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Program Notes, ©2013 Lori Newman

Program Notes

Gioacchino Rossini                  Overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia  (1816)
(Born 1792, Pesaro, Italy; died 1868, Passy, near Paris, France)

To say that the premiere of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) was an unmitigated failure, would in no way be an exaggeration.  There seems an unending litany to the blunders that took place that fateful evening in 1816 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.  Rossini’s first complication was perhaps of his own making: he based his opera on the already popular French play by Pierre Beaumarchais, which had already been set popularly in opera form by the senior composer, Giovanni Paisiello.  Paisiello had his allies in the audience and their only purpose seemed to be to disrupt the production.  That was just the beginning of Rossini’s woes.

There were well-documented instances of a main character tripping over a prop during his entrance and falling flat on his face, having to sing his aria with a bloodied nose; another singer had the misfortune of plummeting through a trap door that had accidentally been left open; a character in the midst of his serenade broke a string on his accompanying instrument; and another poor sop didn’t adequately find his mark, instead turning the wrong way and walking into some already precariously placed scenery.  One might imagine this could be enough buffoonery for one evening, but sadly, no.  During one of the opera’s most climactic scenes, a stray cat strode across the stage, eliciting giggles from  the audience, as well as Rossini’s cast.  (It was never proven if one of Paisiello’s cohorts engineered the feline’s entrance, or if it was just another in a string of remarkably unlucky events of the premiere.)  Rossini could bear no more and left the theater before the opera’s curtain calls.

Luckily for Rossini, Italian opera-goers of the time were both fickle, and in possession of very short memories.  The second performance, completely devoid of the first night’s high jinks, allowed the audience to truly recognize the genius of The Barber of Seville.  Rossini chose not to attend the second performance, fearing the same types of disasters as the previous night’s.  While he was at home worrying about what was happening during the second performance of Seville, he heard an uproar in the street.  When he looked out his window, he saw a large group of people shouting and carrying torches approaching his dwelling.  At first, he feared they were coming to harm him, until he heard the words, “Vivat Rossini” (“Long live Rossini”).  Apparently Rossini’s memory was better than the audience’s, because when he realized they wanted him to come out and accept their accolades, he muttered something unprintable and stayed indoors, refusing to acknowledge their tribute.

As with most of Rossini’s operas, he composed them at lightning speed, The Barber of Seville in just three weeks.  He initially had wanted to write a Spanish-inspired overture for Seville, but ran out of time, and using one of his tried and true tricks, resorted to recycling.  He chose an overture originally written in 1813, which he used again in 1815, but this time, there was no extricating his use of the overture in 1816 and its felicitous attachment to The Barber of Seville.

In true opera buffa style, Rossini’s Il barbiere is filled with the requisite loves, villains, disguises, pseudonyms, misunderstandings, shenanigans, and in traditional buffa form, the good guys almost always win.

The overture follows many of Rossini’s opera overture formats, this one beginning with a slow introduction in E Major with a marking of Andante maestoso.  The introduction vacillates between forte chords involving the whole orchestra, and softer and smaller complements of instruments for its often reflective and introspective moments.  In typical Rossini format the introduction is followed by a sprightly allegro in e minor, an allegro that once stated, treats the listener to the true ambience of the action to follow.  With this, comes the recognition that this overture could never again be attached to another work other than The Barber of Seville.

This is one of the more recognizable opera overtures in popular  culture, familiar to both opera lovers and the reluctant and nescient opera detractors.  Lest us forget the cartoon’s contribution to Seville’s popularity – Woody Woodpecker’s The Barber of Seville (1944) and Bugs Bunny’s creative The Rabbit of Seville (1949).  Even the seminal sitcom, Seinfeld (1993) used the allegro of the overture during one of its most farcical plot lines involving a barber and an infidelity scandal.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart             Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622  (1791)
(Born 1756, Salzburg, Austria; died 1791, Vienna, Austria)

Intrigue abounds whenever studying the last works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622 was the last work he wrote in the concerto genre, and the last important work written in its entirety before his death in December 1791.  The Clarinet Concerto was written for his friend and famed clarinetist, Anton Stadler.

