saturday evening, july 25, 2015, at 7:30 m preview concert mostly...

Saturday Evening, July 25, 2015, at 7:30

Preview Concert

Mostly Mozart Festival OrchestraLouis Langrée, Conductor

MOZART Symphony No. 34 in C major, K.338 (1780)Allegro vivace Andante di molto (più tosto Allegretto)Finale: Allegro vivace

BRAHMS Symphony No. 4 in E minor (1884–85)Allegro non troppoAndante moderatoAllegro giocosoAllegro energico e passionato

This program is approximately one hour long and will be performed without intermission.

This free preview concert of the Mostly Mozart Festival is made possible in part by The Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation.

This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center.

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Please make certain all your electronic devices are switched off.

Avery Fisher Hall

Mostly Mozart Festival

The Mostly Mozart Festival is made possible by Sarah Billinghurst Solomon and Howard Solomon, Rita E. and Gustave M. Hauser, Chris and Bruce Crawford, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. SamuelsFoundation, Inc., Charles E. Culpeper Foundation, S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Family Foundation, and Friends of Mostly Mozart.

Public support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Artist Catering provided by Zabar’s and zabars.com

MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center

United Airlines is a Supporter of Lincoln Center

WABC-TV is a Supporter of Lincoln Center

“Summer at Lincoln Center” is supported by Diet Pepsi

Time Out New York is a Media Partner of Summer at Lincoln Center

UPCOMING MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL EVENTS:

Tuesday Evening, July 28, at 8:00 in Avery Fisher HallWednesday Evening, July 29, at 7:30 in Avery Fisher HallMostly Mozart Festival OrchestraLouis Langrée, ConductorEmanuel Ax, PianoErin Morley, Soprano M|M

ALL-MOZART PROGRAMOverture to The ImpresarioPiano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat majorVorrei spiegarvi, oh DioNo, che non sei capaceSymphony No. 34

Wednesday Night, July 29, at 10:00 in the Stanley H. Kaplan PenthouseA Little Night MusicEmanuel Ax, PianoAnna Polonsky, Piano M|M

Orion Weiss, PianoBRAHMS: Waltzes, Op. 39BRAHMS: Variations on a Theme by R. SchumannSCHUMANN: Bilder aus Osten

M|M Mostly Mozart debut

For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit MostlyMozart.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at(212) 875-5766 to learn about program cancellations or request a Mostly Mozart brochure.

Visit MostlyMozart.org for full festival listings.

Join the conversation: #LCMozart

We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract theperformers and your fellow audience members.

In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building.


Welcome to Mostly MozartI am pleased to welcome you to the 49th Mostly Mozart Festival, our annualcelebration of the innovative and inspiring spirit of our namesake composer.This summer, in addition to a stellar roster of guest conductors and soloists,we are joined by composer-in-residence George Benjamin, a leading contemporary voice whose celebrated opera Written on Skin makes its U.S. stage premiere.

This landmark event continues our tradition of hearing Mozart afresh in the context of the great music of our time. Under the inspired baton of Renée andRobert Belfer Music Director Louis Langrée, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestradelights this year with the Classical repertoire that is its specialty, in addition toBeethoven’s joyous Seventh Symphony and Haydn’s triumphant Creation.

Guest appearances include maestro Cornelius Meister making his New Yorkdebut; Edward Gardner, who also leads the Academy of Ancient Music in aMendelssohn program on period instruments; and Andrew Manze with violin-ist Joshua Bell in an evening of Bach, Mozart, and Schumann. Other preemi-nent soloists include Emanuel Ax, Matthias Goerne, and festival newcomersSol Gabetta and Alina Ibragimova, who also perform intimate recitals in ourexpanded Little Night Music series. And don’t miss returning favorite EmersonString Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble, our artists-in-residence, as well as invigorating pre-concert recitals and lectures, a panel discussion, and a film on Haydn.

