Mozart’s 1786… Music from a year of Success

The Music

The Words

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the ‘Classical For Everyone’ Podcast… five hundred years of incredible music.  My name is Peter Cudlipp and… If you enjoy any music at all then I’m convinced you can enjoy classical music. All you need are ears. No expertise is necessary. If you’ve ever been curious about classical music… or explored it for a while once upon a time… or just quietly wondered what all the fuss was about… then this is the podcast is for you.

And because there’s a lot of music out there each episode has something of a theme. And for this one it is another overview of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, And I’m revisiting an approach I used three months back… music composed in just one year of Mozart’s life… for this episode that year is 1786.  I have music for piano and orchestra, some solo piano music, music for just three and four instruments, a bit from a symphony, something for French horn and orchestra and finally a song from an opera Mozart and the poet Lorenzo Da Ponte whipped up somewhat clandestinely as it was based on a French play that had been banned in Vienna.

Ok. First up is the seven minute slow section of Mozart’s 23^rd concerto for keyboard and orchestra. And here it is performed by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Neville Marriner and the soloist is… Alfred Brendel.

A

That was the slow section of Mozart’s 23^rd concerto for keyboard and orchestra. And it was performed by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields conducted by Neville Marriner and the soloist was… Alfred Brendel.

So, let me give you a little context for the year 1786 in Mozart’s life. On January 27^th he would turn 30 years of age. He had already written an astonishing amount of music of an incredible standard. You’ll recall that what I just plated you was his 23^rd keyboard concerto and a little later in the year his 38^th symphony would be premiered.

He had been happily married to Constanze Weber for three years and their son Karl Thomas was fifteen months old at the beginning of the year.  And after moving to Vienna from Salzburg in 1781; Mozart had by 1786 reached perhaps the most economically secure position he would ever have. Essentially he was an in-demand freelance performer / composer with an emphasis on keyboard works and a growing reputation in the court of Joseph II, the Emperor of Austria. And the Emperor’s personal recognition of Mozart’s extraordinary gifts did much to mitigate the politics of the court’s musical elite. In 1786 it’s fair to say Mozart was for now an unqualified success.

Biographers sometimes celebrate and sometimes vilify Mozart’s exuberance and one particular composition in 1786 is frequently cited as an example of Mozart’s ability to combine musical genius with a zest for fun. It is music for the combination of clarinet, viola and piano.  When, years after Mozart’s death, editors were cataloguing his works they added the name ‘Kegelstatt’ to the piece. The belief was that Mozart was playing a version of the game that was an ancestor ten pin bowling… the German word ‘Kegel’ can mean pins or skittles… whilst he was composing the piece. I guess he’d have his turn, grab his drink and get back to writing another masterpiece. It turns out the musicologists give the nickname to the wrong piece of music but it has persisted. And to be honest, as a onetime patron of seedy bowling alleys in several parts of the world… the idea that over by the bar, a Mozart might be working on a bit of musical splendour is kind of appealing.          

Here are Jack Brymer (clarinet) Partick Ireland (viola) and Stephen Kovacevich (piano) with the second section of Mozart’s ‘Kegelstatt’ Trio from 1786. It is about 6 minutes long.

B

That was Jack Brymer (clarinet) Partick Ireland (viola) and Stephen Kovacevich (piano) with the second section of Mozart’s ‘Kegelstatt’ Trio.

Rather than stick to a strict chronology for the year 1786 I am bouncing around to make the most of the contrasts between the different genres Mozart worked in. His Symphonies never quite go out of fashion but perhaps because he excelled in so many other compositional formats and perhaps because he wrote over forty of them… only a small fraction remain central to the classical music repertoire.

One of that handful though just happened to be written in this remarkable year of 1786. It was Mozart’s 38^thsymphony. It was completed in December and would be premiered the following January in Prague… where it was a tremendous success. And over time it has become known as the ‘Prague’ symphony.

