Program Notes

Johann Sebastian Bach

BORN: March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, GermanyDIED: July 28, 1750 in Leipzig, Germany

Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major

BWV 1068 (ca. 1717-1723)

Approximate performance time is 20 minutes.

Bach’s Four Orchestral Suites date from his seven-year tenure as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold in the German town of Cöthen, northwest of Leipzig. Prince Leopold was a talented musician (Bach described him as “a gracious prince, a lover and connoisseur of music”). The Prince hoped to duplicate in Cöthen the superb court music establishments he encountered during his studies throughout Europe. Thanks to the patronage of Prince Leopold, Bach was able to compose for several of Europe’s finest instrumentalists.

The orchestral suite, an extremely popular form of instrumental ensemble music in the 17th and 18th centuries, comprises an overture and several dance movements. Because of the preeminence of the introductory movement, the full works were known as “overtures.” 19th-century scholars later applied the term “suite” to the multi-movement overture. These works showcase the talents of the instrumentalists, and Bach certainly allows for moments of thrilling display. The Third Orchestral Suite prominently features oboes, trumpets, and timpani in the generally festive piece. However, as with virtually all of Bach’s works, the Third Suite also contains moments of unrivaled poignancy and eloquence, notably in the second movement (the famous “Air on a G string”).

The Third Orchestral Suite is in five movements. First is the Overture, stately music juxtaposed with a lively fugue. The radiantly beautiful Air is scored for strings and continuo. The third movement offers a pair of Gavottes, a dance set in duple meter and moderate tempo. Next is a Bourrée, a sprightly dance in duple meter. The Suite closes with a Gigue (Jig), a dance of moderate to quick tempo, here cast in 6/8 meter.

Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F Major

BWV 1057 (1738)

Approximate performance time is 17 minutes.

The F-Major Keyboard Concerto is the last in a series that Bach compiled, circa 1738. Each of the six concertos, BWV 1052-57, is a transcription of an earlier work for “melody” instrument and orchestra. The F-Major Concerto, BWV 1057, is Bach’s arrangement of his Fourth Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049 (1721), originally scored for two recorder and violin soloists, continuo, and strings.

Scholarship indicates that Bach composed the six Keyboard Concertos for performance by the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, a municipal musical society, which gave weekly concerts at the Café Zimmermann. It is quite possible that Bach himself appeared as soloist in the Collegium Musicum performances of his Concertos. If so, it must have been a thrilling experience for the Leipzig audiences. Bach was one of the finest keyboard artists of his time, although he avoided any sort of overt virtuoso display.

As Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nicolaus Forkel, described:

Bach is said to have played with so easy and so small a motion of the fingers that it was hardly perceptible. Only the first joints of the fingers were in motion; the hands retained, even in the most difficult passages, its rounded form; the fingers rose very little from the keys, hardly more than in a trill, and when one was employed the others remained quietly in position. Still less did the other parts of his body take any share in his playing, as happens with many whose hand is not light enough. He rendered all of his fingers, of both hands, equally strong and serviceable, so that he was able to execute not only chords and all running passages, but also single and double trills with equal ease and delicacy.

The Concerto is in three movements. The flutes immediately present the first movement’s playful main theme. The middle section features virtuoso episodes for the keyboard. The Allegro concludes with a reprise of the opening section. The central Andante features a melancholy, undulating theme. The movement is notable for its constant juxtaposition of piano and forte dynamics and solo and tutti instrumental forces. The violas and keyboard initiate the fugue of the fourth Brandenburg Concerto’s final movement (Allegro assai). Once again, the piano is prominently featured in dazzling passagework.

Igor Stravinsky

BORN: June 17, 1882 in Lomonosov, RussiaDIED: April 6, 1971 in New York City

Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments

(1923-24, rev. 1950)

PREMIERE: May 22, 1924 at the Théâtre de l’Opéra in Paris

Approximate performance time is 20 minutes.

Igor Stravinsky composed his Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments at the suggestion of Serge Koussevitsky (1874–1951), the Russian-born double bass virtuoso and conductor. Koussevitsky, one of the great champions of contemporary music, was responsible for the commissions and/or premieres of many of the 20th century’s enduring masterworks, including Maurice Ravel’s 1923 orchestration of Modeste Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition , Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra (1943), and Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony (1946).

