Program Notes: Classical Valentine Meets Mardi Gras
Featuring guest artists Made in the Shade
February 11, 2005
Mozart: Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro”
As was observed in our November program note, Mozart’s first years in Vienna saw him giving a number of subscription concerts in which his own concertos were the mainstay, but the public’s interest began to wane after a while, and Mozart next found a measure of success, albeit a limited one, in the field of opera. The poet Lorenzo da Ponte had come to Vienna from Venice and, after collaborating with Salieri (their effort was a flop), was asked by Mozart to adapt for the operatic stage Beaumarchais’s play Le Mariage de Figaro, which had been produced in Vienna in 1784. This was to be the beginning of a splendid partnership, for Mozart and Da Ponte went on to collaborate on two more inimitable masterpieces, Don Giovanni (1787) and Così fan tutte (1790). Mozart worked on the Figaro score as Da Ponte worked on the libretto, from autumn 1785 to late April 1786. As was customary, the overture was written last, just before the first performance on May 1. The opera was well received, but was hardly a towering success, especially after the appearance of two new operas by Martin and Dittersdorf; after only nine performances, Figaro was quite eclipsed by these much more popular crowd-pleasers. And so Figaro, although greatly admired by connoisseurs, did little to alleviate Mozart’s impecunious circumstances. But The Marriage of Figaro remains one of the greatest of all operas, and its overture is appropriately a perfect little gem.
Mendelssohn: Music from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (including the “Wedding March”)
Earlier this season the orchestra presented two pieces from Mendelssohn’s childhood, in connection with which I wrote that at the age of sixteen he had gone on to compose one of his greatest scores, the Octet for strings. The very next year, 1826, saw the composition of another extraordinary masterpiece, the concert overture for Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Astonishing as was the feat of writing one of the world’s greatest chamber works at the age of sixteen, so was the authorship of this overture at seventeen, for it is one of the finest overtures in the repertoire. It is almost a short tone poem — although that term would not come into existence until it was coined by Liszt decades later — in that it very effectively evokes the magical atmosphere of Shakespeare’s play, besides depicting some of its specific incidents: for example, listen for the “hee-haw” in the strings that represents Bottom wearing a donkey’s head.
Coincidentally, it was seventeen years later that Mendelssohn was called upon to produce more music for a full production in German of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mendelssohn decided to resurrect his magnificent overture for the occasion, and it is striking the consistency he managed in the additional pieces after a gap of nearly two decades. That consistency is immediately evident in the second number from the suite, the Scherzo, a fleet-footed portrait of the fairies of Oberon and Titania’s world. Note the lengthy flute solo toward the end, which taxes the lungs of any flutist. The complete incidental music for the 1834 Berlin production, including the overture, lasts for about an hour, and includes a number of beautiful vocal/choral pieces. It is common, therefore, for a purely orchestral suite to be heard in concert and in recordings. The standard suite usually consists of the Overture, Scherzo, Nocturne, and Wedding March, but occasionally another movement or two might be added, typically the Intermezzo, which Steven Lipsitt has chosen to include in this performance. This piece, which falls between Acts II and III, is in two parts, the first depicting Hermia’s nightmare of the serpent and her despair when she discovers that Lysander is now rejecting her, and the second, beginning with mysterious strings that lead to a pair of jolly bassoons, ushering in the “rude mechanicals.” The suite’s fourth movement is the exquisite Nocturne with its serene and, yes, nocturnal horns. This music is an entr’acte following Act III, which closes with the two pairs of lovers asleep in the wood. The conclusion of the suite is Mendelssohn’s most famous music, the Wedding March, intended to be heard between Acts IV and V.
Stephen Halloran: “Concerto for New Orleans” (for Jazz Sextet and Classical Orchestra)
Concerto for New Orleans, for jazz sextet and classical orchestra, was commissioned by the celebrated and dynamic jazz ensemble, Made in the Shade: Mike Peipman, trumpet; Dan Fox, trombone; Crick Diefendorf, banjo; Paul Dosier, tuba; John McLellan, drums and Doug Yates, clarinet. The concerto features the jazz standards West End Blues, The Chant, St. James Infirmary, Sleepy Time Down South, and Tiger Rag, which serve as a launching pad for improvisation played by the soloists and contrapuntal music written for the orchestra. New Orleans, hailed as the “birthplace of jazz”, influenced many great composers and musicians, including Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin. This concerto follows in their footsteps by expressing the joy and freshness of American jazz through a classical medium.