With so much to choose from, we invite you to make the most of this rich andsplendid festival. I look forward to seeing you often.

Jane MossEhrenkranz Artist Director

When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.

When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face, With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place.

When music sounds, all that I was I am Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; And from Time’s woods break into distant song The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.

For poetry comments and suggestions, please write to [email protected].

Mostly Mozart Festival I Words and Music

MusicBy Walter de la Mare

By Paul Schiavo

The second half of the 18th century—music’s Classical period and the age in which Mozart lived and worked—saw several far-reaching musical developments. The old contrapuntal style ofthe Baroque era gave way to a newly melodious, emotionallyexpressive idiom, which prompted the development of threeimportant new compositional genres: the keyboard sonata, thestring quartet, and the symphony.

The symphonic species originated in Italy as a short prelude to anopera. As such, the “sinfonia” typically unfolded in a fast tempo,but with a slow central interlude. This design expanded into threedistinct movements as the sinfonia developed into an independentconcert piece, divorced from its original function as an opera over-ture. The symphony reached a peak of Classical perfection withthe late symphonies of Mozart and Haydn; its evolution over thesubsequent hundred years is one of the central narratives of 19th-century music. In works by Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn,Dvorák, Brahms, and many others, symphonic music becamemore sonorous and more dramatic.

The two works we hear this evening trace the considerable yetcoherent growth of the symphony from the late 18th centurythrough the 19th. Mozart’s graceful C-major Symphony, K.338, isconcise and elegant, and it uses the three-movement sinfoniaform. Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 reveals its author’s thoughtfuldevelopment of melodic ideas and, in its scherzo movement, anunbuttoned, exuberant energy. In the finale Brahms takes an oldcompositional strategy, the chaconne, and invests it with new lifeand expressiveness.

—Copyright © 2015 by Paul Schiavo


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Mostly Mozart Festival I Notes on the Program

By Paul Schiavo

Symphony No. 34 in C major, K.338 (1780)WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZARTBorn January 27, 1756, in SalzburgDied December 5, 1791, in Vienna

Approximate length: 21 minutes

Mozart’s “grand journey” to Mannheim and Paris, where he hoped to estab-lish himself in one of Europe’s more important musical centers, was neitherhappy nor productive. Departing his native Salzburg in the autumn of 1777,the young composer repeatedly met with frustration in his efforts to securecommissions or patronage. The death, in Paris, of his mother, who hadaccompanied him on the trip, as well as the unhappy end of a romance withthe singer Aloysia Weber, further dampened his spirits. In this cheerlessstate Mozart wrote relatively little music, and he returned home early in1779, having failed utterly in his first attempt to make his own way in theworld.

Nevertheless, Mozart learned much during his travels, and once back in hisnative Salzburg he began to compose with greater authority than ever.Among the important works he now produced was the Symphony No. 34 in C major, K.338. It was completed, as an inscription in the autograph scoreattests, on August 29, 1780. Mozart cast the composition in the three-movement plan of an Italian sinfonia. He began a minuet movement butquickly abandoned it.

Its Italian formal outline notwithstanding, this symphony reflects a number ofinfluences Mozart absorbed during his travels. The concerted opening state-ment is typical of French symphonic music of the late 18th century, as is theblock-like alternation of wind and string choirs in subsequent passages. Inaddition, the initial movement offers conspicuous imitation of the famous“Mannheim crescendo,” in which the whole orchestra swells impressivelyin volume over the length of a phrase.

At the same time, the music shows its 24-year-old author beginning to find hisown symphonic voice, using the orchestra to express himself with new depthand command of his resources. The outer movements have about them a dis-tinctly Mozartian energy, and there is a prominent role for the oboes in the jig-like Finale. By contrast, the central Andante is relaxed and gracious. Less thana decade later, Mozart would achieve an exalted level of symphonic inventionin his “Prague” Symphony (No. 38) and the great trilogy of 1788 (SymphoniesNos. 39, 40, and 41), a road to mastery whose early steps are evident in thecomposition heard this evening.

