SEASON 3 EPISODE 11
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to ‘Major and Minor Masterpieces,’ where we focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
This week we’ll examine a handful of late 18th century violin concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn and Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
Mozart was, of course, a prodigy, playing the keyboard at age 3 and composing starting at age 5. He didn’t pick up the violin, however, until he was 6, studying with his father Leopold, an excellent violinist and also the author of a highly esteemed “Treatise on the Fundamentals of Violin Playing,” published in 1756, the year of his son’s birth.
Young Wolfgang picked things up quickly and was soon actively making music with his father’s colleagues and friends. That’s how he encountered the music of two of Italy’s finest violinist-composers of the era, Giuseppe Tartini and Pietro Locatelli, who exerted a particular influence on Mozart’s violin writing.
He composed all five of his violin concertos over the course of nine months (April-December) in 1775, at age 19, when he was the concertmaster for the court orchestra of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.
In the third and probably most popular of the set, Mozart borrowed the opening theme for the sunny opening movement from an aria from his opera “Il ré pastore” (“The Shepherd King”), which had debuted in Salzburg a few months earlier. The second movement is an aria. He employs dance rhythms for the third, a rondo, framing a folksong-like melody that the soloist plays over pizzicato (plucked) orchestral strings.
That soloist in this recording is Renaud Capuchin, who also conducts the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in the Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K.216, by Mozart.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “VIOLIN CONCERTO” NO. 3, G MAJOR)
Renaud Capuchin was the soloist and conducted the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major.
You may not be familiar with Mozart’s French contemporary,
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. He was born Christmas Day 1745, the illegitimate but recognized son of a rich white planter in the French Caribbean colony of Guadalupe the and a 17-year-old Creole enslaved woman who served within the Bologne household.
Young Joseph was taken to France at age 7; he became a violinist, conductor and composer, served as a soldier and was also an excellent athlete, dancer — and fencer. (His victory in a fencing contest lead to his appointment as a "gendarme de la garde du roi" by King Louis XVI.)
He was the first classical composer of African descent to attain widespread acclaim in European music; his output included string quartets, sinfonias concertante, violin duets, sonatas, two symphonies and an assortment of operas, as well as a dozen violin concertos, two of which you will hear today.
He was 11 years older than Mozart. He died in 1799, eight years after Mozart, and his musical style was similar enough to his Austrian contemporary that he has at times been called the "Black Mozart,” though some have criticized this appellation as racist.
A modern-day revival of interest in Saint-Georges has led to the recording of several of his works that had previously been obscure at best, including this one on Naxos. Violinist Fumika Mohri and the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, Michael Halász conducting, perform the Violin Concerto in D major, op.2, No. 2, by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
(JOSEPH BOLOGNE’S “VIOLIN CONCERTO” D MAJOR)
You’ve heard Fumika Mohri, violin, with the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice and conductor Michael Halász perform the Violin Concerto in D major by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.
Franz Joseph Haydn was the grand old man of Austrian music — born 1732, he died in 1809, and thus was not only a contemporary of Mozart but of Beethoven, whom he tutored in composition, and Schubert as well.
Although he did not invent these musical genres, he is generally considered to be the father of the string quartet and the piano trio and as the progenitor of the modern form of the classical symphony.
Given how prolific a composer he was — for example, 104 acknowledged symphonies and 68 string quartets (plus any number of possibly spurious compositions he may or may not have written) — it is somewhat shocking how few concertos he produced: principally a double handful of keyboard concertos, a few cello concertos (some of which are spurious, and one of which is lost), a popular concerto for trumpet and four for violin, one of which is also lost.
Of these, his Violin Concerto No. 1 in C major is the only one in the regular repertoire. Let’s hear violinist Augustin Hadelich play it with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and conductor Helmut Müller-Brühl.
(FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN’S “VIOLIN CONCERTO” NO. 1, C MAJOR)
You’ve heard violinist Augustin Hadelich as soloist in the Violin Concerto No. 1 in C major by Franz Joseph Haydn with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and conductor Helmut Müller-Brühl on today’s edition of Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
[EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
SARAH BUFORD, PRODUCER:
Hey listeners, welcome back to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I’m your producer, Sarah Buford, and it's time for our show’s little educational session, in which we break down some of the terminology we use when describing classical music and its history.
