No. 2042 Subscription (Program A)

Among many historic concerts left on record, one in particular held on December 22nd, 1808 in Vienna was highly significant, for the audience witnessed the world premieres of Beethoven’s Symphonies No. 5 (Destiny) and No. 6 (Pastorale) besides the first Viennese performance of his Piano Concerto No. 4 with the composer as soloist. He set to work on Piano Concerto No. 5 around the end of this December, to complete it by the summer of 1809 in Vienna while the city was occupied by Napoleon’s army. Deafening bombarding sounds are said to have damaged the already-decreased hearing of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) who had to cover his ears and seek refuge in the cellar of his brother’s house.
No. 5 is Beethoven’s only piano concerto for which he couldn’t serve as soloist at the premiere, as his ears had seriously deteriorated by then. Presumably because of that, he subsequently never wrote a new concerto for his instrument. This is also why there is no traditional cadenza (where a soloist improvises freely without the orchestra, towards the end of the sonata movement) in the No. 5. The cautious composer writes out all the cadential passages and reminds soloists on the score not to add any cadenza of their own.
No. 5 has an astounding, unheard-of beginning for a concerto: the soloist, backed up by the orchestra, gives a brilliant cadenza-like highlight before even the main sonata starts. Then the flowing grand first theme is contrasted with the crisp second theme introduced in a minor key. The middle movement is a sublime variation on the theme sung at the beginning by violins utilizing mutes, a devise used to make a softer sound. This movement is followed seamlessly without pause by the frisky finale in rondo sonata form. Towards the closing, the serene duet between timpani and piano leads to the majestic conclusion worthy of the byname Emperor, although the appellation didn’t originate with Beethoven.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Junior to Beethoven by almost a century, the Austrian musician Franz Schmidt (1874–1939) wore many hats as a composer, cellist, pianist, organist and conductor. Born into a German-Hungarian family in Pressburg (then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Bratislava in Slovakia), Schmidt learned piano and organ before moving to Vienna in 1888 with his family. Two years later, he entered the Vienna Conservatory where he studied music theory with Robert Fuchs (Gustav Mahler’s teacher) and cello under the tutelage of Ferdinand Hellmesberger, a member of the renowned Hellmesberger Quartet. Schmidt was fortunate to take some counterpoint lessons with Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) there as well.
The young graduate became a cello player in the Vienna Court Opera (from 1896 to 1914) and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (from 1896 to 1911) working presumably in close cooperation with Mahler (1860–1911) who led the two closely linked institutions around the same period. It seems that Mahler’s daring, late-Romantic-style symphonies didn’t particularly inspire Schmidt who had instead deep respect for the tradition of Austro-German Classicism and Romanticism. In contrast to the Vienna-born progressive Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951), the same age as him, Schmidt relied on the conventional tonal language over the course of his career. Partly due to these moderate stances, his compositions have been, on the whole, underestimated in music history, although he was highly ingenious without being a mere copy of his predecessors as shown in his Symphony No. 4.
The last of Schmidt’s four symphonies, No. 4 (1933) was penned from 1932 as a requiem for his daughter Emma who lost her life in childbirth the same year. This explains its overall grievous atmosphere and the presence of a funeral march in it. The symphony was premiered at Vienna’s Musikverein in 1934, five years prior to the composer’s death at age 64 on the eve of World War II.
A peculiarity of No. 4 is the structure: it is a single-movement symphony with four sections performed without pause. As the final section serves as the recapitulation of the first section, the entire symphony with the two main themes could be considered a sonata as well. The opening sonata section immediately introduces the first theme, a long plaintive trumpet solo over twenty-two bars. This melody will recur throughout the symphony as a unifying material. The second theme, developed over harps, is passionate in nature. The following slow Adagio section is opened by an expressive cello solo before the music reaches a climax, a funeral march led by gloomily repetitive timpani rhythm. The third Scherzo section is in the feverish 6/8-time rhythm of “tarantella”, an Italian trance folk dance evoking death. The final section recalls the cyclic melody at the start, this time on a French horn solo, and heads to a peaceful conclusion with the same melody on a trumpet solo as if to come full circle.

[Kumiko Nishi]