Mozart and More…

“I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

We live in a world where our collective narrative is constantly shifting. Technology has transformed the way we communicate with no end in sight. We recently saw longstanding prejudices triumphantly overcome in our own nation. Just a few months ago, no one gave any thought to revolutions in the Middle east. But now everyone is watching, unsure of the outcomes.

What am I getting at, you might ask, in what is usually a series of obligatory program notes for a summer concert series?

I think each succeeding generation often sees the end of its known world clearly in sight. But though the changes swirling around the end of the 18th century rarely dominate an audience’s perception of his music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart witnessed two revolutions—the American and the French—that completely shifted the global narrative of his life, just as the influence of technology and the Arab Spring is reshaping ours. When I look at the compositional date of 1787 for the great String Quintets K. 515 and 516, I feel compelled to point out the proverbial elephant in the living room. And that giant pachyderm is the approaching French revolution.

Mozart’s operas with Lorenzo da Ponte give us proof that Mozart made keen observations of his rapidly changing world. When considered as a triptych, Cosi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, and The Marriage of Figaro examine the unpredictable nature of the changes—human and political—that would eventually lead France’s ruling class to Joseph Guillotine’s more humane technology of death.

In programming a complete look at Mozart’s extraordinary cycle of string quintets—the Quintet K. 614 is his last will and testament in chamber music—I’ve thought about creating a metaphor between Mozart’s era to our own as a strong motivating idea. To emphasize this concept, I’ve juxtaposed contemporary composers Alexandra du Bois, Lei Liang, Vu nhat Tan, Charles Wuorinen, and Wadada Leo Smith with this complete retrospective of the string quintets of Mozart. All of these composers, alive and well in our own time, are involved in major commissions for Southwest’s 25th anniversary season beginning in october of 2011. And, programming Mozart was also a wonderful way to anticipate the 20th anniversary of these huntington summer concerts, which is approaching in the summer of 2013.

Chou en Lai was once asked what he thought of the results of the French revolution. “Too early to tell,” was his inscrutable reply. But if one carefully examines the composers juxtaposed with Mozart this summer, I believe one finds a new creative landscape encouraged both by our concerts and you as our audience. You’ll be hearing a woman under thirty of considerable reputation, composers from China and Vietnam, the son of a Finnish immigrant, and an African-American composer born in Leland, Mississippi in 1941. I’d like to think the Mozart of the da Ponte operas would be pleased at this creative and cultural progress in society. The verdict that seemed to elude Chou en Lai is becoming clearer, at least in the creative world of music.

Rather than become your musical tour guide, unwilling as I am to grab a mid-performance bull horn to signal the highpoints such as “key change here,” “viola melody there,” “recapitulation approaches, slow down to 25 mph for a good view”—allow me to change that relationship. I hope a thumbnail discussion of the causes and events that shaped Mozart’s personality might be equally helpful to increase your appreciation of the juxtaposition of musical wonders hitting your ears this summer.

The ingredients of the French revolution are sadly not familiar to our hyper-connected world. The thumbnail French recipe list includes massive debt caused by the conspicuous greed of the wealthy nobility married to numerous foreign wars piling up massive food shortages and unemployment. The wars included the Seven Years War and our American revolution (the old adage that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ comes to mind as one considers the perspective from Paris on our rebellion with the British). We are familiar with our alliance with France demonstrated by General Lafayette aiding our victory against england. But the Seven Years War needs a bit more description, as it can be considered a forerunner to the global wars of the 20th century.

In a nutshell, the Seven Years War was waged between 1756 and 1763. It included international conflicts throughout europe, north America (known to us as the French and Indian War), Africa (in Senegal), the Philippines (Manila in particular), India (the Bay of Bengal) and the Caribbean. The main plot of all of these wars is the animosity of particularly France (but also others in europe) against Great Britain.

France was heavily influenced by the success of our Founding Fathers. In particular, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin spent much time in Paris (in fact, when hearing of Franklin’s death, Café Le Procope in Paris would drape its façade in black cloth for a full two weeks in honor of its favorite patron). But the economic damage of the numerous foreign wars between 1756 and the end of the American revolution would eventually wind up at the doorsteps of Versailles. unemployment and hunger robbed the French population of their dignity - the light that ignites every revolutionary fire, as true then as it is today in the Middle east.

Now I turn your attention to the quote of Mozart that is the banner of my essay. This independent credo was a startling obscenity in the Versailles-influenced europe that determined the direction of Mozart’s creative life, in particular his operas. In working with da Ponte, his operas became more and more controversial, leaving no stone unturned in their devastating social commentary (Beethoven found Cosi fan tutte immoral!). I well remember a Vietnamese colleague’s critique of The Marriage of Figaro while I was in hanoi last year—a blisteringly accurate observation about Mozart exposing the abuse of power so prevalent in european thinking. The French continued this attitude in Southeast Asia – in the early 20th century, no Vietnamese was allowed to attend a performance at the hanoi opera house. And, if the Marquis de Sade ever had an operatic sibling, he is obviously Don Giovanni.

