Mozart & Haydn With Albrecht Mayer

This enchanting seriocomic opera premiered in Vienna in 1790. The plot was said to be based upon actual events that had occurred among the Viennese aristocracy a short time earlier. A cynical older man placed a bet with two young fellows: that their fiancées would prove unfaithful within 24 hours – and with each other’s mates! The wager went ahead, and the aging manipulator won. From this situation, Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte (who had previously collaborated on the operatic masterpieces The Marriage of Figaro, and Don Giovanni) fashioned a masterful entertainment, Così fan tutte (All Women Are Like That).

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

The catalogue of Haydn’s music contains numerous authentic concertos, for cello, violin, keyboard, horn, trumpet and so forth – but not an oboe concerto. The piece you will hear at this concert was long thought to be his (in the 1950s it was included in the widely respected Hoboken catalogue of his works). Subsequent research has confirmed that it is not. Among the possible composers are Ignaz Malzat (who played oboe and English horn professionally) and members of the multi-composer Stamitz and Kozeluch families. Whatever its origins, it is an attractive and well-crafted work that gratifyingly expands the oboe’s perpetually slim concerto repertoire.

The inclusion of trumpets and timpani in the instrumentation occasionally gives the music a quasi-military feeling. The thematic material is gracious and the composer has skillfully displayed two of the oboe’s primary characteristics: elegant smoothness (especially in the eloquent, aria-like second movement) and the exceptional agility that it displays in the concluding rondo.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

The English horn is the tenor member of the oboe family, longer and therefore capable of producing lower notes than the familiar orchestral oboe. It appeared in Germany about 1720. There are two possible origins of the “English” part of its name. One is “angle horn,” due to its having, during its early history, a prominent bend in the middle of its barrel. The other is “angel horn,” since it resembles the type of wind instrument that angels were often depicted as playing in medieval German artwork.

Composers have most often called upon its unique, throaty tone colour for orchestral solos, usually in music of a slow, melancholy nature. Among the most impressive examples is the main theme in the second movement of Antonín Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony. It can also take on a Middle Eastern or Asian flavour. Composers such as Rimsky-Korsakov regularly showcased this facet of its personality.

Works for English horn as concerto soloist are rare. The vast majority date from the period following the Second World War. An early example is this concerto by Fiala. He performed as oboist in the orchestras of several major European cities, and won considerable renown as soloist on the viola da gamba and its successor, the cello. He was a good friend of the Mozart family. Wolfgang wrote of a wind ensemble he heard in Munich, “You can easily tell that they were trained by Fiala. They played some of his works, and I must say they were very pretty. He has very good ideas.”

Fiala composed 17 concertos, many of them featuring one or more wind instrument. Kvetoslav Florián arranged this compact English Horn concerto from a work that originally featured the viola da gamba. He also changed the key to C Major from the original E-flat Major, the better to suit the English horn. Tinged with pathos, the second movement is particularly impressive.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson

Haydn made two trips to England, in 1791-92 and 1794-95. For them, he composed 12 new symphonies (Nos. 93 through 104), six for each season. They have become known as his “London” Symphonies. They marked the conclusion of his magnificent career with this form. During and immediately after his lifetime, two of them won unequalled popularity: the “Surprise” (94) and “Military” (100) Symphonies. Neither nickname originated with him. In the case of the Surprise, the story goes (whether it’s true scarcely matters) that he designed the loud, unanticipated chord in the sixteenth bar of the second movement to startle into wakefulness any audience members who might be dozing. It gets the job done, in the genteel manner of the day, and never fails to raise a smile even today. The symphony was heard for the first time at the Hanover Square concert room in London on March 23, 1792.

In the opening movement, a restful introduction precedes a main Allegro whose basic good cheer survives an almost stormy development section to emerge once more into the sun. Haydn based the variations that make up the second movement on one of those artless, nursery-rhyme tunes that seemed to come to him with no effort whatsoever. His unending inventiveness ensured that he explored every possible facet of it – from pomposity through puckishness to pathos – with brilliant, self-effacing skill. Although the third movement is labeled a minuet, its hearty, clumping steps would be much more at home in a country tavern than an urban ballroom. A racing galop of a comic-opera finale brings the symphony home.

Program Notes © 2019 Don Anderson