CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Sunday, March 1st, 2009 at 2:00 PM

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Zubin Mehta, Conductor

MOZART Overture to The Marriage of Figaro
HAYDN Symphony No. 104, "London"
R. STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben

Encores:
HELLMESBERGER JR. Leichtfüssig
EDUARD STRAUSS Bahn frei Polka

This concert is made possible, in part, by the Audrey Love Charitable Foundation.

Program Notes:

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–1791)
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro

Anyone who has penetrated below the sparkling surface of Mozart’s music knows the fearsome emotional strength that lies concealed there. This is true even in such a seemingly urbane comedy of manners as The Marriage of Figaro.

Here, in a superficial view, is the epitome of the artificial 18th-century opera buffa (“comic opera”) plot, replete with intrigues suspected and real, complete with a young-man role for female singer, and culminating in an evening garden scene that outdoes all rivals with its mistaken meanings and identities, and selectively overheard asides. Yet it was this same piece of theatrical clockwork that led Bernard Shaw, invoking the spirit of Shakespeare himself, to celebrate Mozart as “the most subtle and profound of all musical dramatists.”

Composed to a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte based in turn on Beaumarchais’s play Le Mariage de Figaro, the opera was first performed in Vienna on May 1, 1786. As befits a curtain-raiser, the overture represents Mozart in relatively untroubled public vein, but even here a glorious subordinate theme, suffused with warmth, hints as the humanity of the opera’s tenderer moments.


JOSEPH HAYDN (1732–1809)
Symphony No. 104 in D Major, “London”

For Haydn, as for Beethoven in the throes of his last illness, England was a very special place. It was London that set the seal on his international reputation. His first visit there, in 1791–1792, was enormously productive, of both financial gain and of critical and public acclaim. Music history shows regrettably few cases of a supreme masters being esteemed as such in his own time. It was only natural that Haydn should have been irresistibly drawn back to the scene of so resounding a success.

In February 1794 he arrived for the second time in England, bringing with him one complete new symphony and parts of two others. Their first performances drew ecstatic reviews in the London press: The Morning Chronicle spoke of “the inexhaustible, the wonderful, the sublime HAYDN! . . . Every new Overture he writes, we fear, till it is heard, he can only repeat himself; and we are every time mistaken.”

But wonderful as the symphonies of 1794 are, they are surpassed by the three Haydn premiered in the following year. There is no particular reason why the third of them, No. 104, should have been singled out, in the 19th century, for the nickname “London”; there is every reason why it forms a worthy culmination to Haydn’s symphonic output. “This wonderful man,” the Morning Chronicle enthused again, “never fails; and the various powers of his inventive and impassioned mind have seldom been conceived with more accuracy by the Band, or listened to with greater rapture by the hearers, than they were on this evening.”

This time around, Haydn was no longer concerned, as in the “tick-tock” of the “Clock” Symphony (No. 101) or the inevitable smash-hit of No. 100’s “military” slow movement, to provide picturesque details tailored to the taste of the London audience. Thanks to its more inward nature, the genuine musical, dramatic, and emotional power of No. 104 is even greater. The slow movement here, especially in the superb harmonic expansion of its penultimate pages, inhabits a new world of tenderness and visionary poetry.

The third movement is a locus classicus for the reliability of the O’Reilly Minuet Test. If you are in doubt whether a given minuet is by Haydn or Mozart, sing it—silently, please—to the words “Are you the O’Reilly that runs this hotel?” If the tune fits the text, it’s almost certainly Haydn; if it does not, it still could be Haydn, but it is much more likely to be Mozart. Every single minuet in Haydn’s last dozen symphonies, and many in his earlier ones, begins with a vigorous “kick-off” on the third beat of the measure. Such “minuets” have little left in common with the formal court dance from which they take their name. It is their rhythmic construction, as well as their often boisterous spirit, that brings them far closer to the scherzos of Haydn’s successor Beethoven than to the relatively sedate minuets of his contemporary Mozart.

Like the minuet, the first movement, endlessly resourceful in its use of the main subject’s third and fourth measures as a generative source for later developments, looks forward to Beethoven. And the finale, based on a Croatian folk-tune, looks even farther forward: in a characteristically perceptive and entertaining note on the work in his Essays in Musical Analysis, Donald Tovey points out that this movement “is obviously the grandfather” of the finale of Brahms’s own D-Major Second Symphony.


RICHARD STRAUSS (1864–1949)
Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40

“Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ is so little beloved of our conductors,” declared Strauss in 1898, “and is on this account now only rarely performed, that to fulfill a pressing need I am composing a largish tone poem entitled Heldenleben, admittedly without a funeral march, but in E-flat Major, with lots of horns, which are always a yardstick of heroism.” He was to conduct the first performance, in Frankfurt, on March 3 of the following year.

