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RAMEAU Suite from Les Boréades

HAYDN Concerto in D Major for Piano and Orchestra, Hob.XVIII:11 Vivace Un poco adagio Rondo all’ungarese: Allegro assai

I N T E R M I S S I O N

MOZART Concert-Rondo in A Major, K. 386

HAYDN Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp Minor, Hob.I:45, “Farewell” Allegro assai Adagio Menuetto: Allegretto Finale: Presto; Adagio

T h e W i l l i a m T. K e m p e r I n t e r n at i o n a l c h a m b e r M u s i c s e r i e s

This concert is underwritten, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts

The International Chamber Music Series is underwritten, in part, by the William T. Kemper Foundation

Additional support is also provided by:

Les Violons Du Roywith Marc-André Hamelin, piano

The Folly Theater8 pm Friday, March 13

B E R N A R D L A B A D I E , A R T I S T I C & M U S I C D I R E C T O R

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Suite from "Les Boréades" Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

France’s greatest 18th-century composer and music theorist, Jean-Philippe Rameau, came late to opera. He spent much of his early career as an organist in provincial French churches. After settling in Paris in 1723, he eventually became the composer of the King’s chamber music, during which time he composed harpsichord and organ works that are in the top tier of the French claveciniste school. At age fifty, Rameau began to write for the stage and embarked on a successful new chapter as an opera composer. Thirty of his operas have survived. All of them involve dance. About half are opéras-ballet, a category unique to France that flourished from the late 17th century well into the 18th century. As the name implies, an opéra-ballet combined elements of both ballet (instrumental interludes and dances) and opera (aria, recitative, chorus), without necessarily forging close plot links between the two art forms. Other Rameau stage works are labeled comédie-ballet, comédie-lyrique, pastorale héroïque, or simply acte de ballet. These genres all descended from Rameau’s predecessor Jean-Baptiste Lully, who directed musical activities in the court of Louis XIV. A great lover of ballet, Louis enjoyed dancing in many of the operas of both Lully and Rameau. Consequently, every French opera included a ballet sequence, a tradition that continued through the 19th century. Thus dances pervade the score of all Rameau operas. Rameau’s most substantial dramatic works are called tragédies en musique. They include Hippolyte et Aricie, Castor et Pollux, Dardanus, and Zoroastre. Such works, which also derive from Lully, were consistent in their five-act structure and more serious aspect. Subject matter for their libretti generally drew on ancient Greek mythology, introducing elements of magic and supernatural powers that encouraged elaborate stage machinery and special effects. Les Boréades was Rameau’s last tragédie en musique. Rehearsals took place in Paris and at Versailles in April 1763, and a performance was apparently planned, but none is documented. It may have been intended for private performance at the royal court.

The title means “The Descendants of Boréas” – the god of the North Wind. Other supernatural figures – Cupid, Polyhymnia, Apollo, and a nymph – play a part in the plot. It takes place in an ancient kingdom, with the lovers Alphise and Abaris at the center of a battle among the gods. A major tempest rages for much of Act 3 and all of Act 4, providing Rameau with ample opportunity for stormy music. Even before Rameau’s time, composers and publishers extracted suites of instrumental numbers from operas so that they could be performed as ballets or instrumental music. Les Violons du Roy have drawn on the numerous dance numbers in Rameau’s score, which include Menuets, Rigaudons, Gavottes, and Contredanses. The Suite begins with the opera’s brief Ouverture. The score calls for flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, and strings.

Jean-Philippe Rameau by Jacques Aved, circa 1728

the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.

