Mozart, master of drama: LMP with Danielle De Niese

Mozart ‘Overture’ from Don Giovanni, K.527

While in Prague in early 1787, attending and conducting performances of his most recently completed opera Le nozze di Figaro and concerts of several of his instrumental works, Mozart received a commission from Prague impresario Pasquale Bondini for a new opera, which was to be produced in Prague during October 1787. Mozart returned to Vienna and asked Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for Figaro, for another opera libretto. Don Giovanni became the second of three so-called opera buffa that Mozart would compose to a libretto by Da Ponte, the third of which, Così fan tutte, he would complete in early 1790. However, the opera is neither opera buffa nor opera seria, and so is known as dramma giocoso.

Da Ponte’s libretto shows the influence of Bertati’s libretto for Gazzaniga’s opera Convitato di pietra. The première of Don Giovanni took place to great public and critical acclaim in Prague on 29 October 1787. The Prague reception of Don Giovanni was more positive than that of the opera’s first Vienna performances in 1788, for which reviews suggested mild dissatisfaction with the work’s extended length and unnecessary plot elaborations.

Although the opera itself was completed before the première, the overture remained incomplete until the last moment. Legend has it that the night before the performance (or dress rehearsal) Mozart attended a party. On returning home, his wife kept him awake throughout the night with stories as he wrote down the notes to the overture, finally providing the score to copyists at 7 o‘clock the next morning. As Mozart’s compositional method most often involved completing a work in his head and then writing it down, and as he was a known procrastinator, the veracity of this story is quite believable.

Don Giovanni develops the legend of the rakish nobleman, Don Juan, his sidekick Leporello, the Don’s various conquests and other characters that weave in and out of the plot. The opening of the overture gives a premonition of Don Giovanni’s final fate. The ominous treading of the stone statue from the last scene of the opera is heard in the sombre opening section. What follows is nothing less than a magnificent mini-symphonic movement. The various musical motives create an ambivalent atmosphere directly related to the opera’s conflicted characters and themes. The original opera version of the overture leads directly into the action of Act I, but the concert version, with its concert ending, has understandably proved to be an immensely popular and fulfilling experience.

© Elizabeth Boulton

Mozart ‘In quali eccessi…Mi tradí quell’alma ingrata’ from Don Giovanni, K.527

Mozart Al desio, di chi t’adora K.577

Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro, first performed on 1 May 1786, was a tremendous success. Most arias had to be repeated, and the final applause was overwhelming. Nevertheless, the opera was withdrawn after the ninth performance in December 1786. Cosa Rara’by Martin y Soler, of which an excerpt is played by the wind octet at Don Giovanni’s supper, had proved more popular than Figaro because the opera made less demands on the performers and, above all, on the audience.

Figaro was revived in 1789. Nancy Storace, the original Susanna, was replaced by Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, a friend of the librettist da Ponte. Susanna’s exquisite Deh, vieni was not spectacular enough for the new singer, and Mozart agreed to write a new work for her (a note in the printed score wrongly attributes this aria to the Countess). Al desiodi chi t’adora, written in July 1789, followed the recitative which preceded Susanna’s discarded Deh vieni and made no sense at all. But a Primadonna, as Mozart knew has to be satisfied, and the majority of the audience was, in any case, more interested in the star singers than in the dramatic logic of the opera. Mozart scored the new aria for bassoons, horns, strings and two basset horns. The latter did not appear anywhere else in Figaro, but their parts were presumably taken over by the clarinet players.

The aria begins with a larghetto in which the soprano calls for the return of her lover, recalling his former promises. In the following allegro she expresses her inability to resist the ‘burning ardour’ of love and asks those who have had similar experiences to commiserate with her.

© Stefan de Haan

Mozart Ballet Music from Idomeneo, K.367

Two days after Mozart’s twenty-fifth birthday, on 29th January 1781, Idomeneo was first performed in Munich. The opera had been commissioned by the Duke Elector Karl Theodor who had moved to Munich together with his court and the then famous Mannheim Orchestra. Mozart received the commission about four months before the first performance and set to work at great speed. The tragic story of Idomeneo, King of Crete, who had vowed to sacrifice the first person he met if he returned home safely and found that it was his son Idamante, had already been used in 1712 as the plot for an opera by Campra. It was adapted by Varesco to suit the requirements of the late eighteenth century: the original five acts were reduced to three and the intensity of the dramatic tension was increased.

When Mozart came to Munich in November 1780 to supervise the rehearsals and complete the opera he knew that he could count on the co-operation of his many friends involved in the staging of the work, among them, above all, the distinguished wind players of the orchestra. He knew them well from his visits to Mannheim, and their musicianship and virtuosity influenced his scoring considerably. It is curious that none of the contemporary reports say much about the music, particularly since the Duke Elector had shown his satisfaction by saying: “I was quite surprised. No other music has had this effect on me. It is magnificent music – hard to imagine that such great music could come from such a little man!”

The Ballet Music was probably written last, at any rate not before January 1781. It consists of two movements, each with variations, mainly for the solo dancers of the Munich opera whose names appear in the original score. These names are mostly French, and so is the form of the dances, while the idiom is truly Mozartian. The two movements are Chaconne and Pas seul (Largo)-Allegro.

