Mozart. Brahms

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Concerto for violin and orchestra No. 3
Soloist – Ivan Pochekin

Johannes Brahms. Symphony No. 2

“You don’t even know how well you play the violin – in truth you could be the foremost violinist in all Europe,” Leopold Mozart wrote to his son Wolfgang. Leopold Mozart’s opinion was entirely believable – this was not merely a father’s praise: the author of Versuch einer Gründlichen Violinschule composer and one of the finest teachers of his time was the great composer’s first master and mentor. The young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s playing delighted audiences in Salzburg, where he was serving under the Archbishop Hieronymus von Colloredo (he was also initially accepted as solo violinist and orchestral leader).
Mozart’s violin legacy includes over forty sonatas and variations for violin and harpsichord, concert and chamber duets for strings and solo concert works. Of Mozart’s six violin concerti, four were written in 1775. It was at this time that the nineteen-year-old Mozart was appearing to great acclaim as a solo violinist and, apparently, writing concerti to expand his own repertoire. In these concerti the orchestra is small in size and essentially plays a subservient and accompanying role. But the tremendous melodic richness, the extremely precise knowledge of the nature of the instrument and the brilliance of their form transformed Mozart’s masterpieces into an integral part of the world’s gold reserves of violin music.
The Third Concerto in G Major, the so-called Strassburg concerto (1775), is adored by audiences and musicians alike. The extreme vibrancy, the resilient rhythm, the freedom and the elegance of the melodic line all set the first, Allegro, section apart. The second, slow section – Adagio – is an example of Mozart’s captivating lyricism, full of lofty emotions and passionate praise of beauty. The final Rondo, as in many of Mozart’s instrumental works, is imbued with the nature of a folk dance. In the central Rondo section there is a dance melody, common to the villages surrounding Strasbourg – which gave the complete concerto its name.

Iosif Raiskin

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in Vienna on 10 August 1787. The time – between Le nozze di Figaro and his three final symphonies – was the twilight period of his talent, but that summer surprisingly few new works emerged. And if it had not been for Eine Kleine Nachtmusik it could in no sense be referred to as productive. It is not known who commissioned the work from Mozart, but such as these were written only to order, for celebratory occasions, such as for marriages.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is indeed rather short. Night serenades like this normally included five, seven or more parts, and a minimum of two or three minuets. Up to four orchestras could be involved in performing them, filling palace gardens with sounds and creating the effects of an echo. Mozart limited himself to one string orchestra and four parts – the Allegro, the Romance, the Minuet and the Rondo. It is true that, initially, between the Allegro and the Romance there was yet another minuet, which later disappeared.
The miniature Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is full of grace, wit and an undisguised love of life – an image of the “light genre” of the classical era.

Anna Bulycheva

In the summer of 1877 Johannes Brahms wrote his Second Symphony in D Major in the picturesque setting of Pörtschach am Wörthersee. Free of the need to repeat Beethoven’s concept – Brahms had already overcome this in his First Symphony which was given the soubriquet of “Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony” – the composer created one of his brightest works. The Second Symphony is imbued with a hymn to life and a love of nature, and its music breathes power and health. In it Felix von Weingartner saw “a Dutch landscape at sunset”, while Ivan Sollertinsky saw “a brilliant pastorale surrounded by the poetry of old Vienna.” Hans von Bülow, underlining the successive nature of Brahms’ work, called his Second Symphony “Schubert’s last symphony”.
A delighted reception met the first performance of the symphony in Vienna on 30 December 1877 under the baton of Hans Richter: the third movement – a delightful Ländler – was given an encore at the insistence of the audience. After the excited pulsation and the anxious and gloomy feel of the First Symphony, the Second appears to be a sunny idyll; after the Beethoven-like pathétique of the First, the spirit of Schubert flows forth in the Second and a kind of sung symphonism reigns. The rhythm of Brahms’ beloved waltz genre runs through symphony, giving it, in the words of Eduard Hanslick, “something of the serenade”. But the most surprising thing of all is the description (albeit joking) of his new symphony that the composer himself gave in a letter to one of his admirers: “… not a symphony, just a Sinfonia”, thus indicating a return to the initial meaning of the term (sinfonia – accord), to the beginnings of the genre.

Iosif Raiskin

Age category 6+