Mozart & Tchaikovsky program notes - Jacksonville Symphony

Guillaume Connesson

Born in 1970 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Maslenitsa

(World Premiere February 9, 2012; Bordeaux, France; Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine; and Pau, France; Orchestra de Pau Pays de Béarn)

Connesson is one of France’s most frequently performed composers worldwide
He draws on minimalism, disco, funk, and cinema style in his compositions
Maslenitsa is a concert overture: a vibrant curtain-raiser but not part of a stage work

A native of Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris’ western suburbs, Guillaume Connesson was educated at the regional conservatory there before studying at the Paris Conservatory. He is an eclectic composer, citing widespread influences that range from Couperin, Wagner and Messiaen to Steve Reich, film composers Bernard Herrmann and John Williams and the funk artist James Brown. Over the past three decades, Connesson has emerged at the forefront of France’s composers.

Maslenitsa is one of a trilogy of orchestral pieces he wrote as reflections on the poetry and history of three countries’ music: Germany, Italy and Russia. Maslenitsa is the name of a Russian Orthodox holiday celebrated the week before Lent: a cousin to the West’s Mardi Gras. The word means “pancake week,” and signifies nature’s rebirth as the winter gives way to spring.

Connesson’s score is a concert overture that captures the exuberance of the holiday. It comprises three principal sections organized fast-slow-fast. The first is a riotous mélange of multiple themes. The middle section is quieter, suggesting Russian Orthodox chant. Connesson then returns to the vibrant energy of his opening, cementing the festive celebratory atmosphere with a brass chorale. The whole is not a pastiche, he has said, but rather an expression of how we can relate to Russia’s music today. Connesson has said,

“I wanted to reinvent each theme in the spirit of Russian folk music. This is an old Russia dreamed up by a Frenchman—mingling joy and suffering in homage to this country and this music that I love so much.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(1756-1791)

Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, K. 482

(World Premiere December 16, 1785; Vienna, Austria)

Though he only lived to age 35, Mozart was one of classical music’s great geniuses
He played fortepiano, harpsichord, organ, violin and viola
Hundreds of letters among the Mozart family have survived and are an invaluable source about daily life and interpersonal relationships

Meanwhile to two letters of mine I have had only one reply from your brother, dated December 28th [1785], in which he said that he gave without much preparation three subscription concerts to 120 subscribers, that he composed for this purpose a new piano concerto in E-flat, in which (a rather unusual occurrence!), he had to repeat the Andante.

Leopold Mozart passed on this news from Wolfgang to his daughter Nannerl early in January 1786. Hearing this concerto today, we can hardly be surprised that the first Viennese audience encored the slow movement. Mozart’s magnificent C minor Andante forms the emotional core of this concerto: music on a par with his finest wind serenades.

But it is tough to single out only one movement in K.482. This was the first concerto in which Mozart elected to score his orchestra for sweeter clarinets rather than the customary oboes. From the opening fanfare and ensuing response of descending wind chords, Mozart establishes the woodwinds as the principal expressive force of the work. They mesh convincingly with the soloist, and yet seem soloists themselves, so absorbing are their passages in all three movements.

Mozart is profligate with his themes in the orchestral exposition. By the time solo piano enters, its theme has half a dozen tuneful competitors. The memorable Andante borrows elements of variations, sonata and rondo. The piano part is essentially variations on the dark C-minor idea. Mozart inserts two episodes for wind to relieve the tension. Mozart’s coda is exquisite, at once delicate and ominous, straining to mitigate the lamentation of the minor mode, but ultimately capitulating to the darker implications of eighteenth-century chromaticism.

Because of its lilting 6/8 meter, the Allegro finale has often been compared to a “hunting” rondo. Trumpets and timpani echo the military flavor of the first movement. Midway through, Mozart sets these brighter instruments aside temporarily, interjecting yet another miniature woodwind serenade featuring clarinets and bassoons, in an A-flat section marked Andante cantabile. Only in one other concerto—the so-called “Jeunehomme” concerto of 1777, also in E-flat—did he interpolate such a section. With this temporary shift, Mozart both recalls the poignant tragedy of the slow movement, and raises the finale to a higher expressive plane.

Because Mozart composed K. 482 for his own use, no written-out cadenzas survive; he improvised them in performance. For these performances, Evren Ozel plays cadenzas by Jonathan Bliss.

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky

(1840-1893)

**Selections from Swan Lake, Op.20**

(World Premiere March 4, 1877; Moscow, Russia; Bolshoi Ballet)

Tchaikovsky had a wealthy, eccentric patroness for much of his career, who supported him on the condition that they never meet
He was the first composer to use celesta in a major score, his ballet The Nutcracker
He met Brahms, Wagner and Liszt during his travels and became friends with Grieg and Saint-Saëns

Tchaikovsky was arguably the greatest ballet composer of the 19th century. Remarkably, his first ballet, Swan Lake, was a colossal flop at its premiere, plagued by poor staging, a second rank choreographer and a conductor who could not grasp the complexity of Tchaikovsky’s masterly score. Even worse, the dancers complained that Swan Lake‘s music was undanceable.

Not until two years after Tchaikovsky’s death did the work receive a satisfactory production, now with classic choreography by Marius Petipa. Swan Lake has remained a bulwark of the repertoire. The story epitomizes the magic and fantasy of romantic ballet. The score includes many unforgettable moments, such as the famous oboe solo with shimmering string accompaniment; a waltz that epitomizes the enchanted spirit of this fairy tale; the enchanted swan-maiden Odette’s immortal Adagio with its solos for violin and cello; and the Hungarian czárdás from the series of national dances at the Act III ball. Only the rare listener can resist occasional swaying and foot-tapping to the captivating music of this ballet.