© Stefan de Haan

Mozart ‘L’amerò sarò costante’ from Il re pastore, K.208

Mozart composed the opera Il re pastore in 1775. An opera seria commissioned for a visit of Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa, to Salzburg, it was premiered on April 23 at the Palace of the Archbishop Count Heironymus von Colloredo. The libretto of the opera, by Metastasio, was written in 1751 and had already been set by the Italian composer Felice Giardini as a three-act opera. Mozart’s two-act version has only a few major changes from Metastasio’s original libretto.

Aminta, a shepherd and unknowingly the rightful heir to Sidon, professes his love for Elisa and that the ongoing war between the tyrant Stratone and King Alessandro of Macedonia will not affect their love. Once Stratone is disposed, King Alessandro begins searching for the rightful heir to the throne. While Elisa receives permission from her father to marry Aminta, Aminta learns that he is the rightful heir from Agenore, an aristocrat. Alessandro tells Aminta that when he becomes king, his royal duties come before love and, despite his love for Elisa, Alessandro advises him to he marry Stratone’s daughter, Tamiri, in order to ascend the throne. Everyone but Alessandro is distraught by the planned marriage. Tamiri confronts Alessandro stating she loves Agenore and she and Elisa both place themselves at his mercy. Realizing that he was about to separate two pairs of lovers, Alessandro tells Aminta to marry Elisa and Agenore to marry Tamiri. At the conclusion, Aminta is crowned king.

“L’amerò sarò costante,” from Act II, is one of the opera’s notable arias and is sung by Aminta when Elisa pleads with Alessandro to let her marry Aminta. Cast as a duet between Aminta (a castrato part) and a solo violin, the aria opens with a short introduction for the orchestra and solo violin. The violin never intrudes upon the vocal line and contents itself with filling in the spaces between the vocalist’s phrases. In triple time and an Andantino tempo, the aria is a beautiful affirmation of devotion to a loved one.  

© Joseph DuBose

Mozart ‘Parto, parto, ma tu ben mio’ from La Clemenza di Tito, K.621

The opera La Clemenza di Tito was commissioned for 6th September 1791, the day when the Austrian Emperor was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague. The libretto of this opera seria in the old style was based on a text by the then famous poet Metastasio and written by Caterino Mazzolà. Mozart had barely a month to compose the music and was unable to identify himself with the subject or discuss it with the librettist. These circumstances and his deteriorating health (he died three months after the first performance of the opera) prevented him from being as much involved in the composition of this work as he had been in that of the slightly earlier Magic Flute. The subject of clemency was indeed close to his heart but not the sumptuous presentation of it which the occasion and the libretto demanded. Nevertheless, Mozart composed a number of remarkable scenes for ‘Tito’, among them the aria ‘Parto, parto’.

This Passionate composition is, in fact, a duet between the voice and the clarinet. The instrumental part was probably played at the first performance by Anton Stadler for whom Mozart also wrote his Clarinet Concerto. Stadler’s instrument had an extension which enabled him to play low notes beyond the range of the ordinary clarinet. These notes had to be transposed for the conventional instrument but the virtuosity required for the clarinet part, which rivals with that of the voice, is not affected by these slight alterations.

© Anon.

Mozart ‘Symphony No.40 in G minor, K.50

I           Molto Allegro

II          Andante

III         Menuetto: Allegretto

IV         Finale: Allegro assai

By the summer of 1788, Mozart was no longer a novelty in Vienna. After seven years of living there, he still had no court appointment commensurate with his needs and abilities, and money was increasingly difficult to find. It was under these strained circumstances that Mozart composed the three symphonies that would define the shape of the symphonic form for the next century: No. 39 on June 26, No. 40 on July 25 and No. 41 (Jupiter) on August 10.

Entire books, hundreds of book chapters and articles, and thousands of programme notes have been written about these symphonies. Symphony No. 40 has long been considered a manifestation of Mozart’s most personal voice, full of passion and seriousness. The symphony’s characteristic richness is accented by Mozart’s ingenious use of two horns pitched in two different keys, both of them high. This doubled the normal number of notes possible in his time on the limited scale of the horn, enabling the horns to contribute to the harmony instead of being silent.

The symphony opens with an intensely restless and dramatic theme on the strings, which leads to a gentler second theme, shared with the wind. The central development traces the opening figure through various keys, introducing a strongly contrapuntal element. The recapitulation is reached through a descending woodwind sequence, with the second theme now assuming particular poignancy in the minor key.

The Andante, in E flat, opens contrapuntally with successive entries. Despite the major key, an elegant pathos is created by the dissonance and the persistent underpinning of rhythmic repeated notes. The Minuet contains yet more counterpoint, with an accumulation of voices that sound adversarial, with rhythms askew in a rather dark setting. The tranquility of the Trio is shattered by the return of the Minuet.

The Finale’s opening, ‘Mannheim rocket’ (an ascending arpeggio figure), reverses the usual loud–soft dynamics by answering quiet with force. The movement’s already tenuous sense of tonality is shaken even further when it modulates from G minor to C sharp minor – the most distant key.

As many commentators have noted, this work is without peer in its clarity and balance. It is emotionally charged but never stormy. The relentless rhythm propels, but does not force, the flow. Daring harmonies make an appearance, but, within its classical framework, Mozart gently leads the way to the overt musical emotional expressions to come in the next century.

© Elizabeth Boulton