As Mozart often did, he begins the exposition with fresh material, in this case little floating fugue with a short subject in long notes with close imitations. [Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Keith Jarrett; Dennis Russell Davies; Stuttgarter Kammerorchester.] I forgot – there is also a theme from my Tenth Symphony. Trio pathétique in D minor for Clarinet, Bassoon, and Piano 6, no. Salzburg, Austria. In the century following the death of J.S. BORN: January 27, 1756. The Fugue in C minor ultimately brought Mozart’s study of Baroque fugue and counterpoint to a close, though the influence of his time studying the Baroque styles would be seen in future Enter you email address and we'll email you when we update the blog. Italian domination of the arts during the Renaissance and much of the Baroque was felt across the continent, and carried over across the channel (Francesco Geminiani, thought to be a student of Corelli’s, capitalized on this popularity during his lifetime, immigrating to live out his life and career in England and Ireland). He wrote: “Everything there was very well set up for me to work …Conditions for composing were ideal . It was this fugue that, five years later, Mozart transcribed for strings, adding an adagio introduction, in the manner of a Bach-like French overture, with that genre’s typical dotted rhythmic figures. In the third movement, he incorporates music from the recently composed Cello Concerto, while in the fourth he quotes not only an aria from a prison scene in his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, but also the revolutionary song, “Tormented by Grievous Bondage,” the Dies Irae, and Siegfried’s Funeral March from Götterdämmerung. In 1774, Mozart was a teenager, and the number of symphonies pouring out of his pen outnumbered his age: eighteen years old, twenty-nine symphonies. As for the quoted material: the D-S-C-H theme is heard widely throughout Shostakovich’s oeuvre, especially in the Cello Concerto. Within a generation filled with minimalism, Golijov’s compositional voice stands apart as deeply personal in a very audibly translatable way. Also composed in this amazing year was his poignant Adagio in B Minor for piano solo, K. 540, his famous C Major “Sonata Facile,” K. 545, his Piano Concerto No. The Occasion Franz Joseph Haydn lived in a time of great social change and political foment. Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Mmajor (BWV 564) is an organ composition by Johann Sebastian Bach. Regarding the Prelude (Fantasie) and Fugue in C Major, Mozart wrote to his sister, Maria-Anna (Nannerl) in a letter dated April 20, 1782: I composed the fugue first and wrote it down while I was thinking out the prelude. Not too bad, this little potpourri. Lúa Descolorida, is set to the poetry of María Rosalía Rita de Castro (1837-1885), and harkens back to the French Baroque, “The song is at once a slow motion ride in a cosmic horse, an homage to Couperin's melismas in his Lessons of Tenebrae.” Sung in the dialect of Gallego (found in Spain), it also functions as the “Peter’s Tears” aria in Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marco. The lack of ease in this process may have had an influence on the nature of the music thereby created. Adagio and Fugue in C minor for String Quartet, K. 546. But he was no boat-rocker, unlike his former student Beethoven, who once told a prince that his high position was “an accident of birth.” For much of his life, Haydn had a steady job. Program Notes. 33, K. 319 Symphony No. 2. Tickets are now on sale at the Honolulu Museum of Art front desk, and online here. Program Notes. In 1953, the Edinburgh Festival commissioned the English composer, Michael Tippett, to write a piece in commemoration and celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary Arcangelo Corelli’s birth. Approximate duration:7 minutes Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue began life as the Fugue in c minor, K. 426, for two keyboards. His father, Leopold, though perhaps well meaning, was often an overbearingly dominant figure in his son’s life. JOHANN CHRYSOSTOM WOLFGANG GOTTLIEB MOZART. The earliest manuscript copies were probably made in 1719–1727. FELIX MENDELSSOHN. Golijov has said of the piece, “'I had in mind one of those seconds in life that is frozen in the memory, forever-a sudden death, a single instant in which life turns upside down, different from the experience of death after a long agony.” The music, dark, low, with tolls and a pulsation that both drives the music forward and lends it a static quality is paired with the beautiful, sometimes soaring, lyricism of the soprano singing “How slow the wind/How slow the sea. In his songs and instrumental music are the mixes and influences of his experience