Here is the opening section.. called ‘Adagio / Allegro’. It is about 13 minutes long and is performed here by The English Concert directed by Trevor Pinnock.

C

That was the opening section of Mozart’s Symphony No.38.. the ‘Prague’ symphony and it was performed by The English Concert directed by Trevor Pinnock.

I  hope you are enjoying this episode of Classical For Everyone which this week is a look at the music written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in one year… 1786.

At the beginning of the episode I played some of his 23^rd concerto for Keyboard and Orchestra. He would write another two concertos in 1786 but in addition he continued writing beautiful music for solo keyboard. Like this 5 minute ‘Rondo’ he wrote in early January.  The term ‘rondo’ which started off as a medieval French term for a ‘little round’ meant by Mozart’s day a musical form where a main theme returns repeatedly, alternating with contrasting sections - typically following a pattern like A-B-A-C-A. The recurring main theme gives listeners a sense of familiarity and satisfaction when it returns.

Here is the pianist Martha Argerich with Mozart’s Rondo No. 1 from 1786.

D

That was the pianist Martha Argerich with Mozart’s Rondo No. 1 from 1786.

In the middle of that same year Mozart completed his fourth concerto for Horn. Now, if there were a competition for the most ridiculously difficult orchestral instrument to play… well it would be hard to pick a winner. I don’t want to dwell on how ridiculously difficult most instruments are but… but the natural horn of Mozart’s day has to be near the top.

The instrument was traditional hunting horn but with the tube extended and then coiled so it could be more easily held. The player could play a very limited set of notes by shaping their lips differently and varying the pressure of air blown into the horn. The best players, like Joseph Leutgeb for whom Mozart wrote the concerto, also used a technique of placing their hand inside the bell of the horn in different specific positions to create additional notes. Maybe keep this in mind while you listen to The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and soloist David Jolley perform the slow section of the concerto. Now I am pretty certain Jolley is playing a modern French Horn which is a descendant of the natural horn of Mozart’s day but with some valves added… which does make it easier to play. But it is still an almost superhuman feat to make it sound the way it does in the next five minutes of Mozart’s 4^th Horn concerto.

E

That was The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and soloist David Jolley performing the slow section of Mozart’s 4^th Horn Concerto written in June 1786.

Another of the pieces that Mozart wrote in 1786 was a quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello. This was the result of a commission for three quartets from the previous year. But when Mozart delivered the first one to the publisher Franz Hoffmeister, Hoffmeister said the piano part was too difficult for the customers he was hoping to sell the printed sheet music to, and cancelled the contract for the remaining two quartets. Apparently undeterred, Mozart wrote them anyway. And, if anything made the piano parts even more difficult. Here is the eight minute final section of Mozart’s Piano Quartet from 1786 which has no special nickname so I’ll give you the catalogue number which is K. 493. This is the Beaux Arts Trio joined by the viola player Bruno Giuranna.

F

That was final section of Mozart’s Piano Quartet K. 493. Performed by the Beaux Arts Trio and the viola player Bruno Giuranna.

My name is Peter Cudlipp and you have been listening to the ‘Classical for Everyone’ Podcast. I have another couple of pieces from 1786 coming up… I’d argue some of Mozart’s very best… but before I get to them I want to give you a little information that I hope you find useful. If you would like to listen to past episodes or get details of the music I’ve played please head to the website classicalforeveryone.net. That address again is classicalforeveryone.net. And on the individual episode pages of the website there are links to Spotify playlists with the full versions of most of the music played in each of the episodes.

I hope you have enjoyed this Mozart in 1786 episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’. And if you want to get in touch then you can email… info@classicalforeveryone.net.

At the start of this episode I mentioned that one of the things Mozart wrote in this busy year of 1786 was an opera. In an earlier show I said that I think Mozart’s operas are the best places to start if you are new to opera and of all his operas the one from this particular year is perhaps the most accessible of all. It is ‘The Marriage of Figaro’. And even though it was written in Vienna, the musical fashions of the time meant that the words needed to be in Italian so the opera Mozart wrote the music for is almost as well known by its Italian name… ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’.