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Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 (1884–85)JOHANNES BRAHMSBorn May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, GermanyDied April 3, 1897, in Vienna

Approximate length: 39 minutes

Brahms composed his Fourth Symphony during the summers of 1884 and1885, which he spent at the small town of Mürzzuschlag, in the Austrian coun-tryside. This would be the composer’s final essay as a symphonist and hispenultimate work for orchestra. Although a dozen years remained to Brahms,only the Double Concerto, Op. 102, followed this symphony in his line oforchestral compositions.

The Fourth also proved the most difficult Brahms symphony for his contem-poraries to comprehend. After hearing a preview performance on two pianosin September 1885, Eduard Hanslick, the celebrated critic, likened it to “twovery clever people arguing,” and Max Kalbeck, who would become Brahms’sbiographer, went to the composer the following day to plead for revision of thework. Similarly, Elizabet von Herzogenberg, a musically accomplished admirerwho soon received the newlywritten score from Brahms,thought its charms “onlygained at the cost of all thattangled overgrowth of inge-niously woven detail.” EvenTheodor Billroth, the highlyintelligent and cultured physi-cian whose musical percep-tiveness Brahms valued, found it at first “too massive, too tremendous, toofull,” though he discovered that with closer acquaintance the music became“more and more magnificent.”

While Brahms may have been disappointed at the failure of his closest friendsto embrace the new symphony, he probably was not surprised. Already he hadwritten from alpine Mürzzuschlag to Hans von Bülow, the conductor entrustedwith preparing the first performance: “I wonder if [the symphony] will everhave an audience! I rather fear it has been influenced by this climate, wherethe cherries never ripen.” Nevertheless, he refused to alter the work apartfrom minor details of instrumentation, which he revised following a readingwith Bülow’s orchestra in October 1885. Brahms conducted the first perfor-mance later that month. The work was well received, and its position as a cor-nerstone of the symphonic repertory has never been in jeopardy.

The Fourth is the only one of Brahms’s symphonies to launch directly into theprincipal theme of the first movement without so much as a note of intro-duction (a fact that disturbed a number of early listeners, including the great


Brahms found Bach’s music a fertilesource of ideas and inspiration.In the finale, he uses the chaconne form favored by Baroque composers.


violinist Joseph Joachim, who urged Brahms to add a few measures ofpreparation). This subject is a miracle of economy, its modest two-note fig-ures merging and expanding to form a long, expressive melody. The con-trasting second theme was described by Leonard Bernstein as a kind ofstrange tango, and if this does not do justice to its character, it does serve toidentify it. Brahms develops both these ideas with deep insight and inven-tiveness. The recapitulation is approached through a hushed passage con-veying a wonderful sense of pregnancy, and the initial theme returns quietly,at first, and in elongated rhythms in the woodwinds.

Many commentators have noted the modal contour of the melody that formsthe basis of the second movement. Brahms uses the tonal ambiguity of thissubject to fashion uncommonly beautiful harmonies. The theme itself sug-gests an Austrian pilgrims’ hymn, and Brahms’s continual variations of it areboth ingenious and at times (particularly the soaring violin melody that followsthe initial presentation of the theme by the winds) moving in their eloquence.The ensuing scherzo—which Brahms described to Elizabet von Herzogenbergas “fairly noisy, with three timpani, triangle, and piccolo”—is perhaps themost boisterous music the composer ever produced.

But Brahms has saved his trump card for the finale. This movement is con-structed as a chaconne, a set of ongoing variations over a repeating eight-notemotif presented at the outset by the winds. The form is an old one. It wasfavored by composers of the Baroque period; indeed, the recurring themeBrahms uses is nearly identical to one Bach employed for a chaconne in hisCantata BWV 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (Brahms, like Mozart, foundBach’s music a fertile source of ideas and inspiration). The procedure is daunt-ing in its strictness, yet its severity is to a large extent the source of itsstrength. Brahms responds to the constraints of the chaconne structure withmusic of tremendous power and expressiveness, the rigid framework ofeight-measure phrases serving as a foil for his creativity.

