Mozart & More: Concertos for Two Pianos Program notes

Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict

Hector Berlioz

Born December 11, 1803 in La-Côte-Saint-André, Isère, France
Died March 8, 1869 in Paris

If the names Beatrice and Benedict (aka Benedick) sound familiar, it’s probably because you saw Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh play those roles in Branagh’s 1993 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Even dedicated opera buffs may not have seen Hector Berlioz’s last stage work, Béatrice et Bénédict (1860-61; premiered 1862). Despite the Shakespearean source and a gorgeous score, the opera has not achieved the kind of popularity that it deserves. Its bubbly overture, however, has become a concert favorite. The reasons are similar to those that distinguish other Berlioz overtures such as Roman Carnival, Rob Roy and Le corsaire: all are brilliant orchestral showpieces that exude energy and excitement.

Berlioz became a passionate Shakespearean advocate in 1827, when he saw the Irish actress Harriet Smithson as Ophelia in a Parisian performance of Hamlet. In her next role, as Juliet, she further mesmerized him. Although he did not meet Smithson until 1832, he remained infatuated with her. They married in 1833, by which time her career was in decline. The marriage was not a success; however, his enchantment with the English bard proved more durable. As early as 1833, Berlioz considered a musical adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, but other projects intervened and he set the sketches aside — for three decades.

Upon resuming the Much Ado project in 1860, he crafted his own libretto based on a French translation of the play. Béatrice et Bénédict followed his epic Les Troyens by just a couple of years, and was something of a reaction to that work. By nature, Berlioz was more attuned to tragedy than to comedy. Béatrice et Bénédict was an exception. The entire opera, as Berlioz’s biographer Hugh MacDonald has written, has the polish and refinement of an experienced composer. Berlioz implements these qualities with an uncharacteristically light touch. His overture is brimful of good humor, further leavened by the charm of light opera. Many of its details are Italianate, such as the triplets that are a constant textural component, whether as melody or underpinning.

Beatrice and Benedict adheres to a familiar pattern in Berlioz overtures. A brilliant Allegro opens, followed by a more sedate and lyrical Andante. Another brisk Allegro concludes. Two melodies adapted from the opera provide the principal thematic material. After a hiccupy start, punctuated by cascading triplets and jaunty dotted rhythms, Berlioz moves to his Andante section. It opens with a fine introductory passage for horns and solo clarinet, before the strings announce one of those long-breathed melodies for which Berlioz is celebrated. Though relatively brief, this interlude establishes the romantic aspects of the opera as a complement to the sharp-tongued comedy of the outer sections. A shimmering tremolando transition anticipates the main body of the Allegro, in which Berlioz develops the opening material at a breathtaking pace.

Instrumentation: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, four horns, two bassoons, two trumpets, cornet, three trombones, timpani and strings.

Concerto in E-flat Major for two pianos and orchestra, K. 365

Wolfgang Amadè Mozart

Born January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria
Died December 5, 1791 in Vienna, Austria

Mozart composed music for one piano, four hands from his earliest years
Music for two – and even three – pianos followed
This concerto was one he played with his sister Nannerl, also an excellent pianist
Watch for visual communication between the two soloists

The genre of two-piano music is a specialized niche, presenting greater logistical problems than music for one-piano, four hands, simply because it requires two fine grand pianos for performance. Nevertheless, the potential of “twin” keyboards, with their massed power and subtle differences in tone color, has attracted attention almost since keyboards became common household instruments. Bach, for example, composed concertos for two, three and four harpsichords. Thus when Mozart chose to compose a concerto for two pianos in 1779, he was hardly inventing the idea; indeed, he himself had already composed a concerto for three pianos and orchestra (No. 7 in F-major, K.242, dated February 1776) for a Countess and her two daughters in Salzburg.

