CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
New York String Orchestra

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 at 7:00 PM

New York String Orchestra
Jaime Laredo, Conductor
Augustin Hadelich, Violin

MOZART Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, "Turkish"
MOZART Symphony No. 40

This concert is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for young artists established by Stella and Robert Jones.

Program Notes:

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)

Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
Overtures have conventionally served the purpose of exposing the audience to the opera’s ethos, effectively “opening” the theatrical vista in which the drama unfolds. In this respect the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro is exemplary. A condensed sonata form without development, the Overture immediately plunges into the center of Figaro’s world of love, intrigue, vigorous personalities, and irrepressible vitality.

The prominent woodwinds and the motivic sparkle are idiomatic features of opera buffa, but the setting is entirely original. Mozart doesn’t limit himself to the expedients of comic opera, achieving instead an immediacy of expression hitherto unknown. Captivating figurations and unexpected turns abound. After the second theme, a rising melodic line in the first violins has a sudden chromatic jolt; the bassoon repeats and completes the figure, mockingly carrying on for a few bars. This shading is the essence of Figaro’s world: a momentarily darkened mood, an occasional thwack, all of which dissolve in the delirious gaiety of the 18th century.

At the end of the recapitulation, an extended coda concludes the piece. Just as the closing theme is repeated, the first violins return to the murmur that started the Overture; the second violins engage in a canon; the bassoons enter in rising thirds; then the oboes and horns join the exciting crescendo, bringing the Overture to a triumphant close.

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, “Turkish”
Among Mozart’s concertos for violin, the concerto in A major is the longest and most significant of the five. Mozart’s father, Leopold, who was one of the most renowned violin teachers of the l8th century, and who was never loath to criticize his son, said of Mozart’s violin playing, “when you do yourself justice and play with poise, feeling, and spirit—indeed, [you play] as though you were the foremost violinist in Europe.”

This pronouncement is illuminating, particularly in respect to this concerto: Despite its brilliance, the concerto’s virtuosity is never self-indulgent and the expression remains, in fact, full of the “poise, feeling, and spirit” that Leopold tried to impart. The thematic wealth is astounding; new motives flow effortlessly, but their nature has a common source, and the concerto is kept in a tightly bound aesthetic.

The first movement (Allegro aperto) has an ample orchestral exposition. Though short, it confers a certain weight to the movement. From the beginning, the power of the concerto becomes obvious from the discursive splendor of the string section, split into an accompanying section (second violins, violas, cello, double bass), and a prominent first violin section that punctuates the harmony with short, quiet yet emphatic strokes. The main themes, from which a great deal more shall be extracted, are played by the orchestra before an abrupt pause. The solo violin enters in a totally different tempo—a slower Adagio, startlingly different from the orchestra’s vein: the solo’s brief cantilena is an apparition of lyricism in a setting of action. This paradox between soloist and orchestra is the idiomatic principle of the Concerto form and the source of its dramatic power.

The second movement is an intensely vocal Adagio. Mozart’s admitted preference for the human voice is manifested in this lyrical movement; the cadenza has the sweep of the great opera arias of Handel, but the decorations are eminently Classical.

The concluding Rondo brings together apparently heterogeneous elements: The principal section maintains its Minuet structure, but the central episode is an astonishing, exotically colored A-minor Allegro in the style of Turkish-Hungarian music—an extreme contrast to the serene Minuet.

Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550
It is curious that one of the most tragic pieces in all symphonic literature be deemed by none other than Robert Schumann himself as possessing “a sort of Greek lightness and grace.” Such equivocations show how significantly the attitude toward musical aesthetics may change. Perhaps Schumann was trumped by Mozart’s proverbial effortlessness. Yet surely the Symphony in G Minor is one of the mighty crowns of 18th-century music.

The Symphony in G Minor, along with the Symphony in C Major, is the culmination of a process of maturation that began in 1782. It was then that Mozart moved to Vienna and became acquainted with the music of J. S. Bach and Handel. By the summer of 1788, Mozart’s assimilating genius had mastered all the currents of the century’s music, as he wrote these two great symphonies for the summer’s subscription concerts. Mozart’s star was at its nadir and it is uncertain whether these symphonies were played at all. It is probable that they were, for the score originally called for oboes that were possibly later substituted for clarinets, with a pending performance in mind.

The Symphony’s opening theme is one of the most well-known in music, yet its irregularity is often overlooked: It begins on an upbeat with an initial two-note motive that has thematic, harmonic, and rhythmic repercussions throughout the movement. This powerful unity is important to emphasize because Mozart’s music has been thought—and with reason—to be less economical. In other words, composers such as Haydn or Beethoven have written music that expends the themes’ possibilities by ransacking their pieces and utilizing them in every possible way. Mozart’s music, on the other hand, because of his inexhaustible imagination, captures the listener with its abundance. But pieces such as the Symphony in G Minor or his Piano Trio in E Major, K. 542, are so tightly constructed that they easily stand with Beethoven’s most obsessively theme-driven music: Listen for the two-note motive at the beginning of the Symphony that can later be heard in an astounding number of transformations—in the bass and woodwinds especially.

