Here - Chicago Symphony Orchestra

PROGRAM
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director
Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus
Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant
Global Sponsor of the CSO
Thursday, April 2, 2015, at 8:00
Friday, April 3, 2015, at 1:30
Saturday, April 4, 2015, at 8:00
Mitsuko Uchida Conductor and Piano
Dorothea Röschmann Soprano
Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, K. 238
Allegro aperto
Andante un poco adagio
Rondeau: Allegro
MITSUKO UCHIDA
First Chicago Symphony Orchestra subscription concert performances
Schumann
Frauenliebe und -leben, Op. 42
Seit ich ihn gesehen
Er, der Herrlichste von allen
Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht glauben
Du Ring an meinem Finger
Helft mir, ihr Schwestern
Süsser Freund, du blickest
An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust
Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan
DOROTHEA RÖSCHMANN
MITSUKO UCHIDA
INTERMISSION
Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major, K. 537 (Coronation)
Allegro
Larghetto
Allegretto
MITSUKO UCHIDA
These performances are generously sponsored by the Randy and Melvin Berlin Family Fund for the Canon.
This program is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher
Wolfgang Mozart
Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg, Austria.
Died December 5, 1791, Vienna, Austria.
Piano Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, K. 238
Mozart’s first compositions, an Andante and an
Allegro for keyboard,
were written down by
Leopold, one of history’s
proudest stage fathers,
when Wolfgang was just
five years old. Even
earlier, the boy had tried
to write what he called a
concerto in his own system of notation, which, as
a family friend recalled, consisted mainly of a
“smudge of notes, most of which were written
over inkblots that he had rubbed out.” After
1761, music began to flow, with increasing
frequency, from his little hands. Inevitably,
despite Wolfgang’s astonishing talent—“Everyone whom I have heard says that his genius is
incomprehensible,” Leopold wrote when his son
was only six—many of the earliest works in his
official catalog are little more than child’s play.
Yet even so, there were signs of an exceptional
maturity. “My boy as an eight-year-old,” Leopold
boasted, perhaps not unfairly, “knows as much as
what one expects from a man of forty.”
Eventually, signs of Wolfgang’s true promise
and unique, once-in-a-generation gift began to
emerge. Of the first three hundred numbers in
Köchel’s famous catalog of 626 compositions,
most of them identifying pieces written before
Mozart turned twenty-one, only a handful of
works are still regularly performed today—
the Haffner Serenade and the Turkish Violin
COMPOSED
January 1776
FIRST PERFORMANCE
date unknown
2
Concerto, for example—while Mozart’s earliest
symphonies and piano concertos tend to be
overlooked in favor of the later masterpieces.
But even these first efforts in forms that Mozart
would eventually own are remarkable.
T he piano concerto as we now know it
is a form that was essentially invented
by Mozart. He tested the waters by
converting solo keyboard sonata movements
by popular composers of the day into concerto
movements—a clever exercise assigned by his
father—in the process learning how to gauge
the balance of a solo piano and an orchestral
ensemble, and how to begin to think in terms
of large-scale pacing and drama. (The first of
these “pastiche” works that Köchel assigned a
number, K. 37, has movements based on keyboard pieces by Hermann Friedrich Raupach and
Leontzi Honauer—composers whose names are
remembered today only for their contribution to
Mozart’s catalog.) Like nearly all great artists,
Mozart started his career studying, imitating, and
improving upon the work of his elders. A concerto in D major, which Köchel calls “Mozart’s
first piano concerto”—meaning first original
piano concerto—was composed in Salzburg
in December of 1773. (This is the year many
scholars claim Mozart found his true voice.)
And then, after a pause of some two years—as if
Mozart were catching his breath for the astonishing outpouring soon to come—he wrote the
concerto in B-flat that opens this program.
FIRST CSO PERFORMANCE
July 17, 2005, Ravinia Festival.
Jonathan Biss as soloist, James
Conlon conducting
These are the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra’s first subscription concert performances.
INSTRUMENTATION
solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two
horns, strings
CADENZAS
Mozart
APPROXIMATE
PERFORMANCE TIME
21 minutes
T his B-flat piano concerto was
composed—or finished, in any event—in
January of 1776, the month Mozart
turned twenty. It is the earliest of a cluster of
concertos written in the opening months of that
year, including a concerto for three pianos that
is unique in his output. Clearly, Mozart had
found the form that would continue to fascinate,
inspire, and challenge him. It is just one of several genres, including the symphony and opera,
that Mozart invaded and conquered around
this time. Since Mozart eventually made major
renovations to his previous piano concerto, even
writing an entirely new finale for it, this B-flat
concerto is, in a sense, the earliest of his piano
concertos that we have still in its original state.