Piano Concerto in D Major, Hob.XVIII:11 Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Unlike Mozart, Haydn did not write his best music in the realm of the concerto. Part of the reason is that so many of Haydn’s concertos are early and were composed at a time when musical style was undergoing a shift from late Baroque to classical. We think of Haydn – rightfully so – as an anchor of the high classic tradition and a towering figure in the late eighteenth century. The fact is that he was born in 1732, nearly a quarter of a century before Mozart, and nearly two decades before Bach died. The musical world in which Haydn came of age was a period of transition. During his first years in the employ of the noble Esterházy family, Haydn was delighted by the fine orchestra of the princely court. He composed many instrumental concertos that were designed to show off the superior skill of the individual players. Haydn’s C Major violin concerto was composed in the 1760s for Luigi Tomasini (1741-1808), who was concertmaster of the Esterházy orchestra. Another friend among that group was the excellent cellist Joseph Weigl (1740-1820), who played in the Esterházy orchestra from 1761 until 1769. The Cello Concerto in C was composed for Weigl, probably around 1765. Haydn himself was a fine string player, but never the virtuoso that Mozart was at the keyboard. The two composers met and became friends in Vienna in the early 1780s, at which point Haydn probably heard Mozart play some of his wonderful concertos. Haydn’s D Major keyboard concerto seems uninfluenced by Mozart. Its style argues for a somewhat earlier composition date, as does its designation for harpsichord or fortepiano, during a transitional period when the harpsichord was still widely played. Certainly this keyboard concerto is later than the string concertos for Tomasini and Weigl, but it almost certainly predates Haydn’s and Mozart’s personal friendship. The exact date that Haydn composed his D Major concerto is unknown. It may have been played at a private concert in 1780 by one Fräulein von Hartenstein, a student of Leopold Koželuch. The Viennese publisher Artaria issued the first edition in 1784.

Though the D Major concerto is not listed by Haydn in his own thematic catalogue of his compositions, it is generally accepted to be authentic. Between the summer of 1784 and the end of the year, five publishers in four countries printed editions of Haydn’s new keyboard concerto. The rapid dissemination of the piece throughout Europe indicates how famous and popular Haydn had become. The concerto was his most popular work in his lifetime and has remained in the repertoire. The score calls for two oboes, two horns, solo keyboard and strings.

MUSICIANS CORNER The extended orchestral exposition that opens Haydn’s D Major concerto shows great expansion over Haydn’s earlier instrumental concerti. This broader conception of concerto/sonata form is one of the characteristics that differentiates this piece, identifying it as a somewhat later work. The solo cadenza is another feature marking this as a classical (rather than rococo) concerto. The soloist interacts with the orchestra in a variety of ways, including several opportunities for brief improvisatory cadenzas. The soloist and orchestra are cohorts, intimate members of a chamber ensemble. Haydn frequently assigns the soloist’s thematic material to the orchestra. The expressive slow movement shows off his gift for elegant melodic ornament to great advantage.

Haydn scholar A. Peter Brown believes that the third movement Rondo all’ungherese [Hungarian rondo] is one of the earliest examples of Haydn using an eastern European folk style. H.C. Robbins Landon identifies the melody as based on a dance tune not from Hungary, but from Bosnia and Dalmatia. Either way, the finale is vivacious and appealing, with its mock-serious minore section and winking grace notes. The figuration is not so elaborate as Mozart’s, perhaps reflecting Haydn’s background as a string player. Often the soloist’s passage work is more violinistic than pianistic.

– L.S. ©2014

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Concert Rondo in A Major, K.386 Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (1756-1791) Musical sleuthing and a veritable jigsaw puzzle

Like all fields, the discipline of musicology has its mysteries. The story of the Concert Rondo that opens our second half – or rather, the story of its manuscript – is one of the most bizarre in all of music history. When Mozart died in 1791, his widow Constanze retained his papers, including manuscripts. Her first task was finding someone to complete the unfinished Requiem so that she could collect the balance of the commission due her late husband. In the ensuing years, she gradually divested herself of many other works. She sold a significant cache in 1799 to the German publisher Johann Anton André, including this Rondo; however, its last page was missing, which made publication impossible. André sold it to an English buyer. The English composer and pianist Cipriani Potter reconstructed the work as a solo piano piece in 1838. The autograph then fell into the hands of another English composer, William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875), who was apparently responsible for cutting K.386 into multiple pieces and leaves. The fragments, which were valuable as souvenirs of a great composer, were scattered throughout England. In the 20th century, the American scholar Alfred Einstein attempted a reconstruction working from Cipriani Potter’s solo piano version and two of the dismembered pages – the only two then available to him. Subsequently, Austrian pianist Paul Badura-Skoda made a complete orchestral version with the assistance of the English conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, devising a plausible finale. Badura-Skoda also composed a cadenza for the movement. Then in 1980, musicologist Alan Tyson came across the original ending in the British Library, in Mozart’s hand. For the first time since before Mozart’s death, the Concert-Rondo in A Major could be performed in an authentic version.

