Overture Magazine 2013-2014 January-February 2014 | Page 29

Program Notes } earlier: the wonderful minor-mode march. This builds into one of Mozart’s greatest developments in which feisty woodwinds collaborate on equal terms with the piano in ingenious contrapuntal play. Indeed, throughout this concerto orchestra and soloist are absolutely equal partners, participating in a fascinating, ever-changing relationship. For the slow movement, the orchestra creates an atmosphere of silvery nocturnal serenity much like the final act of Figaro. One can almost see Figaro’s characters creeping through the shadows of a darkened formal garden, their whispered plots wafting through the air. The piano slips in gently to add to the spell. Listen to the gorgeous woodwind parts — flutes, oboes, bassoon, horns — weaving their magic along with the soloist. Earlier in 1786, Mozart had revised his 1781 opera Idomeneo for its Viennese premiere. So it’s not surprising that he borrowed a melody from its ballet music to become the appealing repeated-note refrain for his rondo-form finale. However, it is surprising that the orchestra, rather than the soloist, introduces this theme. As trumpets and timpani enter, this refrain takes on a grandeur we wouldn’t expect from its modest opening. The finale’s dramatic, harmonically questing middle episode brings a beautiful surprise: a rapturous Mozartean melody sung by the piano and woodwind soloists that is perhaps the concerto’s most sublime moment. Throughout, the piano part manages to be both subtly eloquent and brilliantly showy: a supreme demonstration of Mozart’s art as both creator and performer. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart literature. Only the viola and cello and the brass instruments were excluded. But the woodwinds, including their honorary brass member the French horn, were richly endowed with four horn concertos, two concertos for flute, and one each for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. The Bassoon Concerto is the earliest of these, dating from June 1774 when Mozart was only 18. We have no record of whom or for what occasion it was written, but it was undoubtedly for performance at Archbishop Hieronymous Colloredo’s court where Mozart had been serving since 1773. These were the most frustrating years of Mozart’s life, and he was already yearning for greener pastures in which to exercise his talents. His years as a touring child prodigy regaling the crowned heads of Europe were over, and a trip with his father to Vienna the previous fall had failed to land him a position. Mozart would not escape Salzburg for Vienna until he was 25. Although not aiming at profundity, the Bassoon Concerto is a charming and accomplished showpiece for the basso of the wind section. Mozart sets off his dark-toned soloist with a bright orchestra of strings, oboes, and horns playing in high register to clear them out of