Valentine’s Concert: It Takes Two to Tango (or, a Good Wind Blows No Ill)
Featuring husband-and-wife duos from the BSO performing Baroque & Classical concertos
February 13, 2004
Plus
American Love Songs
I Only Have Eyes for You (Warren/Dubin)
My Romance (Rodgers/Hart)
Embraceable You (Gershwin)
All of Me (Simons & Marks)
My Funny Valentine (Rodgers/Hart)
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off (Gershwin)
Tangos
Irresistible (Luiz Logatti)
La Cumparsita (G.H. Matos Rodriguez)
Celebrate Valentine’s Day with husband-and-wife duos from the Boston Symphony joining the BCO for wind duet-concertos by Vivaldi, Stamitz, and Haydn. Tangos from Argentina and love-songs from Gershwin’s America complete the program. BSO members from the oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn sections bring their musical spouses along for this unusual evening of music and love.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) composed about 450 concerti with string orchestra and continuo; about half are for solo violin. The cello, oboe, bassoon, and flute are all well represented with solo concerti, and beyond that Vivaldi seemed to delight in exploring the sonorities of various combinations of soloists. Encouraging and no doubt in many instances inspiring this inventiveness were the talents of Vivaldi’s charges, the young foundling musicians (all female) of the Ospedale della Pietô in Venice, where Vivaldi was employed from 1703 to 1740 (though, like Mozart in later decades, he was able to take the occasional leave of absence). The Concerto in G for oboe and bassoon, RV 545, was likely written for the girls of the Ospedale and is quintessential Vivaldi, with catchy phrases and a vigorous finale that has the feel of a peasant dance about it.
Carl Stamitz was perhaps the most gifted member of a family of Bohemian composers that included his father Johann and his brother Anton. Johann is generally credited with being one of the founders of the so-called Mannheim School, a movement that pretty much established the musical language of the mid-eighteenth century that infused the works of Mozart and early Beethoven. He is also credited with having written the first concerto for the clarinet (putting aside those written for its predecessor the chalumeau). Johann’s son Carl (1745-1801) was keenly interested in the clarinet, writing about a dozen concerti for the instrument as well is this one for two of them!
It seems there were no horn players at the Venice Ospedale, and Vivaldi’s output reflects, if not confirming, that supposition-he wrote no concerti at all for the solo horn, but did compose two for pairs of horns (besides any number of other concerti calling for horns among a larger group of soloists). Michael Talbot suggests that Vivaldi may have written these two works, both in the key of F, for soloists of the orchestra of Mantua, where he was music director during the years 1718-1720. Post-chaise horn calls open the concerto right from the start, something of a departure from the norm, in which the string orchestra typically introduces the themes before the entry of the soloists. The horns are mostly tacit during the restful slow movement. This gives them a breather before they must launch into the demanding acrobatics of the roistering finale.
Throughout the nineteenth century it was commonly believed that Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) poisoned Mozart. Rimsky-Korsakov even wrote a short opera on the subject, and Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus perpetuates the canard. Though the accusation makes for great drama, it has no basis in fact. In order to reverse the popular conception that Salieri was not only a murderer but also a lousy composer (bad person = bad artist, the example of Wagner notwithstanding), some apologists have tried to rescue Salieri’s artistic reputation, but few if any have dared to go beyond saying he was anything better than a “good” composer; and there are, in this writer’s opinion, plenty of recorded examples supporting the old position that he was, indeed, fairly lousy. Obviously, as court composer to the Austrian emperor, he could hardly have been incompetent, and his music was very popular throughout Europe in his day. But then, even today, with hindsight, a great many more people are interested in Survivor than in Mozart. Salieri, it may safely be said, definitely produced better efforts than Survivor. Witness the present offering.
The Concerto in C for flute and oboe dates from 1774, the year in which Salieri, just 24 at the time, was appointed court composer in Vienna. (This was some seven years before Mozart took up permanent residence in the capital.) There are three movements, all graceful and pleasing: an Allegro spiritoso in which the forte chords that open the work are echoed much more gently by trills by the soloists when they enter following the quite brief orchestral introduction; a sweet Largo reminiscent of Haydn; and a Rondo marked Allegretto, wherein a very simple theme announced by the two soloists is met by a vigorous orchestral reply; then, in the standard pattern of a rondo, this figure recurs throughout the movement, alternating with varying passages. The concerto possesses a number of lovely ideas that Mozart himself surely would not have scorned.