of the world, from Klezmer to Piazzolla, gypsy music and the standard Western classical canon. The Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K. 546, is a composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for strings. Title String Quartet No.27 Name Translations Adagio et fugue en ut mineur; Adagio and Fugue in C minor; Adagio y fuga en do menor; C-moll adagio és fúga; Adagio e fuga per archi; アダージョとフーガ ハ短調: Name Aliases KV 546; K 546; Adagio e fuga in Do minore K 546: Authorities Among serious pupils of music, however, it was much revered and admired as a distinguished tradition in which to make one’s own contribution, and Mozart and his colleagues admired and studied the old master Bach with diligence—hence, perhaps, the fugue. Program Notes. Mozart entered it into his own work catalogue on 26 June 1788 in Vienna as "A short Adagio for two violins, viola and bass, for a fugue which I wrote some time ago for two Pianos". Adagio in B minor, K. 540 October 29, 2017: Peter Serkin, piano According to his own catalog, Mozart completed the Adagio, K. 540, on March 19, 1788. Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, music & cultural critic, and freelance writer. The result of all this is a rich, tragic, multi-layered and autobiographical kind of confession. 40 in F Major, (1732 – 1809) Op.50, No.5 “The Dream” (1787) Hugo Wolf Italian Serenade for String Quartet (1860 – 1903) (1887) 16-May-10 - Download Program Mozart completed the Piano Trio in C major, K. 548 in July 1788 during one of the most productive summers of his life. For the Fantasia Concertante, which is a hybrid of a fantasy (where the music tends to just unfurl, relying less upon rigid form) and concerto (highlighting certain soloists or pairings within the larger ensemble), Tippett used the melody of the Adagio from Corelli’s Concerto Grosso op. Carl Nielsen Symphony No. The year was 1960, and the composer was in Dresden, East Germany, a city still devastated at the time by WWII bombing. 132, Quartet No. The Adagio, the longest section of the entire sonata at over five minutes, features a florid melody over a simple, essentially chord heavy accompaniment. Posted in 19-20 Season, Blog, Our Artists, Program Notes | Tagged cello, chamber music, classical music, Danish String Quartet, Felix Mendelssohn, Fugue No. The first and last movements are in the same turbulent key of C minor that Mozart chose for his Adagio and Fugue, and Shostakovich incorporated a wealth of references to other tragic works. After the orchestra opens the scene with a lilting tune, the soloist happily joins in the first episode. Mozart is masterfully economical in this movement, constantly re-using his material over and over again, mixing garnish and main course at will. Whether this smorgasbord really deserves the label “W.A. (The violist on this occasion happened to be Antonín Dvořák.) WOLFGANG MOZART. In Mozart’s case, the key experience came shortly after he had arrived for good in Vienna at the age of twenty-five. Shostakovich, String Quartet No.8 in c-minor, op. In Idomeneo, Mozart had uncovered the dramatic potential of the operatic ensemble in the celebrated quartet “ Andro ramingo e solo,” also in E-flat. It has been speculated that Mozart revived this older piece in order to train himself for the writing of more truly symphonic fugues, such as the double fugue at the end of the Jupiter Symphony. ... and forward, to the dramatic power of fugue as demonstrated … Prelude and Fugue in D Minor, K. 404a for String Trio (Fugue by Bach) (1782) Notes for: July 14, 2009 In the spring of 1782, Mozart, then a young composer-musician in Vienna, met Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a wealthy aristocrat who was superintendent of the Imperial Library of Music and who sponsored regular Sunday concerts in his home. 23, K. 488 Symphony No. So I have decided to write one myself. This Bachian practice is only one of the many fascinating and significant features of Shostakovich’s most famous quartet, which is all the more extraordinary for having been composed over the course of only three days. . 40 in G minor The pseudo-tragedy of the quartet is such that while composing it my tears flowed as abundantly as urine after downing half a dozen beers.”, According to one friend, Shostakovich bought a bottle of sleeping pills upon his return from Dresden, and planned for the quartet to be his final composition. This is your shovel. This afternoon, we launch David Hodgkin’s 25th year as Artistic Director of Coro Allegro with a gloriously concise masterwork by Haydn, an unfinished Great Mass of astounding scope by Mozart, and in between three prayers for peace of sublime simplicity. While this is admirable from the simple perspective of workload, it is remarkable because the music is not just a collection of typical classical gestures (antecedent-consequent phrases, alberti bass, etc.) When Mozart reached his mid-twenties, he effectively made a break for it—to Vienna, one of the great cultural capitals on the European continent. 