“Too many notes” says Salieri in Peter Schaffer’s Amadeus. This was indeed a major contemporary criticism of Mozart (as it had been of Bach). In listening to all of his string quintets this summer, the main clue I hope to provide is that you imagine a ‘drama without words’ between the players. There had been numerous string quintets before Mozart (one easily thinks of reams of pleasant but ultimately innocuous quintets by Boccherini). But even with his first endeavor, K. 174, the conversation is changed. rather than create a form where the leadership roles are between 1st violin and 1st viola, all five instruments take part in the discourse. This sense of the dramatic, of treating each member of the ensemble as a unique individual that makes a meaningful contribution to the whole, mirrors the societal changes demanding attention from Mozart’s extraordinary mind.

Another aspect of interest contained in Mozart’s quintets is their structural vision. Beethoven is unthinkable without Mozart’s stunning C major Quintet K. 515. here Mozart shows the way to the full blown musical revolution that Beethoven would accomplish. Incorporating the genius found in the string quartets of Franz Josef haydn, Mozart expands the ideas of structural symmetry within complete forms and their individual phrase groups. The first movement of K. 515 is the longest movement of its kind until Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

The G minor Quintet K. 516 is the yin to the yang of K. 515. each key developed deep psychological and spiritual significance over a long period of musical history. The origins of these symbols come from association of various pitches with religious holidays. A series of letters by the renaissance German composer heinrich Schütz provide vivid documentation outlining these tonal archetypes. For example, Schütz discusses that D is an appropriate locus for the Dies Irae at easter Service. As one looks at the use of D minor, one easily sees this serious resonance—the overture to Don Giovanni, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Brahms’ Tragic Overture, the Overture to the Flying Dutchman by Wagner, and the 9th Symphonies of both Bruckner and Mahler bear this key. D minor could be considered music’s Hamlet key.

G minor was a key identified with despair, and even suicide. A look at the key’s appearance in Mozart’s dramatic works is quite informative. In The Magic Flute, Pamina’s impassioned Ach ich fühls, her response to perceived rejection from Tamino, paints a portrait of her suicidal intent. Papageno also resorts to G minor when he decides that Papagena will never find him, and decides he must hang himself. So the G minor quintet is a serious work that balances its C major sibling. Though K. 516 ends in G major, this has more to do with the 18th century expectation of a finale summing up a composition (quite different than the more involved sonata allegro form of first movements). Plunging into total despair would have to wait for Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique, though Mozart does point the way with his relentless Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 558.

C minor is a key that symbolizes a confrontation with fate, the opposite of the Masonic key of three flats, e flat major, which was Mozart’s favorite (the key for his final chamber piece, the Quintet in E flat major, K. 614, is no accident). examples of C minor and fate in music are not hard to find—Beethoven’s iconic Fifth is in C minor, as is the opening Totenfeier movement of Mahler’s resurrection Symphony. Again, in The Magic Flute, when the Queen of the night is finally vanquished, she is vanquished in a powerful trombone burst of C minor. The String Quintet in C minor, K. 406 is a transcription of a more famous wind octet. having this double reed serenade as a parent—the most bizarre party piece of the 18th century—the string arrangement becomes parallel with some of the structural concerns of K. 516. But the floating second movement, in the Trinitarian key of e flat major, and the strict canons and counterpoint of the minuet, bear special notice.

The mirror of chamber music Mozart provides in 1789 is against a troubled royal backdrop. The three Prussian Quartets are dedicated to the King of Prussia, himself a good cellist. In each instance throughout his career, Mozart moves from composing for string quartets to string quintets. With each quintet he demonstrates a need to express more than the four voices of the quartets could accommodate. It is as if Mozart had to aim higher, with a logical expansion of ideas. After this royal request for quartets, Mozart is commissioned by Johann Tost, an important patron of haydn. Tost’s request was perfectly timed and the results were the Quintets K. 593 and K. 614.

The Quintet in D major, K. 593 is the most technically virtuosic of all the quintets. The integration of the instruments with each other is at its most impressive. Duets and antiphonal ideas are jettisoned for a richer texture, with all five players sharing virtuosic tasks. The final chamber work by Mozart is the Quintet K. 614. To sum up his career, he makes one more attempt at honoring his creator spiritus, Franz Josef haydn. haydn is the one who made chamber music dramatic, finding ways to create implied scenarios between individuals without “flying apart” as Charles rosen observed. In his string quintets, Mozart expanded haydn’s ideas far beyond the older composer’s vision and created a body of work that Beethoven would never attempt seriously or surpass in any genre.

In closing, I hope you enjoy the added bonuses of the clarinet and horn quintets to complete the picture of Mozart’s works for five players. I will speak briefly at each concert about the music performed this summer by Alexandra du Bois, Lei Liang, Vu nhat Tan, Charles Wuorinen, and Wadada Leo Smith.

—Jeff von der Schmidt