A slightly lighter week (for my brain) for Blog 15 this week, but a wonderful piece of music all the same.  I mentioned in my earlier Blog No.6 about my ‘Road to Damascus’ moment when Mozart suddenly ‘clicked’ for me whilst listening to the end of The Marriage of Figaro.  Someone sent me a ‘lockdown/up’ message a few weeks ago asking for something on the viola.  This will be no viola joke.  I have written about his wonderful piano concertos and would say again that they represent the pinnacle of his orchestral writing.  There are one or two other concertos which occupy the same high ground, including the well-known Clarinet Concerto, and another being my selected work for this week.

Mozart:  Sinfonia Concertante in E flat for Violin and Viola, K364.

Mozart had made two early extended journeys his lifetime, the first as a child with his family between 1763 and 1766, which included a stay in London, where he dazzled with his youthful virtuosity and early genius, promoted strongly by his father Leopold.  The second in 1776-1778 took him to Paris, and on the way home to Munich, Augsburg and Mannheim.  He had mixed fortunes in trying to get his music performed and find employment, but Mannheim was ruled by a cultured prince who had created the finest orchestra in Europe.  Its name also goes to the development of new orchestral features, mainly established by Carl Stamitz in the mid-18th century.  These included the ‘Mannheim crescendo’ which involved the whole orchestra, and a phenomenon known as the ‘Mannheim rocket’, where an orchestral work would begin at high tempo and shoot up in the opening bars through two octaves.  Dynamism for its own end had become an important aspect of performance.  The influence of the Mannheim school spread to other composers including Haydn and Mozart, and from them on to Beethoven.  It’s not easy to imagine Beethoven without crescendos.  One further significant feature in Mannheim was the enhanced use of woodwind instruments, something which was to inspire Mozart in his operas and piano concertos where they became an integral part of the orchestral texture.

The term Sinfonia Concertante had been around for some time, including at Mannheim.  Its origins date back to the concerto grosso (groups of soloists, as distinct from a single instrument, interchanging with larger groups).  Haydn used the term Sinfonia Concertante, and Mozart heard similarly-titled works in Paris.  He wrote this work on his return to Salzburg, though for whom and for which occasion is not known.  Mozart was 23, and it is conspicuously one of his most accomplished compositions, predating the very great works of his full maturity, but standing alongside them in its scope of expression and depth.  It is in a class of its own, far surpassing similarly-titled works of other composers. The title seems to be more historic than indicative. The soloists sometimes play together, and at other times one instrument might start a phrase or short section which is then answered by the other. It is effectively a concerto for the combination of violin and viola soloists, and hardly more (or less) symphonic than were the great piano concertos which followed. The solo viola was tuned up a semitone to make the sound a little brighter and complement more the sound of the violin.  This technique known as ‘scordatura’ goes back in time and is brilliantly explained and demonstrated by Andrew Manze in this YouTube clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysx0zG-TAkk

Mozart, accordingly, in his Sinfonia Concertante wrote the viola part down a semitone in D major so that it sounds in E flat.  This process also made life easier for the violist, offering more open string possibilities when it came to playing chords.  Unusually, the orchestral violas are divided into two parts, as with the violins, probably as a balance with a solo viola.

The Mannheim influence is evident from the start.  I want to lead you here, step by step, to the great ‘Mannheim moment’ in the first movement. It opens boldly with chords on the tonic E flat major in a rhythm which Stamitz had used in earlier times.  The first two chords marked sforzato piano – a strong accent and then quiet, are followed by arpeggios. A second and more lyrical answering idea gives way to the energetic third, mainly in the strings, and then a fourth played on the two horns with some pizzicato strings alternately softly then loud (Mannheim-ish for sure).  Then follows the big moment, consisting of a phrase starting with trills in the first violins, joined by the 2nd violins after four bars, and climbing in step up two octaves building with a long crescendo to a climax of joy and telling splendour, after which the music slowly falls down in a syncopated and more relaxed finish.  For its time this is a remarkable and impressive event, and unusual even for Mozart.

The solo instruments then enter (creeping in behind the curtain) and the subsequent passages in the score are marked either solo or tutti. The orchestra numbers would reduce during the solo passages to avoid covering up their sound, at times changing for only a single bar.  The movement evolves combining the opening with solo passagework moving away from the tonic key.  The final ‘Recapitulation’ section brings us back home to E flat, and as Mozart later refined in the piano concertos, amalgamates music from the orchestral opening section with earlier solo passages.  This culminates in the busy and strong final tutti before the cadenza.  Almost all cadenzas in history are introduced with the same 2nd inversion chord on the tonic, its unsettling nature only resolving at the end of the cadenza with the dominant chord leading on to the tonic. I will not go into more detail on that but the three chords played in succession sound like an ‘Amen’.  This cadenza is a fascinating and close-knit engagement between the two soloists, and written by Mozart himself. 

Mozart does not repeat his jokes.  The ‘Mannheim crescendo’ is not played again.  After the cadenza the music picks up immediately with the music from where the earlier crescendo originally ended, and brings the movement to a lively conclusion.

