BRAHMS & MORE - Saturday, September 21, 2019

W.A. MOZART (1756 – 1791)
Overture to The Impresario, K. 486
While an undergraduate at the University of Michigan,
I was fortunate to be in the conducting class of
Elizabeth A. H. Green, who had literally written
the book on the subject. “Ma” Green (as she was
called by students only when she wasn’t around)
taught conducting as a rigorous and disciplined
system in service of a non-rigorous, wholly
expressive outcome. She used Mozart’s Overture to
The Impresario as a teaching piece because it has
a wide range of dynamics and articulations that
required us to go beyond mere time-beating.
The work itself belongs to a 30-minute comedy with
spoken dialog that Mozart wrote as his entry for
a private competition on the invitation of Emperor
Joseph II. In what sounds like it should have been a
scene from the film Amadeus, the other entry was
written by Antonio Salieri. Mozart’s Overture brims
with energy and lyricism, with no fewer than six
distinctive themes practically climbing on top of each
other to be heard in the first minute-and-a-half.
 
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840 – 1893)
Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33
I was surprised to learn that Tchaikovsky loved the
music of Mozart, whose elegant classical style would
seem to be antithetical to the composer of the 1812
Overture, Romeo and Juliet, and the “Pathetique”
Symphony. Yet amidst all Tchaikovsky’s bombast
and pathos there is plenty of music that reflects his
admiration for the earlier composer, perhaps no more
clearly than in the Variations on a Rococo Theme.
The Theme is actually by Tchaikovsky; I’ll leave it to
the musicologists to decide whether it is even in a
Rococo style, but it does have a clear two-part with
repetitions form that is typical of mid 18th-century
themes used for variations. The work was written
for German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, a colleague
at the Moscow Conservatory, who had more than the
usual influence on the progress of the work (in the
manuscript, the solo part appears in Fitzenhagen’s
handwriting). Tchaikovsky’s publisher complained that
Fitzenhagen was trying to “cello it up.” The Variations
are predominantly light-hearted and are accompanied
by a Mozart-sized orchestra, the Russian composer
successfully channeling the spirit of his idol.

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897)
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90
The Wilmington Symphony is in the midst of an ongoing
Brahms Symphony cycle, with one performed
every other year. This season we’ve reached his third,
the shortest of the four and one that is unusual in
the genre because it ends quietly. It does follow the
four-movement plan that would have been familiar to
Brahms’ Viennese predecessors Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven. The first movement has a dramatic sweep
similar to that of Robert Schumann’s Third Symphony,
with which it also shares a rhythmic and metrical
pattern. The second movement has a hymn-like
theme played by a four-part choir (two clarinets and
two bassoons) which alternates with more expansive
music enjoyed by the larger orchestra. In place of the
typical Minuet and Trio, Brahms offers what is for
me one of his most beautiful creations- a passionate
triple-time movement with a yearning, melancholy
melody first played by the cello section. The last
movement begins with a rapid but shadowy theme that
flits through the string section before gathering into
more substantial material. As the momentum gathers
for an ending, Brahms instead lets the energy subside
into unexpected tranquility, and the symphony ends
with a serene echo of the very beginning.