Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(born: January 27, 1756 in Salzburg; died: December 5, 1791 in Vienna)

Under the strict guidance of his father, Mozart began his precocious young musical life as a pianist and violinist. He composed 5 solo violin concertos before the age of 19 and 27 solo piano concertos up until the final year of his life. These instrumental concertos are still widely performed today. The piano concertos especially served as vehicles for his own  performance and display of virtuosity as an adult pianist. The 27 piano concertos illustrate both Mozart’s mastery of form and compositional innovation. Taken as a whole the piano concertos and especially the later ones were significant developments in the growth of the concerto form as an important genre for concert music. The piano concertos were extremely influential on his contemporaries and Early Romantic composers like Beethoven who took Mozart as a direct model for his own expression in the concerto form.

The Piano Concerto No. 17 K. 453 in G Major is a work of order brilliance. It is Mozart’s only piano concerto in the key of G Major, which is interesting in his set of 27. As was the case with some of his works the concerto was initially written for one of Mozart’s students, Barbara von Ployer in the year 1784. It was one of the few piano concertos to be published during Mozart’s lifetime.    

Concerto No. 17 is composed in the standard three movement form. The first movement Allegro is set in Sonata-Allegro form and begins simply with the first violins stating the theme. There then follows a fleshed out orchestral exposition which as standard practice.

The solo piano enters after a brief flourish with a restatement of the 1st theme. The movement then progresses showcasing motives and creative interplay between soloist and orchestra. A special note about this concerto is Mozart’s use of solo wind instrument as he writes rather prominent figures often interlaced in dialogue with the piano. The second movement Andante is composed in the related sub-dominant key of C major and is full of a graceful, thoughtful and charming inward expression. Again, the orchestra plays first and the piano enters in bar 30 after a full orchestral passages. There are dramatic shifts in both musical dynamics and changes of key.  The final movement marked Allegretto/Presto Finale is set to a rather simplistic tune. This tune is set in a series of simple variation repetitions gaining more and more rhythmic complexity as they proceed. The final presto is again built upon this theme but is expressed in a quicker fanfare-like motive bringing the concerto to a satisfying conclusion.

This third movement theme is said to have derived from bird song, specifically Mozart’s pet Starling. Apparently Mozart taught the bird to sing this tune and the Starling complied. Mozart took great pleasure in this bird who was with the Mozart family for a number of years. When the beloved starling died in 1787 Mozart buried it in his garden with formality. Apparently the mourners were asked to sing the tune to text written by Mozart! 

Ludwig van Beethoven

(born: December 16, 1770 in Bonn;  died: March 26, 1827 in Vienna)

The events of Beethoven's life are the stuff of Romantic legend, evoking images of the solitary creator shaking his fist at Fate and finally overcoming it through a supreme effort of creative will. Born in the small German city of Bonn on or around December 16, 1770, he received his early training from his father and other local musicians. As a teenager, he earned some money as an assistant to his teacher, Neefe, then was granted half of his father's salary as court musician from the Electorate of Cologne in order to care for his two younger brothers as his father gave in to alcoholism. Beethoven played viola in various orchestras and began taking on composition commissions. As a member of the court chapel orchestra, he was able to travel some and meet members of the nobility, one among them Count Waldstein, who would become a great friend and patron to him.

Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792 to study with Haydn; despite the prickliness of their relationship, Haydn's concise humor helped form Beethoven's early style. His subsequent teachers in composition in Vienna were Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri. In 1794, he began his career in earnest as a pianist and composer, taking advantage whenever he could of the patronage of others. Around 1800, Beethoven began to notice his gradually encroaching deafness. His growing despondency only intensified his antisocial tendencies. However, the Symphony No. 3, "Eroica," of 1803 began a sustained period of groundbreaking creative triumph. In later years, Beethoven was plagued by personal difficulties, including a series of failed romances and a nasty custody battle over a nephew, Karl. Yet after a long period of comparative compositional inactivity lasting from about 1811 to 1817, his creative imagination triumphed once again over his troubles. Beethoven's late works, the Ninth Symphony, Missa Solemnis and especially the last five of his 16 string quartets and the last four of his 32 piano sonatas, have an ecstatic spiritual quality in which many have found a mystical significance. Beethoven died in Vienna on March 26, 1827.