The Concerto on this subscription program has a more interesting story, however, and is much the finer work. Mozart probably wrote his E-flat Concerto, K.365 for himself and his sister Nannerl to perform. After he moved to Vienna, he was likely able to secure additional performances, at which point he augmented the orchestra to include trumpets, timpani and possibly clarinets (which were not available in the Salzburg orchestra) in the outer movements. This concerto precedes the mature Mozart piano concertos that are most frequently performed and recorded; however, it is contemporary with the great Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, K.364, and reflects a similar genius. Remarkably, Mozart was still only in his early 20s.

Matching two pianists as twin soloists presents both challenges and opportunities. Mozart responded with irrepressible joy in his E-flat Concerto, which is among the most cloudless works he composed. It is doubly virtuosic, for not only does each soloist have the opportunity for elaborate passage work and sparkling arpeggios in dialogue, but they also forge their musical argument in ensemble. They must maintain eye contact with each other as well as with the conductor. A well-rehearsed, balanced performance of this concerto is a true delight, for the performers will be visually as well as sonically in tune with one another. They sparkle in polished melodic conversation that must have been great fun for Mozart and his equally gifted sister.

Mozart’s slow movement merits special mention. A glorious oboe solo complements delicate filigree work from the two pianists, lending elegance and poignancy to this central movement. It serves as a gracious foil to the fanfare-like importance of the first movement and the lighthearted romp of the closing rondo.

Instrumentation: 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 solo pianos, and strings.

A Word on Mozart’s Name
Mozart was born in Salzburg on January 27, 1756 and died in Vienna December 5, 1791, not quite thirty-six years old. He was baptized with the names Joannes Chrysost[omus] Wolfgangus Theophilus. His parents gave him the names Johann and Chrysostom because he was born on that saint’s day. Wolfgang was the first name of Mozart’s maternal grandfather. The name ‘Theophilus’ (Greek for ‘beloved of God’) came from the godfather, Joannes Theophilus Pergmayr, a Salzburg businessman and local official. Days after the boy’s birth, Leopold referred to his infant son as Gottlieb (the German for Theophilus). ‘Amadeus’ is the Latinate form.

In letters, the composer signed his name variously as ‘Mozart,’ ‘W.A. Mozart,’ ‘Wolfg. Amad. Mozart,’ ‘MZT,’ ‘Wolf. Amdè Mozart’ and, most frequently, ‘Wolfgang Amadè Mozart.’ As a boy in Italy, he occasionally signed in the Italianate spelling: ‘Wolfgango Amadeo.’ Despite Peter Shaffer’s stage play Amadeus and Miloš Forman’s even more popular film, Mozart did not use the name Amadeus.

In recent years, the spelling ‘Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’ has supplanted the old-fashioned ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’ in common usage and printed programs. The glory of his music remains unchanged.

Le Carnaval des animaux: Grand Fantaisie Zoologique
[The Carnival of the Animals: Grand Zoological Fantasy]

Camille Saint-Saëns

Born October 9, 1835 in Paris, France
Died December 16, 1921 in Algiers, Algeria

By the mid-1880s, Camille Saint-Saëns was famous and successful as a composer, pianist and organist. He was also decidedly middle-aged, and part of the old established guard in French music.

A quarter of a century earlier, his career had not yet solidified. One of his first jobs was on the faculty of the École Niedermeyer in Paris. He was twenty-six when he started teaching piano classes there in spring 1861— only a few years older than many of his students. They loved their young professor for his wit, energy and daring spirit. Saint-Saëns frequently departed from the official syllabus, incorporating Germanic composers such as Liszt, Wagner and Schumann into his lectures. Above all, he encouraged his students to compose and to experiment with different styles.

His students later recalled that Saint-Saëns liked to lighten things up, injecting humor and occasional mockery of the rules into his classroom improvisations. Delighted with what they heard, the students encouraged him to write down these short pieces. Twenty-five years later, some of those miniatures probably metamorphosed into Carnival of the Animals.

Early in 1886, Saint-Saëns was on tour in Germany to promote his Piano Concerto No.4. Political tension between the two countries remained high even fifteen years after the Franco-Prussian war. During the concert tour, controversy erupted when anti-German statements were erroneously attributed to Saint-Saëns. The press bristled, and rising public outrage resulted in cancellation of Saint-Saëns’s performances in Berlin and several other German cities.