Very simply ‘Figaro’ is a dramatic comedy with the plot driven by the tensions between masters and servants. The Ruler of the House, the Count is serially unfaithful to his wife, The Countess and at the start of the opera he has designs on her maid, Susanna, who is engaged to his butler, Figaro. This was the first time that Mozart collaborated with the poet Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is rare for the people who write the words that composers set to music for their operas to get much of a mention. Unfairly they are in general just footnotes to musical history. But Lorenzo Da Ponte is an exception. I’ll put a link to his Wikipedia entry on the episode page on the CFE website. Perhaps unexpectedly he spent the final third of his life in the USA and is buried in the borough of Queens in New York City.

Now in 1786, Da Ponte was actually considerably more powerful than Mozart in the hierarchy of imperial Vienna. He was the official ‘court poet’ with direct and frequent access to the Emperor who admired and respected him. So when Mozart had the idea to turn the French satirical comedy 'The Marriage of Figaro' by Pierre Beaumarchais—which had been banned by the Austrian censor—into an opera, he was extraordinarily fortunate, or remarkably cunning, or both, in being able to ask Da Ponte to adapt the French play into an Italian opera libretto. And it was Da Ponte who smoothed things over with the Emperor and the official censor and Mozart’s rival composers by explaining that as an opera needed far fewer words he had ensured that any unacceptable or politically sensitive material had been removed.  And compared to the play this is to an extent true. Critics argue that the Mozart / Da Ponte version of the story removes the direct attacks on the abuses of the ruling elite and makes it much more a comedy of manners. There’s some truth to this I think but in a good production you can still be quite aware of the broader issues of entrenched privilege and the rigidity of class structure. Though that awareness is perhaps triggered by the knowledge that three years after the premiere of ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ the French Revolution would violently commence the collapse of most European autocracies and give a painful birth to the unevenly spread democracy of our modern world.

But back to the opera. I’m going to play you one song. It is from the beginning of the second act and it is the first appearance of the Countess. Alone on stage she sings of her sadness at what her once passionate marriage to the Count has become. She sings…

Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro

al mio duolo, a’ miei sospir.

O mi rendi il mio tesoro,

o mi lascia almen morir.

Which in English is…

Grant, love, some relief

to my sorrow, to my sighing.

Give me back my treasure,

or at least let me die.

Here singing the Countess is Kiri Te Kanawa and Georg Solti conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The song ‘Porgi, amor’. It is about 4 minutes long.

G

That was Kiri Te Kanawa singing the aria ‘Porgi, amor’ from Mozart and Da Ponte’s opera ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ composed in 1786. Georg Solti conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I can’t resist giving you one more moment from the opera… and it might lift your spirits after that beautifully sad music. But first some credits…

This podcast is made with Audacity Software for editing, Wikipedia for Research, Claude for Artificial Intelligence and Apple, Sennheiser, Sony, Rode and Logitech for hardware… The music played is licensed through AMCOS / APRA. Classical For Everyone is a production of Mending Wall Studios and began life on Radio 2BBB in Bellingen NSW, Australia thanks to the late, great Mr Jeffrey Sanders. The producers do not receive any gifts or support of any kind from any organisation or individual mentioned in the show. But, never say never.

Ok. Here is another moment from ‘The Marriage of Figaro’. The character Cherubino, a young and indiscriminately lustful page in the Count and Countess’s household, sings a ballad he has written for the Countess. It begins with the words…

Voi, che sapete che cosa è amor,
donne vedete, s'io l'ho nel cor.

In English…

You who know what love is,
ladies, see whether it's in my heart.

Here singing Cherubino is Frederica Von Stade. And again Georg Solti conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to playing you some more incredible music on the next ‘Classical For Everyone’.

H