Beethoven's epochal career is often divided into early, middle, and late periods, represented, respectively, by works based on Classic-period models, by revolutionary pieces that expanded the vocabulary of music, and by compositions written in a unique, highly personal musical language incorporating elements of contrapuntal and variation writing while approaching large-scale forms with complete freedom. Though certainly subject to debate, these divisions point to the immense depth and multifariousness of Beethoven's creative personality. Beethoven profoundly transformed every genre he touched, and the music of the nineteenth century seems to grow from his compositions as if from a chrysalis. A formidable pianist, he moved the piano sonata from the drawing room to the concert hall with such ambitious and virtuosic middle-period works as the "Waldstein" and "Appassionata" piano sonatas. His song cycle An die ferne Geliebte of 1816 set the pattern for similar cycles by all the Romantic song composers, from Schubert to Wolf. The Romantic tradition of descriptive or "program" music began with Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony No. 6. Even in the second half of the nineteenth century, Beethoven still directly inspired both conservatives such as Brahms, who, like Beethoven, fundamentally stayed within the confines of Classical form and radicals such as Wagner, who viewed the Ninth Symphony as a harbinger of his own vision of a total art work, integrating vocal and instrumental music with the other arts. In many ways revolutionary, Beethoven's music was essentially one of the main drivers of the Romantic Era and remains universally appealing because of its architectural integrity,  characteristic humanism and dramatic power.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 9 in D minor Op. 125 “Choral”

Premiered May 7, 1824, Vienna Austria

On May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven experienced what must certainly have been the greatest public triumph of his career. The audience, which gathered at the Hoftheater heard not only the abridged local premiere of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis (the Kyrie, Credo, and Gloria were given) and Op. 124 Overture, but also the first performance of the composer's 'Choral' Symphony. The event was a rousing success; indeed, one of the most moving accounts of Beethoven's final years describes how the profoundly deaf composer, unable to hear the colossal response of his admirers, had to be turned around by one of the soloists so that he could see the hundreds of clapping hands!

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 started life as two separate works—a symphony with a choral finale, and a purely instrumental work in D minor. He labored on these sporadically for almost 10 years before finally deciding (in 1822) to combine the two ideas into one symphony, with Friedrich von Schiller's Ode An die freude (Ode to Joy) a text he had contemplated setting for a number of years—as the finale.

The finished work is of visionary scope and proportions, and represents the apogee of technical difficulty in its day. There are passages, notably a horn solo in the slow movement, which would have been almost impossible to play on the transitional valve-less brass instruments of Beethoven's time. The Ninth also personifies the musical duality that was to become the nineteenth century—the conflict between the Classic and Romantic, the old and new. The radically different styles of Brahms and Liszt, for instance, both had their precedents in this work. On one hand, there was the search for a broader vocabulary (especially in terms of harmony and rhythm) within the eighteenth century framework; on the other, true Romanticism, embracing the imperfect, the unattainable, the personal and the extreme—qualities that violate the very nature of Classicism. When viewed individually, the first three movements still have their roots distinctly in the eighteenth century, while the fourth—rhapsodic, and imbued with poetic meaning—seems to explode from that mold, drawing the entire work into the realm of program music, a defining concept of musical Romanticism

To fully appreciate the all-encompassing nature of the Ninth Symphony, one can look into the three periods of Beethoven's compositional career; since the work is a collaboration between these styles, resulting in a new all-encompassing language that is both high art and low. His idea to use the poem “Ode to Joy” came from his long desire to set it to music, which developed during his early period, when he was very interested in the writings of various philosophers. The first and second movements, and even parts of the fourth movement of the Ninth have echoes of his middle period, his "heroic" era. The third, fifth, and seventh symphonies were composed during this period. The third symphony, “Eroica” embraced the heroic ideals of the French Revolution. The great difference between this powerful middle or “heroic” era and his late period was quite dramatic. The sudden change in style was mainly due to his deteriorating hearing loss, which directly caused his compositions to lose the power of his second period. All these factors contributed to the new style: a more quiet, abstract, spiritualized and introspective Beethoven. Essentially, only the third movement Adagio truly encompasses the stylistic nuances of Beethoven's late period as a supreme example of Beethoven’s contemplative spirituality.