He resumed concertizing in Austria and Bohemia, where reception to his music was more favorable. Nevertheless, the brouhaha in Germany had been upsetting, and Saint-Saëns decided to take a rest in a quiet Austrian village. There, in a matter of days, he composed the fourteen movements of Carnival.

He had in mind an annual carnival concert during Mardi Gras, presented by Charles-Joseph Lebouc, a cellist friend in Paris. The first performance of Le Carnaval des animaux: Grande Fantaisie Zoologique took place at Lebouc’s event on March 9, 1886. It was so successful that a repeat performance was presented a few days later at the chamber music series La Trompette. Then Franz Liszt, in Paris for a visit, wanted to hear it, so a further performance occurred at the salon of the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot-Garcia on April 2, 1886.

At that point Saint-Saëns balked. He had intended the piece as a jest; now he was apprehensive that the general public would assume his other music was like Carnival. He withdrew all of it except Le Cygne [The Swan], which he allowed the Russian dancer Mikhail Fokine to choreograph. The balance of the piece was suppressed. In a will drafted in 1911, however, Saint-Saëns – by then 76 years old – authorized its posthumous publication. Durand published it three months after the composer’s death in 1921. Le Cygne was played at Saint-Saëns’s funeral in Algiers.

For all his reluctance about Carnival, it remains one of the cleverest parodies in all music. The complete work consists of 14 segments that feature different instruments— a sort of French 19th-century Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. The movements are musical illustrations of various “animals,” some of which are clearly metaphors for human beings.

Several of the pieces quote Saint-Saëns’s contemporaries: No.4, ‘Tortoises,’ presents Offenbach’s can-can galop at Adagio tempo; No.5, ‘Elephant,’ quotes a French folk song, Berlioz’s ‘Dance of the Sylphs’ from The Damnation of Faust, Meyerbeer’s Les Patineurs, and the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

No.12, ‘Fossils’ is an example of Saint-Saëns poking fun at his own music. The most recognizable tune he incorporates into this silly hodgepodge (marked ridicolo, or “ridiculously”) is “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” which is known in French as “Ah vous dirai-je maman.” Opera fans may catch a fleeting reference to Rosina’s aria “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s Barber of Seville. Two other popular French folk tunes are quoted, and the composer uses a snatch of a theme from his own orchestral tone poem, Danse macabre. ‘Fossils’ uses xylophone to emulate the rattling of bones.

Though Saint-Saëns does not quote Rameau’s music, he pays tribute to the French Baroque master in No.1 ‘Cocks and Hens,’ and takes a bow to the budding impressionist movement in No.7, ‘Aquarium.’ His use of celesta in that movement is daring: Alphonse Mustel had just introduced the new instrument in 1886.

The satire is not restricted to animals or composers. Saint-Saëns mocks himself and all students of the keyboard in No.11, ‘Pianists,’ and pokes fun at ‘Characters with Long Ears’ in No.8— surely a coded satire.

It is all done with an incomparably light touch, and with great economy of means.

Satirical humor and incisive vignettes have made Carnival of the Animals a classic.

Instrumentation: flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet, xylophone, glass harmonica (usually played on glockenspiel or celesta), two pianos, and strings.

Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra

Francis Poulenc

Born January 7, 1899 in Paris
Died there on January 30, 1963

Francis Poulenc is one of the early 20th-century French composers collectively known as “Les Six.” The scion of a wealthy pharmaceuticals manufacturing family, he had a somewhat unorthodox musical education. His mother was a fine pianist; she and Poulenc’s uncle initiated the boy’s study of piano and also introduced him to other facets of Parisian cultural life, particularly theater. That acquaintance was to serve Poulenc richly in his operas.

By the end of the First World War, Poulenc had met Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Erik Satie, but he had not struck the right rapport with a fine teacher; for example, he never got past a first meeting with Maurice Ravel. That situation resolved in the early 1920s when he embarked on several years of productive study with Charles Koechlin. Intensely curious about music beyond Paris, Poulenc also visited Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna and Alfredo Casella in Italy. By the mid-1920s he was writing good music, important music and his production continued almost unceasingly until his death in 1963 from a heart attack.

