Program 4 - From the Old Times

Guitar Concerto D major, R. 93 (P. 209)

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

Vivaldi obtained his first official post in September 1703 at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, one of four institutions in Venice devoted to the care of orphaned, abandoned and poor girls. As part of its training, the school devoted much effort to the musical education of its wards, and there was an elaborate organization of administrators, teachers and associates who oversaw the activities of the students. Part of his duties as violin teacher required Vivaldi to compose at least two new concertos each month for the regular public concerts given by the Ospedale. The featured performers in these works were occasionally members of the faculty, but usually they were the more advanced students, and the difficulty of Vivaldi’s music is ample testimony to their skill.

These concerts offered some of the best music to be found in Venice, and they attracted visitors from all over Europe. One French traveler, Président Charles de Brosses, described the conservatory concerts in a letter of August 1739: “The most marvelous music is that of the ospedali. There are four of them, all composed of bastard girls, or orphans, or of girls whose parents cannot afford the expense of bringing them up. They are reared at the expense of the State and trained only to excel in music. And indeed they sing like angels and play the violin, the flute, the organ, the oboe, the violoncello, the bassoon, the lute; in short, there is no instrument big enough to scare them. They are cloistered like nuns. They are the only executants, and at each concert about forty of them perform. I swear to you that there is nothing so pleasant as to see a young and pretty girl robed in white, with a garland of pomegranate flowers in her hair, conducting the orchestra and beating time with all imaginable grace and precision.” These young ladies became the object of much attention in Venice, and the most gifted among them were even the recipients of frequent proposals of marriage. The beauty and charm of Vivaldi’s music undoubtedly played no little part in the success of the graduates of the Ospedale.

Vivaldi wrote this delightful D major Concerto originally for lute, his only solo work for that instrument. The date of its composition is uncertain, though the pioneering French scholar Marc Pincherle placed it as late as perhaps 1740. All three of its movements are in the same two-part form, with each half repeated. The sunny, opening Allegro comprises several friendly alternations between the soloist and the orchestra, the technical procedure from which the word “concerto” derives its double meaning of “contest” and “cooperation.” The Largo is a placid air of tender sentiment. The Concerto closes with dance-like music in bounding 6/8 meter.

Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn and Orchestra in E-flat major, K. 297b (K. Anh. 9)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Composed in 1778.

Mozart arrived in Paris, chaperoned by his mother, on March 23, 1778, hoping that the music lovers of the French capital would recognize his genius and reward him with an appropriate position. With the help of Baron Friedrich Grimm, whom he had met on his first trip to Paris as a Wunderkind of seven in 1763, he was introduced to several of the aristocracy, though his treatment at their hands was something less than he had hoped for — his letters home often complain of being kept waiting in drafty anterooms and of having to perform on wretched harpsichords. In May, it appeared that Mozart’s foray into Parisian culture might be rewarded. He reported to his father that he had been offered the post of organist at Versailles, a job with light duties, six months leave per year and proximity to the royal family. However, his longing was for the opera house (and for a sweetheart, Aloysia Weber, whom he had met on the stop in Mannheim while journeying to Paris), and he refused the post. “After all, 2,000 livres is not such a big sum,” he rationalized to his furious father. Mozart’s stay in Paris grew sad. His mother fell ill in June, and died the following month. He lingered in Paris, sorrowful and alone, until September 26th, when, without the position he sought or the commissions he hoped to receive, he returned to Salzburg.

The musical highlight of Mozart’s Parisian venture was his association with the illustrious series of orchestral programs given by the Concert Spirituel under the direction of Jean Le Gros. Le Gros commissioned him to write a symphony (No. 31 in D major, K. 297/K. 300a, “Paris”), several substitute movements for a choral Miserere by the Mannheim composer Ignaz Holzbauer (K. 297a, lost), and something in the sinfonia concertante form that was then popular with Parisian audiences. On April 5, 1778, Mozart announced in a letter to his father that he planned to write a sinfonia concertante for three Mannheim wind virtuosos then visiting Paris: Johann Baptist Wendling, flute; Friedrich Ramm, oboe; and Georg Wenzel Ritter, bassoon. Jan Vaclav Stich, better known by his assumed Italian name of Giovanni Punto (assumed when he bolted illegally from the service of a Bohemian nobleman to undertake a career as a touring musician), the greatest horn player of the day (Beethoven wrote his Horn Sonata, Op. 17 for Punto), was also in Paris at the time, and so Mozart included a part for him in the score, as well. The resulting Sinfonia Concertante for Flute, Oboe, Bassoon, Horn and Orchestra was composed quickly later that month, and scheduled for performance by Le Gros. Mozart continued the tale in a letter dated May 1st: “The four soloists were, and still are, completely in love with [the work]. Le Gros had the score for four days for copying. But still I found it lying in the same place. Finally, the day before [the concert], I didn’t see it, but searched in a pile of music and found it hidden.... Two days later, when it should have been performed, I went to the concert. Ramm and Punto came to me in great heat and asked why my Sinfonia Concertante was not being performed.... Ramm fell into a great rage and denounced Le Gros right there in the green room — in French— saying that it was ugly of him, and so on.” Mozart was convinced (probably with cause) that Giovanni Cambini, who was dispensing sinfonia concertante literally by the dozens to the Parisian musical haute monde, had intrigued to stop the performance of his new piece: one of Cambini’s specimens replaced Mozart’s on the program. At any rate, Mozart’s work was not performed in Paris in 1778, and he sold the only copy of the score to Le Gros when he left for home in the fall. He mentioned in a letter of October 3rd that he could reproduce the work from memory whenever he wished, but there is no record that he ever did so; it could not have been played in Salzburg anyway, since clarinets were yet unknown there. Le Gros’ copy disappeared, and the Sinfonia Concertante for Winds was assumed lost for the next century.

