Category: Previous Notes

It is my great pleasure to perform with Chamber Orchestra First Editions and Music Director and conductor James Freeman. I have performed with him several times, as soloist with Orchestra 2001 and occasionally as ensemble member, so it is particularly exciting to play with his new orchestra in its second season. I love the programming concept: Mozart and new music, because as a flutist some of the greatest staples of my solo and chamber repertoire are by Mozart. It is Mozart’s music, along with that of Bach, to which I return every season and sometimes every day, always striving to approach its matchless genius.

Mozart wrote the Concerto in G Major, K. 313 in Mannheim in 1778, on commission from the Dutch flutist Ferdinand Dejean, for whom he also wrote the Concerto in D Major, K. 314, arranged from the C Major oboe concerto, and three flute quartets. During his stay in Paris later that year, Mozart wrote his Concerto for Flute and Harp. It is striking how much magnificent flute music Mozart wrote in one year! Despite the documentary evidence and profusion of scholarship on every aspect of Mozart’s life, his two concertos for flute and orchestra are still wrapped in some degree of mystery. Sadly, no copies exist in Mozart’s hand. He usually kept his manuscripts and had a copy made for the commissioner or performers. In this case, however, he might have given his manuscript to Dejean.

In lieu of the autograph of the Concerto in G Major, most editions that strive for authenticity are derived from the first printed edition of 1803. There is every reason to think that this printed edition does not represent Mozart’s actual articulations because it is so much more heavily marked than the autograph score of the Concerto for Flute and Harp, which fortunately does still exist. Studying Mozart’s flute writing in his own hand, which I did for my recent review of the Henle publication of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, leads me to adjust some of the articulation in the Concerto in G Major, following the types of slurs and staccato patterns according to my understanding of Mozart’s style.

The two Mozart concertos for flute and orchestra both hold a very special place in my heart. The G Major is the first piece I played for my beloved teacher Julius Baker, the legendary flutist, whose own recordings of the Mozart concertos are inspiring classics. The creative genius of Mozart is on full display in the G Major concerto. The Allegro Maestoso first movement brilliantly integrates stately, lyrical, and virtuosic elements. The Adagio ma non troppo is in the concerto’s dominant key of D Major, a particularly brilliant key for the flute. The flute’s long, cantabile lines bring to mind Mozart’s exquisite operatic writing; this movement is like an aria for flute. The Rondo: Tempo di menuetto combines elegance and vitality, with a contrasting middle section that is poignant in the darker key of E Minor, referencing again Mozart’s vocal writing. I’ve performed the Mozart concerti more than any other concerti in my career, and I never get over my feeling of awe at the sublime greatness of this music. – Mimi Stillman

A STORY OF HIGH HOPES, LOVE, TRAGEDY, AND FINALLY ARTISTIC FREEDOM
Salzburg to Munich
In September of 1777, Mozart left behind his hometown of Salzburg (and his position as violinist in the court’s orchestra) to find a new position as court composer, or Kapellmeister, at one of western Europe’s cultural centers. He was accompanied on this journey by his mother, apparently more to keep him out of trouble than to provide any special assistance. Mozart was 21 years old.

Thanks to the voluminous correspondence during this trip between Mozart and his father Leopold who remained in Salzburg in order to fulfill his own musical duties, we know a great deal about the events, the itinerary, and the emotions of this trip.

The first stop for Mozart and his mother was Munich. He hoped, but eventually failed, to win a position at the electoral court. The enormous difference between Munich’s whirlwind of musical activities, however, and provincial Salzburg began to fuel his growing disdain for his hometown and his reluctance ever to return. After having been turned down by the electoral court because he was too young, he seems for the first time to have hatched the idea of being a free-lance composer, unattached to any court. Leopold quickly wrote to squelch that idea completely. His son’s trip, he said, was designed to find for him a respectable court position. In Leopold’s mind there was clearly something disreputable about a composer without a court position. Wolfgang, a good son and always obedient to his dominating father at this time, acquiesced immediately.