Mozart likely first heard Stadler’s playing in 1784 in a performance of one of Mozart’s earlier works, the Serenade No. 10 in Bb Major (often referred to as the “Gran Partita”).  Mozart was transfixed by Stadler’s sound, and all future clarinetists are indebted to Stadler for bringing Mozart’s attention to the dulcet tones that were indeed possible on the single reed instrument, an instrument which had long been ignored by composers of solo works.  Soon after Stadler’s performance in 1784, a critic said of Stadler’s playing, “One would never have thought that a clarinet could imitate the human voice to such perfection.”

In 1789, Mozart wrote the famous Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, K. 581, for Stadler, and it seemed all future works included the clarinet whenever possible.  There is some debate as to the extent of Mozart and Stadler’s friendship and of Stadler’s true motivations.  Letters from Mozart’s relatives paint Standler as somewhat of a mooch, borrowing money from Mozart, and proving to be a formidable gambling partner.  Correspondence suggests that Stadler’s desire to be seen with Mozart and travel in his circles, possibly far outweighed any genuine feelings of friendship he felt for the composer. The fact that Mozart would write a Clarinet Concerto, in the midst of the composition of his operas La clemenza di Tito and the Magic Flute proves what special esteem and regard Mozart must have held Stadler.  Mozart finished his Clarinet Concerto a mere two months before his death.

Stadler had begun to fancy a new type of clarinet (now referred to as the basset clarinet, but in Mozart’s time, no title was designated for the new instrument), a larger clarinet that extended the instrument’s lower range by four notes, or a major third.  Stadler and others were enamored by the rich lower register that the instrument could accommodate.  However, since Mozart died so soon after the composition, it took about ten years before the concerto was published.  Between the time the concerto was written and published, the new, larger basset clarinet  was no longer played or popular with clarinetists of the early 1800s.  Sometime around 1800, the concerto was transcribed and reworked to the concerto clarinetists have been playing for hundreds of years.  However, the hand that took part in this renovation was not Mozart’s, and the debt of gratitude that clarinetists owe this mystery scribe is great, indeed.  Many musicians have attempted to recreate Mozart’s original composition for basset clarinet, but with limited success.

Listening to the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, two things are immediately apparent:  the first is the seeming simplicity of the major themes of the concerto, and the second is the seamless interaction between soloist and orchestra.  Between the “simple” and unmistakably singable tunes, lies fierce technical passagework, which when done adroitly, never sounds difficult.  The interplay between the orchestra and soloist is so uniform and playful, that Mozart chooses not to write a cadenza for the soloist.  Mozart strove to never include anything that was superfluous or unnecessary, and in the mastery of his Clarinet Concerto, didn’t need anything further in the way of flash or frivolity from its soloist, he had already written it into his concerto.

Franz Schubert   Symphony No. 9 in C Major, “The Great,”  (1825 – 1826)
(Born 1797, Vienna, Austria; died 1828, Vienna, Austria)

If not for Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn, it is entirely possible that Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, “The Great,” or much of his other music, would not have survived, let alone have been performed and celebrated after his death.  This seems inconceivable, but the facts are incontrovertible.  When Schubert died at the tragic age of 31, his post-mortem belongings were catalogued with such mundane items as how many pairs of socks he owned, and the exact count and contents of his bedding.  The music found was flippantly referred to as such:  “Apart from some old music besides, no [other] belongings of the deceased are to be found.”  How is it possible that this happened to one of the most venerated composers of the 19th century?

Well, first off, he wasn’t terribly venerated during his lifetime, and as with many composers, his true genius wasn’t discovered until after his death.  Toward the last two years of his life, his music began to be appreciated more fully, but not on the scale that we would imagine today.  While Schubert wrote beautifully in the symphonic genre, his most influential contributions are that to the lied and song cycle.  Nevertheless, his Symphony No. 9, “The Great” has been mentioned in the same sentence with Beethoven’s Ninth and the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms as examples of the finest in the symphonic tradition.

Back to Schumann, and his “discovery” of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony.  Schubert’s music ended up in the hands of his brother Ferdinand, a teacher of organ at a local conservatory.  It seems that Ferdinand, while trying to make a living and raise his eight children, didn’t have the time or wherewithal to appropriately purvey his brother’s legacy.  He sold a few works to the publisher Diabelli, but nothing on a grand scale.  He enlisted the help of Robert Schumann, in Schumann’s capacity as the editor of the highly regarded Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music).  Schumann dutifully placed ads for Schubert’s works, with little to no response.

