On June 30, 1783 the Austrian premiere Italian composer Pasquale Anfossi’s opera Il curioso indiscreto (The Imprudent Curious Man) took place in the Vienna Burgtheater. Mozart wrote three arias for this opera, including Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio! (K. 418) and No, che non sei capace (K. 419). Within six years, Anfossi’s comic opera (drama giocoso per musica) was playing to sold-out crowds in theatres all over Europe.
Mozart wrote his arias with the lyrical-coloratura soprano Aloysia Lange in mind (formerly Aloisa Weber). The 20-year-old Aloysia, formerly Mozart’s lover, but by this time his sister-in-law, was enjoying the dawn of her talent. The virtuosic capabilities of her voice were astounding, and Mozart took full advantage of the fact. In a letter to his father, Mozart conveyed his impressions of the premiere, saying, “I didn’t like a single thing except for my own arias, the second of which — aria di bravura — was repeated due to the public’s insistence.” Despite Aloysia’s success in her performance of the leading role, Clorinda, Anfossi’s opera was performed in Vienna only six times, although that was enough to solidify Aloysia’s star status.
Clorinda sings the aria Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio! (K. 418) at a moment when the strength of her affections are being tested. Her curious fiancé, wanting to be sure of his chosen one’s love, sends a count to see her. The count, according to their agreement, was supposed to express ardent passion for Clorinda and to slander her fiancé. It turns out that testing love is a risky undertaking: Clorinda and the count immediately find themselves mutually attracted to each other. The first part of the aria (Adagio) is a dialogue between the soprano and oboe, and the restrained feelings are mirrored in tender and mournful sighs; in typical Mozart-fashion, the refined melodic phrases with their abundant halftones require the height of nuance in performance. In the second part of the aria, the palpitating heart of the heroine quickens with the tempo. Her quivering and anxiety are expressed by the jumps between large intervals in the melody, to the extent of a record-breaking interval of two octaves plus a minor third!
The aria di bravura, No, che non sei capace (K. 419) demonstrates the indignation of the heroine upon being accused of unfaithfulness. The heroine’s distress is as boundless as the demands made upon the vocalist: resolution (in the first section) gives way to stormy wrath (the second section), and a cascade of passages catches the spirit and produces a head-spinning effect.
The aria Alcandro, lo confesso (K. 294), written on the text of the famous librettist Pietro Metastasio, was also composed for Aloysia; Mozart wrote the aria only one month after he first met her in Manheim in the winter of 1778. Though Mozart had originally conceived of this aria for a tenor, he arranged it for his very promising young student. After a short recitative, the aria proceeds in a three-beat meter in a calm tempo, Andante sostenuto. In the middle section, the meter of the measure changes to an unceasing pulsation of eight notes in the strings, which produces an agitated character mirrored in the tempo heading, which reads Allegro agitato. The orchestration notably includes clarinets, which marks the first time Mozart used them in his vocal music.
Khristina Strekalovskaya
The Symphony in C is a poem of youthfulness, smiling at its own dreams... But in the introduction, in the shadow of several gloomy basses, in the fantastic scherzo, in this new-born babe ... you see the look of a future genius.
Romain Rolland
On 26 March 1800, the newspaper Wiener Zeitung carried an announcement: “On Wednesday 2 April 1800 at the Imperial Court Theatre Herr Ludwig van Beethoven will have the honour of giving a grand musical academy on behalf of himself...”
It is notable with what respect Beethoven honoured his own great teachers in his first solo concert, as one would say nowadays: the programme included, in addition to works by Beethoven, a symphony by Mozart and highlights from Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. The playbill announced that there was to be a “grand concerto for piano composed and performed by Herr Ludwig van Beethoven; a Septet, loyally dedicated to Her Majesty the Empress... a new large symphony for full orchestra, composed by Herr Ludwig van Beethoven.” Also promised was “Beethoven’s impromptu on piano.” This last comes as no surprise: for the Viennese public, Beethoven was still first and foremost a virtuoso, known for his dazzling improvisations in the city’s musical salons. Bowing to fashion, Beethoven composed whole series of variations on themes by Handel, Mozart, Grétry, Salieri and folk songs, one after another...
Historians today point out that it is in the First Symphony that Beethoven ultimately forms and validates the orchestra’s so-called pairing make-up (it is sometimes also known as “Beethoven cappella”) — two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two French horns, two trumpets; woodwind instruments vividly and contrastingly juxtaposed with the strings. Contemporaries of the composer, too, noted this; it appeared to some that Beethoven’s symphony was like “wind music”, that here... there was superfluous use of the kettledrums! And only the most shrewd of critics who “knew a lion by his claws” felt how, in the roots of the style, sometimes generalised as “Haydn and Mozart”, music of a new century was being born. How the composer was flexing his powerful “muscles” in the first Allegro, how the genre of the symphonic scherzo was emerging in the rhythms of a gallant minuet, how strident fanfares were foretelling an heroic epoch in the coda of the final rondo... In a word, how the symphony of Beethoven was born!
Iosif Raiskin
In Haydn’s times, composers usually wrote concertos for musicians they knew. Haydn himself supposedly wrote about 50 concertos, many of which have been lost. Of about a dozen cello concertos he was believed to have written, two remain today. The authorship of his second concerto in D major remained controversial for over a hundred years: throughout the 19th century, the concerto was thought to have been written by Antonin Kraft, a famous virtuoso cellist who played in the Esterhazy imperial court chapel under Haydn’s direction from 1778 to 1790. Haydn wrote the concerto for him, but somehow the word für (for) was eventually confused with the word von (from). The concerto was only confirmed to be authentically Haydn’s when the original manuscript was found in the 1950s.
Haydn wrote the concerto in 1783, two years after he first met Mozart. The two composers became fast friends and even played in a quartet together. Haydn was captivated by Mozart’s melodies, which significantly influenced the themes in his cello concerto. The lively tempi in the fast movements do not at all take away from the whimsicality and flexibility in the melodic lines, and the slow movement sounds almost like a delicate opera aria.
The first movement, Allegro moderato, is in sonata form and is longer than the second two movements put together. The main theme is first introduced by the string sections. The softness and insinuative nature of the main theme is far from characteristic of the allegros in typical classical sonatas. First heard in thirds by the two violin sections, the main theme comes back in thirds but played by the solo cello and a solo violin. The cello enters immediately in the extremity of its register, higher than the violins. The secondary theme is just as elegant and singing as the main theme, and the soloist also has the chance to display tremendous virtuosity in the transitional sections as well as in the abundant technically demanding passages.
Haydn wrote the Adagio in a form that was rare for slow movements: a rondo. The refrain initially sounds muted and tender, played only by the strings, and then appears again as a duet between the solo cello and a violin. An orchestral tutti then picks up the refrain, but the brief forte soon fades into the quiet lyricism of the first episode. Upon repetition, the main theme is darkened by a minor tint, but its second repetition—back in C major—returns to the briefly abandoned serenity of the opening.
The elements of the final rondo—at the same time playful and dance-like—immediately call to mind a hunting scene: the draft of the French horns and the characteristic “galloping” meter of 6/8 both add to this conclusion. The finale also is a resounding reminder that the concerto was written for the most formidable virtuoso of the era. The piece presents all manner of technical difficulties to the soloist, from impetuous arpeggios in a high register, to double-stops, to octaves passages (which in Haydn’s times were considered nearly unplayable). But Haydn never fails to surprise: suddenly, the main theme transforms into a minor version of itself in its third appearance. The murky minor flavor, however, sounds like only a passing shadow which quickly disappears into the overall atmosphere of joyful exultation.
Khristina Strekalovskaya
