10 minute read
LABADIE CONDUCTS MOZART
Friday, January 26, 2024 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 7:30 pm
ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL
Bernard Labadie, conductor
Matthew Ernst, trumpet
Program
HENRI-JOSEPH RIGEL
Symphony in C minor, Opus 12, No. 4
I. Allegro assai
II. Largo non troppo
III. Allegro spiritoso
JOHANN NEPOMUK HUMMEL
Concerto in E-flat major for Trumpet and Orchestra, WoO 1, S. 49
I. Allegro con spirito
II. Andante
III. Rondo: Allegro
Matthew Ernst, trumpet
INTERMISSION
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 [revised version]
I. Molto allegro
II. Andante
III. Menuetto: Allegretto
IV. Allegro assai
The 2023.24 Classics Series is presented by the UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND and ROCKWELL AUTOMATION.
The length of this concert is approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes.
Guest Artist Biographies
BERNARD LABADIE
Bernard Labadie has established himself worldwide as one of the preeminent conductors of the Baroque and Classical repertoire, a reputation closely tied to his work with Les Violons du Roy (for which he served as music director from its inception until 2014) and La Chapelle de Québec. With these two ensembles he has regularly toured Canada, the U.S., and Europe, in major venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, The Barbican, The Concertgebouw, and the Salzburg Festival, among others. He is the principal conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York.
Recent guest conducting highlights include the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, National Arts Center Orchestra, L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre National de Lyon, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and NDR Radiophilharmonie. Labadie has become a regular presence on the podiums of the major North American orchestras, including the Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, New World, and San Francisco symphonies; the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras; the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics; the Handel & Haydn Society; and L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. International audiences in past seasons have seen and heard Labadie conduct the Bayerischen Rundfunks Symphony Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, English Concert & Chorus, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, BBC Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Collegium Vocale Ghent, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester (Cologne), and Zürich Chamber Orchestra.
His extensive discography includes many critically acclaimed recordings on Dorian, ATMA, and Virgin Classics labels, including Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and a collaborative recording of Mozart’s Requiem with Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec, both of which received Canada’s Juno Award. Other recordings include C.P.E. Bach’s complete cello concertos with Truls Mørk and Les Violons du Roy; J.S. Bach’s complete piano concertos with Alexandre Tharaud, both on Virgin Classics; and Haydn’s piano concertos with Marc-André Hamelin as soloist, released by Hyperion. He has received Paris’s Samuel de Champlain award, the Canadian government’s “Officer of the Order of Canada”, and his home province has named him “Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Québec.”
MATTHEW ERNST
Matthew Ernst currently serves as principal trumpet of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, appointed by Edo de Waart in 2016. He was previously the principal trumpet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Pops. Ernst was also a member of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and has served as acting principal trumpet for the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. Ernst has held teaching positions at Northwestern University, the University of Virginia, the University of New Orleans, the Round Top Festival, and the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.
Ernst pursued his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan. He also received the school’s prestigious Emerging Artist Award. He earned two Master of Music degrees from Southern Methodist University — the first in trumpet performance and the second in wind conducting. In addition to his degree work, Ernst was also a fellow at Tanglewood Music Center and attended the Pacific Music Festival and Brevard Music Center.
Program notes by Elaine Schmidt
HENRI-JOSEPH RIGEL
Symphony in C minor, Opus 12, No. 4
Composed: 1774
First performance: Unknown
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: 2 oboes; bassoon; 2 horns; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 16 minutes
Classical-era French composer Henri-Joseph Rigel is not exactly a household name, even among classical musicians. But he would not have been a household name in his childhood home in Wertheim, Germany, under that moniker either, as his given name was Heinrich Joseph Riegel. His father was a court intendant, a prominent position that allowed him to provide music lessons for not only the young Heinrich, but apparently also for his son Anton, who became a noted composer as well. Heinrich studied with some of the most prominent musicians in the Wertheim area. He eventually moved to Stuttgart to continue his studies. Through contacts in Stuttgart, he landed a job as the music tutor for a young woman of the aristocracy in France.
By 1768, at age 27, he was in Paris working as a composer and had changed his name to Henri Joseph Rigel. He married a French woman who served as the engraver of many of his early publications. He published and distributed those compositions himself, which was not terribly unusual, as Paris was the music publishing capital of Europe at the time and was peppered with small and large publishing enterprises. In this early part of his career, he became known particularly for his instrumental music, including sonatas, quartets (written in the uniquely French two-movement style and referred to as “dialogues”). He became one of the principal composers for two prominent Parisian ensembles and wrote 14 symphonies, four of which have been lost.
