MENDELSSOHN and MOZART

Program Notes

Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra in G Minor, Op. 25

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)

Mendelssohn's First Piano Concerto was composed in 1831, when he was just 22. He was enjoying a highly successful career already. He had made his conducting debut in London in 1829, then produced an operetta in Berlin, and completed his Reformation Symphony. Late in 1830 he was working on the Hebrides Overture in Germany and finishing up his Italian and Scottish Symphonies while traveling in Italy. On his way back to Germany he spent some time in Switzerland, finally arriving in Munich in October. He was to conduct a concert of his music and felt he needed just one more work to make the program complete. The G Minor Concerto was written during that time to fill out the program. It premiered October 17 in Munich, along with several major works, and was such a success that Mendelssohn routinely included it in his concerts from then on. It also became part of every concert pianist's repertoire for decades after.

The work is in three movements, linked without pause to create a sense of overall unity. The first movement, Molto allegro con fuoco, is one of turbulence and fury, with the piano entering almost immediately, and piano and orchestra alternating the furious and lyrical subjects contributing to the whole. The second movement, Andante, begins with a fanfare and develops into a beautiful song, characteristically Mendelssohn, which ends on a sustained E major chord, then moves at once to the final Presto movement. Here another fanfare gives way to a brilliant Rondo which displays the soloist's virtuosity in a dazzling series of runs and leads to the spectacular conclusion. Mendelssohn himself performed the solo part at the highly successful premiere in Munich and wrote to his father the next day, "My concerto met with a long and vivid reception. The orchestra accompanied well and the work itself was really quite wild."

The concerto did, in fact, become a part of the repertoire of many concert pianists, including Franz Liszt. Mendelssohn had just met Liszt in Paris at the Erard piano showrooms. He placed the barely legible score for his new concerto on one of the pianos and was amazed to witness Liszt sight-read the work easily. Mendelssohn declared it to be "a miracle" and a popular legend has it that the piano itself became possessed and played the work over and over without a pianist after that until it was destroyed!

Beryl McHenry

Symphony No. 41 "Jupiter"

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

At the time the Jupiter Symphony was written, most major works were composed in response to a commission from a patron, for the purpose of making a living. Mozart, however, had just moved to Vienna and was determined to support himself and his family through performance and composing. It might have been more sensible to write smaller works which could readily be sold, but it was during this uncertain period of time that Mozart composed his three greatest - and last - symphonies. He certainly did not know they would be his last. At his young age he must have expected to live well into the nineteenth century. But something drove him to write, and all three, the 39th, 40th and 41st, were produced in about nine weeks during the summer of 1788. Each is a complete work with four movements. According to one program annotator this would have meant spending "5 days and a few hours on the composition of each movement." Additionally, he was composing other pieces, giving piano lessons, caring for a sick wife, grieving the loss of his 6-month-old daughter, moving to a new home and worrying about his financial obligations. We do not know when the work premiered, but there are in existence notes to show that it was performed in Dresden, Leipzig and Frankfurt in 1790.

The Symphony No. 41 is enormous in its emotional range and expressive brilliance. It opens with a stately theme alternating with a gently lyrical one. Second and third themes balance out the opening mood, pointing toward the second movement of the work. This begins with a simple four note theme reminiscent of church music. It follows a strict sonata form and serves as a perfect model of a dramatic symphonic movement. The third movement is a minuet, the kind of music that would be heard in an imperial ballroom. It contains a musical "joke" in that the opening notes of each phrase sound like a concluding cadence, while the notes that follow suggest an opening strain for that conclusion. His friend Haydn had used this device in one of his quartets a few months earlier. In the incredible finale movement, Mozart weaves together five independent figures to create a sense of excitement leading to a double fugue at the end.

The popular subtitle "Jupiter" was not applied by Mozart. According to his son Franz, it originated in London around 1819 and was devised by Johann Salomon, a London impresario, as an advertising device for the London performances that year. One wonders what Mozart would have thought of this addition.

Beryl McHenry