It was not until a posthumous edition of Otto Jahn’s monumental biography of Mozart appeared in 1905 that further light was thrown on the Sinfonia Concertante, when Hermann Deiters, editor of that edition, located among Jahn’s papers a copy of a score for a Sinfonia Concertante. Its style was Mozartian enough not to preclude its being the 1778 Paris piece, but the scoring was not for the specified flute, oboe, bassoon and horn, but rather for clarinet, oboe, bassoon and horn. Since Jahn left no mention of the source of his score, its authenticity has been open to question ever since it was discovered, though most Mozart scholars agree that the work as it has survived is basically authentic; a “computer-assisted” study by Robert D. Levin and Daniel N. Leeson in the early 1980s convinced those researchers that the work was genuine. Jahn’s score was tentatively accepted into the Mozart canon, and it has enjoyed a fine success ever since, though the mystery of its provenance may never be solved.

Though nominally the sinfonia concertante bridges the genres of symphony and concerto, this example, as do Mozart’s other works in the form (the Flute and Harp Concerto, the Two Piano Concerto, and the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, all dating from 1778-1779), stands closer in style and form to the latter than to the former. Each of its three movements remains in the tonic key of E-flat major, a result both of Mozart’s recognition of the Parisian taste for harmonic simplicity (Le Gros asked him to write a substitute slow movement for the “Paris” Symphony because the impresario claimed the rich chordal peregrinations of the original confused his audience) and the inability of the wind instruments of the time to easily negotiate all but rudimentary chromaticism. The opening Allegro follows the traditional first-movement concerto form: orchestral introduction — presentation of the soloists — thematic elaboration — recapitulation of earlier themes. Its abundance of melodic materials, suavity of gesture and gliding grace would seem to dispel any doubts concerning its authenticity. The following Adagio is a sweet song shared by the wind quartet lightly supported by orchestra, a sort of slow, wordless madrigal updated into 18th-century style. The closing movement is a set of ten variations on a theme of opera-buffa jocularity that exploits both the soloistic and conversational characteristics of the little clan of winds. 

Fantasia de la Danza for Guitar and Orchestra

Jorge Morel (born in 1931)

Composed in 1983.

Argentine-American guitarist and composer Jorge Morel, born in Buenos Aires in 1931, began his musical studies at age seven with his father and five years later became a pupil of the renowned Pablo Escobar at the city’s Academy of Music. Morel started his career performing on radio and in concert with his teacher, but he was soon appearing on his own in Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Cuba. By the mid-1950s, he was featured on a weekly television show and had made his first recording. In 1961, Morel made his American debut at Carnegie Hall, and he has since remained based in New York City while appearing in concert around the world, recording more than a dozen solo albums, collaborating with such noted jazz and popular artists as Erroll Garner, Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann and Chet Atkins, studying composition with Rudolf Schramm, teaching at Lehmann College/CUNY, and composing and arranging prolifically for his instrument.

Morel’s Fantasia de la Danza (1983) evolved through stages as a work for trio and for two guitars before reaching its finished form as a full-scale, three-movement concerto for guitar and chamber orchestra. As its title indicates, the Fantasia de la Danza is rooted in such traditional South American genres as the milonga (the Argentinean dance whose duple meter and sensuously syncopated rhythms provided sources for the tango), malambo (the frenzied dance at which gauchos, the cowboys of the Pampa, display their prowess for hours on end) and vidala (a group song accompanied by drum and guitar that is sung at Carnival). The first movement alternates between muscular sections reminiscent of the malambo and slower, sweetly harmonized strains modeled on the vidala. The soulful second movement is a South American counterpart to the haunting Adagio from Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez; a quicker central episode provides expressive contrast and formal balance. The finale, largely energetic in temperament and a fine showpiece for the soloist, includes a thoughtful reminiscence of a theme from the opening movement before its closes with a quick dash to the end. 

Music for the Royal Fireworks

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Composed in 1749.

Premiered on April 27, 1749 in London.

When Frederick the Great of Prussia set off in 1740 to conquer the Austrian province of Silesia to expand his own political and economic base and diminish the power of the Habsburg ruler, Maria Theresia, he began the eight years of conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession. Britain was drawn into the fracas by its king, George II, a German, who wanted to make sure that he retained his succession in the house of Hanover. So determined was George to protect his privilege that he even took a contingent into battle, the last British monarch to actively lead troops in conflict. After the war had shifted enough national boundaries to satisfy the participants, the business was brought to an end by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Though George was pleased personally with the outcome, Britain gained little from the settlement, except for enough economic strength from standing down its troops to institute a 3% bank interest rate that remained in effect for the next century and a half. George thought, however, that a grand celebration was in order, and allowed that it should be the most magnificent thing of its kind ever seen in England.

