PROGRAM NOTES by Steven Lowe

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Overture to Così fan tutte, K. 588

Born: January 27, 1756, in Salzburg
Died: December 5, 1791, in Vienna
Work composed: 1790
World premiere: 1790

Così fan tutte was Mozart’s third and final opera written to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. Its predecessors, Le nozze di Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787) have fared better in the opera house. The reason for this difference in destiny lies not in any musical disadvantage—Così is brimming with superb music from first note to last—but rather in the generally perceived silliness of the plot. Two pairs of lovers are caught up in a wager between the men and a cynical third party—also a man—over the constancy, or lack thereof, of women. Naturally, the two women catch wind of the ruse to test their fidelity and, with obvious relish, make their lovers’ lives suitably miserable. In the end, Beethoven, a lifelong admirer of Mozart, was distinctly uncomfortable with Così, believing its story to be downright immoral. (Nothing like an unhappy bachelor to wax self-righteous about other people’s relationships, even when fictional!)

Still, the music both demands and rewards familiarity. Within the opera itself, and despite the plot’s utter artificiality, one hears music covering a broad range of human emotion. The sparkling overture is content to set the stage for the ensuing farce. It is light in mood, deftly scored, and uses melodic material of utmost simplicity (the simplicity of genius, of course). Like Don Giovanni but unlike Le nozze di Figaro, the overture introduces music that appears late in the opera, a tune sung by the three men to express their belief that “women are like that” or “they’ll do it every time” (imperfect renderings of the opera’s translation-defying title).

DOMENICO CIMAROSA
Overture to Il matrimonio segreto

Born: December 17, 1749, in Aversa, Kingdom of Naples
Died: January 11, 1801, in Venice
Work composed: 1792
World premiere: 1792

Domenico Cimarosa was, above all, a composer of opera buffa, a genre for which he was justly esteemed during his lifetime, though today all one ever hears is an occasional performance of his delightful comic opera Il segreto matrimonio (“The Secret Marriage”). He left an imprint on the music of both Rossini and Donizetti in the generation following his death. His chief rival for public attention was Giovanni Paisiello, creator of a delectable, pre-Rossini Barber of Seville. Among his many admirers was the French novelist (and biographer of Rossini) Stendhal, who asked that his tombstone carry the inscription that above all, he favored Cimarosa, Mozart and Shakespeare—in that order. Cimarosa’s gifts were a facility for natural-sounding vocal melody and a knack for uncluttered and effective orchestration, both of which commodities are found in the Overture to Il segreto matrimonio.

The Overture begins with stately chords followed by an animated section led by the strings, in turn answered by wind/brass interjections before a return to the string-generated music. One can hear Mozartean gestures as well as Rossinian implications that include a foretaste of the latter’s famed crescendo. A new lyrical melody, served up by an oboe leads into another vivacious episode with back-and-forth exchanges between the winds and strings. A mildly syncopated section (another device shared with Mozart) follows in anticipation of a sequence of an energetic and lyrical episode in the Italian style. Right near the end of the brief overture, the pace suddenly quickens.

CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK
Overture to Orfeo ed Euridice

Born: July 2, 1714, in Erasbach, Upper Palatinate
Died: November 15, 1787, in Vienna
Work composed: 1762
World premiere: October 5, 1762, in Vienna

Born the year after Arcangelo Corelli died, and dying but two weeks after the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Gluck’s life straddled two vastly different musical styles. Unlike Haydn, born somewhat later but also heir to the Baroque as well as one of the guiding lights of the Classical period, Gluck had little use for the commanding polyphony of the earlier age and promulgated an essentially homophonic style. The smell of greasepaint is never far from Gluck, truly a man of the theater—in his case, ballet and opera. In the latter realm his work was admired by such august successors as Mozart, Berlioz and Wagner. Today his operas—even aside from the ever-popular Orfeo ed Euridice—enjoy increasing frequency of performance.

Blazing trumpets and hammering timpani launch the bright and energetic Overture to Orfeo ed Euridice with a more than a hint of military swagger. Brief and emphatic, this brief introduction to Gluck’s recasting of the ancient Orphic legend does not contain themes that prefigure the lyrical and heartfelt aspects of the overall score, but certainly conveys a sense of the ensuing drama. Aside from the music, Gluck’s “take” on Orpheus’ journey to the underworld to rescue Euridice was thoroughly modern in its reflection of late 18th-century optimism. Against the backdrop of the so-called “Age of the Enlightenment” (mocked by Voltaire as “the best of all possible worlds” in Candide), Gluck’s hero is successful in retrieving his beloved from the jaws of death. A century and a half earlier, Monteverdi’s tragic outcome in his 1607 L’Orfeo maintained the original tale’s unhappy ending.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622

Work composed: 1791

In common with Die Zauberflöte “The Magic Flute”) and a handful of other works, Mozart’s sublime Clarinet Concerto has a connection with his Masonic activities. The composer was close friends with Anton Stadler, an esteemed clarinetist and fellow Mason. Despite distressing financial woes, Mozart lent Stadler money to the detriment of himself and his wife, Constanza. An official document relating to Mozart’s estate following his death indicates that Stadler had run up the equivalent of several thousand dollars in unpaid debt to Mozart.