Augsburg
The next stop was Augsburg where Mozart began a strange dalliance with his cousin, Maria Anna Thekla Mozart, the daughter of Leopold’s brother. Their surviving correspondence, now famous for its whimsy, scatological jokes, and constant sexual innuendos, reveals an intimacy of a kind that, as far as we know, was new to Mozart. Was it his first love? Perhaps.

Mannheim
Pressed to continue on with this journey by his father, Mozart and mother then traveled to Mannheim, one of the great centers of music in Europe, where once again he hoped to win a position at court. And once again he was turned down. Mozart, however, quickly made friends with many of the musicians and was happily enjoying himself in their company. He now proposed that his mother return to Salzburg and that he go on alone to Paris, accompanied by some of his Mannheim friends. Leopold would have none of that. The plan was quickly scuttled. Frau Mozart would continue on with Wolfgang to Paris.

The Mannheim orchestra was widely regarded as the foremost orchestra in all of Europe. It was famed for its precision, its remarkable contrasting dynamics, and for providing the basis for a whole school of composers. Nothing like it existed in Salzburg, and Mozart was once again much aware of Salzburg’s limitations.

The K. 313 Flute Concerto and Aloysia Weber
Among his new acquaintances in the Mannheim orchestra was the flutist Johann Baptist Wendling who probably played the first performance of K. 313. The piece was commissioned by a Dutch amateur, Ferdinand DeJean, who asked for several flute concertos and flute quartets from Mozart. While in Mannheim. Mozart managed to complete two concertos, K. 313 in G and K. 314 in D (which he arranged for flute from an earlier oboe concerto in C), two flute quartets (K. 285 and 285a), and an Andante for flute and orchestra (K. 315). It has often been suggested that the Andante might have been intended as a possible replacement for the middle movement of K. 313.

The G Major Concerto, K. 313, on this evening’s program, reflects Mozart at his very best at this time in his life. Full of exuberance, with a sparkling and virtuosic first movement, an elegant Adagio, and a sprightly concluding Menuetto, the concerto belies Mozart’s oft-quoted letter to his father in which he says he has no use for the flute as an instrument. The piece seems more to reflect the composer’s elation at being among good friends and excellent musicians, at being away from Salzburg, and at finding himself for the first time free to write what and when he wished.

It may also reflect the fact that he was in love. Soon after arriving in Mannheim, Mozart met Aloysia Weber, a gifted 16-year-old soprano, and clearly fell under both her charms and the influence of the entire Weber family. (Years later, after moving to Vienna in 1781, he would marry Aloysia’s sister Constanza.) He now devised a plan of accompanying Aloysia on a concert tour of Italy. In letters to his father of February 1778 he went so far as to consider the possibility of marriage. Leopold’s reaction was instantaneous. “I have read your letter of the 4th with amazement and horror. . . . Off with you to Paris! And that soon! Find your place among great people.”

Paris and Tragedy
Off he went to Paris, with mother still in tow. Unfortunately, there were no offers of a position in Paris. At Versailles he was offered the position of court organist, but turned it down, probably feeling that he deserved something more significant, and that if accepted, it would almost certainly mean bringing the entire Mozart family to Versailles.

And then the tragedy. His mother fell ill and died. Mozart was clearly devastated. He wrote first to a friend in Salzburg, asking him to tell Leopold that his mother was ill, in order to prepare the father as gently as possible for the next letter, which would contain the complete story. Mozart then wrote apologetically, “ I could not indeed bring myself suddenly to shock you with this dreadful news.” Leopold was anything but understanding of his son’s own grief. “I told you in May that she ought not to postpone being bled,” he wrote. “You had your engagements. You were away all day, and as she didn’t make a fuss, you treated her condition lightly. All this time her illness became more serious, in fact mortal – and only then was a doctor called in, when of course it was too late.” There is no evidence at all that Mozart was in any way responsible for his mother’s death. He wrote to his father saying, “No doctor in the world could have saved her – for it was clearly the will of God; her time had come, and God wanted to take her to Himself.” We can only imagine the agony Mozart must have felt: his mother had died in his charge, and his father blamed him for her death.