In the composer’s words

And what of the music? In a letter to his father Leopold dated December 28, 1782, Mozart wrote of three new piano concertos he had completed: The concertos are in fact something intermediate between too difficult and too easy; they are very brilliant and fall pleasantly on the ear – without of course becoming vapid. Here and there only connoisseurs can derive satisfaction – but in such a way that the non-connoisseur will be pleased without knowing why.

His description covers just about everyone today, as well as his Viennese audience. The three works in question were K. 413 in F, K. 414 in A, and K. 415 in C. They were the first series he wrote for a Lenten subscription series after his arrival in Vienna, and heralded his most successful years in the Austrian capital. The Concert Rondo was almost certainly the original finale to the Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414. Biographer Alfred Einstein hypothesized, “No doubt the reason for abandoning it was that it repeated certain melodic turns of phrase that had appeared in the first movement [of K. 414].” Regardless, Einstein thought this Concert Rondo “possibly superior” to the Rondo that Mozart did use for K. 414. We may think of it as a free-standing, independent concerted work for piano and orchestra, analogous to a concerto finale. The score calls for two oboes, optional bassoon, two horns, and strings. Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp Minor, Hob. I:45, ‘Farewell’ Franz Joseph Haydn

The term Sturm und Drang, usually translated ‘storm and stress,’ refers to an eighteenth century movement in literature, art, and music that emphasized the overt expression of intense emotion. In literature, the movement had origins in Rousseau’s naturalism and Goethe’s early writings. In music, however, its roots are more obscure.

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the friends of chamber music | Live Performance. Be There.

Certain operatic conventions, such as scenes of terror and/or the underworld in the operas of Gluck, invite comparison to analogous scenes in drama or novels. Abstract music, on the other hand, was another matter altogether. In the 1760s and 1770s, several Austrian composers wrote symphonies and other instrumental works in minor keys that raged and ranted, plumbing the expressive depths of music.

The chronological coincidence of these compositions with their literary counterparts has fascinated music scholars, since there is little evidence that any of the composers in question was influenced by Sturm und Drang literature. Nevertheless, the term has become closely associated with some early classical works. At least a dozen Haydn symphonies are characterized as ‘storm and stress’ symphonies. The most famous of them is unquestionably the ‘Farewell’ Symphony of 1772, No. 45 in the extraordinary key of F-sharp Minor.

The symphony’s violence and intensity of musical expression have been nearly eclipsed by the famous story of the symphony’s genesis. In late autumn, 1772, the musicians of Prince Nikolaus Eszterházy’s orchestra went to their leader, Haydn, with a plea. Rumors were circulating that the Prince was planning to reduce both the number of musicians in his court orchestra and the salaries of those who remained. Understandably, morale was low.

The men were further disgruntled by the fact that the Prince had elected to remain at the summer palace of Eszterháza quite late that year. Since quarters were available only for a handful of musicians’ wives and families, most of the players were housed in a single large building with the rest of the palace servants. That meant they were separated from their loved ones even longer than usual. Could Haydn do anything to persuade the Prince to return to the city? they asked.

He could indeed. He composed what is surely the broadest musical hint of all time: a symphony in whose last movement, the musicians ceased playing, one by one, blew out their music stand candles, packed up their instruments, and walked out. At the end, only two were left: Haydn himself (he was both concertmaster and court composer) and his principal violinist, Luigi Tomasini. The Prince responded to the hint graciously and gave orders the following day to move back to Vienna.

Of course the finale is deservedly famous, but to appreciate this symphony for only its last movement is a grievous error. The first two movements have earned their place among the Sturm und Drang symphonies. Haydn underscores the impassioned gestures of the opening Allegro assai with the singularly bold key of F-sharp Minor. So unusual was this key that special crooks had to be fabricated for the horns in order for them to play their parts. The vigorous gestures and angst-ridden pulse of this opening set the tone for a work of emotional extremes.

By contrast, the second movement Adagio is downright romantic, with its chromatic suspensions, elongated phrases and pregnant silences. The minuet and trio are in F-sharp Major, a very bright key that was also exceptional in the eighteenth century. Even here, dark hints of uneasiness tinge the pleasantries of the dance, never allowing us to settle altogether comfortably into the key center.

