Monday March 15, 2010

Charley talks with Boulder Philharmonic music director Michael Butterman about Angela Cheng's appearance Wednesday.
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra

Michael Butterman, conductor; Bonnie Draina, soprano; Adriana Zabala, mezzo soprano
Wolfgang Mozart: La clemenza di Tito Overture, K.621 5:09
Wolfgang Mozart: Duet, "Ah perdona al primo affetto" from La Clemenza di Tito, K.621 3:24 (Draina, Zabala)
Wolfgang Mozart: Aria, "Non so piu" from Act I of The Marriage of Figaro, K.492 3:12 (Zabala)
Wolfgang Mozart: Aria, ``Voi, che sapete'' from Act II of The Marriage of Figaro, K.492 3:27 (Zabala)
Wolfgang Mozart: Symphony No. 35 in D major, K.385 (Haffner) 20:17 (11/1/08)
Also, Charley talks with Colorado Ballet's artistic director Gil Boggs about their triple-bill opening Friday. Charley also anticipates pianist Alejandro Cremaschi's recital tomorrow at CU Boulder.
Alberto Ginastera: Three Pieces
Alejandro Cremaschi, piano
University of Colorado at Boulder Faculty Recital
In addition, Charley talks with Kathy Brantigan about the Denver Brass Bagpipe concerts this weekend.


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Overture to La Clemenza di Tito, K.621

During the summer of 1791, even as he worked furiously on The Magic Flute and the Requiem, Mozart received a new commission. Domenico Guardasoni, acting on instructions from a band of Bohemian noblemen, asked Mozart to write a serious opera for the celebration of Leopold II's coronation as King of Bohemia. The fee was twice the normal rate; Mozart was in no position to refuse.
The libretto for La Clemenza di Tito, by Metastasio as revised by Caterino Mazzola, concerns love and intrigue in Rome around 80 A.D. Mozart wrote the opera in 18 days, partly in Vienna that summer, partly in carriages and inns on the way to Prague and partly in Prague, just before the first performance on September 6, 1791.
In his book on Mozart's operas, Charles Osborne writes: ``Composed at the last moment, the Overture nevertheless does not make use of any themes from the opera: instead it establishes a mood which, though formal, is also festive. Its contrapuntal development section links it in mood with The Magic Flute Overture which must have been composed only a week or two later.''
The Overture is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, as well as timpani and strings.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Aria, ``Voi, che sapete'' from Act II of The Marriage of Figaro, K.492

Mozart began The Marriage of Figaro sometime during October of 1785. The librettist was Lorenzo da Ponte, who would later provide the texts for Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte. They chose the sequel to The Barber of Seville of Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro, or the Madcap Day.
The first performance of The Marriage of Figaro began at seven on the evening of May 1, 1786 at the Court Theater in Vienna. Count Zinzendorf's appraisal that the ``the opera bored me'' was a minority view. The opera was a huge success.
In the second act, Figaro, the Count's valet, is conspiring with the Countess and her maid Susanna, Figaro's betrothed, to humiliate the Count for his womanizing. Part of the plan involves dressing the young page Cherubino as Susanna for a tryst with the Count. As the ladies prepare his costume, they demand that he sing his little song of love, with Susanna accompanying on guitar.

Voi, che sapete che cosa è amor,
donne vedete, s'io l'ho nel cor.
Quello ch'io provo, vi ridirò,
e per me nuovo, capir nol so.
Sento un affetto pien di desir,
ch'ora è diletto, ch'ora è martir.
Gelo, e poi sento l'alma avvampar,
e in un momento torno a gelar.
Ricerco un bene fuori di me,
non so ch'il tiene, non so cos'è.
Sospiro e gemo senza voler,
palpito e tremo senza saper;
non trovo pace notte, né dì,
ma pur mi piace languir così.

(You who know what love is,
ladies, see whether it's in my heart.
What I experience I'll describe for you;
it's new to me, I don't understand it.
I feel an emotion full of desire,
that is now pleasure, and now suffering.
I freeze, then I feel my soul burning up,
and in a moment I'm freezing again.
I seek a blessing outside myself,
from whom I know not or what it is.
I sigh and moan without meaning to,
palpitate and tremble without knowing it.
I find no peace night or day,
and yet I enjoy languishing so.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 35 in D major, K.385 (Haffner)
I. Allegro con spirito
II. Andante
III. Menuetto
IV. Presto

During the summer of 1782, while hard at work on The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart received an urgent request from his father to provide some music for the festivities surrounding Siegmund Haffner's elevation to the nobility. The Haffners were old Salzburg friends of the Mozarts. Six years before Wolfgang had written the Haffner Serenade for the wedding of Siegmund's sister Elisabeth.
On July 20, 1782, Mozart wrote to his father: ``Well, I am up to the eyes in work....And now you ask me to write a new symphony? How on earth can I do so?....Well, I must just spend the night over it, for that is the only way; and to you, dearest father, I sacrifice it. You may rely on having something from me by every post. I shall work as fast as possible and, as far as haste permits, I shall turn out good work.''
By the end of July Mozart reported: ``You see that my intentions are good--only what one cannot do one cannot! I am really unable to scribble off inferior stuff.''
The completed work was actually a six-movement serenade, consisting of the four movements of the Haffner Symphony, plus the March, K.408 No. 2 and a second minuet which has since been lost. This was the version performed for the Haffner wedding in Salzburg in 1782.
On March 23, 1783, the Haffner music was performed as a four-movement symphony at a concert in Vienna attended by the Emperor. In the interim between the two performances, Mozart seems to have suffered a memory lapse. ``My new Haffner Symphony,'' he wrote to his father, ``has positively amazed me, for I had forgotten every single note of it. It must surely produce a good effect.''
And it did. After the concert, Mozart again wrote to his father: ``I need not tell you very much about the success of my concert, for no doubt you have already heard of it. Suffice it to say that the theater could not have been more crowded and that every box was full. But what pleased me most of all was that His Majesty the Emperor was present and, goodness!--how delighted he was and how he applauded me!''
Because of its origins as a serenade, Alfred Einstein regards K.385 as ``a somewhat amphibious work. Not that the first movement, with all its pomp of trumpets and drums, lacks seriousness. The lordly principal motive, which is first stated in unison, is made the basis of rich contrapuntal weaving and contrast.'' Describing the second movement as ``graceful and innocent,'' Einstein points to the Minuet as the ``outstanding movement,'' which expresses ``strength, festivity, and masculinity in the main section, and the most delicate grace in the Trio.'' The last movement is a masterly synthesis of sonata and rondo forms. Mozart advised that the first movement should be ``played with great fire'' and the last, ``as fast as possible.''
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.