Then, as if Hollywood had scripted the events itself, on New Year’s Day, Schumann decided to take a trip to Vienna to visit the graves of Beethoven and Schubert at the Währing Cemetery where they were buried near each other.  For whatever reason, but music history will always owe a debt of gratitude, Schumann remembered that Ferdinand lived in Vienna and decided to pay him a visit.  (Let’s just take a moment to ponder all the cosmos that had to have been aligned for this string of events to have unfolded as they did.)  Schumann arrived at Ferdinand’s where Schubert’s brother showed him all of the boxes of unpublished and undiscovered music.  Schumann writes of the discovery:

He [Ferdinand] knew of me because of that veneration for his brother which I have so often publicly expressed; told me and showed me many things. . . . Finally, he allowed me to see those treasured compositions of Schubert’s which he still possesses. The sight of this hoard of riches thrilled me with joy; where to begin, where to end!  Among other things, he drew my attention to the scores of several symphonies, many of which have never as yet been heard, but were shelved as too heavy and turgid. There, among the piles, lay a heavy volume of 130 pages, dated March 1828 at the top of the first sheet. The manuscript, including the date and a number of corrections, is entirely in Schubert’s hand, which often appears to have been flying as fast as his pen could go. The work, a symphony in C, Schubert’s last and greatest, had never been performed.

In reality, it was not Schubert’s last symphony composed, but that’s a minor point in the narrative.  Another minor point to address is “The Great” sobriquet was not Schubert’s, but rather that of the publisher who wanted to differentiate between the Ninth Symphony in C Major and the Sixth, also in C Major.

Schumann was dumbfounded by the discovery and recognized it for the groundbreaking work that it was.  He immediately sent it to Felix Mendelssohn, who at the time was the conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig.  Mendelssohn also perceived its brilliance and conducted a partial premiere on March 21, 1839.  Why only a partial premiere?  Well, the genius of the work took a bit of time to be fully realized by audiences and musicians alike.  The work was considered massive, a typical performance lasting 55 or so minutes.  To the 21st century audience, this does not seem overwhelming, especially in the wake of Mahler, but in the mid-1830s, it was considered monstrous.  Beethoven’s Ninth was indeed longer, but it was so revered that the length did not seem to bother audiences.  Also, the addition of the choir in Beethoven’s last movement offered some variety to keep the audience engaged.  Initially, the Schubert was programmed sometimes not in its entirety, or other times, shorter works were programmed in between some of the longer movements to appease the restless audience.  Many musicians balked and deemed the work too difficult, causing cancellations of subsequent performances.  Eventually the musicians and audiences came around and accepted Schubert’s Ninth as the true masterpiece it is.

The first movement opens with an introduction whose theme is initially stated by the French horns.  The theme is dignified and regal and offers much of the melodic material to come in the allegro.  One of the most interesting aspects of this movement’s allegro is that it is more rhythmically driven than melodically, an oddity for a composer known for his German songs.  The second movement opens with a tragic character, spotlighting the oboe.  Mid-movement Schubert shifts to the major mode, this time featuring the flute and clarinet, before returning to the minor key once more to finish the movement.  The third movement is a playful and dance-like scherzo at its finest, whose six-note motive carries the scherzo into the trio which takes on a more lyrical and lackadaisical affect.  The last movement is driven by rhythmic forces that hardly ever offer a moments repose.  Schubert also employs extreme chromaticism through all of his themes in this finale.

The famous Sir George Grove (yes, that Grove, as in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians for all you music scholars out there) said this of Schubert’s Ninth, “Schubert did nothing to extend the formal limits of the symphony, but he endowed it with a magic, a romance, a sweet naturalness which no one has yet approached.”  Hector Berlioz, upon hearing its 1852 Paris premiere, exclaimed, “This Symphony is, to my thinking, worthy of a place among the loftiest productions of our art.” While Robert Schumann took a more personal approach when he recalled first discovering the symphony, “I was in a state of bliss. It is not possible to describe it; all the instruments are human voices; it is gifted beyond measure, and the instrumentation is superb … and this length, this heavenly length, like a novel in four volumes. I was completely happy.”

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