September Program Notes: Robert Levin plays Mozart

Mozart: Incidental Music to Thamos, King of Egypt, K. 345/366a

The story of Thamos, Mozart’s sole foray into incidental stage music, begins with a literary hoax. The Life of Sethos, Taken from Private Memoirs of the Ancient Egyptians was published by Frenchman Jean Terrasson in 1731. Sethos claimed to be based on authentic Egyptian manuscripts, but the author had actually invented the thing out of whole cloth, by weaving contemporary French Freemasonry into a tale of arcane mystery cults, embroidered with just enough local Egyptian color to sound convincing. (In classic chicken-and-egg confusion, Sethos has been cited as a foundational document of 18th-century Freemasonry, although it was indubitably no such thing.) Forty years later Sethos provided the inspiration for the Masonic-scented Thamos, König in Ägypten, a play by Viennese court official Baron Tobias Philipp von Gebler.

Gebler hankered after Gluck to compose the choruses for the 1773 Vienna premiere, but he was obliged to settle instead for the obscure Johann Tobias Sattler, who was promptly cashiered after his contributions flopped. Seventeen-year-old Mozart was brought on board to provide replacement choruses, and those scored a hit with audiences and critics alike at Vienna’s Kärtnertortheater on April 4, 1774. So far so good, but Thamos’s subsequent compositional history is exasperatingly murky, obscure even to the most gimlet-eyed of researchers. The most-likely-case scenario has Mozart writing the four orchestral entr’actes and at least one more chorus for a Salzburg performance in January of 1776, with substantial revisions following around 1779 for a visiting theatrical troupe.

The Thamos entr’actes, heard sans choral numbers as an instrumental suite, come across as the four movements of a quasi-program symphony, three of which are being performed in this set of concerts. Wolfgang’s father Leopold sprinkled descriptions of the stage business throughout the manuscript, imparting yet more momentum to the score’s already pronounced theatrical spin. Each entr’acte was intended to reflect its preceding act, and in that capacity the thematic materials represent ideas and themes pertaining to the characters, their actions, and their emotions.

The very opening of the first entr’acte is guaranteed to bring a buzz of déjà vu to listeners familiar with The Magic Flute, as the Masonic “threefold chord” – outlining the first, third, and fifth scale degrees – emerges from the orchestra, albeit in minor mode instead of the Flute’s signature major. A sturdy sonata-form movement follows; according to Leopold’s comments it “tells of the resolution between Pheron and Mirza, to place Pheron on the throne.” The following Andante entr’acte concerns itself with the contrast between bad-guy Pheron and priest-king Thamos (think Sarastro in Flute). A bravura closing entr’acte (Leopold: “the fourth act ends in general confusion”) behaves for all the world like a standard symphonic finale, albeit one sporting the distinctly Haydn-esque touch of ending on an accented upbeat.

Mozart remained fond of his Thamos music even in the face of unmistakable evidence that the play had laid an egg with theatergoers. After moving to Vienna, he sent up a few trial balloons regarding a revival, but it was no go. Eventually a theatrical impresario incorporated Mozart’s Thamos music into another play, allowing Mozart to hear his beloved proto-Masonic score one last time, during a visit to Frankfurt in 1790.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466

We have Leopold Mozart’s parental insecurity to thank for a series of epistolary tableaux that reveal daily life chez Wolfgang in the winter of 1785. Leopold, as yet only partly reconciled to his son’s marriage to Constanze Weber and harboring doubts about his daughter-in-law’s money-management skills, jumped at an opportunity to take a trip from Salzburg to Vienna, both to allay (or confirm) his misgivings and to shore up a rickety father-son relationship.

Leopold arrived in Vienna on the afternoon of Friday, February 11, 1785. Straightaway poor Leopold found himself plunged into a madcap Keystone Kops scene as his son and a team of copyists scrambled to complete the parts for a new piano concerto due to be premiered that very evening. Somehow it got finished – did they have any dinner, let alone rehearsal? – and by 6:00 p.m. an undoubtedly traumatized Leopold was in a carriage accompanied by family and fortepiano, heading for the Mehlgrube, a concert room in the Mehlmarkt (flour market) where Wolfgang launched the D Minor concerto on its maiden voyage.

Leopold’s priceless letters to daughter Nannerl, written periodically throughout the six-week visit, offer up a strange blend of fatherly pride interwoven with cranky kvetching about his son’s glitzy lifestyle. But even Leopold – grand master of the backhanded compliment – minced no words regarding his son’s new concerto: magnificent, he called it. Subsequent generations have agreed; even the Romantics, so quick to reject Viennese Classicism as mere decorative frou-frou, embraced the D Minor concerto as an early embodiment of the Romantic spirit. Nowadays, with the concerto considered a cultural landmark, Charles Rosen observes that “when listening to it, as to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, it is difficult at times to say whether we are hearing the work or its reputation, our collective image of it.”