The Return
He left Paris for good in October 1778, finally arriving back in Salzburg in January 1779. Stopping at Mannheim on the way, he found that Aloysia’s interest in him had completely vanished. He then met his cousin Maria Anna Thekla in Munich and possibly traveled with her back to Salzburg, the town he now detested. But that affair apparently had also faded.

Vienna
In 1781 the 25-year-old Mozart left Salzburg for Vienna. He had already acrimoniously resigned his position in Salzburg, despite his father’s vehement opposition. He lived in Vienna for the remaining ten years of his life, largely as an independent composer, unattached to the court. In 1783 he and his new wife Constanza made a brief trip to Salzburg to attempt a reconciliation with his father and sister. But Leopold and Nannerl apparently openly rejected Constanza. Despite a later visit by Leopold to Vienna, during which the father witnessed the height of his son’s impressive success as a free-lance composer, Mozart’s estrangement from his family – previously always a central part of his life – was now palpable on both sides. The early artistic success he had at first experienced in Vienna, especially with the profusion of piano concertos, then faded. And at the end, Mozart may have felt that his father’s declaration that an important court position should be the goal for his son, had not been entirely mistaken.
Leopold died in Salzburg in 1787 at age 67, never really having forgiven his illustrious son for leaving Salzburg and for the independence Wolfgang had found in Vienna. Wolfgang died four years later in 1791 in Vienna at age 35.

(All translations of the Mozart family’s letters are taken from Maynard Soloman’s 1995 masterful book Mozart: A Life.)

Via Cordis was inspired by Henri Nouwen’s short, elegant book The Way of the Heart, which explores the teachings of the Desert Fathers. While I do not attempt to reflect Nouwen’s ideas directly in my music, the piece is imbued with a passionate intensity which is my response to his motif of the heart. The music flows in waves, building, cresting, and then receding, only to rise again, until all anxiety is quelled, and all tensions resolved, in harmony. Via Cordis is dedicated with gratitude to Chamber Orchestra FIRST EDITIONS and its Artistic Director, James Freeman. –Ingrid Arauco

A Meeting of Souls illustrates Curt Cacioppo’s connection with great music of the western canon.  It originated as a commission from the Carmel Bach Festival for a piece that would substitute the famous “Air on the G String” in their performances of the Bach IIIrd Orchestral Suite, and elliptically is based on that ubiquitous 18 bar string movement.  Cacioppo became so fascinated with the “Air” that he produced two other response pieces, one of which is the finale of his “Fantasy, Air and Rag” triptych for 2 pianos in tribute to J.S. Bach, and “Midsummer Air,” also for the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra.

“Viaje”(Spanish for voyage) was commissioned by Dolce Suono Ensemble and premiered by Mimi Stillman, flute and the Dover Quartet in 2015. Mimi Stillman premiered the flute and string orchestra version of “Viaje” with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle (NC) in 2016. Experiencing Spain for the first time and learning about the stories of Spanish legend El Cid inspired me to compose this 9-minute thrill ride of bittersweet. I was particularly drawn to the relationship between Cid and his two daughters, as they went through an innocent childhood, separation, distrust, and finally, reunion. I imagined the flute to be the voice of daughters, and the cello representing the voice of father. A musical dialogue between the two emerges in the middle of the piece, as if recalling a long-overdue conversation between father and daughters. It wasn’t until the piece was finished that I realized that I had unconsciously married my musical roots as a Chinese-American with my new found love of Spanish music.