The clarinet was still a relatively new instrument in the final decade of the 18th century. No less than Franz Joseph Haydn, in fact, opined that it was Mozart “taught us how to compose for the clarinet.” Mozart was drawn to its varied tonal colors that change throughout its extensive range. He actually composed the Clarinet Concerto of what is known as a basset clarinet, whose lowest notes are below that of the clarinet. No original manuscript exists for the Concerto, and clarinetists who opt to perform it on their bread-and-butter instrument have to alter their parts slightly to accommodate the restrictions imposed by the lack of notes in the nether regions.

The Concerto is cast in the standard fast—slow—fast format. The opening Allegro celebrates the clarinet’s ability to sing sensuously and with warm, edgeless radiance. The primary theme bears a family resemblance to the equivalent tune in his Piano Concerto, K. 488 (same key). Mindful of the clarinet’s expressive capabilities, the second theme reverts to the minor. Though a concerto, the delicacy of the writing for both the soloist and the orchestra suggests the intimacy of a chamber work.

Simplicity at the service of emotional depth is the hallmark of the Adagio. As with his final Piano Concerto, K. 595, this slow movement shows how a great master achieves profound beauty through understatement and economy. The Rondo-finale, a typical format for a concerto, balances expected gaiety with episodes of somber introspection. Consciously or not, the dark clouds in the Concerto’s emotional landscape reflect Mozart’s impending farewell to life.

ANTONIO SALIERI
Overture to Cublai, gran kan’ de Tartari

Born: August 18, 1759, in Legnano
Died: May 7, 1828, in Vienna
Work composed: 1788

Talk about bad press! Poor Antonio Salieri has suffered nearly three centuries of posthumous libel, all deriving from the gross urban myth that he poisoned Mozart. This absurd notion has been around at least since Beethoven’s lifetime, and even his emphatic rejection of the allegation did not prevent Rimsky-Korsakov from composing an opera based on Pushkin’s 1830 verse drama, Mozart and Salieri in which the Russian playwright skewered Salieri’s reputation for seeming eternity. Peter Shaffer picked up the cudgel with his play Amadeus, passed along more or less intact to Milos Forman for his eponymous Oscar-winning film in 1984.

Aside from such calumny, insult was added to injury by Shaffer/Forman in treating Salieri as the epitome of mediocrity, an opinion that would have likely enraged Beethoven and Schubert, both erstwhile students of the Italian composer. Salieri was an accomplished musician, widely admired as both a composer and teacher. No, he was not a Mozart, but who can lay claim to that status? He wrote fluently with a good feel for attractive melody and Viennese taste in opera, the last-mentioned deriving from his experience in writing some 40 works for the operatic stage. He served as imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824.

The overture to Cublai, gran kan’ de Tartari (which was not performed until 1998!) begins with an assertive brass fanfare, followed immediately by a quick-paced yet lyrical theme that moves things along with purposeful briskness. Soon a flute takes over with a perky tune answered by the strings and bassoon. In its happy energy and clear-cut harmonies the spirit of Italian opera—and especially Rossini—is effectively expressed in this brief but rousing overture.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Symphony No. 35 in D major, K. 285, “Haffner”

Work composed: 1782
World premiere: March 23, 1783, at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Mozart conducting

In 1782, Mozart found himself strapped for time while organizing a concert for which he needed a new symphony. As any 18th-century composer would do under these pressing circumstances, Mozart “borrowed” from himself, writing to his father to send him the manuscript from a six-movement serenade he had written the previous summer to celebrate the ennoblement of Siegmund Haffner, mayor of Salzburg. The process of refashioning the existing material proved easy. He simply dropped two movements (the serenade’s march and one of its minuets), revised the scoring by adding flutes and clarinets, and created one of his most frequently performed symphonies, nicknamed “Haffner.” Thus reborn, the new symphony was performed with great success on March 23, 1783.

The “Haffner” opens with a majestic and bold theme, with an unusual two-octave leap in its initial notes. Rather than providing (as would be typical) a highly contrasting second theme, the composer makes only minor changes to the main tune, though the movement’s development section is rich in contrapuntal lessons learned through Mozart’s recent and diligent study of Handel and Bach courtesy of a loan of many scores from Count von Swieten, imperial librarian and diplomat.

A lovely Andante unfolds simply but with great warmth, its melodic line embellished by florid trills and other ornamentation. A rustic and vigorous Minuet recalls Haydn more than Mozart’s wonted courtly treatment of this old dance form in triple meter. The Finale, a rondo marked Presto, is supposed to be played “as fast as possible,” according to Mozart’s verbal instructions to the orchestra at the work’s premiere. This is music of wit and élan based on a tune the composer had used in his Singspiel, The Abduction from the Seraglio. The quote is from Osmin’s aria, “Ah, I shall be triumphant,” a barbed reference to the composer’s “escape” from Salzburg, city of his birth but a place he grew to hate because of its provincialism and lack of support in his efforts to secure a viable post.

2008 Steven Lowe

Opera buffa: light, comic opera, typically based on the foibles or normal people as opposed to the Greek and Roman characters—real or mythical—that populate so-called opera seria.

Singspiel: German opera with spoken connective dialogue between musical numbers.