Mozart: Complete Violin Concertos
AVIE RECORDS
2317 AV
RACHEL BARTON PINE, VIOLIN
MATTHEW LIPMAN, VIOLA
ACADEMY OF ST MARTIN IN THE FIELDS
SIR NEVILLE MARRINER, CONDUCTOR
Dedicated to Mel Kaplan – with appreciation for your creativity, vision and support.
PERSONAL NOTE BY RACHEL BARTON PINE
In 2011, three weeks after the birth of my first child, I performed the complete five Mozart violin concertos in a single evening’s concert. Having played these concertos individually on numerous occasions, I found that practicing them as a cycle greatly deepened my relationship with them. I have since had the opportunity to tour this program across the US.
I was elated to record these incredible pieces, as well as the Sinfonia concertante, with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. I grew up on their performances of Mozart, and the experience of working with them exceeded all of my expectations. I continue to be inspired by Sir Neville’s energy, focus and commitment to every detail of the music.
I’m also very pleased to introduce the extraordinarily talented young violist, Matthew Lipman, in his recording debut. I found our approach to Mozart to be uncannily similar.
Mozart did not leave any written cadenzas for the violin concertos. While many great cadenzas have been composed, I’ve always felt that playing my own presents the most personal and organic expression of my relationship with the music.
I hope you enjoy this remarkable collaboration, as we revel in the beauty and passion of Mozart’s music.
THE MOZART VIOLIN CONCERTOS
BY RACHEL BARTON PINE
‘You have no idea how well you play the violin. If only you would do yourself justice and play with boldness, spirit and fire, as if you were the greatest violinist in Europe!’ Thus Leopold Mozart (himself a fine violinist, respected composer and famous pedagogue) admonished his son Wolfgang Amadeus in 1777.
Mozart began violin lessons at the tender age of six, under the primary tutelage of his father. As a touring child prodigy, he performed on both violin and keyboard throughout Europe. At the age of 13, Mozart became second concertmaster of the Archbishop of Salzburg’s court orchestra. He frequently led the orchestra and took solo parts, often in his own works. But by 1777, Mozart’s concert activities were focused on the piano, and his preference for the viola was well established. Difficult and sophisticated viola parts feature prominently in the greatest chamber works from the last decade of his life. He usually favored the viola for playing chamber music, such as for the famous quartet evenings with Haydn, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf and Johann Baptist Vanhal.
The exact order in which Mozart composed his five violin concertos is unknown. The last three were written in 1775 when he was 19. Analyses of his handwriting and the manuscript paper suggest that the first concerto was composed two years earlier. For stylistic reasons, it is believed that the second concerto also must have been written prior to 1775. It is uncertain whether Mozart composed these five concertos for himself or for Antonio Brunetti (who replaced him as concertmaster) as both men had parts in their possession.
All five concertos follow the same structure. The first movements are in sonata form with a double exposition (the first taken by the orchestra and the second by the soloist) and a cadenza at the end of the recapitulation. The second movements are in a contrasting key to the outer movements. They are also in sonata form and offer a cadenza just before the concluding phrase.
The final movements of four of the concertos are rondos. While the finale of K207 is in sonata form, an alternate rondo (Rondo in B flat major, K269) also exists. The rondos of K216, K218 and K219 each feature a middle section of a contrasting and individual character. This may partially explain their popularity over K207 or K211. Before each return to the rondo theme, the soloist plays a miniature cadenza-like flourish that serves as a connecting bridge.
K207 in B flat major and K211 in D major are clearly modeled on the Baroque concerto grosso. There are strong contrasts between forte and piano, the soloist and tutti are often in dialogue, and many passages are lightly scored for accompaniment only by the violins. Both second movements are beautifully lyrical. The last movement of K207 is brilliant and witty, bearing the unusual tempo marking Presto, while the finale of K211 is in the style of a French minuet. Mozart’s creativity is evident in the textural variety of the soloist’s iterations of the rondo theme.
K216 (my personal favorite) is in G major, Mozart’s friendliest key. The first movement begins with a theme closely resembling an aria (‘Aer tranquillo’) from his recently composed opera Il re pastore, K208. The solo sections contain additional themes beyond those stated in the orchestral introduction, and the oboes and horns have a more significant role than in Mozart’s earlier violin concertos. In the aria-like second movement, the delicate texture includes muted upper strings and pizzicato lower strings. Flutes replace the oboes – the only time Mozart includes flutes in his violin concertos. The middle section of the cheerful third movement begins with a serenade-like melody in G minor, accompanied by pizzicato strings. It then launches into a rustic folk song from Strasbourg. This tune includes a drone accompaniment and fiddle variations featuring left-hand pizzicato and chromatic triplets. Notes are also plucked in the soloist’s final statement of the rondo theme. The concerto ends graciously, with the winds alone playing the final phrase.