As soon as the Aix-la-Chapelle treaty was signed on October 7, 1748, George II appointed the Duke of Montague, Master General of Ordnance, to oversee the celebratory festivities. The famed French architect (of St. Sulpice, Paris) and stage designer (of the Paris Opéra) Jean Nicolas Servan, who had translated his name into the more theatrically fashionable Servandoni, was engaged to provide an ostentatious setting for the highlight of the celebration, a brilliant display of fireworks. So immense was the set — the “machine” — Servan devised that work on it had to begin in early November, fully six months before the date of the festivities. Louise Beck described the finished edifice as “a Doric temple of huge proportions; a center structure, one hundred feet high, with wings to the right and to the left, which measured more than four hundred feet. A gigantic figure of Peace attended by Neptune and Mars, and a likeness of equal size of good King George delivering peace to Britannia, adorned the pavilion. A monster sun topped the whole, and there was a special gallery for musicians large enough to accommodate a hundred men.”

Special music for the occasion was commissioned from the Composer to the Royal Chapel, a shrewd, thickly accented Saxon immigrant who was also England’s most popular musician — George Frideric Handel. Handel was put out by the King’s insistence that only “martial instruments” be used — “no fiddles,” declared George — since the ensemble and intonation of military bandsmen of the day was something to give any sensitive musician pause. As the April 27, 1749 date for the jubilee drew near, there was still some question whether Handel would provide the music (“... if he won’t let us have his overture [suite] we must get an other,” wrote the Duke of Montague to a fellow organizer on April 9th), but the composer was won over by his strong feelings about patriotism and profit, and the plans were allowed to proceed.

A public rehearsal of the Fireworks Music was announced for the spacious, park-like Vauxhall Gardens in south London for April 21st. A great band of wind instruments by the dozens to play the new piece was advertised, and interest in the event ran so high that 12,000 tickets were sold in advance. The descent of this throng on the main Thames crossing “occasioned such a stoppage on London Bridge that no carriage could pass for three hours,” reported the Gentlemen’s Magazine. Footmen obstructing the passage were so numerous that scuffles broke out and some gentlemen were injured in the fray. Still, the dress rehearsal went as planned and further whetted the town’s appetite for the grand spectacle on April 27th.

The principal celebration, centered around Servan’s elaborate “Temple of Peace,” was planned for Green Park, in St. James’s. “For a week before, the town has been like a country fair,” wrote Horace Walpole to his friend Horace Mann. “The streets are filled from morning to night, scaffolds building wherever you could see or not see, and coaches arriving from every corner of the kingdom. The immense crowds, the guards, the machine itself, which was very beautiful, were worth seeing.” Handel’s music was readied, the 101 cannons that would contribute to the deafening roar of the event were wheeled into place, the King had final fittings for his new ceremonial clothes. The morning of April 27th dawned dusty and windy, and afternoon thunder threatened weather problems, which were realized when a chill drizzle began to fall at dusk. King George, touring the machine, promenaded and inspected and commented and rewarded workmen despite the rain, and bade the show begin. Handel’s suite served as prelude, the heavy guns roared an armipotent salute, and the fireworks started. Walpole continued his account: “The rockets, and whatever was thrown up into the air, succeeded mighty well; but the wheels and all that was to compose the principal part were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no change of colored fire and shapes; the illumination was mean, and lighted so slowly that scarce anybody had patience to wait the finishing, and then, what contributed to the awkwardness of the whole, was the right pavilion catching fire and being burnt down in the middle of the show. Very little mischief was done, and but two persons were killed.” Servan was so unhinged by the disaster that he drew his sword on the Duke of Montague and had to be arrested. After appropriate apologies, he was released from jail the following day, but the whole affair was apparently more than the Duke’s health could tolerate, since he died the following summer. A sad ending for a glorious undertaking.

Handel’s Fireworks Music enjoyed a more thorough success than the event for which it was created. It was acclaimed immediately (though the cannons were given far more reportorial notice than the new music at the celebration), and Handel was obliged to include it on a benefit concert in May for his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital, which also received the proceeds from his annual presentations of Messiah. For this performance, he reduced the number of extra wind players (though not the number of parts) and added strings and continuo. The piece was published in this version in June by Walsh, and has remained one of Handel’s most popular instrumental works.

The Royal Fireworks Music combines the pomp of the French courtly style with the rhythmic drive and instrumental inventiveness of the Italian concerto grosso. It consists of six movements: a majestic Overture (with alternating slow and fast sections) followed by a series of brief dances, including a perky Bourrée, a swaying Largo alla Siciliana (titled “La Paix” — “Peace”), a martial strain called La Réjouissance (“Rejoicing”) and a pair of concluding Menuets.

©2007 Dr. Richard E. Rodda