Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season September-October 2015 | Page 31

program notes {
and it was likely premiered in London in
the winter of 1765.
In three movements and the key of
E-flat Major (a favorite key of the mature
Mozart), Symphony No. 1 faithfully
mirrors the style of older composers of
this period while exuding the high spirits
of a little boy with the world at his feet.
Its brisk, chirpy first movement shows a
fondness for stormy string tremolos. The
slow movement has a marvelous nocturnal
atmosphere, with a spooky little theme for
the cellos under vibrating string triplets
and slow-moving woodwind chords. In
the infectious finale, Mozart exults in
colorful chromatic writing (using altered
pitches outside the key); note the playful
little upward whoop of strings that links
two of these chromatic passages.
Instrumentation: Two oboes, two horns
and strings.

Sinfonia Concertante
in E-flat Major

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
We know very little about the genesis of
Mozart’s sublime Sinfonia Concertante,
K. 364, the greatest of his string concerto
works — neither the occasion for which
it was composed nor exactly when it was
written, though scholars have generally
settled on the summer of 1779. But we
know a great deal about the events that
preceded it and surely contributed to Mozart’s maturation. From September 1777
to January 1779, the young composer
traveled from one German princely court
to another and finally to Paris in search
of a lucrative musical post. While on this
journey, he fell seriously in love for the
first time — with Aloysia Weber, the older
sister of the woman he would marry four
years later, Constanze Weber. In Paris, his
mother, who was chaperoning him, fell ill
and died. In the end, the job search failed
and Mozart returned empty-handed to
Salzburg and his unrewarding drudgery
at Archbishop Colloredo’s court. But his
head was full of the spectacular music he
had heard in Mannheim and Paris and his
heart with new emotions instilled by love

and loss. The Sinfonia Concertante was
the beneficiary of all these experiences.
Works showcasing several solo instruments in an orchestral setting and known
as sinfonia concertante were very popular
in this period. But Mozart went far
beyond the genre to create a true double
concerto in which the violin and viola
are treated as equal and highly virtuosic
partners. Mozart was an accomplished
player of both instruments and was aware
of the difficulties in balancing the darker,
cloudier sound of the viola against the
brilliant tone of the violin. Ingeniously,
he made the viola play in D major — a
key that utilizes the resonance of its open
strings — but with its strings tuned onehalf step higher so the notes sound in the
home key of E-flat. In the orchestra, he
divided violas as well as violins into two
parts; this brings the ensemble violas into
greater prominence and adds marvelous
richness to the accompaniment.
This work demonstrates Mozart’s
extraordinary sensitivity to instrumental
colors. The