Ian Sidden

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Mozart Month: Day 22 with his First Violin Concerto

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Time for a new genre! Having heard a lot of strings over the course of this project, I’m curious how Mozart handled a solo player who could really show off a bit.

The Recording

I’m listening to Nikolaus Harnoncourt lead the Vienna Philharmonic with Gidon Kremer on solo violin.

Apple Music

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Sheet Music

Violin Concerto no. 1 in B Flat Major, K. 207

1. Allegro moderato

  • Very active orchestra.
  • Horns quite prominent.
  • Pretty virtuosic from start.
  • Long sequential pattern in development.
  • Orchestral build up to cadenza is thrilling if brief.

2. Adagio

  • Slow but active orchestra. Violas and second violins keep this movement going.
  • Really backs off for entrance of soloist.
  • Melody is fine, but it’s really the overall color of the piece – the little touches here and there – that make this interesting. There’s a lot happening.

3. Presto

  • Check out passed accompaniments between orchestral strings. Cool.
  • Yay, woodwind interjections.
  • Lots of fireworks from soloist.
  • There are a few Ethel Merman-type downward shooting intervals. Ha.

Takeaways?

I don’t think there’s much that’s really surprising her, but it is an enjoyable piece. The one thing that surprised me was how mature the back and forth between the soloist and orchestra was. The soloist got to play some fun things, but I mostly paid attention to the activity of the orchestra, which provided a lot of musical depth throughout the concerto.

Until next time.

Mozart Month: Day 21 with his “Linz” Symphony

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I went back and listened to Mozart’s last four symphonies again (written about on days 1 and 2), and I just enjoy them so much, so I’m happy to listen to another.

The Recording

Once again, I’m listening to Sir Neville Marriner leading the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Apple Music

Spotify

Sheet Music

Couldn’t find a YouTube version of this recording.

Symphony No. 36 in C, K. 425 “Linz”

1. Adagio – Allegro spiritoso

  • Slow intro
  • Mournful a little
  • The allegro spiritoso music begins quietly happy.
  • Very active bass role
  • Some nice woodwind moments
  • Four double quarter pickup entrances, each with different instruments and dynamics. It’s funny hearing them all.
  • In first theme, I like the play between the first and second violins.
  • Really effectively builds tension to cadences here.

2. Andante con moto

  • Dreamy beginning.
  • Simultaneous accompanying arpeggios of different rhythms happening at one point.
  • Returns to repeated unison notes in horns and winds and timpani at various dynamic levels. Kind of foreboding. Idea introduced with single notes and then is expanded.
  • Coooooool development. Love the addition of different musical ideas over time. Patient and not overbearing. Tied together with repeating bass lines.

3. Menuetto

  • It’s a minuet.
  • Restrained tempo.
  • Lots of parallel harmonies in trio.

4. Presto

  • Quiet/loud. K
  • All very active
  • Contrasting lines in violins vs. viola/cello/bass in second section. Cool effect. Built up slowly.
  • Then imitative lively entrances
  • More tension building towards cadence of exposition.
  • Violins and cello/basses having a back and forth.
  • Oboe for color.
  • In recap, oboes added to what had just been the string imitative entrances.
  • Wow. Tension build up to coda. Grace notes flying on higher notes. First violins have syncopated accents on C (had been in second violins, and on a lower note before). Really effective.
  • Subtle changes in the recapitulation make it a more exciting ending.

Takeaways

I enjoy this piece. The minuet/trio is pretty standard issue, but there’s a lot to listen to in the other movements, which are all in sonata form. There’s a lot more interesting things happening within instrument groups than I noticed from his earlier symphonies.

Additionally, the idea that Mozart finds some musical novelty to tie pieces together is also very much in play here, but instead of tying together a whole piece, they tie together sections within a movement. There are several instances where such ideas grow over time and transform within their respective sections, such as the development of the second movement with the rising bass lines.

I guess that’s all the symphonies that I’ll be listening to for this project unless I jump way back to his earliest works. Which I probably won’t do.

Until next time.

