The Program
JOHANN
SEBASTIAN BACH
Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra in D Minor, BWV 1043
About the
Composer
Although no autograph score of BWV 1043 survives, its musical qualities place
it among the works that Bach composed around 1730 while living and working in Leipzig. In addition to his duties as
cantor at the St. Thomas School and music director of the four city
churches, Bach also directed the Collegium Musicum, a professional-level
ensemble that performed weekly concerts at a local coffeehouse. Among its
members were university students, town musicians, and talented amateurs along
with Bach’s own pupils. During his tenure, they gave some 500 two-hour concerts
of vocal and instrumental music, including many works that Bach composed especially for the Collegium, such as the
well-known “Coffee” Cantata and a bevy of concertos.
About the Music
Bach’s Double Concerto is written for two solo violins, a string orchestra, and continuo instruments; all parts
are equally important. The texture in the outer movements of BWV 1043 is
generally contrapuntal, meaning that independent musical lines are
superimposed, whereas the middle movement is more like an aria, with the solo
violins taking up the melody. Unlike concertos from the late-18th and 19th
centuries, which showcase a single virtuoso soloist, the Baroque concerto
emphasizes the interplay of soloist and group. Unusually, however, the soloists
and group in this concerto both have their own distinct material.
A Closer Listen
The opening of the Vivace first movement is a fugal exposition: The main fugue
subject is heard in the second solo violin (doubled by the second violins in the string ensemble) with churning accompaniment.
A quick trill ends the phrase, and the first solo violin then enters
with the fugue subject. It next returns in the basses. Solo interludes, often
featuring quick imitative passages between
the two violins, alternate with the fugal ensemble (known as the
ritornello, because this music returns whereas the episodes present new
material).
The slow movement has been described as having a bel canto melody—a term
familiar from opera, meaning “beautiful singing,” and distinguished by elegant phrasing and unbroken legato lines. The
two violins spin out long, gossamer
threads of music; here it is obvious
that Bach was an accomplished composer for
the lyrical voice as well as a contrapuntal wizard.
The finale is truly orchestral in its dense textures and dramatic
interjections. It opens with a close canon: The two violinists enter,
staggered, with the same music. At times during the tutti sections, the two
violinists actually play an accompanying role.
—Elizabeth Bergman
© 2011 The Carnegie Hall Corporation
ANTONÍN
DVOŘÁK
Romance in F Minor, Op. 11
About the
Composer
Antonín Dvořák was the eldest of eight children born to a Czech butcher and his
wife. Recognizing his talent, they sent him off to study the violin, piano, and
organ as well as harmony; later, he picked up the viola and became principal
violist in Prague’s first Czech theater. In 1871, Dvořák announced himself as a
composer in a Prague musical journal: His first works to be performed and
printed were songs. The Romance, Op. 11, is one of his most successful early
works.
About the Music
The Romance is an arrangement of the slow movement from Dvořák’s 1873 String
Quartet in F Minor, which remained unpublished during the composer’s lifetime.
Soon after he completed the quartet, Dvořák reset the movement for violin and
piano, and also turned out this version for violin and orchestra.
A Closer Listen
The Romance begins with a series of entrances of a lilting melody moving down
through the ensemble to the lowest bass. The orchestral texture thickens then
thins as the soloist enters with this same graceful theme. A subtle slide to
the major mode (and transition to a new color, as the music moves from flats to
sharps) ushers in a new melody in the solo violin; the accompaniment retains
hints of the original theme. A series of cadenza-like flourishes introduce new
tonal areas, none stable. The music continues to slip and slide until finally
taking a turn toward the dramatic with a brusque orchestral tutti and
foursquare marching rhythm. Both themes then return to restore a sense of
melancholy ease.
—Elizabeth Bergman
© 2011 The Carnegie Hall Corporation
CAMILLE
SAINT-SAËNS
Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28
About the
Composer
A child prodigy at the piano, Camille Saint-Saëns entered the Paris
Conservatoire in 1848 and quickly distinguished himself as an organ virtuoso.