The fascinating first movement Allegro presents an embryonic cell motive of an open 5th interval that seems to emerge from a cosmic nothingness. This gradually emerging musical idea is ultimately amplified and developed into one of the most monumental and startling of all Beethoven’s orchestral sonata-allegro forms, a projected and stylistic thematic commentary derived from existing classical styles, antiphonal and polyphonic gestures from the late baroque (Bach and Handel influenced), and an emerging modern lyrical yearning Romantic style. This music with seemingly endless development and emotionally expressive possibilities will be a cue to the next generation of composers from Berlioz, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler.   

A parody of the first movement, the second movement Scherzo does not take its time to emerge. It communicates its energy immediately through irregular emphatic motivic downbeats and use of staggered rhythm, staccato, and declamatory timpani strikes. On a technical note, the Scherzo opens with a falling fifth just like the first movement, then transforms into a legato, then plunges a full octave. The scherzo runs along interrupted until it is interrupted by brief slow interludes by the strings; the scherzo manages to overpower them initially, but then a trio takes over. The trio offers a relief, with a change in timbre. It consists of variations on a folk-like tune. Then the scherzo enters with a grand re-entrance.

The theme and variation Adagio movement, full ethereal praise and melancholy, is a striking contrast to the energetic sardonic scherzo and trio. Dominated by the winds, the melody of the Adagio movement in B Flat Major is truly the product of Beethoven's late period. Echoes of the first movement can be heard here. As the melody becomes freer, the strings softly accompany using pizzicato, setting up an almost ethereal aura. The melody progresses even more, increasing in volume, and when it seems that it is ending, a loud fanfare intrudes in E Flat Major, the key of “Eroica” Symphony.

A dramatic transition happens between the third and final movement. Beginning with an outraged flurry of instruments (a dissonant harmony of Bb major and D minor triads). Immediately, the cellos and basses state a dramatic instrumental recitative. Then, in succession, themes from the three prior movements are quoted remembered, but these memories are quickly interrupted by the recitatives of the basses and cellos. Finally, a new theme emerges (Ode to Joy theme) from the orchestra, now hesitant because of what happened previously. Eventually other instruments join in, which lead to a triumphant statement in D Major. When all seems to culminate in an expected triumphal cadence Beethoven restates the original dissonant confrontation from the opening of the movement. This time, though, the dramatic recitative of the cello and basses is replaced with real recitative – the human voice; in this case, a solo baritone voice. Then the exquisite choral-orchestral exposition on Schiller's Ode to Joy engages in four stanzas. A variation, also known as the Turkish March variation, is indeed a Turkish March, taking its lead from the words Lauftet, Bruder, eure Bahn, Freudig wie ein Held zum Siegman, translating to Hasten, Brothers, like a hero marching to victory (there are several different, but similar translations). This march then leads to a long orchestral interlude, then to a fugue on two themes. This leads to a an overpowering full orchestral-choral development. A display of the male and female choruses is sung in an almost meditative, prayer-like way, starting from Seid umschlungen Millionen!, or Be embraced, all ye millions…

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony represents the supreme culmination to the composer's historically impactful symphonic body of work, a collection of great works that is still unmatched in its scope, seminal ingenuity and communicative properties. Now, 200 years later Beethoven’s music, and especially the Ninth Symphony remains a pillar of the modern symphonic repertoire and a cultural treasure for all human civilization.