As for the well known finale, it is grand musical theatre. Haydn heightens the drama of the slow exodus by changing both tempo and tonality to herald the departures. The movement is in two distinct parts. The first is a Presto in the home key of F-sharp Minor, with abrupt contrasts of piano and forte that hark back to the strong gestures of the first movement. After an energetic development, Haydn brings matters to an unexpected halt with a fermata (pause). When the music resumes, it has switched to A Major and a dignified Adagio in triple time. This is the time to start paying close attention to who is ceasing to play.

The first oboe and second horn are the first to call it quits, followed by the bassoon, second oboe, first horn, and bass. At the bass’ departure, Haydn effects a skillful modulation to F-sharp Major, effectively returning home. Only the strings play this final section, their forces progressively thinned. Both the symphony and the finale, like the proverbial month of March, have come in like a lion and gone out like a lamb. Haydn runs an emotional gamut in this work, giving his listener four full seasons of musical temperatures and barometric pressures.

Haydn scored the ‘Farewell’ Symphony for two oboes, bassoon, two horns and strings.

Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2014Found a word or phrase that you are unfamiliar with? Check out our extensive Glossary beginning on page 118 to discover the meaning.

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The chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy borrows its name from the renowned string orchestras that served the court of the French

kings. The group, which has a core membership of fifteen players, was brought together in 1984 by music director Bernard Labadie and specializes in the vast repertoire of music for chamber orchestra, performed in the stylistic manner most appropriate to each era. Although the ensemble plays on modern instruments, its approach to the works of the Baroque and Classical periods has been strongly influenced by current research into performance practice in the 17th and early 18th centuries; in this repertoire Les Violons du Roy uses copies of period bows. The orchestra has been widely acclaimed for the exceptional energy, brilliance and vitality of its performances. Les Violons du Roy is at the heart of the music scene in Québec City, where it has been in residence at the Palais Montcalm since 2007. The orchestra is well known throughout Canada thanks to the numerous concerts and recordings broadcast by Société Radio-Canada and CBC, and its regular presence at music festivals. Les Violons du Roy first performed in Europe in 1988 and had its first performance in the US in 1995. The twenty-one recordings made by Les Violons du Roy have been acclaimed by critics and earned various distinctions and awards at the national and international levels. Of twelve CDs released by DORIAN, two won Juno Awards: Apollo e Dafne by Handel and the Mozart Requiem. Since 2004, the association with the Québec label ATMA has led to six CDs, including Handel’s “Water Music,” which won a Félix Award in 2008; a CD of works by Piazzola which won a Juno Award in 2006; and Britten’s Les Illuminations with soprano Karina Gauvin. The group’s first collaboration with the multinational VIRGIN CLASSICS label led to the release in the fall of 2006 of cantata arias by Handel and Hasse with the U.S. mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux. Les Violon’s most recent recording present arias by Mozart, Haydn, Gluck and Graun with the contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, which was produced for the NAÏVE label.

For more information visit: www.violonsduroy.com/en

Les Violons du Roy appears courtesy of Opus 3 Artists

LES VIOLONS DU ROYPianist Marc-André Hamelin’s unique blend of musicianship

and virtuosity brings forth interpretations remarkable for their freedom, originality, and prodigious mastery of the piano’s resources. A musician of broad musical interests and curiosity, Hamelin is renowned in equal measure for his fresh readings of the established repertoire and for his exploration of lesser known works of the 19th and 20th century, both in the recording studio and the concert hall. Marc-André Hamelin records exclusively for Hyperion Records. His most recent release is a CD of the Haydn concerti with Les Violons du Roy and its founder and conductor Bernard Labadie. This season will feature an upcoming disc of the late piano works of Busoni. Other recent releases include three double-disc sets of Haydn sonatas; a solo disc of works by Liszt; and an album of his own compositions, Hamelin: Ètudes, which received a 2010 Grammy nomination (his ninth) and a first prize from the German Record Critic’s Association. The Hamelin études are published by Edition Peters. His complete Hyperion discography includes concertos and works for solo piano by composers such as Alkan, Godowsky, and Medtner, as well as brilliantly received performances of Brahms, Chopin, Liszt and Schumann. A resident of Boston, Marc-André Hamelin is the recipient of a lifetime achievement prize by the German Record Critic’s Association, is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.

For more information visit: www.marcandrehamelin.com Marc-André Hamelin appears courtesy of Colbert Artist Management

MARC-ANDRé HAMELIN

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