15 in A minor Op. . Smetana, String Quartet No.1 in e-minor, “From My Life”, More blatantly autobiographical still is Smetana’s Quartet “Z mého života,” or “From My Life.” Smetana, an important figure in Czech musical life who had been instrumental in developing a national musical style based on folk music elements, suffered a crisis at the age of fifty: the onset, over the course of just a few weeks, of deafness. The middle movement is the one, which in the opinion of the gentlemen who play this quartet, cannot possibly be performed … it recalls to me the happiness of my first love for the girl who later became my first wife. These three songs were freestanding or part of other projects (though Golijov’s frequent collaborator, the American soprano, Dawn Upshaw, premiered all three) before Golijov was commissioned by the Minneapolis Symphony to orchestrate them as a set for their 100th anniversary celebration. Two weeks earlier he had completed the last of his arias for sister-in-law Aloysia Weber, “Ah se in ciel,” K. 538, and the … Bach, his musical works, now so well known, existed more substantially on paper, in the collections of a few cognoscenti, than in the world of sound. 2 in A minor Op. It has also been noted that Mozart, whose ease at composition is justly famous, labored over his Bach-inspired contrapuntal works, crossing out and rewriting in a most un-Mozartean manner. The recapitulation adds new contrapuntal textures to the opening material and the 4-note head motive from the little fugue cleverly joins the mix. I also hint at Wagner’s Funeral March from Götterdämmerung and the second theme from the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony. Haydn may have been a musician for hire, but he couldn’t keep his personality from bursting at ever… PROGRAM NOTES by Kalindi Bellach ©2019. However, in 1963, a sketch in Mozart's hand was discovered that had counterpoint for the opening bars of a fugue, material that appeared to have been meant for an Amen at the end of the movement. Now, in this serenade, that same instinct produces an adagio quartet of operatic dimensions, with the oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn stepping forward to the footlights, singly and in various combinations, while the action freezes. 110. She is a graduate of New England Conservatory, and writes program annotations for ensembles nationwide. It is a space where light and shadow dance, where the play between bustling and dense musical content is paired with, or suddenly parts for, spaciousness (note the opening bars, where the shimmering upper registers play off the deeper, slower moving waters of the bass like sunlight off waves), and where serene beauty is balanced with drama, and the dance gives way to a frolic. The D-S-C-H motto appears in each movement of Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet, and  serves as the basis for a fugue in the last. 4. Program Prelude and Fugue in e minor, BWV 548 Johann Sebastian Bach (b1685 d1750) Adagio, Allegro , K. 594 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b1756 d1791)The Hands of Time Jean-Baptiste Robin (b1976) 3èmé SYMPHONIE, Op. “My initials,” he wrote, “are the quartet’s main theme. His need for money was dire, and very likely he would have put aside work on the symphonies to satisfy a publisher’s request, which normally involved a fee. A later composer who felt and wholeheartedly embraced Bach’s influence was Dmitri Shostakovich. In short, restless curiosity fed with extensive travel, and melded with emotional sensitivity (and just the right amount of Germanic practicality to keep any one element from becoming excessive), gives us something beyond the sound of a student work: it gives us the sound of Mozart. pulled together prettily and cleanly, but displays the distinct hallmarks of Mozart’s compositional voice. It has been noted by several observers that Mozart is unique in this sense, that he seems to find and know his compositional voice much earlier than others. Bach’s effect on Shostakovich extended from genre selection–the Russian wrote twenty-four preludes for keyboard, one in each key, in the manner of the Well-Tempered Clavier–to the use of the composer’s own name as a musical motto: Bach had incorporated the notes B-A-C-H into some of his works (these are the German note names for B-flat, A,C, and B-natural), and Shostakovich did the same with D-S-C-H (for D. Schostakowitsch; these are the German note names for D, E-flat, C, B.) Fugue in E-flat major for String