Rigel’s story gets a little convoluted from here thanks to his son, the composer Henri-Jean Rigel. Some of the music of both father and son has been misattributed to wrong Rigel. In addition, the etching that is often identified today as the elder Rigel is actually an image of his son. The elder Rigel spent the last two decades of his life writing operas and teaching. He became one of the most respected musicians in Paris during his lifetime and was particularly noted for a musical open-mindedness, through which he drew elements of French, Italian, and German styles into seamless music. It was written of him at the time that: “He is one of the foreigners living amongst us who best honors music in France.”
JOHANN NEPOMUK HUMMEL
Concerto in E-flat major for Trumpet and Orchestra, WoO 1, S. 49
Composed: December 1803
First performance: 1 January 1804; Vienna, Germany
Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere
Instrumentation: flute; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; timpani; strings
Approximate duration: 21 minutes
One of the great composers of the Classical era, Johann Nepomuk Hummel would likely be better known today had he not been a contemporary and colleague of Franz Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna. Hummel and Beethoven became friends while they were both students in Vienna. Later, as adults, they were regarded as the two finest composers in Vienna, and Hummel was hailed as one of the finest pianists in Europe. He was among the handful of composers selected to walk beside Beethoven’s casket during the composer’s enormous funeral procession through the streets of Vienna in 1827 and improvised at the funeral, as Beethoven had requested.
We remember Hummel today for his adult career as a composer, but he was known during his childhood as a prodigy of Mozart’s caliber. Hearing the eight-year-old Hummel play, Mozart offered to take him on as a student and take him into his own home — all with no charge.
Hummel stayed with the Mozart family for two years and made his concert debut at age nine, playing on one of Mozart’s concerts.
After Hummel finished his studies with Mozart, his father took him on a concert tour of Europe. It was during their stay in London that Haydn heard the young Hummel play and was so impressed that he wrote a sonata for him.
Although Hummel wrote in a wide variety of musical genres, he wrote no symphonies, deferring to Beethoven, who he believed he could never surpass in symphonic writing. But Hummel and Beethoven vied for the public’s highest regard as composers of other music and as pianists.
Despite the fame Hummel achieved during his lifetime, little of his music is heard on concert stages today, apart from the trumpet concerto on this evening’s program.
Hummel wrote the concerto in 1803 for trumpeter Anton Weidinger, who had redesigned the instrument to give it chromatic capabilities, particularly in its lower register, that it had never had before. In a time before brass instruments had valves, Weidinger developed a revolutionary key system for the instrument. His virtuosic 1804 premiere of Hummel’s trumpet concerto absolutely astonished the audience.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 [revised version]
Composed: July 1788
First performance: Unknown; possibly 17 April 1791
Last MSO performance: 11 April 2015; Edo de Waart, conductor
Instrumentation: flute; 2 oboes; 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; strings
Approximate duration: 35 minutes
As a boy, Mozart led a life comparable to one of today’s child stars. He was fawned over by the aristocracy and royalty of several European nations, as his father took both of his prodigy children, Wolfgang Amadeus and Maria Anna (Nannerl), on extended concert tours. The problem with this uncommon childhood was that it set him up for a difficult adulthood. As an adult, Mozart knew he was a much more polished and accomplished musician than he had been as a child, but he struggled to understand why the public had lost interest in him. It was, of course, because as a child he had been an amazing curiosity, while in his adult years in Vienna, working as a performer and composer, the public saw him as just another very fine musician.
Mozart’s childhood did not prepare him for the uncertainties of a career in music. History has long told us that Mozart and his wife, Constanza, struggled with finances even when Mozart was having a good year. Recent scholarship describes a fairly substantial income during much of his time in Vienna, just not as much as he felt he deserved, nor enough to live in the style he and Constanza desired. In 1788, Mozart was having what he described as “dark thoughts,” struggling with finances, the recent death of his father, and the loss of his infant daughter (of Mozart and Constanza’s six children, only two survived to adulthood).
Dark thoughts notwithstanding, Mozart had a six-week burst of incredible creativity that summer, writing his symphonies 39, 40, and 41 while also working on a host of other pieces. Despite his financial concerns, he wrote the three symphonies without commissions or any promise of performances. His Symphony No. 40, in G minor, is one of just two symphonies he wrote in a minor key. The other, No. 25, is also in G minor. From its familiar opening bars to a final movement that leans toward moments of atonality, the symphony forms the center of a breathtaking triptych. George Bernard rather poetically described the three symphonies, the last Mozart would write, as “the last word of the 18th century.”
It is entirely possible that Mozart never heard any of these monumental symphonies performed, although some evidence points to a performance of this symphony taking place in Vienna before Mozart’s death in 1791, at age 35.
