Johann Sebastian Bach
Suite for Orchestra in D major No. 3, BWV 1068Composition dates for Johann Sebastian Bach’s orchestral suites are difficult to determine, because none of original scores survive. During his lifetime, Bach held several positions as music director for ensembles in Weimar, Cöthen, and Leipzig. In the 18th century, it was standard practice for employers to retain a composer’s manuscripts when that composer moved on to another post. It is also possible that the music disappeared after Bach died and his heirs inherited his manuscripts.The Bach Werke Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalog, or BWV), catalogs Bach’s music according to genre. Grouping the four suites together could give the impression that all were written at the same time, or that Bach intended them to be performed together. However, scholars believe Nos. 1 and 4 are earlier works, probably composed while Bach worked in Cöthen, while No. 3 is likely from 1731, and No. 2 from Bach’s time in Leipzig.
All four suites, which Bach referred to as Overtures, share similar features. They begin with an overture in French Baroque style, characterized by robust dotted rhythms and glittering majesty. The rest of the suite consists of French Baroque court dances in contrasting meters, such as bourrées, gavottes, and gigues. Bach juxtaposes the more moderately paced dances, such as the courante, menuet, and forlane – with their livelier counterparts: bourrée, gigue, and gavotte.
Listeners will recognize the second movement of Suite No. 3, which has permeated popular culture via films and TV commercials for decades. It is popularly known as “Air on the G String,” thanks to an arrangement made by 19th-century violinist August Wilhelmj for violin and piano. Wilhelmj’s version allows the theme to be played exclusively on the violin’s lowest string, which is tuned to G.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216 “Strassburg”
When we think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performing, we tend to imagine him seated at a keyboard. Mozart wrote nearly 30 concertos for piano, but also penned concertos for other solo instruments, including five for violin. We know less about Mozart’s violin concertos than those for piano – particularly why and for whom they were written. Mozart wrote most of his piano concertos as performance vehicles for himself. The same may be true of the violin concertos, as Mozart was a first-rate violinist, thanks to the influence of his father Leopold. In his time, Leopold Mozart had a reputation as a skilled violinist and violin teacher; his treatise on violin pedagogy is still in print.
As a young boy, Mozart traveled all over Europe as Leopold showed off his son’s virtuosity on both violin and keyboard. During his tours, Mozart also absorbed Italian musical style, with its emphasis on lyricism and bravura technique. Both qualities infuse Mozart’s violin concertos. Biographer Maynard Solomon describes them as the composer’s “serenade style … a youthful music of yearning but not of grief, imbued with an innocent utopianism, a faith in perfectibility, beauty, and sensual fulfillment.”
The opening Allegro features a melody Mozart wrote for his opera Il rè pastore (The Shepherd King), first performed in Salzburg the spring of 1775. Mozart’s use of this tune in two contemporaneous compositions – one staged and sung, the other using only instruments – lends a theatrical dimension to the concerto, recasting the soloist as the star of an unfolding drama. Continuing the analogy, the Adagio’s expressive melody becomes a wordless aria for the solo violin, as winds provide an understated accompaniment. In the concluding movement, Mozart showcases a Hungarian melody known as the “Strassburger.” This tune features an odd meter shift – from 3/8 to 2/2 – and a corresponding alternation from G minor to G major. With these quick changes of rhythm and key, Mozart brings his third concerto to a lively conclusion.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Suite for Orchestra No. 4, Op. 61 “Mozartiana”
“Mozart I love as the musical Christ. I think that there is nothing sacrilegious in this comparison. Mozart was a being so angelic, so childlike, so pure; his music is so full of unapproachable, divine beauty, that if anyone could be named with Christ, then it is he.” – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Of his four orchestral suites, the last is the only one Tchaikovsky did not actually “compose.” Suite No. 4 consists of arrangements Tchaikovsky made in the summer of 1887, of several short excerpts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The first two movements are lesser-known piano pieces, while the third is an arrangement of an arrangement: Tchaikovsky used Liszt’s piano transcription of Mozart’s four-part choral anthem, Ave verum corpus. The final movement is the most substantial, and the most meta: ten variations on variations Mozart himself created, based on a melody from a Gluck operetta.
In the published score for “Mozartiana,” Tchaikovsky wrote: “A large number of admirable small compositions of Mozart are, incomprehensibly enough, practically unknown, not only to the public but also to musicians. The author of the present suite desires to give a new impulse to the performance of these little masterpieces which, in spite of their concise form, present incomparable beauties.”
The first movement, an arrangement of Mozart’s lively Gigue in G, K. 574, features a lilting melody for strings. This effervescent music gives way to the Menuet in D, K. 355. The graceful quality of the dance combines the sparkling quality of the Gigue with a more reflective, pensive mood. Once again the strings are featured, with occasional flashes of winds. The angelic, religious nature of the third movement Ave verum corpus features high strings and harp, with gentle contrasting phrases in the winds. In the final movement, Tchaikovsky orchestrates Mozart’s ten variations on the melody “Unser dummer Pöbel meint,” (Our foolish rabble thinks), from Gluck’s operetta, The Pilgrims of Mekka. The opening theme is presented simply, with strings and winds alternating phrases, before Tchaikovsky (and Mozart) unleash a whirlwind of inventive variations that explore different orchestral colors and harmonies. One of the variations spotlights a solo violin executing a series of virtuoso passages that ornament Gluck’s original melody almost beyond recognition, while another features several woodwinds in a playful variation of their own.
© Elizabeth Schwartz. All rights reserved.
NOTE: These program notes are published by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for its patrons and other interested readers. Any other use is forbidden without specific permission from the author, who may be contacted at http://classicalmusicprogramnotes.com.
Elizabeth Schwartz is a musician, writer, and music historian based in Portland, OR. She has been a program annotator for more than 25 years, and writes for ensembles and festivals across the United States and around the world. Ms. Schwartz has also contributed to NPR’s “Performance Today,” (now heard on American Public Media). http://classicalmusicprogramnotes.com