As with many of Mozart’s first efforts in
big public forms, we don’t know anything
about the occasion for which he was writing. Like his earlier concertos, it was no
doubt written to show off Wolfgang’s own
celebrated skills at the keyboard, and we do
know that he played it on tour in Augsburg
and Mannheim in 1778. His sister, Nannerl,
who also was a fine pianist, often played her
brother’s concertos in Salzburg, and so for a
while it may well have been a favorite
family showpiece.
There are three movements in the conventional
pattern, with a slow lyrical movement between
two fiery allegros. Although Mozart was famous
for his skill in improvisation, at some point
Leopold wrote down his son’s cadenzas—or at
least the versions he played on one occasion—
and those are the ones Mitsuko Uchida performs
this week. Robert Schumann
Born June 8, 1810, Zwickau, Saxony.
Died July 29, 1856, Endenich, near Bonn, Germany.
Frauenliebe und -leben, Op. 42
A Song Cycle for Voice and Piano
Robert Schumann
inherited his love for
literature from his father,
a bookseller and an
author. From childhood,
Robert poured over the
pages of the books in his
father’s shop. At first,
words were a greater love
even than music. At the
age of thirteen, he compiled an anthology of
verse that included several poems of his own. The
summer of 1827—Robert turned seventeen that
June—was decisive, for he fell under the spell of
both Jean Paul, whose fanciful literary style had a
lasting impact on his own way with words, and
COMPOSED
July 1840
Franz Schubert, whose songs were an ideal, a
model for the work ahead. The earliest of
Schumann’s own songs that have survived date
from that year. Robert’s diary entry for Easter
1828 notes: “Letter to Franz Schubert (not sent).”
(The two never met. Schumann sobbed throughout the night when he learned of Schubert’s
death later that year.) The same year, Robert
began piano study with Friedrich Wieck, whose
nine-year-old daughter Clara would soon have
the more lasting effect on Robert’s life and career.
In 1840, Robert married Clara, by then a
grown woman and a distinguished pianist herself. It was an unusually emotional year, characterized both by Wieck’s intense disapproval of
the impending marriage—a legal battle ensued,
FIRST PUBLIC PERFORMANCE
February 24, 1862; Cologne, Germany
APPROXIMATE
PERFORMANCE TIME
22 minutes
3
complete with a courtroom fight and accusations
of Robert’s alleged heavy drinking—and by
Robert’s ecstatic feelings of love. Surely not by
coincidence, some 125 songs poured from his
pen in 1840, his first songs in twelve years.
The now legendary “year of song”—this was
Schumann’s own term, his Liederjahr—began
on February 1 with the Fool’s Song from
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and continued with
settings of Heine, Goethe, Byron, Rückert,
Chamisso, and Eichendorff—songs both big
and small, songs for male quartet and the
solo voice, collections of loosely related songs,
and, above all, the great song cycles: first the
Liederkreis (published as op. 24), then another
Liederkreis (op. 39), Dichterliebe, and, by
midsummer, Frauenliebe und -leben. This is a
lifetime’s work (in fact, it represents more than
half of Schumann’s entire song output), and it
includes some of the most breathtaking songs
ever written, produced in just six months. Even
Schubert, who sometimes wrote several songs a
day, never had a better year. “How blissful it is
to compose for the voice!” Schumann wrote to
Clara as he began his “rich harvest of songs” that
February. Songwriting came to him naturally—
more easily, in fact, than composing piano pieces.
“Generally,” he told Clara, “I write [the songs]
standing or walking, not at the piano. After all,
it is a very different kind of music that is not
initially carried through the fingers but is much
more immediate & melodious.”
S chumann sketched the eight songs of
Frauenliebe und -leben on the afternoons of
July 11 and 12. The previous week, Robert
and Clara learned that Wieck had failed to prove
Robert’s drunkenness. The couple immediately
began to look for an apartment. On July 14,
they decided on a flat at Inselstrasse 5. By the
end of the month, Robert had put his final
touches on Frauenliebe und -leben. On August 1,
they were granted legal consent to marry. The
wedding took place on September 12, in the
village church at Schönefeld, a Leipzig suburb.