Eric, you are going to play us a bit of Turkish-influenced music later in the show that’s part of the Mozart violin concerto. Turns out there was a substantial Turkish influence on European music in the 18th and 19th centuries that I certainly didn’t know about. Can you provide us with some background on that?
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Well, Sarah, the introduction of Turkish influences to European music came about at least in part through the settlement of a long-standing conflict between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.
At the signing of a treaty in Vienna in 1699, the Turkish diplomatic delegation brought along a Janissary military band (the Janissaries were an elite corps in the Ottoman army). It included a range of percussion instruments (among them drums, cymbals and triangles) that were sort of new to the Europeans and soon found their way into European classical compositions that reflected, or at least imitated, that sound.
Beethoven, for example, composed a “Turkish March" as part of his incidental music to the play “The Ruins of Athens,” and he used drum, cymbal and triangle to introduce the tenor solo, “Froh, wie Seine Sonnen fliegen” (“Joyful, as Flies the Sun”), in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony.
The reason Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 bears the title “Military” comes from his use of Turkish military band instruments in the final movement.
Mozart set an opera in Turkey, “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” in which he uses Janissary instruments in the orchestra (you can certainly recognize them in the overture). And in two instances he composed movements he titled “Rondo alla Turca,” or “Turkish rondo" — the finale of his Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331, and the finale of his Violin Concerto No. 5, which we’ll hear later in the show.
SARAH: Well I can’t wait to hear it! Thanks for the explanation, Eric! Every day I swear I learn more about how cool Turkey’s history is. One day I really hope to visit and explore some archeological sites and afterwards take a Turkish coffee. But for now let’s get back to more Major and Minor Masterpieces.
[END OF EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: OK, here’s another violin concerto by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges — his Violin Concerto in A major, op.7, No. 1. Once again, violinist Fumika Mohri joins the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, Michael Halász conducting.
(JOSEPH BOLOGNE’S “VIOLIN CONCERTO” OP. 7, NO. 1)
Violinist Fumika Mohri joined the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice and conductor Michael Halász for the Violin Concerto by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, op. 7, no. 1.
Over the course of composing his five violin concertos, Mozart’s composition technique gradually developed out of the Baroque influences of the Italian composers whom he met through his father into his own graceful, sometimes whimsical, style. By the time he composed his fifth concerto, he was experimenting with fluctuating tempos and diverse meters within each movement.
In the first movement, for example, the solo violin follows the orchestral exposition by changing the tempo, from “Allegro aperto” (“fast and open”) to a much slower “Adagio.” The finale, as we have previously noted, is marked “Rondo alla turca”; Mozart opens with a sweet and graceful melody, with a middle section that abruptly changes to a minor key, with lively Turkish-sounding rhythms and cellos and basses percussively using the wooden part of the bow. The original theme returns and the movement ends surprisingly quietly.
Interestingly, this was Mozart’s last, but one, concerto work for strings — he composed his Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E-flat major, K.364, in 1779. Mozart, who was also an excellent violist (he played it in some of his string quartets and later string quintets as well), was the viola soloist for its premiere.
Once again, Renaud Capuchin is the violinist and conductor with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K.219, on this recent recording of the complete Mozart violin concertos on Deutsche Grammophon.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “VIOLIN CONCERTO” NO. 5, A MAJOR)
Renaud Capuchin soloed and conducted the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5.
Mozart wrote at least two short pieces for violin and orchestra that he may have originally intended to be part of concertos but have survived as separate works. One of them, the Rondo in C major, K.373, is today’s lagniappe. One more time, Renaud Capuchin is the violinist and conductor with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “RONDO” C MAJOR)
Renaud Capuchin was the violinist and conductor with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in the Rondo in C major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart here on Major and Minor Masterpieces.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
Thanks for tuning into this week’s show. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And our transition and credit music is by our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Listen again next week for more Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.