Program Notes:
The Virtuoso Chamber Orchestra

Featuring Juliette Kang, (BSO assistant concertmaster)
March 18 & 20, 2005

• Haydn: Symphony No. 25 in C major
  
• Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 1 in B flat major, K.207
  
• Tartini: Concerto for Orchestra No. 58 in F major
  
• Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K.201
  

Haydn: Symphony No. 25 in C major

This early work of Haydn cannot be dated with accuracy. It was likely composed in the early 1760s, but may be earlier still. Thus we have no idea whether this symphony was written for Haydn's very first noble employer, the Count Morzin, in whose service Haydn worked from 1757 to 1760, or for the family by whose various members Haydn was employed for most of his life, the Counts Esterházy. It may even have been composed for someone else altogether. Furthermore, this work has a highly unusual structure. In his later years, "Papa" Haydn would come to be recognized as the Father of the Symphony, in that he codified the form generally adopted by composers for the following century or more: that is, a fast opening movement, sometimes preceded by a slow introduction, a slow movement in the second slot, a minuet (or later, a scherzo) in the third, and another fast movement at the end. But this form obviously did not spring full-blown from the head of Zeus. Haydn experimented widely in his early and middle years before arriving at what came to be the norm, and this symphony reflects that spirit of experimentation. The first movement is something of a hybrid. It begins Adagio, but this adagio is neither a free-standing slow movement (as in a number of other Haydn symphonies of this period and later) nor a mere slow introduction, as it is too long to serve that function. The fast section, Allegro molto, is more typical. Haydn places a gentle minuet next. The trio brings the horns and oboes to the fore, with the strings in an accompanying role. (All the works in this concert, by the way, are scored for an orchestra of two oboes, two horns, and strings. The finale's main theme is similar to one Mozart would use repeatedly, most famously in the finale of his "Jupiter" Symphony.

Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 1 in B flat major, K.207

For many years it was believed that Mozart wrote all five of his completed violin concertos in the same year, 1775, when he was 19. Modern research has shown, however, that the first concerto was actually written two years earlier. Besides these works, there are several "mini-concertos" for violin and orchestra that appear within multi-movement serenades and a number of individual movements and fragments. One of the Rondos, K.269 (played by Irina Muresanu here last season), was written in 1776 as a replacement for the finale of the present concerto. That fact is of particular interest since the original finale (which we hear in this concert) is in sonata form, and in all his future concertos, whatever the solo instrument, Mozart would always employ rondo or variation form. (The other concerto from 1773, the Piano Concerto No. 5, K.175, also has a finale in sonata form.) Mozart was himself a capable violinist, and it is possible that he wrote this music for himself to play, but a greater likelihood is that it was written for the Salzburg court violonist Brunetti. In their vast study of Mozart, the French musicologists Wyzewa and Saint-Foix are unstinting in their praise of this concerto, calling the first movement "infinitely rich in melodic beauty," the moving Adagio "impregnated with intimate poetry", and the rapid-fire finale, modeled on Haydn's concertos, as full of "ingenious and piquant effects."

Tartini: Concerto for Orchestra No. 58 in F major

Giuseppe Tartini was very important as a violinist and theoretician besides being a fluent composer. He was born in 1692 and spent most of his years in Padua as violinist and concert master at the church of St. Anthony. There was a period of a few years (1723-1726) when he was in Prague, and on his return to Padua he founded a music school, which came to be known as the School of Nations because its students came from all across Europe. He suffered a stroke in 1768 and died two years later. His fame is assured for his seminal work in violin technique, his influence on the players of his day, and for the tenet one often hears repeated, "Per ben sonare, bisogna ben cantare": "To play well, one must sing well." The present work is not one of Tartini's 125 concerti for the violin, but rather one without soloists, a sort of proto-symphony like the sinfonias for strings by Vivaldi, except that in this case the orchestra calls for pairs of oboes and horns in addition to the strings.

Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A major, K.201

This symphony and its immediate chronological predecessor, No.25 in G minor, are held to be Mozart's finest symphonies before the final ten. Mozart was still a teenager when he wrote them. No. 25 (actually written after the symphonies we call Nos.26-28) was completed on October 5, 1773, about four months before his nineteenth birthday, and No. 29 was finished on April 6, 1774. (Hereafter, the numbering of Mozart's symphonies [30-41] corresponds with their order of composition.) He had journeyed to Vienna for two months in summer 1773, and it's possible that his exposure to the capital inspired him to invest his symphonies with more profound ideas and emotions. In any case, these two symphonies are not only more substantial in content but are also a fair bit longer than almost all of the symphonies written earlier. Beethoven, in his "Eroica" Symphony (coming up next month in these concerts) took the unusual steps of introducing a new theme into the development of the first movement and greatly expanding its coda. What is striking here is that in this Allegro moderato, Mozart does precisely the same thing (although the expansion of coda is not nearly so vast) almost thirty years earlier! The orchestration, however, is typical of Mozart's and Haydn's earliest symphonies (e.g., Haydn's No. 25 above), with a decided emphasis on the strings. Edward Tatnall Canby stated aptly that the symphony is "scored simply for strings with inconspicuous oboe and horn contributions." This is true throughout all four movements. The Andante in D, with the strings muted, is a hallmark of grace and refinement. The minuet is rhythmically unusual, by no means an obvious 1-2-3 tempo as in so many minuets, and its lovely trio in E offers up a depth of feeling, especially at the beginning of its second half. The scurrying Finale, like the opening Allegro, contains numerous imitative passages, wherein a motto is copied by another section of the orchestra. An example lies in the opening of the lyrical second subject, introduced by the second violins and taken up by the first. Mozart also makes use of a tried-and-true device known as the "Mannheim rocket," a rapidly ascending scale that, in this case, leads to an "explosion" only in the cadential two chords that conclude the symphony.

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