(Clara turned twenty-one the next day.) Robert’s
wedding present to Clara was the song collection
Myrthen, which he had completed in April.
Robert’s flurry of song writing was largely over
by then. It was Clara who took up composing
songs late that year, giving Robert her settings
4
of poems by Burns and Heine as Christmas
presents, along with the news of her pregnancy.
F rauenliebe und -leben was arguably
Schumann’s most popular song cycle in
the nineteenth century. The poetry by
Adelbert von Chamisso, which Schumann sets
in these eight songs, was wildly popular during
the composer’s lifetime and even well into the
twentieth century, although it is now decidedly
out of fashion, and the texts for Frauenliebe und
-leben, in particular, do not always sit comfortably with modern sensibilities. Chamisso
himself was so proud of the Frauenliebe poems
that he placed them at the head of his collected
works, but already by the 1940s, the great lieder
singer Lotte Lehmann wrote that “one often
hears Chamisso’s poems for this cycle criticized as being old-fashioned.” The eight poems
Schumann set—he skips Chamisso’s ninth and
final poem—portray a woman’s love and life, as
Chamisso’s title says—but from a male point of
view, despite the fact that the narrator is female.
Even the first public performance of Frauenliebe
und -leben was given by a man, the great baritone
Julius Stockhausen, with Clara at the piano, on
February 24, 1862, in Cologne. (The cycle had
been performed privately in 1848 by the soprano
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devreint, who ironically
is the dedicatee of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, a
cycle that is now sung almost exclusively by
men!) Stockhausen was nearly alone at the time
in his insistence on performing song cycles
in their entirety and without the insertion of
unrelated piano pieces or songs. Complete cycles
were rarely performed then; apparently without
objection, Schumann attended one performance
of seven songs plucked from his Liederkreis and
interspersed with piano pieces by Bach and
Mendelssohn. (Even the great German critic
Eduard Hanslick called the practice of presenting song cycles as written an “experiment.”)
S chumann, who essentially perfected the
song cycle, listed three qualities that can
distinguish a cycle from a collection of
songs: narrative continuity, large-scale tonal
logic, and the recurrence of musical material.
Frauenliebe und -leben has them all. It is the
only one of Schumann’s cycles to unfold a story
chronologically—in this case, beginning with
the blissful first encounter between a man and
a woman and continuing through courtship,
marriage, and pregnancy to the husband’s death.
There is not only an overall tonal scheme, with
the cycle beginning and ending in B-flat major
(and the songs between progressing through a
sequence of related keys, like the inner movements of a symphony), but the songs themselves
are connected one to another—not literally
linked, but subtly joined, as if to suggest that
nothing should come between them. The third
and fourth songs, for example, begin with the
voice alone, picking up their pitch from the
end of the previous song. Many songs end
with an extended piano postlude, which serves
in a sense as a transition to the next song,
and sometimes even anticipates, in the most
delicate way, the mood or musical textures of
what follows: the broken arpeggios at the end
of “Du Ring an meinem Finger” become the
swirling figuration that opens “Helft mir, ihr
Schwestern”; the jaunty dotted rhythms at the
end of that song transform into the bold dotted
figure that then opens “Süsser Freund.” The
last of Schumann’s postludes, the expansive
one that concludes the entire cycle, carries us
unexpectedly back to the music of the first
song, bringing the story full circle, and, at the
same time, imbuing the final chapter of the
tale with a sense of wistful recollection. This
gesture is Schumann’s homage to Beethoven,
whose An die ferne Geliebte, regularly considered
the earliest song cycle, also ends as it begins.
A fter 1840, Schumann’s attention shifted,
almost systematically, from song to symphonic music in 1841, and to chamber
music in 1842, and then to oratorio, dramatic
music, and church music, as if he were working
his way through the various genres one by one.
He continued to write songs from time to time,
but nothing in the last fifteen years of his life—
nothing else, in fact, in the history of music—
would rival the great flood of songs from 1840. Frauenliebe und -leben
(A Woman’s Love and Life)
SEIT ICH IHN GESEHEN
Seit ich ihn gesehen,
glaub’ ich blind zu sein;
wo ich hin nur blicke,
seh’ ich ihn allein;
wie im wachen Traume
schwebt sein Bild mir vor,
taucht aus tiefstem Dunkel,
heller nur empor.
