Program Notes: The Flute Duet Mozart Could Have Written
Featuring Robert Stallman (international concert artist) & Fenwick Smith (BSO flutist)
September 19 and 21, 2003
Boccherini: Symphony in A Major
Mozart: Double Concerto for Two Flutes (K. 448)
Persichetti: Introit for Strings
Mozart: Andante for Flute and Orchestra (Mr. Stallman)
Schubert: Symphony No. 5
Boccherini: Symphony #16 in A major, Op. 37 nr. 4 [G. 518]
This season’s series of concerts opens with a symphony by Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), who began his musical life as a ‘cellist, giving his first public performance on the instrument at the age of thirteen. Ultimately, he wrote about twenty concerti for the ‘cello, which also figures prominently in his more than 100 string quintets. (Unlike Mozart’s quintets, which call for 2 violins, 2 violas, and 1 ‘cello, most of Boccherini’s are scored for 2 violins, 1 viola, and 2 ‘cellos.) The majority of these chamber works were composed during Boccherini’s time in Madrid, where from 1769 he served the Infante Don Luis, the brother of King Charles III. It was also during his years in Spain that Boccherini wrote most of his symphonies. The Opus 37 set, however, appeared in 1786-7, by which time the composer had moved on to the court of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, who also played the cello. (Mozart was to write his last three string quartets for this same monarch a few years later and made sure to give the king’s instrument plenty of interesting material.)
The present symphony in A major is the fourth of the Opus 37 group and definitely shows the influence of Mozart, especially in the opening Allegro spiritoso and the Allegro ma non presto finale. It is in four movements with the minuet placed second. Most of Boccherini’s earlier symphonies had been in the Italian style, that is, in three movements without minuet (although in several of these the last-third-movement is in the tempo of a minuet.) This particular minuet is distinctive, with few obvious gestures. The trio has a flute solo (a harbinger of things to come in this concert); oboe and viola come to the fore in the slow movement. The “G” number, by the way, is derived from the catalogue of Boccherini’s works prepared by Yves Gérard in 1969.
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante, K. 448 (transcribed by Robert Stallman, orchestrated by Stephen Dodgson)
Mozart was born in the same year that Boccherini made his first public appearance as a cellist, 1756. For the second work in this concert, we go back about five years from the older composer’s Symphony in A. Mozart wrote a half-dozen sonatas for piano duet — that is, one piano, two players — but only one for two pianos. Soloist Robert Stallman writes: “The Sinfonia Concertante for Two Flutes in D major is my recreation of Mozart’s Sonata in the same key for two pianos (Vienna, September 1781). Written as a tour de force for his gifted student Josephine Auernhammer (piano I) and himself (piano II), the Sonata’s exuberant virtuosity (each soloist vying with the other on an equal footing) and the sublime cantabile of its middle movement have conspired to make this one of Mozart’s most popular and appealing compositions for the keyboard. Mozart himself prized this sonata so highly that he performed it at least six times for the Viennese public.
“In essence a duo in concertante style, the original sonata lends itself readily to two solo flutes, in terms of both range and character. Moreover, the supporting material strongly suggests orchestral treatment (strings, paired oboes and horns) in festive concertante style, featuring tutti solos from the orchestral winds. A propos, Alfred Einstein, in his ground-breaking “Mozart: His Character and Work” (1944), opined that the work in fact represents “the highest ideal of concertante style.” Thus the title Sinfonia Concertante seems fitting for the Sonata in its new orchestral setting.
“At my request, the distinguished British composer and arranger Stephen Dodgson realized the full orchestral score of this work, completing the orchestration early in 2001.”
Persichetti: Introit for Strings, Op.96
Vincent Persichetti was one of the most distinguished of American composers. He was born in 1915 and studied composition with Roy Harris and conducting with Fritz Reiner. He was on the staff of the Juilliard School of Music for many years and served as chairman of the composition department there from 1963. It was in the following year that he wrote this lyrical, elegiac Introit for string orchestra. Persichetti tended to concentrate on instrumental music and on traditional forms, producing numerous symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas, for example. He died in 1987.
Mozart: Andante in C, K.315, for Flute and Orchestra
On last season’s opening concert we offered the Mozart Oboe Concerto, which he later arranged for flute to meet the demand for several works from the Dutch flutist DeJean in 1778. Mozart did also provide a brand new Concerto (in G, K.313), for which the Andante, K.315, was written as a substitute. It seems DeJean found the original slow movement a little too difficult. It must have been frustrating for Mozart to have to produce another movement for a finished composition while struggling to create several additional new works for this same artist, as well as juggling a number of other projects at the same time. In the end, Mozart never did entirely fulfill his commission, but then DeJean never paid him his full fee, either.
A written remark that dates from this time to the effect that Mozart hated the flute has, I think, been overemphasized. It seems to me he may have hastily scribbled that sentiment in a moment of pique at a time when he was having difficulty completing the commission. The comment was made in a letter to Mozart’s father Leopold, who, as usual, was nagging Mozart to get the job done, and that might have been another source of Mozart’s irritation. At any rate, it is but a single documented instance of Mozart’s alleged distaste for the flute. None of this discontent-assuming there was any-found its way into this pristine Andante or, for that matter, into any of the pieces Mozart wrote for DeJean.
Schubert: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, D.485
With two compositions by Mozart on this program, it is fitting that our concluding work should be the Schubert Fifth Symphony, which has long been seen as a tribute to the older master. Schubert’s early symphonies all owe much to Mozart, as well as to Haydn and Beethoven, but this one in particular seems to be infused with Mozartean spirit. The Minuet is actually modelled on the one in Mozart’s Symphony #40 in g minor and is in that key. The genial opening, though, is far away from the darkness of g-minor-it is all light and fresh air, and the same might be said of the playful finale. The slow movement exhibits the kind of sweet resignation one might expect from a much older man. Schubert was only nineteen when he wrote this symphony in the fall of 1816 (although, as the Deutsch number indicates, he had already composed nearly 500 pieces, mostly Lieder). The symphony was privately performed by an amateur orchestra that same year but, incredibly, did not come before the public until it was given in London in 1873, forty-two years after the composer’s early death.
With this work we usher in this season’s theme of Fifths: in addition to Schubert’s Fifth, over the course of our programs this year, we’ll be offering the Fifth Symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, along with the String Sonata No. 5 by Rossini and Mozart’s Fifth Violin Concerto.
