Sept 14 notes

After a journey of several months, Mozart and his mother arrived in Paris on March 23^rd, 1778. They found there a city rich in musical culture. Although not all of it was to his taste, Wolfgang made strenuous efforts to integrate – and ingratiate – himself with the Parisian musical world, the ultimate goal being to find permanent employment. Quite what the musical milieu made of Mozart is difficult to gauge at a distance of more than 200 years; but tonight’s programme sets Mozart’s music in context, placing it alongside composers current in Paris in the 1770s.

Born in Guadeloupe on Christmas day 1745, Joseph Bologne Chevalier de St Georges cut a unique figure amongst 18^th-century musicians. As the son of a French plantation owner and his slave mistress, he was throughout his life the subject of mild surprise and, on occasions, blatant discrimination as a ‘mulatto’ – a term we would understand today as ‘being of mixed race’. Taken to France at the age of eight, he was trained in the etiquette of Parisian life. He learnt how to fence, served as an officer in the French army, and took up the violin. In addition, he studied musical composition with the leading composers of the day, among them Gossec. In 1769, he became leader of Gossec’s orchestra, the Concert des Amateurs; and following his father’s death in 1774, an event which curtailed his annual stipend from the parental estate, he earned his living solely from music.

St Georges made a significant contribution to Parisian musical life. He excelled as a violinist he was clearly something of a virtuoso. Most of his music was published during the 1770s - the Op 11 set, from which tonight’s symphony is taken, appeared in 1779 - and he made a special study of the particularly Parisian form, the Sinfonia Concertante. This hybrid, which adopts the outward form of the symphony while including solo parts for two or more instruments, was especially popular in France. Indeed, Mozart’s own Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola written on his return to Salzburg in 1779 owes a clear debt to St Georges; and his Concerto for Flute and Harp (K 299) likewise stands within this tradition.

Mozart’s ‘concerto’ was one of the few orchestral pieces that he wrote while in Paris in 1778. The commission came from the Comte de Guines, a prominent amateur flautist who wished for a piece to play with his daughter. ‘Magnifique’ was Mozart’s assessment of her harp playing in a letter back to his father Leopold. The Comte, however, was by all accounts something of a rogue. A career diplomat, he had been recalled from service in Berlin on suspicion of financial impropriety, but had managed to secure another posting in London from where he returned in 1776. With such a record, it is perhaps unsurprising that de Guines never paid Mozart for the composition lessons given to his daughter, nor indeed for the Concerto.

Given Mozart’s personal circumstances, it is surprising that the Concerto is as sunny as it is. Very little of the music, if any, betrays the fact that Mozart was deeply unhappy in Paris and that he despised the French musical world. Unsuccessful in his bid to find employment, he was reliant on incidental payments and not a small measure of goodwill to sustain him and his mother in the French capital. Events came to a head in mid-June when his mother fell ill; despite medical attention she died on 3 July. This was a tragedy for both Wolfgang and his father and strained their already stretched emotional and financial resources.

Stuck in Salzburg, Leopold must have felt very much a helpless bystander when he learnt the distressing news. Geographically and culturally, Salzburg was far removed from the cosmopolitan world of Paris. And so, by way of contrast, we include in tonight’s programme a work which encapsulates something of that dichotomy. The Serenata Notturna was probably written for the Carnival season of 1776. Its scoring is unique. Throughout the 18^th century pairs of timpani were traditionally used to provide the bass to brass instruments – usually trumpets but occasionally horns. Liberating them from this vestige of their military associations, Mozart combines the timpani with a string ensemble which – again a novelty – employs a solo quartet including viola and double bass. Not content with that, the number of movements is uncharacteristic of a Serenade, which normally could be expected to have at least half a dozen separate movements. The result is an attractive work of great character, instantly memorable for the intelligent transformation of the Divertimento style.

Foremost among the German-speaking musicians who – unlike Mozart – found lasting success in Paris was Christoph Willibald Gluck. Paradoxically, Gluck’s talent was nowhere near as marked as Mozart’s. Handel’s jibe that Gluck knew no more of counterpoint ‘than his cook’ identifies, in a typically exaggerated way, an essential point about Gluck’s music: though rarely ‘learned’, Gluck had an unerring sense of the value of simplicity and the balance between music and drama that makes much of his operatic output so attractive. Indeed, the enduring popularity of the dance music from Orfeo is a testament to this. Originally an Italian opera, Orfeo was revised with a French libretto for performance in Paris in 1774 and was a phenomenal success. It so pleased queen Marie Antoinette that she granted the composer an annual pension of 6000 livres.

We may conjecture that one of the more agreeable episodes of Mozart’s stay came when he renewed his acquaintance with John Christian Bach. Although resident in London, where Mozart had met him when a small boy, Bach maintained regular contact with the Parisian musical world and was visiting in 1778 to hear the singers for his new opera Amadis de Gaule. Consequently, Bach’s music was more widely known in Paris than its London origin might suggest, and so we conclude with one the more exuberant symphonies from his Opus 3 set. Curiously, Bach’s symphony bears uncanny resemblances in it peripheral details to that of St Georges. Might St Georges have used Bach as a model?