The second movement is one of Mozart’s gems, and a thing of great lyrical and spiritual beauty.  The orchestra introduces the first theme in C minor (the ‘relative minor to E flat major’, as all you music theory experts know!), and after eight bars the soloists take over in another affectionate conversation with some subtle and bitter-sweet chromaticism, returning after a few diversions to E flat.  Mozart then works his magic with searingly sad melodies in the major key, enhanced as always by his harmony.  After an orchestral burst from the strings, the agony continues with four wonderful concluding bars which pile on the intensity.  Not bad for a man of 23.    The second half of the movement reworks and elaborates on the earlier music moving back to C minor.  Adding an entirely personal comment here, but I get more from the major version than from the minor.  The cadenza (again by Mozart) is set up in the same way as in the first movement and the final section in C minor plays itself out, beginning with the four earlier concluding bars I mentioned above.

It is too simplistic, but perhaps for the majority of composers, minor meant sad and major, happy.  In Mozart’s great opera The Marriage of Figaro, the andante septet near the very end, and the Contessa’s two great tragic arias (Porgi amor and Dove sono), further illustrate his most penetrating writing in the major tonality.  The same for the Recordare of the Requiem, in F major.  Mozart knew he was turning the screws on us and could surpass anyone in doing so.  Maybe the major key writing in this Sinfonia Concertante is more tantalisingly poignant where the minor is more desolate.

The finale is quick and light-heartedly boisterous, full of quality and invention, the two soloists chasing each other around like cats before then lying down together.  Again, the opening is orchestral, the soloists only entering after 80 bars.  In spirit it is typical of the times when instrumental music in general had to satisfy wealthy society and conclude with a smile.  This is Mozart though, and the content is full of humour, sometimes dark but always showing extraordinary refinement and versatility.  The erudition of such complexity is always subtle and without overt intrusion, though I feel Mozart is sometimes winking at us with his cleverness!

Mozart had broken free from the miserable years he spent in the employment of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.  Most composers relied on rich patrons, but their rank in such households was usually that of a servant.  Mozart was poorly paid.  He was eventually dismissed after vain attempts to leave, and though he sought other posts, his hope was to prosper primarily as a composer in Vienna. He was also one of the finest pianists of his day and between 1782 and 1785 frequently performed his piano concertos, producing new ones each year.  There were commissions and periods of success, but the struggles of freelance life produced as many extreme challenges, though different, as had faced him when in service in Salzburg. 

Mozart met and became friends with Haydn.  He dedicated six string quartets to him which they occasionally played in together.  Haydn fully recognised his talent and is reputed to have told Mozart’s father, Leopold: ‘As an honest man and before God, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute.  He has taste and what is more, the greatest skill in composition.’  I agree.

Sinfonia Concertante is a shining early example of that prodigious talent and has no rivals of the same name.  There is much music by other composers which ‘sounds’ like Mozart, but one does not have to dig too deeply to appreciate that what Mozart left us hugely outshines the output of his contemporaries on every level, the only near rival being Haydn. Great as Haydn was, I might suggest he is the Wise to Mozart’s Morecambe.  Haydn was establishing himself as the leading composer of the 18th century.  Then Mozart came along…..and then Beethoven!

There are two recordings on Youtube….the first with this youthful performance which occasionally needs to settle slightly, but is captivating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAv48Ne5axA

The second with Barenboim conducting, sound quality not the best and a rather more old-fashioned performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0hTDZ0whpU

A third performance with Perlman and Zukerman is even more old-fashioned and the sound not too good.

If you have Spotify, then I think I plump for Abbado conducting the Berlin Philharmonic with Rainer Mussmaul and Wolfram Christ, mainly for the more held tempo of the slow movement.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5aNYr5XIxJm6Uj1uwbmgrz?si=SUMHOdWVQRSaxq84v8hUKQ
https://open.spotify.com/track/5IPM3VwuhtznGu7uNSyxKp?si=lDsOeJXdTx2_00nrENCqtg
https://open.spotify.com/track/7imLGBqcWG4QaUsTS5EuYf?si=fh3Rf8HoSK6-V6o1epTWow

or the whole album with other music as well
https://open.spotify.com/album/78vahHFuRrfqLvCMpic3eo?si=cQzHGg3tS0Cv6u5Y_e5s0A

The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra with Iona Brown with Lars Anders Tomter was top recommendation in Gramophone Magazine in 2016, but I find the slow movement a bit quick and unsettled.  That said, it is a fresher and more robust performance and many will prefer it for its character.

https://open.spotify.com/album/6tYghs4eQgiCEIeY9sccra?si=FpDgG06ZTVOcgCQb-NnfCA
https://open.spotify.com/track/7xpRnhwTFDjYWP24fEm2Ul?si=JuKvi5YMTGuXjoZK_oGNlA
https://open.spotify.com/track/7kHXAqYEmWrnUudDEs5QPm?si=8ExtyruSPmkqDNAEXgvvg

This is another truly outstanding work and I hope you enjoy listening to it if you don’t know it.  I have conducted it a few times, and always admired it greatly.  Revisiting and thinking more about it has strengthened my appreciation.