Mozart Month: Day 20 with his “Haffner” Symphony

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I’m just going to stick to Mozart’s symphonies. I really enjoyed no. 25, so let’s jump forward nine years in Mozart’s development.

The Recording

I’m listening to Sir Neville Marriner leading the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Apple Music

Spotify

Sheet Music

Symphony 35 in D Major K. 385 “Haffner”

1. Allegro con spirito

  • I’m very strongly reminded of the “Paris” Symphony. Same key. A lot of the same techniques. In some ways, this movement strikes me as a more developed and mature version of that first movement of the Paris symphony. There are lots of Mannheim techniques, not a lot of development, not a lot of melodies, lots of bombast and energy.
  • Here there’s more development than the “Paris”. Moments in minor really stand out.
  • There’s a lot happening between the instrument groups. It’s fun following along in the sheet music.
  • More dynamic contrast.
  • Lots happening in bass instruments. They convey a lot of the mood of the various sections.
  • Some imitative entrances.

2. Andante

  • “Sigh” figures in woodwinds
  • Pleasant melody line in first violins
  • Repeated sixteenth note line in first violins is surprisingly fun.
  • Very patient movement. Refined. Graceful.
  • I keep thinking of “bel canto” music during this.

3. Menuetto

  • Hello, big loud chord.
  • Big arpeggios upward.
  • Very slow harmonic rhythm.
  • Sforzandi stuck in the middle of some of the trio second-violin lines give it some good contrast.
  • Boisterous movement that helps connect the disparate movements of the symphony overall.

4. Presto

  • Kind of sneaky opening.
  • Reminds me of the Le nozze di Figaro overture.
  • Oh yea, definitely.
  • Why do I say that? There are a lot of similar energy building techniques. The strings introduce a melody, and then they play a fast line that builds steam, and when they hit the climax and start to modulate, the other instrument groups join in and hit accents on weak beats, after which is a – still fast – bit quieter section for the strings. I’d be surprised if anyone familiar with the overture would listen to this and not hear similarities.
  • Still fun. Love the grace notes near the end. Humor. Mozart had it, and I’m grateful 200 and some odd years later.

Takeaways?

I enjoyed this piece. As I said, I was reminded a lot of the “Paris” Symphony, but while the “Paris” symphony felt like it led nowhere particularly interesting, this felt like it was fun and full of variety. And although I’ve been kind of ragging on the “Paris” symphony, I also have a suspicion that some of the techniques used there and developed here were also ultimately developed into music like the final movement of Beethoven’s sixth symphony, which uses sustained chords and loudness and surprise harmonies at one point to create an exquisitely orgasmic experience. Listening to this and to parts of the “Paris” symphony, I can see that musical through-line. Ideas have to start somewhere.

Until next time.

Mozart Month: Day 19 with his “Little G Minor” Symphony

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After my disappointment with the “Paris Symphony”, I’m going to jump backwards in his catalogue to check out another revered work, the so-called “little G minor” symphony. Of course, it can only be retroactively called that because of his “Great G Minor Symphony”, which I already wrote about on day 2 of this project.

Was the “Paris” symphony styled for a specific audience, or was it indicative of his development as a symphony composer during this period?

The Recording

Once again, I’m listening to Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Apple Music

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Sheet Music

Symphony no. 25 in G minor, K. 183

1. Allegro con brio

  • Immediately establishes mood
  • Syncopated rhythms
  • Solo oboe line is very cool.
  • Modulation to major is surprisingly buoyant.
  • Lots of variety just in the exposition. Each section has its own clear feeling.
  • Development is instantly interesting.
  • Use of dynamics is fluid, though there’s plenty of strong contrasting moments as well.
  • Horns are used effectively.
  • Recapitulation in minor is terrific. That “buoyant” major modulation from earlier now remains foreboding.
  • Rumbling coda.

2. Andante

  • Opening subverts our sense of time.
  • Atmospheric in a way. Uses this eighth note figure repeatedly throughout.
  • Spends a lot of time in minor, although this movement is in Eb Major.