Viennese audiences of 1785 expected a concerto to start with a potpourri of snappy tunes linked together by sparkling repartee between soloist and orchestra, followed by an aria-like slow movement, the whole closing with an effervescent romp, typically a rondo or set of variations. Emotional complexity and sophisticated structure belonged mostly to chamber music and its discriminating connoisseurs; the concerto was considered distinctly down-market, charming entertainment to be easily absorbed and just as easily forgotten.

But the D Minor concerto flips expectation on its ear. The opening dispenses with an identifiable melody and instead seethes with syncopation, as rhythm and orchestral texture replace the usual foursquare opening theme. Even at the solo piano’s entrance facile tunes are kept at bay in favor of vine-like melodies, each theme seeming to grow organically out of the one preceding. To be sure, the badminton game between soloist and orchestra takes place as expected, and the prevailing minor mode (practically unheard of in a concerto) gives way to major on occasion. But the movement adamantly refuses to lighten up altogether, as moody passages inevitably trump all attempts at levity.

The second-movement Romance presents us with an aria-like melody that is one of Mozart’s most bewitching – and beloved – concoctions. The three-part tune outlines a simple descending B-flat major triad, but enriches it with a refreshing tang of dissonance via Mozart’s signature raised-fourth scale degree. An intervening section recalls the first movement as the mode dims to minor and the solo piano whirs through edgy triplet arpeggios. But soon enough the hubbub subsides, the major-mode theme resumes, and in due time a tranquil uncoiling of that initial B-flat major triad closes the aria in unruffled serenity.

Out of the blue a D Minor arpeggio rockets up from the piano and heralds the concluding Allegro assai, as the ominous moodiness of the first movement gives way to a full-tilt dramatic confrontation. Amidst the fracas, subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) allusions to the first movement serve to fasten the concerto together into a tight-knit whole. Surging minor-mode figures are interrupted by moments of relative cheer, and following one last cadenza the parallel major key arises to brighten the proceedings. But the finale ultimo avoids a fashionably decorous wrap-up; instead of a warm sparkle, the concerto ends with a scorching blaze of solar power.

A postscript is in order concerning improvisation, in today’s concert halls an endangered species tottering on the edge of extinction. When Mozart played one of his own piano concertos, he was not necessarily reproducing a meticulously-notated score à la modern-day concertizing. Not only were the cadenzas extempore, but also Mozart’s solo part was often little more than a sketch, the rest filled in and fleshed out (with varying degrees of forethought) on the spot. But it is the rare concert-hall musician today who is capable of matching what was once a commonplace ability, as essential to 18th century music making as it would be to jazz in a later time. Nevertheless, if we are to encompass not only the letter, but also the spirit of Mozart’s art, then there is nothing for it but to close our eyes, open our ears, and tune in to the music that dwells beyond the reassuring confines of the printed page.

Mozart: Concerto in G Major, from Nannerl’s Music Book

In 1759 proud papa Leopold Mozart began compiling a piano-practice book for his gifted daughter Maria Anna, or “Nannerl” as she was known in the family. If “Nannerl’s Music Book” were merely a miscellany of assorted piano pieces, interest would be restricted mostly to Mozart scholars and biographers. However, it turns out to be a jewel box filled with priceless treasures, for it also holds baby brother Wolfgang’s very first compositions, preserved for posterity in Leopold’s handwriting – Wolfgang being too young as yet to manipulate a quill pen. Leopold had the foresight to record his son’s creations as the boy played them, without edits or corrections. Thus one can watch Wolfgang’s musical mind develop with stunning rapidity as the childish gaucheries of the first few entries give way to short but well-fashioned pieces that frequently pop up in “easy classics” anthologies for today’s beginning piano students.

Two pieces in the Nannerl notebook were long considered to be the work of unknown composers; one is a keyboard prelude and the other a virtuosic Molto allegro concerto movement that combines its surprising technical demands with a clear lack of compositional experience. Dr. Ulrich Leisinger of Salzburg’s International Mozarteum Foundation has determined, via handwriting and stylistic analysis, that the two pieces are in fact by the young Wolfgang Mozart. Although the manuscript of the concerto movement preserves only the solo piano part, with double bars standing in for the orchestral tuttis, Robert Levin has reconstructed the missing orchestral ritornellos from the solo sections, adding 28 measures to the original. In all probability the five-minute piece comes from around 1763/4 – i.e., when Wolfgang was about seven years old. The reconstruction was given its world premiere in 2009 at the Mozart family home in Salzburg; this performance by Robert Levin and the Philharmonia Baroque brings Mozart’s first attempt at a piano concerto – a genre that he was someday to master – to the United States.

Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K.551 “Jupiter”

One might believe that the Symphony in C had been designed to glorify some extraordinary event in the annals of the world, some exceedingly happy and ever to be remembered victory!
–  Alexander Oulibichev, 1843

Apart from the Minuet and Trio, the work bores me to distraction.
–  D. Bratigan Verne, 1931

A diversity of opinion can be most stimulating. In regards to Mozart’s final symphony, however, such crisp dismissals as Mr. Verne’s are few and far between. The greater public consensus places the “Jupiter” in the highest category of artistic achievement, a work that not only crowns Mozart’s symphonic output but also furnishes posterity with an ideal apotheosis of Viennese Classicism. As such, for two centuries it has been analyzed, debated, elucidated, interpreted, and dissected; theories have been floated, plots hatched, books published, and reputations made or lost. One would think that the “Jupiter” must be wrung dry by now – surely it could pose no more unanswered questions or unsolved mysteries.

And yet speculation and befuddlement continue to rule the roost. A lack of first-hand documentation is the culprit: after Leopold Mozart died in 1787, Wolfgang’s torrent of personal correspondence – our primary source of information – subsided to a mere trickle. During the summer of 1788 the flow almost dried out altogether, just when Mozart was composing the symphonic triptych that culminates with the “Jupiter”. So here’s what we know, and it’s not much: he began writing No. 39 in early June, and finished it on June 25; No. 40 followed on July 26 and No. 41 on August 10. That’s two months give or take a few days, a compositional speed record if ever there were. We have no direct evidence as to why Mozart wrote the symphonies, but it’s inconceivable that he would create them on spec, without a concrete purpose in mind – the idea of composing “for posterity” wasn’t in the lexicon yet. And contrary to those sad little stories that he went to his grave without having heard them performed, the odds are good-to-excellent that he heard at least two, if not all three of them, well before December 1791 rolled around.

Even the origin of the “Jupiter” nickname is debated, but the honors most likely go to impresario Johann Peter Salomon, Haydn’s partner in their now-legendary concert series in 1790s London and a potent force in English musical life. The sobriquet first appeared on a concert program for the Edinburgh Music Festival on October 20, 1819, and surfaced again in an 1822 London review. Whatever the nickname’s provenance, the coinage is apt. The “Jupiter’s” ceremonious style, its brass fanfares, its unabashed C Major key, and the sheer grandeur of its contrapuntal finale all point to a conception of Jovian majesty, celebratory to be sure but also pervaded with a sense of solemn dignity and noble optimism.

Festive C major symphonies such as the “Jupiter”, bristling with trumpets and drums, constitute a lively sub-genre of the Classical repertory. One finds them in abundance in composers ranging from Joseph Haydn (No. 48 “Maria Theresia”, No. 69 “Laudon”, and No. 97, among others), through Joseph’s younger brother Michael (No. 39), to Mozart himself (No. 34). With its opening statement the “Jupiter” establishes its credentials as a card-carrying member of the club: three trumpet-and-drum fanfares announce the commencement of the celebration, followed by a tentative, questing figure in the strings. The first-movement exposition progresses according to the established rhetoric of sonata-allegro form – primary materials in the tonic key, followed by a transition to the dominant key and a further presentation of themes, the whole capped with a closing theme or two. However, that closing passage goes slightly, and delightfully, haywire with the addition of a bouncy little tune that sounds as though it wandered in from a comic opera. In fact, that’s precisely what has happened – Mozart borrowed the melody from the ‘insertion’ aria “Un bacio di mano” that he had provided for Pasquale Anfossi’s opera Le gelosie fortunate.

Mozart was partial to a last-in-first-out structural technique, in which new sections of music begin with the closing material from the previous passage. (Think of it as the musical equivalent of cogged or dovetail joints in cabinetry.) Thus he begins the development with a restatement of the aria tune, and proceeds to send it on a magical journey of transformation before returning to those sturdy fanfares that herald the recapitulation.

For his second movement, Mozart resuscitated the sarabande, that most elegant and dignified of the stylized dances making up a Baroque suite. Its rounded melodic contours and courtly second-beat pauses give way to a middle section of minor-key drama, characterized by churning syncopations in the accompaniment while the upper voices simmer with chromatic intrigue, punctuating their unrest with vaulting two-octave leaps.

The third movement is cast in orthodox Minuet & Trio form, but emotionally it stands well apart from the typical decorative Rococo interludes of Viennese Classicism. It slithers about chromatically; it bursts into fits of heroism; it dances around the edges of ominous minor keys; it tacks on unexpected extra phrases. A bit of a tomboy minuet, in other words. Only during its diminutive Trio does it take on the demure composure of its more well-bred brethren.

And then, the fourth movement. Symphonic finales had grown well beyond the brief, sprightly dances of early Viennese Classicism, but (to borrow a Silicon Valley catchphrase) this one was a game-changer. Mozart’s study of Baroque counterpoint – supported by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, imperial court librarian and Haydn’s future librettist – now came to fruition in a dazzling tour de force that seamlessly blends fugal procedures with sonata form. Although short fugues pop out repeatedly throughout the movement, Mozart withholds his biggest surprise for the very end: he lines up all of the movement’s melodies and, as it were with a flick of a finger, sets them charging along a steeplechase of contrapuntal ingenuity, all galloping pell-mell to a riotously thrilling close, one of the most celebrated conclusions in all music.

– Scott Foglesong, Scholar In Residence