphonies, were innovative and challenging; for nearly 50 years they were only occasionally performed. Only in the 1960s did they finally become standard fare in orchestra programs. As late as 1972, however, Leonard Bernstein had to cajole and browbeat the Vienna Philharmonic to take Mahler’s music seriously. Mahler created in his Fourth Symphony a work light in spirit and relatively simple in style, a relief from his usual musical complexity and melancholy philosophical underpinnings. While the extreme mood swings of his other symphonies expose the audience to an emotional roller coaster, the Fourth is easily digested – even charming. It is short for a Mahler symphony (55-60 minutes) and utilizes a more modest orchestra without trombones and tubas, although with extra woodwinds. The symphony is of mixed vintage. Mahler composed the first three movements during the summers of 1899-1900, but he had already composed the fourth movement as a song for soprano solo and piano in 1892, which he immediately orchestrated. He used a fragment of it in the Third Symphony and finally the entire song as the conclusion to the Fourth. The symphony was premiered in Munich in November 1901. Yet despite its relative accessibility, free of grinding dissonances and stormy moods, it was a critical disaster. Both the critics and the public found the work confusing, neither a symphony nor program music – some even suggesting that it was a sick musical joke. Likewise, even admirers of the Symphony have seen it as a hybrid form, using traditional symphonic sonata allegro, scherzo and variation structures, but concluding with an anticlimactic, childish song instead of a proper rondo finale. The central idea of the symphony expresses a child’s view of heaven, with its promise of eternal peace and happiness set against the terror of death. The first movement, with its opening sleigh bell motive, creates a cheerful atmosphere – although it was suitably scorned as inappropriate for a symphony. In addition to the sleigh-bell melody, Mahler lines up three more, not entirely independent in content and not unlike the kind of themes one might expect from a Beethoven or even Haydn. His delicate orchestration assigns a different soloist or solo ensemble for each of them. & In the development, he introduces yet another melody for the flute, which he will revisit later. And it is here too that he interjects the first hint of darkness, all the more sinister because of its unexpectedness. It becomes the climax of the movement in a fortissimo outburst from the brass followed by a trumpet fanfare that he would later use as the opening of the Fifth Symphony. The Scherzo sets the teeth on edge – as it was intended to do. A horn introduces a solo violin tuned one half-step sharp to be played, as Mahler put it, “Wie eine Fiedel,” like a fiddle. Mahler intended the theme as “…the gruesome dance of death, led by a figure of popular demonology, Freund Hein spielt auf (Goodman Death leads the music). It is the mistuned fiddle of the skeletal figure of death.” Adhering to a tradition dating from the Middle Ages, the violin theme is built around the interval of a diminished fifth, the Diabulus in musica (the devil in music). Despite the fact that the rest of the violins try to lighten up the atmosphere in the second strain, they quickly succumb. The Trio presents a sharp contrast in mood; all dissonances and harmonic progressions are properly resolved. Because the theme contains within it a motive that Mahler has used in the song finale, the Scherzo and Trio sections continue the dialectic between happiness and death. The repeats of both Scherzo and Trio are varied with different orchestration. The “crisis” occurs in the middle of the movement where the horn, appears to do battle with the fiddle. The tension gradually winds down as the movement draws to a close.The Adagio that follows is one of Mahler’s most beautiful, serene creations. It is a theme and set of free variations. The theme recalls the third movement of Beethoven’s Ninth in its flow and expansiveness. Mahler combines the variation scheme with the traditional ABA structure of classical slow movements beginning with an achingly sad melody for solo oboe derived from the principal theme. After the final variation has faded to a whisper, the brass break in with celebratory transition to the Finale, foreshadowing the song. In the final movement the soprano represents a child’s joy and anticipation of the culinary delights and the ethereal music of St. Cecilia (the patron saint of music) and her heavenly musicians. The movement is marked Sehr behaglich (very cozy or comfortable), reflected in the musical themes as well as the text. The soprano’s song – which, like many of Mahler’s songs comes from the anthology of folk poetry Des Knabens Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) – is the source of musical ideas and some of the programmatic elements in the rest of the work, including the opening sleigh bell motive and Trio from the second movement. & Mahler self-quotes a section of the middle part of the song in the children’s chorus of the Third Symphony. & One critic, in fact, stated the work should actually be played backwards, like the Hebrew Scriptures. Only the fact that the critic was himself Jewish saves this remark from being one of the innumerable anti-Semitic slights aimed at Mahler throughout his career in Germany and Vienna. | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||