Since I first saw him
I think I must be blind;
wherever I look
I see only him;
as in a trance,
his image hovers before me,
emerging from the deepest gloom
even brighter.
Sonst ist licht- und farblos
alles um mich her,
nach der Schwestern Spiele
nicht begehr’ ich mehr,
möchte lieber weinen,
still im Kämmerlein;
seit ich ihn gesehen,
glaub’ ich blind zu sein.
All else is dark and colorless
in my surroundings;
my sisters’ games
interest me no longer;
I would rather weep
quietly in my room.
Since I first saw him,
I think I must be blind.
5
ER, DER HERRLICHSTE VON ALLEN
Er, der Herrlichste von allen,
wie so milde, wie so gut!
Holde Lippen, klares Auge,
heller Sinn und fester Mut.
He, the noblest of all,
how kind, how good he is!
Gentle mouth, clear eyes,
bright temper and steady mood.
So wie dort in blauer Tiefe,
hell und herrlich, jener Stern,
also er an meinem Himmel,
hell und herrlich, hehr und fern.
Just as, in the far-off blue,
yonder star shines bright and splendid,
so he shines in my heaven,
bright and splendid, sublime and remote.
Wandle, wandle deine Bahnen,
nur betrachten deinen Schein,
nur in Demut ihn betrachten,
selig nur und traurig sein!
Go your way;
let me only regard your brightness,
humbly gaze upon it
in happiness and in sorrow!
Höre nicht mein stilles Beten,
deinem Glücke nur geweiht;
darfst mich, niedre Magd, nicht kennen,
hoher Stern der Herrlichkeit!
Heed not my silent prayers,
dedicated only to your fortune;
a lowly maid you may not know,
high star of splendor!
Nur die Würdigste von allen
darf beglücken deine Wahl,
und ich will die Hohe segnen
viele tausendmal.
Only the worthiest of all
may be made happy by your choice,
and I will bless her
many thousand times.
Will mich freuen dann und weinen,
selig, selig bin ich dann;
sollte mir das Herz auch brechen,
brich, o Herz, was liegt daran?
Then I will rejoice and weep;
eternal bliss will then be mine.
And if my heart should break,
break, heart—what does it matter!
ICH KANN’S NICHT FASSEN,
NICHT GLAUBEN
Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht glauben,
es hat ein Traum mich berückt;
wie hätt’ er doch unter allen
mich Arme erhöht und beglückt?
I can’t understand it, I don’t believe it;
I must have been fooled by a dream.
How, from all the others, could he
have chosen and blessed me?
Mir war’s, er habe gesprochen:
»Ich bin auf ewig dein«,
mir war’s—ich träume noch immer,
es kann ja nimmer so sein.
It seemed as if he had said:
“I am forever yours”;
it seemed I must still be dreaming,
for it can never be so.
O laß im Traume mich sterben,
gewieget an seiner Brust,
den seligen Tod mich schlürfen
in Tränen unendlicher Lust.
Oh, let me die in this dream,
cradled in his embrace;
let me be drowned
in tears of endless joy.
6
DU RING AN MEINEM FINGER
Du Ring an meinem Finger,
mein goldenes Ringelein,
ich drücke dich fromm an die Lippen,
an das Herze mein.
You, ring on my finger,
my little golden ring,
I press you devoutly to my lips
and to my heart.
Ich hatt’ ihn ausgeträumet,
der Kindheit friedlich schönen Traum,
ich fand allein mich, verloren
im öden unendlichen Raum.
I had reached the end
of childhood’s lovely, peaceful dream;
I found myself alone and lost
in an endless wasteland.
Du Ring an meinem Finger
da hast du mich erst belehrt,
hast meinem Blick erschlossen
des Lebens unendlichen, tiefen Wert.
You, ring on my finger,
you taught me then,
opened my eyes
to life’s infinite worth.
Ich will ihm dienen, ihm leben,
ihm angehören ganz,
hin selber mich geben und finden
verklärt mich in seinem Glanz.
I will serve him, live for him,
belong to him totally;
I will give myself to him
and find myself transfigured in his radiance.
HELFT MIR, IHR SCHWESTERN
Helft mir, ihr Schwestern, freundlich
mich schmücken,
dient der Glücklichen heute, mir.
Windet geschäftig mir um die Stirne
noch der blühenden Myrte Zier.
Help me, O sisters, kindly adorn me,
serve me, the happy one, today.
Busily twine about my brow
the blossoming myrtle.