In his youthful works, Poulenc favored breezy moods and chamber-music textures. During the later decades of his life, he turned to music of a darker hue and a more spiritual cast. Musical scholar Michael Thomas Roeder describes his music thus:

Poulenc’s generally light style is marked by a range of traits: simple, tuneful melodic ideas of narrow range and short duration; lively rhythmic content often using ostinatos and a fluidity of changing meters; clear, transparent textures with little contrapuntal writing; an essentially diatonic tonal language spiced by some dissonance; and clear forms, occasionally involving cyclical recall of thematic material.

The Concerto for Two Pianos dates from 1932, and is usually singled out as marking the end of Poulenc’s early period. It aptly illustrates many of the characteristics that Roeder enumerates. Poulenc composed the concerto for the Princess Edmond de Polignac, an American-born arts patron to whom we owe many early 20th-century masterpieces, including Stravinsky’s Renard, Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, Kurt Weill’s Second Symphony and Satie’s Socrate. Her Paris salon was a gathering place for the musical avant-garde.

Poulenc completed the Princess’ commission in barely three months during the summer. His boyhood friend Jacques Février joined him to play the solo parts for the premiere performance in Venice on 5 September, 1932; Désiré Defauw (later conductor of the Chicago Symphony) conducted. The high-spirited work was an immediate success that boosted Poulenc’s confidence. In early October, he wrote to the Belgian musicologist Paul Collaer:

You will see for yourself what an enormous step forward it is from my previous work and that I am really entering my great period.

Immodest though that assessment might seem, the concerto justifies Poulenc’s satisfaction. He was keenly aware of the effect the work had on audiences, and took great delight in its popularity.

Generally speaking, Poulenc’s concertos tend to be more neo-classic than those of his French contemporaries. In fact, the Concerto for Two Pianos is in many ways clearly modeled on the Mozart Double Concerto on the first half of this program. His slow movement has distinctly Mozartean moments that will be immediately recognizable to listeners familiar with Mozart’s keyboard concertos. Poulenc intentionally dispenses with sonata form in his opening Allegro ma non troppo, opting instead for a brisk tripartite movement with a slower middle section. The overriding atmosphere is gay and direct, words Poulenc used to describe his music. If Mozart was his model in this first movement, it is the Mozart of entertainment music: the Cassations and Serenades. Poulenc’s musical language derives more directly from Stravinsky’s French works and from the Balinese gamelans he had heard the year before at the Colonial Exhibition.

The simple accompaniment of the Larghetto— another ternary structure—clearly suggests Mozart and the formulaic writing of lesser 18th-century composers. Later in the movement, there is a specific allusion to the famous slow movement from Mozart’s great C-major concerto, K. 467 (the so-called Elvira Madigan movement). The central section echoes the spirit of Camille Saint-Saëns who, though French, is also among the most Mozartean of 19th-century composers.

Poulenc’s finale is a rondo that evokes the sass of a Parisian music hall and, again, the eastern sonorities of the gamelan orchestra. Rapid chatter and sparkling repeated notes lend it an effervescent quality. The composer’s melodic gift is almost profligate, with a new theme around every corner. As his biographer Henri Hell so drily notes, “the finale flirts with one of those deliberately vulgar themes never far from the composer’s heart.”

In general, the Poulenc concerto places greater demands of ensemble than of technique on the two soloists. While difficult, the piece is not excessively virtuosic and conventional cadenzas have no place here. The two pianists play nearly constantly throughout the concerto, however, sometimes unaccompanied by the orchestra. Their timing requires an instinctive precision, both with each other and with the conductor and orchestra. Part of the work’s charm is the extreme skill of Poulenc’s dialogue between the two keyboards and the supporting ensemble. His orchestration places the woodwinds, brass and percussion in the aural foreground, with strings in an unaccustomed subservient role.

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, side drum, snare drum, bass drum, castanets, triangle, tambour de basque, two solo pianos, and strings.