Quartet, Op. Program Notes. A Far Cry, 146A South St, Jamaica Plain, MA, United States. The piece is a skillful example of traditional classical quartet form, but Mozart surprises us with some chromatic lines in the opening movement and by placing the minuet as the second movement (instead of in its traditional … First movement: My leaning towards art in my youth, the romantic atmosphere, the inexpressible yearning for something I could neither express nor define, and also the presage, as it were, of my future misfortune … Second movement: Quasi a polka, takes me back to the happy times of my youth where, as a composer of dance tunes, I lavished these upon the young world and was myself known everywhere as a passionate dancer. Even in the eighteenth century the fugue was considered an old musical form (Bach, who died just six years before Mozart’s birth, was considered a bit antiquated for continuing to dwell on them). Having often heard me play fugues off the top of my head, she asked if I had ever written any down, and when I said I had not, she scolded me very thoroughly for not having written anything in this most artistic and beautiful of musical forms….”. 81, No. And instead I wrote a quartet that’s of no use to anybody and full of ideological flaws.”, A main character in the film Shostakovich was supposed to score was a German painter who, according to the film’s director, “feels that art should depict suffering, and therefore a measure of life.” There is no question that the Eighth Quartet, at least, depicts suffering. Shostakovich was there to write music for a film being jointly produced by Soviet and East German filmmakers, set in that desolate environment. ... also, is different from Mozart’s usual Andante or Adagio. He later added counterpoint, fugue, musical form, ... where the deeply felt melody of the Adagio … But by the fifth, Mozart was pushing on the expectations of the form, developing and innovating an approach that even in its standard form at the time would have been shockingly alien to Bach in the 1730s. He was the head of music for the immensely wealthy Esterházy family in modern-day Austria, writing and directing for their bustling cultural life. Prelude and Fugue for piano in C Major, K. 394. Bach, his musical works, now so well known, existed more substantially on paper, in the collections of a few cognoscenti, than in the world of sound. 41 in C major, K.551, Jupiter. To prove to his father he could manage his career independently, Mozart set to work immediately finding creative ways to make ends meet, and quickly securing a position as one of the “must see” acts around town (perhaps building on his reputation from childhood, and playing to the crowd curiosity of seeing what the child prodigy had become). 21-Mar-10 - Download Program Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Adagio and Fugue in C Minor (1756 – 1791) K. 546 for string quartet (1788) Franz Joseph Haydn String Quartet No. As Mozart wrote to his sister: “Baron van Suiten, whom I visit every Sunday, gave me all the works of Handel and Sebastian Bach to take home with me after I had played them through to him. The music is your earth. The theme is presented here in a canonical chase between two orchestral groups.”. Fourth movement: Understanding of the potentialities of the folk music element, joy at the success of this course up to the time it was checked by the catastrophe of the beginning of deafness, the outlook into the sad future, the tiny rays of hope of recovery, but, at the thought of the beginnings of my career, nevertheless sadness.”, In the middle of the last movement, the first violin plays a strident E. Of this , Smetana wrote: “The long, insistent note in the finale … is the fateful ringing in my ears of the high-pitched tones which, in 1874, announced the beginning of my deafness, Copyright ©2020 Honolulu Chamber Music Series. In a letter discussing the piece, Shostakovich wrote: “I’ve been thinking that when I die, it’s hardly likely that anybody will ever write a work dedicated to my memory. “Adagio and Fugue” in c-minor,  KV 546                  W. A. Mozart   (1756-1791), String Quartet No.8 in c-minor, op. His father, Leopold, though perhaps well meaning, was often an overbearingly dominant figure in his son’s life. The final movement is in two parts, Molto adagio and Allegro moderato. She will listen to nothing but fugues now…. Adagio und Fuge Alt ernative. A year later he wrote this quartet, which in the composer’s words was “almost a private composition, and therefore purposely written for four instruments which, as it were, are to talk to each other in a narrow circle of friends of what has so momentously affected me.”