Koussevitsky suggested to Stravinsky that he not only compose the Concerto, but appear as piano soloist. Stravinsky was a proficient keyboard artist, but by no means a concert virtuoso. Stravinsky overcame doubts about having sufficient time to prepare, as well as battles with stage fright, “chiefly due to fear of a lapse of memory or of some distraction, however trifling, which might have irreparable consequences.” In fact, Stravinsky did have a brief memory lapse at the Concerto’s premiere, which took place at the Paris Théâtre de l’Opéra on May 22, 1924, led by Koussevitsky:

Having finished the first part of my Concerto, just before beginning the (second movement) Largo which opens with a piano solo, I suddenly realized that I had entirely forgotten how it started. I whispered this to Koussevitsky. He glanced at the score and whispered the first notes. That was enough to restore my balance and enable me to attack the Largo.

It appears that the audience was unaware of this brief glitch; and over the next five years, Stravinsky appeared as soloist in some 40 performances of his Concerto, collaborating with such legendary conductors as Wilhelm Furtwängler, Willem Mengelberg, Fritz Reiner, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, and Eugene Goossens.

The Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments belongs to the early years of Stravinsky’s “neo-classical” period, when the composer turned to the music of the 18th century as a source of inspiration. The result was a series of works featuring an economy of structure and performing forces, couched in a modern harmonic idiom. Stravinsky always believed that the character of the music dictated the specific instrumental forces. For his Concerto, Stravinsky abandoned the traditional orchestral complement of strings, retaining only the double basses. Stravinsky observed:

The short, crisp dance character of the Toccata (the first movement), engendered by the percussion of the piano, led to the idea that a wind ensemble would suit the piano better than any other combination. In contrast to the percussiveness of the piano, the winds prolong the piano’s sound as well as providing the human element of respiration.

The Concerto is in three movements. The first opens with an extended, and somber, slow-tempo (Largo) orchestral introduction, featuring dotted rhythms and dark instrumental colors. The introduction’s hushed final measures are swept aside by the entrance of the soloist, the start of the principal Toccata (Allegro) section. The pianist initiates the Concerto’s slow-tempo movement (Largo), punctuated by two dramatic solo cadenzas. The finale (Allegro) suggests a marriage of Baroque and Jazz elements. A recollection of the first movement’s slow-tempo introduction (Lento) and a measure of silence precede the vigorous dash to the finish (Stringendo).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

BORN: January 27, 1756 in Salzburg, AustriaDIED: December 5, 1791 in Vienna, Austria

Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, K. 183 (1773)

COMPLETED: October 5, 1773

Approximate performance time is 24 minutes.

Mozart was only seventeen in 1773 when he completed his Symphony No. 25. The work is sometimes referred to as the “Little” G minor Symphony, to distinguish it from another work in the same key, Mozart’s “Great” 1788 Symphony No. 40, K. 550. Mozart frequently turned to the key of G minor as a favored mode of tragic expression. In addition to the two Symphonies already mentioned, other prominent G minor works include the Piano Quartet, K. 478 (1785), the String Quintet, K. 516 (1787), and Pamina’s despairing aria, “Ach, ich fühl’s,” from the opera The Magic Flute , K. 620 (1791).

The “Little” G minor is the earliest of the Mozart Symphonies to maintain a notable presence in the concert repertoire. In truth, there is nothing “little” about the Symphony in terms of its length (a performance with all repeats lasts about twenty-five minutes), instrumentation (four horns instead of the usual two), or emotional depth.

This tempestuous work marks a stunning departure from Mozart’s previous symphonic output. As a result, many scholars have attempted, unsuccessfully, to find some specific tragic incident in the young composer’s life that might have served as inspiration. But then again, one would be hard pressed to explain why Mozart composed his stormy D-minor Piano Concerto (1785) during one of the most successful and happy periods of his life, or, for that matter, the triumphant “Jupiter” Symphony (1788) during one of the most desperate.

Perhaps the inspiration was of a strictly musical nature. When Mozart completed his Symphony No. 25, he and his father had just returned from a two-and-a-half-month stay in Vienna. Mozart may have had the opportunity to hear tempestuous works by such composers as Gluck, Haydn, and Vanhal that embraced the popular Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) artistic movement. Perhaps the Symphony No. 25 was the young Mozart’s response to the impassioned minor-key works of his elders.

Whatever the impetus for the “Little” G-minor Symphony, one can only marvel that a work of such technical mastery and emotional resonance is the creation of a 17-year-old composer, even one by the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The Symphony No. 25 is in four movements. The first (Allegro con brio) opens with the agitated principal theme. The first violins introduce the graceful major-key second theme. The movement concludes with a stormy coda, based upon the opening theme. The lovely second movement (Andante), in E-flat Major, features muted violins throughout. Mozart returns to the home key of G minor for the concluding movements. First is a stark Minuet (Menuetto), with a central G-Major Trio. The final movement Allegro is dominated by the opening theme, first played quietly, then forte. Major-key subsidiary themes later return in the minor as the Symphony No. 25 hurtles to a turbulent close.