C Major & Minor

Start: 
Saturday, October 4, 2014 - 19:00
Venue: 
Grand Hall Moscow Conservatory
With the participation: 

Moscow Symphony Orchestra - Arthur Arnold, Conductor

Piano - Nadya Kisseleva

 

Mozart - piano concerto no. 21, C major

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Brahms - Symphony no. 1, C minor

 

 

 

 

Programm: 

 

 

 

 

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467

In May 1781, Mozart was unceremoniously discharged from the service of Hieronymous Colleredo, Archbishop of Salzburg. Delighted to be free from this unappreciative and demeaning relationship, he relocated from the cultural backwater of Salzburg to the bustling musical metropolis of Vienna. The city was ripe for artists with his talent and drive. Before long, he was deep into a busy schedule of composing, performing, and teaching. Of all Mozart’s talents, Vienna valued his piano playing the most. Responding to this preference, he composed 12 superlative piano concertos between February 1784 and December 1786. They are deeper in feeling, broader in scope and richer in colour than any written before. In years to come, they would serve as models of their kind, ones to which Beethoven, Brahms, and other similarly high-minded composers would turn for inspiration. Mozart gave the premi?res of most of these “golden dozen” concertos himself, often within days of their completion, and usually at subscription concerts designed for his own benefit. Such was the case with this piece. The concerto whose creation preceded it by just four weeks—No. 20 in D Minor—is one of the darkest, most Romantic pieces Mozart composed in any form. In terms of personality, this “sequel” is its polar opposite. The opening movement is built on a fully symphonic scale, with an orchestral backing that matches the solo part for interest and variety. Mozart here balances forcefulness, elegance and wit with perfect ease. The dreamlike slow movement is based on the simplest of materials; its effect, nevertheless, is magical. Its placid beauty served as a most effective backdrop for the 1967 Swedish film Elvira Madigan. The concerto concludes with a merry rondo. It echoes with the laughter of comic opera, looking ahead to Mozart’s masterpiece in this genre, The Marriage of Figaro, whose creation followed just one year later.

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

Brahms, while not as breathtakingly precocious as Mozart, Mendelssohn, or Schubert, got a reasonably early start on his musical career: he had produced several piano works (including two large sonatas) and a goodly number of songs by the age of 19. In 1853, when Brahms was only 20, Robert Schumann wrote an article for the widely distributed Neue Zeitschrift f?r Musik, his first contribution to that journal in a decade, hailing Brahms as the savior of German music, the rightful heir to the mantle of Beethoven. Brahms was extremely proud of Schumann's advocacy, and he displayed the journal with great joy to his friends and family when he returned to his humble Hamburg neighborhood after visiting Schumann in D?sseldorf, but there was the other side of Schumann's assessment as well, that which placed an immense burden on Brahms' shoulders. 



Brahms was acutely aware of the deeply rooted traditions of German music extending back not just to Beethoven, but even beyond him to Bach and Sch?tz and Lassus. His knowledge of Bach was so thorough, for example, that he was asked to join the editorial board of the first complete edition of the works of that Baroque master. He knew that, having been heralded by Schumann, his compositions, especially a symphony, would have to measure up to the standards set by his forebears. At first he doubted that he was even able to write a symphony, feeling that Beethoven had nearly expended all the potential of that form, leaving nothing for future generations. "You have no idea," Brahms lamented, "how it feels to hear behind you the tramp of a giant like Beethoven." 



Encouraged by Schumann to undertake a symphony ("If one only makes the beginning, then the end comes of itself," he cajoled), Brahms made some attempts in 1854, but he was unsatisfied with the symphonic potential of the sketches, and diverted them into the First Piano Concerto and the German Requiem. He began again a year later, perhaps influenced by a performance of Schumann's Manfred, and set down a first movement, but this music he kept to himself, and even his closest friends knew of no more than the existence of the manuscript. Seven years passed before he sent this movement to Clara, Schumann's widow, to seek her opinion. With only a few reservations, she was pleased with this C-minor sketch, and encouraged Brahms to hurry on and finish the rest so that it could be performed. Brahms, however, was not to be rushed. Eager inquiries from conductors in 1863, 1864, and 1866 went unanswered. It was not until 1870 that he hinted about any progress at all beyond the first movement.



The success of the superb Haydn Variations for orchestra of 1873 seemed to convince Brahms that he could complete his initial symphony, and in the summer of 1874 he began two years of labor—revising, correcting, perfecting—before he signed and dated the score of the First Symphony in September 1876. He was at work right up to the premiere, making alterations after each rehearsal. The C minor Symphony met with a good but not overwhelming reception. It was considered by some to be stern and ascetic, lacking in melody (!). One critic suggested posting signs in concert halls warning: "Exit in case of Brahms." But Brahms' vision was greater than that of his audiences, and some time was needed by listeners to absorb the manifold beauties of this work. It is a serious and important essay ("Composing a symphony is no laughing matter," according to Brahms), one that revitalized the symphonic sonata form of Beethoven and combined it with the full contrapuntal resources of Bach, a worthy successor to the traditions Brahms revered. It has become the most performed of Brahms' symphonies and one of the most cherished pieces in the orchestral literature. 



The success and popularity of the First Symphony are richly deserved. It is a work of supreme technical accomplishment and profound emotion, of elaborate counterpoint and beautiful melody. Even to those who know its progress intimately, it reveals new marvels upon each hearing. The first movement begins with a slow introduction in 6/8 meter energized by the heart-beats of the timpani supporting the full orchestra. The violins announce the upward-bounding main theme in the faster tempo that launches a magnificent, seamless sonata form. The second movement starts with a placid, melancholy song led by the violins. After a mildly syncopated middle section, the bittersweet melody returns in a splendid scoring for oboe, horn, and solo violin. The brief third movement, with its prevailing woodwind colors, is reminiscent of the pastoral serenity of Brahms' earlier Serenades. 



The finale begins with an extended slow introduction based on several pregnant thematic ideas. The first, high in the violins, is a minor-mode transformation of what will become the main theme of the finale, but here broken off by an agitated pizzicato passage. A tense section of rushing scales is halted by a timpani roll leading to the call of the solo horn, a melody originally for Alphorn that Brahms collected while on vacation in Switzerland. The introduction concludes with a noble chorale intoned by trombones and bassoons, the former having been held in reserve throughout the entire Symphony just for this moment. The finale proper begins with a new tempo and one of the most famous themes in the repertory, a stirring hymn-like melody that resembles the finale of Beethoven's "Choral" Symphony. (When a friend pointed out this affinity to Brahms he shot back, "Any fool can see that!") The movement progresses in sonata form, but without a development section. The work closes with a majestic coda in the brilliant key of C major featuring the trombone chorale of the introduction in its full splendor.