Described as “absolutely beautiful” and “utterly satisfying” (Fanfare), the works of Chinese-born American composer ZHOU Tian (JOH TEE-en) have been performed by major orchestras in the United States and abroad, including the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and by leading soloists and ensembles such as Yuja Wang, Roberto Díaz, Jason Vieaux, the Eroica Trio, the Arditti and Dover string quartets, the Empire Brass, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. His newest work, “Concerto for Orchestra,” (“stunning…tonal and engaging” —Cincinnati Enquirer), commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony, premiered in the orchestra’s 2015-16 season finale, conducted by music director Louis Langrée. The work was released in the CSO’s latest recording “Concertos for Orchestra” in Fall 2016. Critically acclaimed for his lush and distinctive musical voice, Zhou’s music has been performed at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and broadcast on NPR and PBS. His large-scale symphonic suite for soloists, orchestra, and chorus, “The Grand Canal,” was performed during a nationally televised celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. He holds music degrees from Curtis (B.M.), Juilliard (M.M.), and USC (D.M.A.), is a first-prize winner of Washington International Composers Competition, and held composition fellowships from Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals. He is an associate professor of composition at Michigan State University College of Music. Visit ZhouTianMusic.com for more.

February 9, 1784, was an especially significant day for the 28-year-old Mozart.  On that day he finished writing the E flat Piano Concerto, K. 449 (probably begun two years earlier) and made it the very first entry in a new catalog of his works.  He maintained this catalog throughout most of the rest of his life, adding the titles of new works, together with the dates on which they were completed, and musical incipits of one or two measures written on two staves.

In this catalog Mozart indicated that the instrumentation for what we now list as K. 449 included 2 oboes, and 2 horns “ad libitum,” that is, with optional winds. And in a letter to his father he added that the concerto could be performed “à quattro ohne Blasinstrumenten,” with the usual four orchestral string parts (two violins viola, cello/bass) but without winds.  It is this version of the piece that COFE performs this evening. “À quattro” has also been taken to mean that the piece could be performed with just four string players, as chamber music.

Three years earlier, in 1781 at age 25, Mozart realized he could no  longer abide living and working in relatively provincial Salzburg.  As a court employee, he felt his talent was being wasted, and he deeply resented what he considered the musical and social bondage that entailed, as well as the constraints on pursuing his career.  Against his father’s wishes, he submitted his resignation, and until his death in 1791, without the financial safety net of a court appointment, his life and work were centered almost entirely on Vienna.

In 1782 he wrote a set of three piano concertos (K. 413, 414, 415), his first concertos for Viennese audiences.  In these three concertos the wind parts are “ad libitum,” suggesting a possible relationship between them and the later K. 449.  (All of Mozart’s concertos after this time include prominent and obligatory wind parts.) Recent scholarly investigations into the various kinds of paper Mozart used during his lifetime corroborate the idea that K. 449 was indeed begun in 1782.  The beginning of the piece only is written on the same kind of paper Mozart used for some of the earlier concertos of 1782.  The rest is on paper datable to 1784.  For whatever reasons, Mozart seems to have abandoned work on this concerto for two years, finishing it only in time for him (and his pupil Barbara von Ployer to whom it is dedicated) to perform in Vienna. Perhaps he felt the three concertos of 1782 constituted a complete set to which K. 449 did not really belong, setting it aside until an occasion arose for completing it.

As with the Concerto K. 271 which COFE performed this past February with pianist Charles Abramovic, Mozart wrote out a first-movement cadenza for the soloist.  We can assume that this was for use by Fräulein von Ployer (as it had been for K. 271’s Frau Jenomy), since he himself would certainly have improvised his own cadenzas.  Otherwise the two pieces are very different.  K. 449 is less overtly dramatic, more gallant, more genial, more intimate.  As Mozart wrote to his father, “It is a concerto of a very special kind, written more for a small orchestra than a large one.”