The music that unfolds as counterpoint to the recurring chaconne theme isextraordinary in its variety, but it yields more than just a kaleidoscope ofmelodies, textures, and colors. Rather, the whole movement is carefullyshaped, subsiding from an imperious opening sequence to a tranquil centralgroup of variations before building inexorably to a final climax. In its inspireddiscourse and formal perfection, Brahms’s last utterance as a symphoniststands among his greatest achievements.

Paul Schiavo serves as program annotator for the St. Louis and SeattleSymphonies, and writes frequently for concerts at Lincoln Center.

—Copyright © 2015 by Paul Schiavo

Louis Langrée, music director of the Mostly Mozart Festival sinceDecember 2002, was named Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director inAugust 2006. Under his musical leadership, the Mostly Mozart FestivalOrchestra has received extensive critical acclaim, and their performancesare an annual summertime highlight for classical music lovers in New York City.

Mr. Langrée is also music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestraand chief conductor of Camerata Salzburg. During the 2015–16 season, hewill conduct the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center as part of the Great Performers series. At home in Ohio, the ensemble’s performances will include a Brahms festival and three world-premiere concertos for orchestra. Mr. Langrée will also tour Germany with Cam -erata Salzburg. His guest engagements include appearances withGewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and performances of Così fan tutte atthe Aix-en-Provence Festival.

Mr. Langrée frequently appears as guest conductor with the Berlin andVienna Philharmonics, Budapest Festival Orchestra, London PhilharmonicOrchestra, Paris Orchestra, and NHK Symphony Orchestra, as well as withthe Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and Orchestra of the Age ofEnlightenment. His opera engagements include appearances with theMetropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, La Scala, Opéra Bastille,Royal Opera House–Covent Garden, and the Vienna State Opera.

Mr. Langrée’s first recording with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,released in September 2014, features commissioned works by NicoMuhly and David Lang, as well as Copland’s Lincoln Portrait narrated byMaya Angelou. His DVD of Verdi’s La traviata from the Aix-en-ProvenceFestival featuring Natalie Dessay and the London Symphony Orchestra

Mostly Mozart Festival I Meet the Artists

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Mostly Mozart Festival I Meet the Artists

was awarded a Diapason d’Or. His discography also includes recordings onthe Accord, Naïve, Universal, and Virgin Classics labels.

Mr. Langrée was appointed Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2006 andChevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur in 2014.


Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival—America’s first indoor summermusic festival—was launched as an experiment in 1966. Called MidsummerSerenades: A Mozart Festival, its first two seasons were devoted exclusivelyto the music of Mozart. Now a New York institution, Mostly Mozart continuesto broaden its focus to include works by Mozart’s predecessors, contempo-raries, and related successors. In addition to concerts by the Mostly MozartFestival Orchestra, Mostly Mozart now includes concerts by the world’soutstanding period-instrument ensembles, chamber orchestras and ensem-bles, and acclaimed soloists, as well as opera productions, dance, film, late-night performances, and visual art installations. Contemporary music hasbecome an essential part of the festival, embodied in annual artists-in-residence, including Osvaldo Golijov, John Adams, Kaija Saariaho, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Among themany artists and ensembles who have had long associations with the festivalare Joshua Bell, Christian Tetzlaff, Itzhak Perlman, Emanuel Ax, GarrickOhlsson, Stephen Hough, Osmo Vänskä, the Emerson String Quartet,Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and theMark Morris Dance Group.