Als ich befriedigt, freudigen Herzens,
sonst dem Geliebten im Arme lag,
immer noch rief er, Sehnsucht im Herzen,
ungeduldig den heutigen Tag.
Before, when I lay contented and happy
in the arms of my loved one,
he still would be longing,
impatiently awaiting this day.
Helft mir, ihr Schwestern, helft mir verscheuchen
eine törichte Bangigkeit,
daß ich mit klarem Aug’ ihn empfange,
ihn, die Quelle der Freudigkeit.
Help me, O sisters, help me banish
a foolish fear,
so that I may meet him with eyes clear,
him, the source of my joy.
Bist, mein Geliebter, du mir erschienen,
gibst du mir, Sonne, deinen Schein?
Laß mich in Andacht, laß mich in Demut,
laß mich verneigen dem Herren mein.
Have you, my love, appeared to me;
do you give me, O sun, your brightness?
Let me reverently and humbly
make obeisance to my master.
Streuet ihm, Schwestern, streuet ihm Blumen,
bringet ihm knospende Rosen dar.
Aber euch, Schwestern, grüß’ ich mit Wehmut,
freudig scheidend aus eurer Schar.
Scatter flowers before him, O sisters,
present him with budding roses.
But to you, my sisters, I bid a sad farewell,
departing with joy from your ranks.
7
SÜSSER FREUND, DU BLICKEST
Süsser Freund, du blickest mich verwundert an,
kannst es nicht begreifen, wie ich weinen kann;
laß der feuchten Perlen ungewohnte Zier
freudig hell erzittern in dem Auge mir.
Sweet friend, you gaze at me in astonishment;
can you not understand why I should be crying?
Let the unfamiliar ornament of the moist pearl
tremble brightly in my eye.
Wie so bang mein Busen, wie so wonnevoll!
Wüßt’ ich nur mit Worten, wie ich’s sagen soll;
komme und birg dein Antlitz hier an
meiner Brust,
will ins Ohr dir flüstern alle meine Lust.
How fearful my bosom, how blissful!—
could I but say it with words.
Come and bury your head here on my breast;
Weißt du nun die Tränen, die ich weinen kann,
sollst du nicht sie sehen, du geliebter Mann?
Bleib an meinem Herzen, fühle dessen Schlag,
daß ich fest und fester nur dich drücken mag.
Now do you know why I am weeping?
Can you not see why, my beloved?
Stay at my heart, feel its beat,
that I may press you closer and closer to me.
Hier an meinem Bette hat die Wiege Raum,
wo sie still verberge meinen holden Traum;
kommen wird der Morgen, wo der
Traum erwacht,
und daraus dein Bildnis mir entgegenlacht.
Here at my bed is the space for the cradle,
where it may hide my lovely dream;
the morning will come when the dream awakes,
I want to whisper to you all my joy.
and your image smiles out at me.
AN MEINEM HERZEN, AN MEINER BRUST
An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust,
du meine Wonne, du meine Lust!
Das Glück ist die Liebe, die Lieb’ ist das Glück,
ich hab’s gesagt und nehm’s nicht zurück.
At my heart, at my breast,
you my joy, you my bliss!
Happiness is love, love is happiness;
once I have said it and again I shall say it.
Hab’ überschwenglich mich geschätzt
bin überglücklich aber jetzt.
Nur die da säugt, nur die da liebt
das Kind, dem sie die Nahrung giebt;
I considered myself rapturous,
but now I am still happier.
Only she who nurses and loves
the child whom she feeds—
Nur eine Mutter weiß allein,
was lieben heißt und glücklich sein.
O wie bedaur’ ich doch den Mann,
der Mutterglück nicht fühlen kann!
only a mother knows
what love and happiness mean.
Oh, how I pity the man
who cannot feel a mother’s joy!
Du lieber, lieber Engel, du
du schauest mich an und lächelst dazu!
An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust,
du meine Wonne, du meine Lust!
You lovely, lovely angel, you—
you look at me with a smile.
At my heart, at my breast,
you my joy, you my bliss!
8
NUN HAST DU MIR DEN ERSTEN
SCHMERZ GETAN
Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan,
der aber traf.
Du schläfst, du harter, unbarmherz’ger Mann,
den Todesschlaf.
Now you have hurt me for the first time,
but deeply.
You sleep, you hard and pitiless man,
the sleep of death.
Es blicket die Verlaßne vor sich hin,
die Welt ist leer.