Mozart clearly slipped easily back and forth between boldly asserting his musical independence from his contemporaries and predecessors, and accepting them and their basic style as models on which to build.  This may have been due to his own mood at any one time, but more probably was related to the nature of the specific circumstances, audiences, performers.  When he wanted to please and entertain an audience with lighter music like divertimenti, he seems to have done that with great ease and little effort.  When, for especially important audiences (operas), performers (symphonies and concertos), or publications (chamber music) he wanted to make a statement about his genius and the miraculous things it could produce, he exerted himself to his fullest.  It is perhaps in the last great fourteen piano concertos (K. 449 of 1784 to K. 595 of 1791) that that genius shines most clearly,  for these were very public works for significant audiences, but even more important, they were invariably written with Wolfgang himself in mind, as a pianist as well as a composer. – James Freeman

The terms “serenade,” “divertimento,” “partita,” and “cassation” were all virtually synonymous for late 18th-century composers, describing light compositions of several short movements, designed for outdoor entertainment.  “Notturno” signified only that the piece was intended for an evening’s entertainment.

Mozart’s “Serenata Notturna” is nonetheless an unusual piece.  It combines a string orchestra with timpani (but without timpani’s usual companion of two trumpets) with a solo concertante string quartet whose lowest voice Mozart’s indicates as “basso,” not “violoncello” which instead appears as the lowest written voice in the orchestra.  (The double bass, or “Violone,”  then actually provides the true sounding bass, an octave below the cello, for both the quartet and the orchestra.) The piece hearkens back to the baroque concerto grosso, with all three movements focusing on the alternation and interchange of the solo quartet and the orchestra.  The three movements themselves are unusual – a march, a minuet with trio, and a rondo – more compact than the usual five or six movements of most serenades and divertimenti. The third movement, “Rondeau,” is especially charming with its sly returns of the rondo theme, introduced in our performances (as we imagine would surely have taken place with Mozart’s own orchestra) by quasi-comical lead-ins to the principal theme.

Mozart’s manuscript indicates the piece was completed in January 1776.  Given the time of year, it was probably written for an indoor entertainment of some kind.  But what might that occasion have been?  Is it possible that Mozart (born January 27, 1756)  wrote the piece for a party celebrating his own 20th birthday?  Might that explain the fact that the “Serenata Notturna” is a special, quite unique piece, among the multitude of occasional works for entertainments of various kinds he wrote throughout his life? – James Freeman

Arne Running’s 1991 Program notes for “Lamentation”

When James Freeman asked me to write a piece for Orchestra 2001, the request came at a time when I was experiencing considerable distress.  An event had recently occurred in my life which created intense inner turmoil.  There are many tools a person can use to work through a personal crisis: the composing of “Lamentation”  became one such tool for me.

In “Lamentation,” I have tried to express sorrow – sorrow born of spiritual conflict and loss of illusion.  The music also contains passages representing violent anger.  (Of all the Italian expression markings appearing in the score, it is the word  violento which recurs most frequently – a total of twelve times .

The music begins quietly, and the first section works towards a violent climax. The middle section is a dialogue between Three Angels (represented by three trumpets) and an opposing spiritual force (represented by the low strings). The section reaches a climax which is both triumphant and violent, after which there is a reappearance of the quiet music heard at the very beginning.  The work concludes with a brief, gentle “hymn” – and finally, quiet acceptance of life’s unresolvable mystery. – Arne Running

 

James Freeman’s story of Arne Running and “Lamentation”

“Arne Running was a Philadelphia treasure.  As composer, conductor, clarinetist, and human being, he was truly legendary.  One of the finest musicians I’ve ever known, Arne was perpetually – almost relentlessly –  working on improving all his musical skills.  Testing clarinet reeds, mouthpieces, instruments, new fingerings, embouchures, were unceasing ongoing pursuits. But he was continually challenging every other aspect of his musical being as well, always with an aim to being an even more perfect and skilled artist. He loved music with all his heart and was never satisfied with just being a terrific and much admired clarinetist, composer, conductor.  There was always a higher plateau he felt he needed to reach.  He provided a model for all of us to follow, and I think everyone who knew him has benefitted enormously from that model and from knowing this immensely talented and humble man.

Dorothy and I had known Arne very slightly when we were all students in Boston. It was a great joy for us to become close friends with him once we were together in Philadelphia. When we saw Arne and Nancy’s devotion to their beloved Springer Spaniel Sam while they visited us at home, we realized how much they reflected our own feelings for our new assortment of English Cocker Spaniel puppies, and that bond became even closer.

