Program Notes: October 13, 2002
The Overture to Berlioz’s second opera, Benvenuto Cellini (1838), is somewhat overshadowed by another work that derives from the opera, the Roman Carnival Overture; in fact, these two overtures remain the only music from the opera to find a place in the repertory. As source material, Cellini’s lurid autobiography might have seemed less than viable dramatically (the most commonly cited reason for the opera’s failure), but it was right up Berlioz’s alley, whose earlier Symphonie fantastique (1930) was similarly conceived as episodic autobiography. As a colorful concert piece, the Overture is quintessential Berlioz, full of ravishing instrumental effects, tender feeling, not a little bombast, and compelling excitement, assembled with surprising (not to say quirky) twists and turns.
Mozart occupies a special place in the history of the piano concerto, for not only did he develop the classic form for the genre (at least for its first movement), but he also seems to be the only composer who was consistently effective in this form without altering it drastically. Particularly problematic for later composers was the long orchestral section that opens a Mozart concerto–for after all, isn’t a concerto more about the soloist than the orchestra? Well, yes– but for Mozart it was more specifically about how the soloist takes its place against the background of an established larger group; hence the long opening section for orchestra alone. It is important to note here that the very term "concerto" derives from two sources, the one indicating conflict, the other a "sounding together" (as in "concert"). If the first of these derivations has seemed to matter most (especially from Beethoven onward), in a Mozart concerto the latter has seemed more important. Which brings us to the special problem of a concerto with more than one soloist, as in tonight’s E-flat Major Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 365. Do the two soloists in this form team up to form a more powerful alliance against the orchestra? Do they perhaps compete with each other? Mozart’s particular solution to this problem is simply to dissolve the apparent dilemma by making the piece from the outset a cooperative effort, the very model of a well-functioning society–or, perhaps, of a well-functioning family, since Mozart wrote the piece to play with his sister Nannerl.
Dvorák’s Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, originally numbered "2" but since renumbered to reflect its true chronology, was written for London’s Philharmonic Society, which had warmly received both him and his music in 1884. Thus, he wrote the work for an audience already familiar with much of his music, including his earlier D-Major Symphony (No. 6, performed by the Santa Monica Symphony three seasons back). His new symphony, he knew, had to transcend its predecessor in order for him to secure his growing international reputation; moreover, he also felt a strong need, as always, to live up to Brahms’s high expectations for him, especially after Brahms had done so much to put his music before the world. To meet this dual challenge, he chose the daunting key of D Minor (the key of Beethoven’s Ninth and Mozart’s favorite "dark" key) and wove into his symphony several resonances with Brahms’s recent Third Symphony (1883), including apparent references in the first movement to the broadly stroked "motto" theme that opens Brahms’s Third, and the fade-outs that close all four of Brahms’s movements (Dvorák fades out in only the first two movements, but with a particularly strong echo of Brahms in the latter instance). Perhaps, as well, the symphony pays homage to Mendelssohn’s Scottish music and to Wagner (an early hero of Dvorák who had died in 1883), especially in the seething wave-like gestures of the first movement. Particularly memorable–and particularly Dvorákian–is the third movement, whose rhythmic energies recall the highly successful Slavonic Dances that first made his reputation; here, a lilting rhythmic dance figure proves capable both of great intensification and of serving effectively as a backdrop for a variety of other melodic material that is layered over it. The composer himself introduced the symphony to London in April 1885, with great success.
-- Raymond Knapp
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