From 1852 to 1858, he served as organist at St. Merry, subsequently assuming a
prestigious post at La Madeleine, a Roman-styled temple (just north of the
Place de la Concorde) originally erected to celebrate Napoleon’s Grand Army and
consecrated as a church in 1842. Saint-Saëns continued an active career as a
performer, composed much sacred organ and choral music for his own use, and
also took up teaching; among his pupils was the young Gabriel Fauré. Although
his own compositions tend to be rather conventional, Saint-Saëns introduced to
France the innovations of German Romanticism in works by Liszt, Schumann, and
Wagner. His best and most characteristic works date from the 1870s and ’80s, a
period that encompasses the opera Henry
VIII, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the tone poem Danse macabre, and Le
carnaval des animaux.
About the Music
The Introduction and Rondo capriccioso was originally composed as the finale of
the Violin Concerto, Op. 20. It was premiered as a stand-alone piece on April
4, 1867, by Pablo de Sarasate at the Théâtre
de Champs-Élysées with Saint-Saëns himself conducting. Sarasate, to whom
the Concerto (and thus the Rondo) is dedicated, was an accomplished violinist
and composer born in Navarre, Spain—hence the Spanish flair of Saint-Saëns’s
score.
A Closer Listen
As suggested by the title, the Introduction and Rondo capriccioso is in two
sections, both of which showcase the
virtuoso soloist. The slow introduction ends with a wide-ranging
cadenza. After a brief orchestral interlude, the soloist presents the prancing
rondo theme, a melody that returns periodically (by definition, a rondo
features a catchy melody that alternates with contrasting episodes). This theme
contrasts the more lyrical, swaying second theme, which features double
stops—chords played by the solo violin.
—Elizabeth Bergman
© 2011 The Carnegie Hall Corporation
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385, “Haffner”
About the
Composer
From 1773 to 1780, Mozart was unhappily employed in the service of Archbishop
Colloredo and dissatisfied with musical life in his native city of Salzburg. In
the summer of 1777, he was actively seeking a new position and so traveled to
Munich, Augsburg, and Mannheim. From there,
he continued on (at the insistence of his overbearing father) to Paris.
Finally in January 1779, Mozart returned to Salzburg; by June 1781, he was
unceremoniously dismissed from Colloredo’s service, thus freeing him to pursue
his career as a freelance musician in Vienna. Yet he still had ties to
Salzburg, including an acquaintance with the Haffner family, for whom the music
of the Symphony No. 35 was composed.
About the Music
What would become the “Haffner” Symphony
began as a celebratory serenade for the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner in July 1782. Mozart’s father
asked his son to compose a symphony for the occasion, but at the time
Wolfgang was utterly overwhelmed by work on
an arrangement of his opera, Die
Entführung aus dem Serail.
“How on earth am I to do so?” he lamented in response to his father’s request.
“Well, I must just spend the night over it, for that is the only way; and to
you, dearest father, I sacrifice it.” The
original serenade included a march, and perhaps a second minuet, but
Mozart cut those to create a four-movement symphony first performed in March of
1783. “My new ‘Haffner’ Symphony has positively amazed me,” he wrote to his
father upon receiving the score back from Salzburg. Mozart was confident of its
success: “It must surely produce a good effect,” he wrote. Indeed it was well
received by Emperor Joseph, who (according to the composer) applauded
enthusiastically.
A Closer Listen
The celebratory tone of the symphony is established at the outset: The first movement
features trumpets and drums, vigorous leaps, declamatory unison passages, and
arresting moments of silence. The development highlights the wind instruments
in a murky moment of imitative entrances just before the opening theme returns
in full force. The Andante and Menuetto that follow are lovely, gracious, and
easy-going—this is, after all, party music. The pace picks up again in the
Finale, which Mozart ordered be played “as fast as possible.” Its many brief
motifs and strikingly insistent timpani part are positively operatic in
inspiration.
—Elizabeth Bergman
© 2011 The Carnegie Hall Corporation