The Andante is a movement of inward sweetness. The sighing figures in the woodwinds, intensified by the strings, cause emotions to overflow—just as in the first movement. The musical colors, too, are remarkable with sudden tonal tears that pour unexpected hues on the serene canopy that this movement is laid on.

The Minuet’s dramatic impetus is created by the formidable contrapuntal passages that are the backbone of this movement. The Trio eases the tension for a moment, consisting of a simple pastoral melody.

The final Allegro assai brings the symphony relentlessly to its close; the dark, pessimistic vein is one Mozart did not revisit. The movement’s rabid energy leaves the listener drained from its lack of a liberating solution. Mozart’s biographer, Hermann Abert, made this revealing comparison with Beethoven: “Beethoven is kind of will and his music bore within itself the struggle from its inception through its resolution, which took place in the artwork itself. With Mozart this does not happen. For him, too, liberation followed; he expressed the essence of the creation demanding a manner so heedless of consequences that there was no further internal urge to create.”

—Cody Franchetti
© 2008 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

New York String Orchestra
Jaime Laredo, Conductor
The New York String Orchestra Seminar is one of the country’s most acclaimed professional training programs. In 1969 arts administrator and manager Frank Salomon created the Seminar for Alexander Schneider, one of the 20th century’s preeminent musical figures whose deep commitment to young artists was an inspiration to a generation of musicians. Before his death in 1993, Schneider chose Jaime Laredo to carry on the project’s mission. The Seminar introduces the country’s most exceptional young musicians to new musical ideas, offers them chamber music coaching from members of the world’s top ensembles, and gives them the challenge of performing two concerts presented by Carnegie Hall. All participants receive full scholarships to ensure that no gifted young artist is denied the opportunity due to personal financial limitations. Visit newschool.edu/concerts for more information.

Found in leadership roles around the world, alumni of the New York String Orchestra Seminar include cellist Yo-Yo Ma; violinists Cho-Liang Lin, Gil Shaham, Kyoko Takezawa, and Shlomo Mintz; members of top chamber ensembles (including the Guarneri, Emerson, Orion, Muir, Johannes, Brentano, Takács, and Kronos string quartets); members of leading symphony and chamber orchestras (including concertmasters of The Philadelphia Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Boston, Cincinnati, and Chicago symphonies); conductors such as Peter Oundjian, Joseph Swensen, Douglas Boyd, and Marin Alsop; and faculty members of our nation’s most distinguished conservatories and universities.

Augustin Hadelich, Violin
Augustin Hadelich has established himself as a rising star among the new generation of violinists with his poetic style and dazzling technique. Gold medalist of the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, he made his highly acclaimed Carnegie Hall orchestral debut in January 2008 with the Fort Worth Symphony under conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya; he returned to Carnegie Hall in March for his recital debut, also in Stern Auditorium. Mr. Hadelich’s performance tonight with the New York String Orchestra marks his third Carnegie Hall appearance this year. His other engagements during the current season include debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Hamburg Camerata, and the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra in Budapest. This season, Mr. Hadelich plays recitals at Kioi Hall (Tokyo), Namikiri Hall (Osaka), La Jolla Music Society, and the Kennedy Center, and participates in an east coast tour with artists from the Marlboro Music Festival.

Mr. Hadelich’s numerous orchestral appearances include the symphonies of Columbus (Ohio), Fort Worth, Grand Rapids, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, Louisville, Santa Barbara, and Syracuse. Outside the US, he has performed with the Capetown Philharmonic, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie / Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern, Dresdner Philharmonie, Museumsorchester Frankfurt, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, and the chamber orchestras of Bavaria, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Kiel, Lucerne, and Toulouse. Mr. Hadelich has collaborated with such renowned conductors as Günther Herbig, Christof Perick, Christoph Poppen, Stefan Sanderling, Michael Stern, and Mario Venzago.

In 2008, he made his recording debut for Naxos, performing the complete violin concertos of Haydn with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra. A CD of masterpieces for solo violin, including the Bartók solo sonata, will be released by AVIE in 2009.

Born in Italy in 1984 to German parents, Mr. Hadelich holds a diploma (summa cum laude) from the Instituto Mascagni in Livorno, Italy, and the prestigious Artist Diploma from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Joel Smirnoff. He has participated in both the Marlboro and Ravinia summer festivals. As first-prize winner of the Indianapolis competition, Augustin plays on the 1683 ex-Gingold Stradivari violin and Tourte bow.