In 1991 I asked Arne to write a new piece for Orchestra 2001, then in only its third year of existence.  The result (which he dedicated to Dorothy and me) was  “Lamentation for Oboe, String Orchestra, and Three Angels.”  (The angels become three trumpets in the piece itself.)  We premiered the work in October of that year with the composer conducting.  I think it is an immensely powerful and moving masterpiece.  Said the Welcomat’s music critic Tom Purdom, “Arne Running’s brand-new Lamentation . . . is a series of darkly beautiful musical gestures unified by a strong personal emotion.  The heart of Running’s Lamentation is a lengthy oboe solo – beautifully played by Dorothy Freeman – that’s surrounded by muted trumpets, somber cello interludes and tender ultra-high melodies for the first violin.”

Curiously, Arne never listed the piece among his works on his website.  Also, we do not know of any later performances of the piece.  I can only speculate that the “Lamentation” was so personal  an expression of  dismay and grief,  for whatever reason,  that  he did not want it to circulate.  There is a mystery here that we may never be able to decipher.

About a year ago, I asked Arne if he would write a new 5-8 minute piece for string orchestra for the Chamber Orchestra FIRST EDITIONS concerts coming up in September 2016.  Arne was ill at that time but he still hoped he would be able to  complete the work.  He sent me a small handful of measures during the winter but it was not enough to give one an idea of what the piece might eventually become.  Then, sadly,  there was no more. Arne passed away in March 2016.    We are honored to revisit the “Lamentation” from 1991, twenty-five years later, in order to replace what I am sure would have been a wonderful new piece. We think there could not be a more appropriate replacement and we dedicate this performance to Arne’s memory.” – James Freeman

For the Uprooted has no dramatic program, traditional form or systematic method. The music seemed to arise as a response to the turbulence of our current world, and its destabilizing effect on countless lives.

Maestro Freeman offered the option of referring, in the commissioned work, to Mozart’s K.449, performed in this concert by my friend and colleague Marcantonio Barone. I have fleetingly done so, evoking a melody from the Andantino of the concerto, which in turn quotes—deliberately or not?—a movement from Bach’s Cantata 140, “Mein Freund ist mein.”

I dedicated this piece, with deep gratitude, to James Freeman and Lori Barnet. Freeman’s invitation encouraged me to “get back on the horse” after a non-composing period. The idea of a solo cello part for Lori Barnet occurred to me after I accepted the commission. She has played a significant and generous role as midwife to innumerable new works by Philadelphia and Washington composers, including several of mine. – Janice Hamer

When considering the possibilities for writing a string orchestra piece I was immediately struck by the homogeneous nature of the medium as well as the lush, lyrical possibilities of the great romantic string orchestra works by Dvorák, Elgar,Tchaikovsky and Samuel Barber. However, I also wanted to explore the rich contrasts of color and orchestration in works such as Bartok’s Divertimento.

This work is a dialogue between solitary and collective identities.  Structurally the work is palindromic, beginning with a solo violin that makes it way to the fulcrum of the work, a fugue that commences in the second violins.  At various points, unison rhythmic gestures break apart to become contrapuntal. The use of solo instruments in the work is meant to reflect historically, going back to the concerto grosso of the Baroque era.

The title of the work, Many in One, is from Walt Whitman’s poem of the same name from his Leaves of Grass. The question of the private, isolated versus cooperative and communal in America that Whitman speaks to in this poem has resonance today, going beyond our country, and the struggles the world continues to face.

from Many in One

Leaves of Grass 1856
Walt Whitman

 

Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, nature,
governments, ownerships, I swear I perceive
other lessons,
Underneath all to me is myself—to you, your-
self,
If all had not kernels for you and me, what were
it to you and me?

……

I match my spirit against yours, your orbs, growths,
mountains, brutes,
I will learn why the earth is gross, tantalizing,
wicked,
I take you to be mine, you beautiful, terrible, rude
forms.