Thursday October 15, 2009

Colorado Symphony Orchestra
James Gaffigan, conductor; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Serenade No. 13 in G major, K.525 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik)
Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major (5/15-17/09)
Also, Charley anticipates Olga Kern's appearance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this weekend and next.
Mily Balakirev: In the Garden & Islamey
Olga Kern, piano
Harmonia Mundi 14-15 4:43 + 9:12


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Serenade No. 13 in G major, K.525 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik)
I. Allegro
II. Romance: Andante
III. Menuetto: Allegretto
IV. Rondo: Allegro

Mozart finished his last serenade (K.525) on August 10, 1787, while working on the second act of Don Giovanni. Apparently the work was not commissioned. The score bears no dedication, nor is there any record of a performance in Mozart's lifetime.
So why did he write it? Alfred Einstein has a theory: ``All the riddles presented by this work would be solved by the assumption that Mozart wrote it for himself, to satisfy an inner need, and that it served as a corrective counterpart to the Musical Joke....After Mozart had disturbed the cosmic system by the Musical Joke, he set it to rights again with the Kleine Nachtmusik.''
Mozart's own thematic catalogue clearly indicates that the piece had two minuets, but in the autograph manuscript the first minuet is missing, apparently ripped out by some unknown hand.
One of the best known works in all of classical music, K.525 is a ``singularly perfect worklet, thoroughly polished in a classical way,'' according to Eric Blom. For Einstein, ``this is supreme mastery in the smallest possible frame.''
The work is scored for strings.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Piano Concerto in G major
I. Allegramente
II. Adagio assai
III. Presto

Ravel wrote only two piano concertos, but he worked on both at the same time, from 1929 to 1931. The so-called ``Left Hand'' Concerto had been commissioned by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in World War I.
Having finished the ``Left Hand'' Concerto in August of 1930, Ravel faced the deadline for the G major Concerto (for both hands). ``The time is flying,'' he told a friend. ``I have just now completed correcting the orchestration for the Concerto for the Left Hand. I have only two and half months left to finish the other. It is terrifying to think about! I sleep no more than six hours, and usually less than that.''
Ravel had just returned to Paris from a concert tour of the United States and Canada. He was amazed at the ``magnificent cities and enchanting country,'' but hated the food. The G major Concerto was to be used during a planned second North American tour.
That tour never materialized. The Concerto was introduced in Paris on January 14, 1932. The composer's declining health prevented him from being the soloist. He did conduct, though, and Marguerite Long was the pianist. He dedicated the Concerto to her, remarking that the second movement's long opening melody had been written ``two bars at a time, with frequent recourse to Mozart's Clarinet Quintet.''
Ravel described the work as ``a concerto in the strict sense, written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saëns. I believe that a concerto can be gay and brilliant and that there is no necessity for it to aim at profundity or big dramatic effects. It has been said that the concertos of some great classical composers were written not for but against the piano, and I think this criticism is justified. At the beginning, I thought of naming the G major a `divertissement;' but I reflected that this was not necessary, for the title `concerto' explains the music sufficiently....It includes elements borrowed from jazz, but only in moderation.''
The score calls for solo piano, piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, harp, strings, timpani, bass drum, side drum, cymbals, gong, triangle, wood block and whip.