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the MostlyMozart Festival, and the only U.S. chamber orchestra dedicated to the musicof the Classical period. Louis Langrée has been the Orchestra’s music direc-tor since 2002, and each summer the ensemble’s Avery Fisher Hall home istransformed into an appropriately intimate venue for its performances. Overthe years, the Orchestra has toured to such notable festivals and venues asRavinia, Great Woods, Tanglewood, Bunkamura in Tokyo, and the KennedyCenter. Conductors who made their New York debuts leading the MostlyMozart Festival Orchestra include Jérémie Rhorer, Edward Gardner, LionelBringuier, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, DavidZinman, and Edo de Waart. Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, flutist JamesGalway, soprano Elly Ameling, and pianist Mitsuko Uchida all made their U.S.debuts with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) serves three primary roles:presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education andcommunity relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenterof more than 3,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educa-tional activities annually, LCPA offers 15 programs, series, and festivals,including American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival,Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly MozartFestival, and the White Light Festival, as well as the Emmy Award–winningLive From Lincoln Center, which airs nationally on PBS. As manager of theLincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the LincolnCenter complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA led a $1.2billion campus renovation, completed in October 2012.

Lincoln Center Programming DepartmentJane Moss, Ehrenkranz Artistic DirectorHanako Yamaguchi, Director, Music ProgrammingJon Nakagawa, Director, Contemporary ProgrammingJill Sternheimer, Acting Director, Public ProgrammingLisa Takemoto, Production ManagerCharles Cermele, Producer, Contemporary ProgrammingKate Monaghan, Associate Director, ProgrammingClaudia Norman, Producer, Public ProgrammingMauricio Lomelin, Producer, Contemporary ProgrammingJulia Lin, Associate ProducerNicole Cotton, Production CoordinatorRegina Grande, Assistant to the Artistic DirectorLuna Shyr, Programming Publications EditorClaire Raphaelson, House Seat CoordinatorStepan Atamian, Theatrical Productions Intern; Annie Guo, Production Intern; Grace Hertz, House Program Intern

Program Annotators: Don Anderson, Peter A. Hoyt, Kathryn L. Libin, Paul Schiavo, David Wright



Mostly Mozart Festival OrchestraLouis Langrée, Renée and Robert Belfer Music Director

Violin IRuggero Allifranchini,Concertmaster

Martin AgeeEva BurmeisterRobert ChausowLilit GampelAmy KauffmanSophia KessingerLisa MatricardiKristina MusserRonald Oakland

Violin IILaura Frautschi,Principal

Katsuko EsakiMichael GilletteKatherine Livolsi-Landau

Michael RothDorothy StrahlDeborah WongMineko Yajima

ViolaShmuel Katz, PrincipalMeena Bhasin Danielle FarinaChihiro FukudaJack RosenbergDebra Shufelt-DineJessica Troy

CelloIlya Finkelshteyn,Principal

Ted AckermanNa-Young BaekAmy Butler-VisscherAnnabelle HoffmanAlvin McCall

BassZachary Cohen,Principal

Larry GlazenerLou KosmaJudith Sugarman

FluteJasmine Choi,Principal

Tanya Dusevic Witek,Piccolo

OboeRandall Ellis, PrincipalNick Masterson

ClarinetJon Manasse,Principal

Liam Burke

BassoonDaniel Shelly, PrincipalMark RomatzTom Sefcovic,Contrabassoon

HornLawrence DiBello,Principal

Michelle BakerRichard HagenPeter ReitStewart Rose

TrumpetNeil Balm, PrincipalLee Soper

TromboneRichard Clark,Principal

Demian AustinDon Hayward, Bass Trombone

TimpaniDavid Punto, Principal

PercussionKory Grossman,Principal

Librarian Michael McCoy

Personnel ManagersNeil BalmJonathan HaasGemini MusicProductions, Ltd.

Get to know the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra musicians at MostlyMozart.org/MeetTheOrchestra

JENNIFER TAYLOR 2014

saturday evening, july 25, 2015, at 7:30 m preview concert mostly...

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