No. 2061 Subscription (Program B)

This year, the world has celebrated the 270th anniversary of the birth of Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) who led a short but dense artistic life. He left us two genuine masterpieces for clarinet, the Clarinet Quintet K. 581 (1789) and today’s Clarinet Concerto K. 622 (1791) both written in A major. They were born during his productive final years in Vienna where he, now a freelance musician, earned his daily bread by composing, performing concerts, giving private lessons and having his works published.
When composing the two works, Mozart derived inspiration from his close friend and Austrian clarinet player Anton Stadler (1753–1812). The latter was then active as a member of Vienna’s court orchestra but also as a first-rate soloist, while his instrument hadn’t played a major part yet in the classical music scene of the time. Stadler is said to have liked playing the second (lower) clarinet part in orchestra, and he is also known as the inventor of the basset clarinet (manufactured by Theodor Lotz in 1787) which was an extended instrument providing some additional lower notes than the standard clarinet. In fact, Mozart originally wrote the Quintet K. 581 and the Concerto K. 622 for Stadler to perform with his basset clarinet. Although it didn’t come into common use (nowadays the two works are usually performed on a clarinet in A), we must be grateful to Stadler for his invention and friendship with Mozart which resulted in such important repertories.
The Clarinet Concerto was completed in early October 1791, two months before Mozart passed away, to be his last concerto. Stadler is believed to have given its first performance in Prague while the composer was still alive. The work is in the traditional three-movement form but without any cadenza (a soloist’s customary solo without orchestra). The clarinet part, sometimes virtuosic and sometimes serenely lyrical, makes us easily picture Stadler’s “soft tone and his ability to change registers quickly and with remarkable ease,” as reported by contemporary newspapers.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Born in Kalischt, Bohemia (in the Austrian Empire) in 1860, Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) is considered a late-Romantic titan for his expressive and deeply reflective symphonies of great length. His writing is influenced by Richard Wagner (1813–1883) when it comes to rich harmonies, extreme chromaticism, long-stretched melodies and colossal orchestration.
Mahler combined orchestral and vocal music in his Symphonies No. 2 Auferstehung (Resurrection) (1894: with vocal soloists and a mixed chorus), No. 3 (1896: with a vocal soloist, a children’s choir and a female chorus) and No. 4 (1900: with a vocal soloist). No. 5 was a major turning point for the composer’s output in that it parted from voices/lyrics and thus returned to a purely instrumental symphony. The composition took place mainly at the Austrian lakeside resort Maiernigg during the summers of 1901 and 1902. One of the best conductors of all time, Mahler himself led the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln for its world premiere held in 1904.
No. 5 includes “Adagietto,” his best-known movement for the public through Luchino Visconti’s movie Death in Venice (1971) where we hear this serene, longing-like music. One of the biographical anecdotes regarding this movement concerns his wife Alma, whom Mahler met and married during the period he was writing this symphony. According to a note by the conductor Willem Mengelberg who was champion of Mahler’s music and close to the couple, “Adagietto” was the composer’s declaration of love to her.
Mahler groups five movements into three parts to create a symmetrical structure around the central third movement. Its overall design starting in a minor key and ending in major evokes the dramatic tonal catharsis (C minor to C major) that Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)’s Symphony No. 5 (1808) has.
[Part 1] The symphony begins in C-sharp minor as a funeral march. The opening gloomy fanfare by trumpet solo reminds us of, again, Beethoven’s No. 5, more precisely its famous “fate” motto (brief theme) with four notes. Mahler indicates that the second movement, still in dismal tone (A minor), should be “Stürmisch bewegt, mit größter Vehemenz (Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence).” The brass chorale appearing for an instance at its closing phase foretells the bright conclusion of this symphony.
[Part 2] The third movement, the longest one in this symphony, is a pleasant D-major scherzo where French horns play a vital role from the very outset. The soloistic obbligato horn part in particular makes this movement resemble a horn concerto.
[Part 3] There is no pause between the fourth movement “Adagietto,” performed only by harp and strings, and the merry fifth movement in rondo form. Following a pastoral introduction, this polyphonic finale in D major, often compared with the one from Mozart’s last Symphony No. 41 Jupiter, comes to a triumphant denouement looking back forcefully on the brass chorale of the second movement.

[Kumiko Nishi]