Geliebet hab’ ich und gelebt,
ich bin nicht lebend mehr.
Forsaken, I look around me—
the world is empty.
My love and life are past;
I am no longer living.
Ich zieh’ mich in mein Innres still zurück,
der Schleier fällt,
da hab’ ich dich und mein verlornes Glück,
du meine Welt!
I withdraw quietly into myself;
the veil falls;
there I have you and my lost happiness—
you, my whole world!
—Adelbert von Chamisso
Wolfgang Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major, K. 537 (Coronation)
After registering an
extraordinary outpouring
of piano concertos—some
fifteen in four years—
Mozart’s catalog lists
none at all for 1787.
There’s just one, this
so-called Coronation in
D major, entered in 1788,
and then a last piano
concerto in 1791.
It was the economic situation in Vienna in the
late 1780s, not any decline in Mozart’s creative
COMPOSED
entered in Mozart’s catalog on
February 24, 1788
FIRST PERFORMANCE
April 14, 1789; Dresden, Germany. The
composer as soloist
FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES
February 15 & 16, 1945, Orchestra Hall.
Robert Casadesus as soloist, Désiré
Defauw conducting
powers, that was to blame. While Austria was
at war with Turkey, the Viennese entertainment scene virtually shut down, and even the
high-society families who commissioned Mozart
and hosted his premieres in their homes began
to watch their finances and cut back on culture.
As a result, the period beginning in 1788 was
Mozart’s least prosperous, and, for the first time,
his tendency to live beyond his means proved
disastrous. (He had always loved fancy clothes
and handmade shoes, and his apartment was
equipped, as his father disdainfully noted, “with
every decor appropriate to a house.”) In 1788,
MOST RECENT
CSO PERFORMANCES
March 1, 2 & 3, 2001, Orchestra Hall.
Daniel Barenboim conducting from
the keyboard
March 8, 2001, Carnegie Hall.
Daniel Barenboim conducting from
the keyboard
July 15, 2007, Ravinia Festival.
Garrick Ohlsson as soloist, James
Conlon conducting
INSTRUMENTATION
solo piano, flute, two oboes, two
bassoons, two horns, two trumpets,
timpani, strings
CADENZA
Wanda Landowska
APPROXIMATE
PERFORMANCE TIME
33 minutes
9
Mozart wrote several letters asking—and in
some cases begging—for loans. (He also paid a
visit to the local pawnbroker.)
M ozart may have been broke, but his
creativity was far from bankrupt, and
he was still the most famous keyboard
player in Vienna. So early in 1788, he wrote
this piano concerto to play himself, apparently
without a specific date or venue in mind. There’s
no record of a Vienna performance in 1788, but
he did play the work in Dresden on April 14,
1789, for the elector Friedrich August III of
Saxony and his wife Amalie, who gave him
“a very handsome snuff box” that contained
100 ducats. A writer for the local newspaper
found his agility and skill “inexpressible.”
Since Mozart composed this concerto for his
own use and didn’t need to prepare a final score
to present to a patron, he wrote it in shorthand.
Some of the solo writing is bare and skeletal,
inviting decoration. The left-hand part is missing altogether from the slow movement and
portions of the other two, and there’s also no
cadenza. (The left-hand part was filled in when
the work was first published in 1794 by Johann
Anton André. At these performances, Mitsuko
Uchida plays a lovely, tune-dropping cadenza by
Wanda Landowska.)
10
The Coronation Concerto wasn’t intended as
music for royalty; it got its name, nearly three
years after it was written, when Mozart played
it in Frankfurt to celebrate the coronation
of Leopold II as emperor. (The concert was
“a splendid success from the point of view of
honor and glory, but a failure as far as money
was concerned,” he wrote home to Constanze,
concluding that “the Frankfurt people are even
more stingy than the Viennese.”) The concerto
itself, although in the festive key of D major and
scored for ceremonial trumpets and drums, is one
of Mozart’s least heroic and grandiose works. The
first movement in particular seems to come closer
to the fluency and grace of the early romantic
piano concerto than to the stately classical model.
It also suggests that Mozart was moving toward
a new kind of virtuosity, more brilliant and
showier, in the solo writing. The slow movement
(labeled “romance” in Mozart’s sketch) is an
unassuming essay in lyrical charm. The finale is a
simple rondo of great cheer, occasionally challenged by interjections in the minor mode. Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra.
© 2015 Chicago Symphony Orchestra