“Ein Heldenleben” means “A Hero’s Life.” Even if the hero celebrated in this, the last of Strauss’s works to be officially subtitled “tone poem,” is Strauss himself, those remarks suggest that the composer’s initial idea for the work was not explicitly autobiographical. With due allowance made for Strauss’s sense of humor, and for the likelihood that the “pressing need” was an inner creative one rather than any thoughts about Beethoven, we may accept his explanation as stage one in the creation of this massive score.

Thus far, four totally diverse characters—Macbeth, Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, and Zarathustra—had provided Strauss with the heroic copy his tone poems needed. The next subject was Don Quixote, depicted in the “fantastic variations on a theme of knightly character” completed in 1897. Heldenleben was conceived at the same time, and in 1898, shortly before completing it, he was to observe: “I think so strongly of Don Quixote and Ein Heldenleben as being directly linked together that Don Quixote in particular is only fully and completely comprehensible when put side by side with Heldenleben.”

The only thing missing, at first, was a specific hero. Heldenleben’s concern with “a more general and free ideal of great and manly heroism” (in contrast with Don Quixote’s “crazy striving after false ideals”) was still lacking in particular reference. But Strauss was a composer who liked to have, if not necessarily a narrative framework, at least some kind of psychological subject matter to realize in his music. He thus decided to model the new heroic portrait on is own life, or some aspects of it. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t compose a symphony about myself,” he remarked; “I find myself quite as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander.”

We may question whether Strauss himself, as a man, was a particularly heroic figure. But the figure that strides forth at the opening of Heldenleben is an authentically heroic one, and the fulfillment he finds at the conclusion is earned by hard and thoroughly serious artistic work. Between these two outer sections of the tone poem’s one continuous movement—respectively portraying the hero’s character and narrating his retirement—come four main subdivisions.

The opening “Hero” section is immediately followed by a strongly contrasted portrayal of “The Hero’s adversaries,” for which generic term read “critics” if you want a clearer picture of Strauss’ meaning. They are mean-spirited creatures, carping and pedantic, and our hero brushes them aside with contemptuous ease—at first. Composer and hero alike turn next to a contemplation of “The Hero’s helpmate.” She is described in a rapturous and technically demanding violin solo, which duly leads the way into an ecstatic love-scene.

But marital bliss does not last forever when you are a hero. Suddenly a trio of offstage trumpets sounds a renewed call to battle. This time, in “The Hero’s deeds of war,” the protagonist takes up the challenge in earnest, and the fourth section paints a furious combat in terms of vociferous fanfares and sharply stylized instrumental conflicts. After the hero’s inevitable victory, his arpeggio theme strides out again, restored to its original E-flat major glow, in what amounts to a free recapitulation, “The Hero’s works of peace.” It is this section, rather than any overt verbal statement, that demonstrates the autobiographical character of Ein Heldenleben: the “works” in question turn out to be Strauss’s own earlier compositions, references to which succeed each other with gorgeous prodigality in a dazzling tapestry of sound.

Strauss’s future, in 1898, still held more than enough to fill another heroic life. But the sumptuous tale of past achievement is already rich enough to justify itself, and the closing section, “The Hero’s withdrawal from the world and the fulfillment of his life,” meditates on it with due complacency.

—Bernard Jacobson

London-born Bernard Jacobson is program annotator for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and Pacific Northwest correspondent for Opera Magazine.

© 2009 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Zubin Mehta, Conductor
There is perhaps no other musical ensemble more consistently and closely associated with the history and tradition of European classical music than the Vienna Philharmonic. In the course of its over 160-year history, the musicians of this most prominent orchestra of the capital city of music have been an integral part of a musical epoch which, due to an abundance of gifted composers and interpreters, must certainly be regarded as unique.
The orchestra’s close association with this rich musical history is best illustrated by the statements of countless preeminent musical personalities of the past. Richard Wagner described the orchestra as one of the most outstanding in the world; Anton Bruckner called it “the most superior musical association”; Johannes Brahms counted himself as a “friend and admirer”; Gustav Mahler claimed to be joined together through “the bonds of musical art”; and Richard Strauss summarized these sentiments by saying: “All praise of the Vienna Philharmonic reveals itself as understatement.”
The Vienna State Opera Orchestra holds a special relationship with the private association known as the Vienna Philharmonic. In accordance with philharmonic statutes, only a member of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra can become a member of the Vienna Philharmonic. The engagement in the Vienna State Opera Orchestra provides the musicians a financial stability that would be impossible to attain without relinquishing their autonomy to private or corporate sponsors.
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s mission is to communicate the humanitarian message of music into the daily lives and consciousness of its listeners. In 2005 the orchestra was named Goodwill Ambassador of the World Health Organization (WHO), and since 2006 the orchestra has also been Ambassador for the Phonak initiative “Hear the World.” The musicians endeavor to implement the motto with which Ludwig von Beethoven, whose symphonic works served as a catalyst for the creation of the orchestra, prefaced his “Missa Solemnis”: “From the heart, to the heart.”