. Mozart, Adagio and Fugue in c minor, K. 546 During the summer of 1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was working feverishly to complete what would be his final trilogy of symphonies. Corelli, though perhaps not as widely recognized today as Paganini, was another of the most renowned and skilled violinists/composers of his era, whose work had a profound influence upon his contemporaries and successors. As is the case with most other organ works by Bach, the autograph score does not survive. 28 Louis Vierne 16 in G minor BWV 861, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Quartet No. program notes: november 21, 2014 The music of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) has been revered by listeners, churchgoers, and musicians of all stripes the world over for good reason: it is technically superb, artistically impeccable, symbolically rich, and emotionally satisfying, and performers find it among the most demanding music there is. Dig in. The rapidity of its composition, and the sheer number of musical references Shostakovich makes, contribute to the quartet’s unity and depth of meaning, and at the same time, seem all but impossible in juxtaposition with one another: How did Shostakovich synthesize so much material so quickly and so organically? In an era long before recording, he was exposed to the variety of sounds from the Italians, French, Germans, English, and Scandinavians, and was able to then take snippets from all their traditions and layer his sound. Get this from a library! Musical fashion changed quickly in the mid-eighteenth century, away from the density and seriousness that characterize so much of Bach’s music. Composed in 1783, that work (to which Mozart would add the Adagio introduction when preparing the string quartet arrangement) appeared as part of a flurry of new pieces the composer produced upon his arrival in Vienna in 1781. Composed in 1782, around the same time as the fugue from the Adagio and Fugue, this was the first in a series of six quartets that Mozart composed in honor of Haydn. The impact of the experience, which would later be felt in contrapuntal masterpieces such as the Jupiter Symphony and the Requiem, found quicker expression in the composition of a fugue in C minor for two keyboards. In order to round out the work in the transcription (and perhaps harkening back to the pairing of prelude and fugue), Mozart prefaced the counterpoint a grand, somber, adagio. the Fugue in C Major, K. 394, which Mozart sent to his sister in 1782, and finally the Fugue in C minor, K. 426 for two pianos, completed in December of 1783. The Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 622, of 1791, displays the richly nuanced style of his last months of life in a unique work for what was in his time a little-exploited single-reed instrument. Is it too late to touch you, dear? toccata and fugue in d minor, bwv 565 Mozart called the organ “the king of instruments” and it was by far the most complex invention to predate the industrial revolution. The private nature of the piece extended to its premiere. I also use other themes from my works in the quartet, as well as the revolutionary song ‘Tormented by Grievous Bondage.’ My own themes come from the First Symphony, the Eighth Symphony, the Piano Trio, the Cello Concerto, and Lady Macbeth. How Slow the Wind, the final song in the group, was written after the sudden death of Golijov’s friend, Mariel Stubrin, and embodies the feeling of going through life in slow motion after a shocking emotional blow. Some critics have expressed the opinion that the fugue in this movement seems artificial and overdone. Seemingly, he also sent somewhat mixed messages by parading Wolfgang around Europe during his childhood as a prodigy, and then coercing him to remain in Salzburg, a bit of a backwater in comparison with the glittering cities with which Mozart the son was well acquainted. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) :: Adagio & Fugue, K. 546. Print Program Notes. 39, K. 543 Mozart & Britten includes Adagio & Fugue and String Quartet K. 387. MIKHAIL GLINKA. In the century following the death of J.S. Tickets are still available for performances on Thursday, March 5th, at the Gardner and Friday, March 6th, at Jordan Hall. Shostakovich quotes his own First and Fifth Symphonies in the quartet’s first movement, and in the second, employs the so-called Jewish theme from his Piano Trio. Mozart had perfected the crafting of the concerto opener around the scaffolding of the new sonata form structure, with archetypal examples in his first four violin concertos. Mozart: Symphony No. Meanwhile, the score ended up with a different dedication, one which according to Shostakovich’s son was forced on him by the Soviet authorities: “to the victims of fascism and war.”. Mozart, Adagio and Fugue in c-minor, KV 546. Print Program Notes. 