3. Minuet and trio

  • I went and listened to a lot of Haydn string quartets and heard a lot of the back and forth on an interval of a second like Mozart does some here.
  • Trio only for the winds and horns!
  • Very nice contrast to the blustery minuet.

4. Allegro

  • Lots of syncopation again. Some of it is really fast and gives those passages a kind of wild feeling.
  • Exciting ending. Maintains a kind of stylistic unity throughout the symphony as a whole.
  • There’s so much happening here even though this is using the smaller Classical Period orchestra. Follow along in the sheet music to get a better sense of it. It all fits though.

Takeaways

I really enjoyed this. I’ve heard the first movement before plenty of times (it’s just one of those movements), though the rest was much less familiar to me. The piece feels like it has some sense of unity through the movements. Mozart from the very beginning establishes a sense of mood. He was very good at using minor keys for this purpose. If you think about the Requiem or Don Giovanni or Symphony 40, he has a way with minor keys that seem particularly Mozartian.

As for its comparison to the “Paris” symphony, I find it very different. He used many of the same effects between the two pieces, but here they strike me as more developed and interesting. I can’t say for certain why that is.

Until next time.

Mozart Month: Day 18 with his “Paris” Symphony

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I’m feeling kind of ill today, so I’m looking forward to listening to Mozart. This is his “Paris” symphony, which he wrote while touring in Paris at the age of 22. Wait… Mozart had written 31 symphonies by the time he was 22? I know they were shorter then, but wow.

The Recording

I’m listening to Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker. I’m only listening to the Andantino version of the second movement (he wrote several).

Apple Music

Spotify

Sheet Music

Couldn’t find a YouTube video of this specific recording.

Symphony 31 in D Major K. 297 “Paris”

1. Allegro assai

  • Huh. What to even write about this movement?
  • Ok, this movement feels like an introduction that never ends. It begins in forte with triumphant chords with the rhythm getting progressively subdivided.
  • Then the scales start. They’re almost all ascending and fast, and while they do telegraph the harmony, they seem almost like musical fireworks. (Ah yea, this is a version of the “Mannheim rocket”, one of the musical techniques developed in the early Classical Period).
  • There are almost no real melodies to speak of. There are little turning motives, but they don’t really get developed.
  • Woodwinds have very simple parts, often playing light chords in the background.
  • Honestly, I bet this is a crowd pleaser at the right moment, but if you’re looking for much musical nuance or evidence of Mozart the musical genius, then this movement doesn’t quite provide it. At least after my first concentrated listening. Perhaps my opinion will change.
  • Much scales, such rocket.

2. Andantino

  • Much more gentle.
  • Some fun chromaticism.
  • Some tasty appoggiaturas.
  • The use of grace notes remind me of some of his music during the wedding in Le nozze di Figaro.
  • Again, there’s lots of very pleasant music here. I especially enjoy when it modulates to minor just because it shows these motives in a new light. But I’m not seeing Mozart the melodist or the expert developer. A lot of the melodies seem abbreviated and a little awkward (the staccato endings, for example).
  • Which is not to say anything of the musicians playing and Maestro Abbado. This recording of this particular movement is excellent and instructive on how to phrase Mozart. Listen to the endings of phrases, or how the orchestra moves as one. Look at the sheet music and see how much is written vs. unspoken and yet accomplished. As a musicians, it’s a real lesson to hear that.

3. Allegro

  • Yea, more of the same.
  • Very boisterous. I actually like this better than the first movement, but it’s another example of big league loud/soft contrast, but mostly loud. Some of the scale passages he gives to the strings are exciting, and near the end when the whole orchestra plays nearly in total unison, that is a cool effect. But it does feel like a climax that hasn’t entirely been earned.

Takeaways?

Well, I think you know how I feel about this piece after my initial listen through. I have to wonder if he was composing for a very specific taste in Paris, and I suppose I’ll only find out by listening to the preceding and following symphonies to get a better sense of the context of this work in his development.

In any case, I look forward to listening to the other symphonies on this recording, because the performers are excellent.

Until next time.