		Pittville Pump Room 2004-05 Season September 14 programme notes
		After a journey of several months, Mozart and his mother arrived in Paris on March 23^rd, 1778. They found there a city rich in musical culture. Although not all of it was to his taste, Wolfgang made strenuous efforts to integrate – and ingratiate – himself with the Parisian musical world, the ultimate goal being to find permanent employment. Quite what the musical milieu made of Mozart is difficult to gauge at a distance of more than 200 years; but tonight’s programme sets Mozart’s music in context, placing it alongside composers current in Paris in the 1770s. Born in Guadeloupe on Christmas day 1745, Joseph Bologne Chevalier de St Georges cut a unique figure amongst 18^th-century musicians. As the son of a French plantation owner and his slave mistress, he was throughout his life the subject of mild surprise and, on occasions, blatant discrimination as a ‘mulatto’ – a term we would understand today as ‘being of mixed race’. Taken to France at the age of eight, he was trained in the etiquette of Parisian life. He learnt how to fence, served as an officer in the French army, and took up the violin. In addition, he studied musical composition with the leading composers of the day, among them Gossec. In 1769, he became leader of Gossec’s orchestra, the Concert des Amateurs; and following his father’s death in 1774, an event which curtailed his annual stipend from the parental estate, he earned his living solely from music. St Georges made a significant contribution to Parisian musical life. He excelled as a violinist he was clearly something of a virtuoso. Most of his music was published during the 1770s - the Op 11 set, from which tonight’s symphony is taken, appeared in 1779 - and he made a special study of the particularly Parisian form, the Sinfonia Concertante. This hybrid, which adopts the outward form of the symphony while including solo parts for two or more instruments, was especially popular in France. Indeed, Mozart’s own Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola written on his return to Salzburg in 1779 owes a clear debt to St Georges; and his Concerto for Flute and Harp (K 299) likewise stands within this tradition. Mozart’s ‘concerto’ was one of the few orchestral pieces that he wrote while in Paris in 1778. The commission came from the Comte de Guines, a prominent amateur flautist who wished for a piece to play with his daughter. ‘Magnifique’ was Mozart’s assessment of her harp playing in a letter back to his father Leopold. The Comte, however, was by all accounts something of a rogue. A career diplomat, he had been recalled from service in Berlin on suspicion of financial impropriety, but had managed to secure another posting in London from where he returned in 1776. With such a record, it is perhaps unsurprising that de Guines never paid Mozart for the composition lessons given to his daughter, nor indeed for the Concerto. Given Mozart’s personal circumstances, it is surprising that the Concerto is as sunny as it is. Very little of the music, if any, betrays the fact that Mozart was deeply unhappy in Paris and that he despised the French musical world. Unsuccessful in his bid to find employment, he was reliant on incidental payments and not a small measure of goodwill to sustain him and his mother in the French capital. Events came to a head in mid-June when his mother fell ill; despite medical attention she died on 3 July. This was a tragedy for both Wolfgang and his father and strained their already stretched emotional and financial resources. Stuck in Salzburg, Leopold must have felt very much a helpless bystander when he learnt the distressing news. Geographically and culturally, Salzburg was far removed from the cosmopolitan world of Paris. And so, by way of contrast, we include in tonight’s programme a work which encapsulates something of that dichotomy. The Serenata Notturna was probably written for the Carnival season of 1776. Its scoring is unique. Throughout the 18^th century pairs of timpani were traditionally used to provide the bass to brass instruments – usually trumpets but occasionally horns. Liberating them from this vestige of their military associations, Mozart combines the timpani with a string ensemble which – again a novelty – employs a solo quartet including viola and double bass. Not content with that, the number of movements is uncharacteristic of a Serenade, which normally could be expected to have at least half a dozen separate movements. The result is an attractive work of great character, instantly memorable for the intelligent transformation of the Divertimento style. Foremost among the German-speaking musicians who – unlike Mozart – found lasting success in Paris was Christoph Willibald Gluck. Paradoxically, Gluck’s talent was nowhere near as marked as Mozart’s. Handel’s jibe that Gluck knew no more of counterpoint ‘than his cook’ identifies, in a typically exaggerated way, an essential point about Gluck’s music: though rarely ‘learned’, Gluck had an unerring sense of the value of simplicity and the balance between music and drama that makes much of his operatic output so attractive. Indeed, the enduring popularity of the dance music from Orfeo is a testament to this. Originally an Italian opera, Orfeo was revised with a French libretto for performance in Paris in 1774 and was a phenomenal success. It so pleased queen Marie Antoinette that she granted the composer an annual pension of 6000 livres. We may conjecture that one of the more agreeable episodes of Mozart’s stay came when he renewed his acquaintance with John Christian Bach. Although resident in London, where Mozart had met him when a small boy, Bach maintained regular contact with the Parisian musical world and was visiting in 1778 to hear the singers for his new opera Amadis de Gaule. Consequently, Bach’s music was more widely known in Paris than its London origin might suggest, and so we conclude with one the more exuberant symphonies from his Opus 3 set. Curiously, Bach’s symphony bears uncanny resemblances in it peripheral details to that of St Georges. Might St Georges have used Bach as a model? © Warwick Cole 2004