1 Nordic Spirit includes Violin Sonata No. We this moment knew: Love marine and love terrene, love celestial too/Oh, how late their feathers be.” (Text, Emily Dickenson.). He became acquainted with a certain Baron von Swieten, librarian at the imperial court, and Van Swieten shared his collection of Bach’s works with the young composer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Clarinet Concerto, K. 622 Concerto for Flute & Harp, K. 299 Piano Concerto No. Mozart, Adagio and Fugue in c-minor,  KV 546. It leads to the cadenza-like, minute-long final Allegro which shows the virtuosity and beauty of the basson. Night of the Flying Horses, was carved out of the soundtrack Golijov did for Sally Potter’s film The Man who Cried, about love, ethnicity, and the terrible prices paid for both during World War II. When Constanze heard the fugues she fell quite in love with them. 110                  Dmitri Shostakovich   (1906-1975), String Quartet No.1 in e-minor, “From My Life”        Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884). Part of the reasoning for his distinct sound out of an era when many pieces sound, quite frankly, ubiquitous, was that he had an advantage through being taken all across Europe as a child prodigy. Shostakovich’s mood subsequently lifted, he was able to write his film music, and he lived on for another fifteen years. However, try as I might I was unable to compose the film music, even in rough. Finally, there are only two verifiable Mozart compositions: the Fugue for Two Keyboards, K. 426, and the later (and more familiar) reworking of this material into the Adagio and Fugue in C minor for strings, K. 546. Smetana initially submitted it to the Prague Chamber Music Association, but it was deemed impossibly difficult to play, and instead received its first hearing at the home of a close friend. In particular, it was the art of the violin where the Italians excelled; even today, Stradivarius are the most coveted violins, and Paganini’s compositions are still amongst the most difficult in the repertoire. 26 in D Major, the “Coronation” K. 537, and his masterly Adagio and Fugue in C Minor for strings, K. 546. When Mozart reached his mid-twenties, he effectively made a break for it—to Vienna, one of the great cultural capitals on the European continent. Mozart in the Afternoon Series. The piece ends in a fast gallop boasting a theme that I stole from my friends of the wild gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks. Noted Mozart scholar Alfred Einstein described this section as “an adagio that seems to have fallen straight from heaven.” The third movement is a bright rondo in a triple meter (3/8). Program Notes for kids Mozart Birthday Bash Saturday, January 31, 2015 8:00 p.m. Michigan Theater Mozart Adagio and Fugue in C minor Mozart Oboe Concerto in C major Mozart Arias from The Abduction from the Seraglio Intermission Mozart “Et Incarnatus Est” from “The Great Mass” in C minor Mozart Exsultate, Jubilate Mozart Symphony No. The dedication could be printed on the cover: ‘Dedicated to the memory of the composer of this quartet.’” Luckily, such a dedication proved unnecessary: the same friend who tells us about the bottle of pills was able to spirit them away. Clearly stated in the opening bars, it then undergoes a distinctly twentieth century metamorphosis, fracturing off like broken shards of a mirror, showing us the Adagio from a variety of angles and perspectives: sometimes angular, sometimes sparkling, other times reflecting a singular moment of exquisite beauty. Sometime in those early Vienna years, Mozart penned a fugue for piano duet, which he revisited five years later by transcribing it for strings. Smetana mentions the difficulty of the work from a performance standpoint in a letter which details the inspiration for each movement: “I did not intend to write a quartet according to recipe and according to custom in the usual forms … I had wanted to give a tone picture of my life. Between June and September, he composed his last three symphonies, three piano trios, two piano sonatas, the C Minor Adagio and Fugue for strings, and the Divertimento K. 563 for string trio. Program Notes Adagio and Fugue in C minor for Strings, K. 546 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart’s Fugue in C minor was first composed in December of 1783 for two pianos (K. 426) then re- arranged for strings, with an introductory Adagio, in June 1788– the prolific summer during which Mozart also penned his last three symphonies. 1. Of the over 600 numbered works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), the three on this evening’s program have a very special place in his repertoire. The solo piano steps in tenderly and deliberately, to be joined by the orchestra.