The Stories Behind the Music in "Beethoven & Mozart"
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
PROGRAM - MAR 21 & 22, 2025
Mozart - Symphony No. 35 in D Major ("Haffner"), K. 385
W.A. Mozart’s, O zitt're nichtand Vorrei spiegarvi
Erin Morley, soprano
Beethoven - Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36
Conducted by Martin Pearlman
Mozart's Symphony No. 35 in D Major, K. 385 "Haffner"
In July 1782, Leopold Mozart wrote to his son, asking him to compose a new symphony for Sigmund Haffner, a wealthy Salzburg merchant. Wolfgang had previously composed a serenade for Haffner's daughter's wedding, and now a new symphony was needed for the celebration of Haffner’s son's nobility.
Mozart responded in a famous letter: "Well, I am up to my eyes in work, for by Sunday week I have to arrange my opera [The Abduction from the Seraglio] for wind instruments . . . And now you ask me to write a new symphony! How on earth can I do so? . . . Well, I must just spend the night over it, for that is the only way; and to you, dearest father, I sacrifice it. You may rely on having something from me by every post. I shall work as fast as possible and, as far as haste permits, I shall turn out good work."
The symphony was finished by early August, despite Mozart being busy with his opera and wedding preparations. He did not see the score again until his father returned it months later. "My new Haffner symphony has positively amazed me," he wrote, "for I had forgotten every single note of it. It must surely produce a good effect."
Mozart's "O zitt're nicht"
In the last months of his life, Mozart received major commissions for several very different works. During the summer of 1791 came a mysterious, anonymous commission to compose a Requiem. Also during the summer, he was engaged to write an Italian opera seria, La clemenza di Tito, for the upcoming coronation of Leopold II as king of Bohemia. And in a very different vein, he was commissioned to write a singspiel, a lighter opera with spoken German dialogue. This last work, which was commissioned by the Theater auf der Wieden in suburban Vienna, was Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).
The premiere of The Magic Flute took place on September 30, 1791 and Josepha Hofer, Mozart's sister-in-law, sang the Queen of the Night. The opera was a triumph and received over 100 performances in a little over a year, but tragically, Mozart did not live to follow its progress. Toward the end of November, he became seriously ill, and on December 5, he died at the age of 35.
Mozart's "Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!"
In 1783, Mozart's sister-in-law Aloysia Weber Lange was to make her Vienna debut in Pasquale Anfossi's opera Il curioso indiscreto, but she found that the arias for her character did not suit her dramatically and did not make use of her unusually beautiful high register. Mozart was therefore asked to provide two new arias that could be inserted into Anfossi's opera for her.
In “Vorrei spiegarvi,” the heroine Clorinda is betrothed to a nobleman who wishes to test her fidelity by sending a friend, the Count di Ripaverdi, to court her. In the first part of the aria, Clorinda muses on her attraction to the new suitor, but in the second faster section, she pulls herself together and rejects him, sending him back his own lover.
The aria begins with an Adagio that features Aloysia Weber's cantabile singing, as well as her high register (going up to a high E). As it becomes more agitated in the Allegro and then a Più Allegro, it becomes a virtuoso vehicle for her.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36
Shortly after completing his first symphony in 1800, Beethoven began planning his second, but it was not composed for the most part until the summer and early fall of 1802. By then, Beethoven's problems with his hearing had become acute.That spring his doctors had sent him to Heiligenstadt, a quiet village away from the noise of Vienna, and it was there that he completed this symphony in October of 1802. Earlier that month, he had written his famous Heiligenstadt Testament, a letter of profound despair over his increasing deafness, in which he contemplated suicide. But this symphony is not a dark work. Indeed, sections of it have often been characterized as "sunny."
The premiere took place at the Theater an der Wien, April 5, 1803 in a concert which also included the Symphony No. 1, Beethoven's oratorio Christus am Ölberge, and the Piano Concerto No. 3 with the composer as soloist. Response to the Second Symphony was mixed. Particularly difficult and controversial was the finale with its jagged, eccentric theme, but throughout the work Beethoven is pushing the Classical idiom beyond that of his first symphony.
The autograph of this symphony, like that of the First Symphony is lost, and there are no other manuscript sources for it. That means that, for this work as well as for its predecessor, we must rely on the earliest printed edition, which, although it was published during the composer's lifetime, was most likely prepared without his involvement or guidance. Since that early edition has been the basis of a long performing tradition, it is interesting to see recent efforts to take a fresh, critical look at that edition, at the apparent errors in it, and at the publisher's corrections.