K218 is more extroverted and virtuosic than Mozart’s first three concertos. Composed in D major, the traditional key for trumpets and horns, the opening tutti and the soloist’s first entrance begin with a brass-like fanfare. Interestingly, the fanfare never returns, and the first movement’s recapitulation begins with the soloist’s secondary melody. Calmness and simplicity characterize the second movement as the exposition proceeds directly into the recapitulation. The soloist’s final phrase is merely a scale that only Mozart’s genius could have disguised as an inspired melody. The ‘A’ section of the concluding rondo is actually a pair of themes: a passage in a moderate 2/4 that always ends on the dominant before leading into a lively section in 6/8. In the middle of the movement, Mozart surprises us with a stately gavotte, played in part over a drone in imitation of a musette. The last two iterations of the first rondo theme are very abbreviated, and each one features a different accompaniment texture. In contrast to the strong and definitive conclusion to K211, his first D major violin concerto, K218 simply fades away.
K219 in A major is the longest as well as the most original and adventurous of Mozart’s violin concertos, featuring some daringly imaginative structural experiments. The first movement is marked Allegro aperto (‘open’, ‘frank’), a rare indication in Mozart’s instrumental music (though more common in his operas). The joyful opening tutti is followed by a surprise – the soloist enters with a tender Adagio. An interlude of this kind does not appear in any of Mozart’s other concertos, and even in this movement the Adagio material is only heard once. After this brief digression, the soloist continues to startle by playing an entirely new Allegro melody while the orchestra repeats the original opening theme of the exposition, now transformed into an accompaniment. The soloist introduces additional new material of such a dramatic nature that one can almost imagine an operatic dialogue taking place between two characters, at times flirtatious, sentimental, anxious, and even angry. The second movement is calm, filled with graceful sighing figures and lovely melodies of an almost painful beauty. After the poignant development section, the main theme returns as a brief fugato. Inexplicably, Brunetti was dissatisfied with this movement and requested a replacement that became the equally gorgeous Adagio in E major, K261.
The last movement is a gracious minuet. The solo and tutti iterations of the rondo theme are constantly varied with an inventiveness and playfulness that feel improvisatory. Halfway through the movement, aggressive, exotic-sounding music suddenly intrudes. Menacing and march-like, this music is typical of the ‘alla Turca’ style that was immensely popular in the Classical period. Mozart caricaturizes the clanging percussion of a Turkish military band by directing the cellos and double basses to bang the wooden parts of their bows against the strings. ‘Alla Turca’ music was used by such composers as Gluck and Haydn, and famously by Mozart in his K331 Piano Sonata and Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Mozart composed the Sinfonia concertante in E flat major for violin and viola K364 in 1779. His mother had died during their trip to Paris the previous year, and many believe that the depth of expression in his final concerted work for violin is a result of this personal tragedy. Mozart performed the viola part with Brunetti on violin in the Salzburg premiere.
The opening tutti section of the first movement features a thrilling example of the so-called ‘Mannheim crescendo,’ a rising scale with a gradual crescendo. The entire movement is infused with nobility. The two soloists emerge together out of the orchestral texture with an entirely new theme, played in unison. Most of their subsequent appearances, also featuring new material, are either alone or in dialogue.
The remarkable Andante in C minor tells a story without words. The mourning violinist is offered hope by the violist, encouragement building through an increasingly passionate conversation. The promise of peace culminates in one of Mozart’s most heartbreakingly beautiful moments, the end of the tutti preceding the development section. However, anguish returns, and both instruments succumb to grief, a state from which even the cadenza offers no respite.
The final Presto is an irrepressibly vivacious rondo, filled with high spirits and good humor reflected in little surprises like a sudden pause, an unexpected key change, and offbeat accents. While the soloists do reiterate themes from the opening tutti, their first entrance features a new melody. Each soloist’s final statement is an unaccompanied, virtuosic scale to the end of the fingerboard, with the violinist getting the last word before the closing tutti.
The cadenzas for both the first and second movements of K364 are fully composed. Mozart indicated that the viola was to be tuned a half-step higher, giving the instrument brighter resonances and a more penetrating voice, to help it balance more successfully with the violin. However, many contemporary players choose to tune the instrument normally. Two sections of orchestral violas give the orchestration extra richness.
CREDITS
Violin: Guarneri ‘del Gesu,’ Cremona, 1742, the ‘ex-Bazzini, ex-Soldat’
Violin strings: Vision Titanium Solo by Thomastik-Infeld
Violin bow: Dominique Pecatte
Viola: Matteo Goffriller, 1700, on generous loan from the Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation
Cadenzas for K211, K216, K218, and K219 are published in The Rachel Barton Pine Collection, Carl Fischer, 2009
Recording: 29 August–2 September 2013, Air Lyndhurst Studios, London Producer: Andrew Keener
Recording engineer: Simon Eadon
Editing: Stephen Frost
Assistant engineer: Adam Miller
Photos of Rachel Barton Pine: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco
Photo of Sir Neville Marriner: Richard Holt
Photo of Matthew Lipman: Harrison Linsey
Design: Georgina Curtis for WLP Ltd.
© 2014 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by RBP Music, LLC
2014 RBP Music, LLC www.rachelbartonpine.com
Marketed by Avie Records www.avie-records.com
Rachel Barton Pine wishes to extend special thanks to: Sir Neville Marriner, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Matthew Lipman, Andrew Keener, Claire Parker-Paphitis and Stephen Wright, John Zion and everyone at Melvin Kaplan Inc., Melanne Mueller, Simon Foster, Jane Covner and Allison Van Etten, the New York Chamber Soloists, Steve Leary, Almita and Roland Vamos, Greg Pine, Sylvia Pine, and Lydia Sewell.