The estate of the Esterhazy family was established in the marshy area on the south side of the Neusieedlersee in Hungary. It was very isolated and it was here that Haydn found himself employed first as a court musician and then as composer and kappelmeister (director of music) from 1761 until 1790. The flourishing estate had its own currency, its own army, a brewery and a thriving musical tradition. There was an opera house, seating some 400, and a marionette theatre; in the former some 100 different operas were performed during this period, though only a handful were by Haydn. In some years he was responsible for over 200 theatrical performances as well as having to find time to compose hundreds of symphonies, sonatas and string quartets.

The Empress Maria Theresa (more of her later in the season) once remarked, ‘If I want to hear good opera, I must go to Esterhaza’. Many members of the nobility of Europe followed in her footsteps, such was the fame of the operas of Esterhaza. 

Il Mondo della Luna was first performed in 1777 and was written for the wedding celebrations for the younger son of the Esterhazy family. The plot involves an overprotective father who has strong ideas as to whom his two daughters and their maid should marry. A ‘false astronomer’ helps out the women by taking the drugged father to a garden where he tricks him into thinking that he is on the moon! A servant appears disguised as the Emperor of the Moon and ‘persuades’ the father to see the error of his ways and they all live happily ever after.  

Never afraid of recycling, Haydn was to base the first movement of his 63^rd symphony ‘La Roxelane’ (c.1780) on this sparkling and bustling overture.
 

Mozart wrote five violin concertos, four of them between June and late December 1775. They were probably written for the leader of the Salzburg Court Orchestra, Antonio Brunetti.

Mozart was not taught to play the violin; he just seemed to know what to do. At the age of seven he asked if he could join in while some friends of his father Leopold were trying out some new string trios they had written. Leopold was dismissive of the idea, as his son had never had any lessons. Wolfgang retorted that lessons were not necessary to play second violin and left in tears clutching his half-size violin. One of the group persuaded Leopold to change his mind saying that he would share his part with the child. ‘It was done and Wolfgang fiddled along with me. To my astonishment I soon noticed that I was superfluous. I laid aside my violin and glanced at Leopold – tears of happiness and admiration were streaming down his face. So Wolfgang played through all six of the trios.’ 

Reacting to the praise, Wolfgang claimed that he could play the first violin part! ‘So for the fun of it, we tried him out and we nearly died laughing when, in spite of a whole mess of mistakes and irregularities, he actually played the first violin part and got through it without once breaking down.’ 

By the age of 19, when he wrote tonight’s concerto, Mozart had developed his violin technique and had grown to love the melodies he had heard in Vienna, and it is this latter tunefulness that shines throughout this 4^th concerto.

Written in the usual three movements, the opening ‘Allegro’ (quick & lively) begins with a fanfare figure followed by a graceful phrase based on descending notes. A more flowing theme appears, and all this is combined in preparation for the entry of the solo violin, which reiterates the opening fanfare and the graceful theme before introducing new themes.

The second movement, marked ‘cantabile’ (singing), begins with descending notes of a broad and flowing theme from the orchestra which prepares the way for the solo violin which, once it has appeared, keeps the spotlight throughout.

The finale, a graceful ‘Rondo’, begins with the solo violin in a graceful dance-like mood but soon a more lively ‘jig’ idea appears and the alternation of grace and ‘jig’ carries on throughout the movement. In the middle of the movement an Austrian country-dance, complete with drone, also appears. The ending is unexpected – no positive conclusion, no orchestral or solo fireworks, simply a fading away to two final gentle chords.
 

The story goes that Mozart wrote this overture the night before its first performance on 29^th October 1787. Some research says that this, even for a procrastinator like Mozart, was unlikely, and in all probability it was the night before the dress rehearsal. Whichever it was, it was still cutting it a bit fine! 

‘In the evening, he told his wife that he wanted to write the overture that night and asked her to make him some punch and stay up with him to keep him merry. She did so, told him fairy tales of ‘Aladdin’s Lamp’ And so on, which made him laugh until the tears came to his eyes. But the punch made him sleepy, so that he nodded whenever he paused, and worked only while she was talking. But since this exertion, his sleepiness, his frequent nodding and catching himself, made the work terribly hard, his wife made him lie down on the couch promising to wake him in an hour. But he slept so soundly that she did not have the heart to do so and only wakened him after two hours had passed. This was five o’clock. The copyist had been ordered for seven o’clock; at seven o’ clock the overture was finished’.
Georg von Nissen, Constanze Mozart’s second husband. 

The overture, despite the adverse conditions surrounding its conception, is no mere summary of the plot. Indeed it uses no theme from the opera itself, but is almost a mini tone poem of the confrontation between the avenging statue (the stone guest) depicted in the powerful introduction and the vitality of the Don himself as heard in the main body of the music.

In operatic performance the overture ‘glides smoothly and without interruption into the opening scene of the opera’ – a very daring device for its time. For concert hall performances Mozart composed an appropriately conclusive ending of 13 bars to round it off.
 

The Russian composer’s tribute to Mozart and Haydn takes us into the world of a composer with a unique voice and a desire to explore many other aspects of music apart from the century in which he lived.

As a teacher, he was eager to expose his students to the widest possible range of music, which his music education had omitted. So he wrote symphonies, concerti grossi, string quartets, sonatas in a hearkening back to classical styles but using his unique voice inspired by the greats of his century – Schoenberg, Nono and Stockhausen. 

His 1^st symphony illustrates his humour in that, in a reverse of Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony, the players arrive on stage one by one. In his 4^th Violin Concerto the soloist mimes a cadenza, and in tonight’s work humour is present too! His output also includes 67 film scores composed between 1962 and 1984. 

There are five versions of Schnittke’s ‘Game with Music’ for a variety of ensembles (including eight flutes and harp, and the first one that was for ‘whatever was available on the night’), but tonight’s version is for strings and conductor. Written in 1977, Schnittke takes existing fragments from an unfinished work by Mozart, ‘Music for Pantomime’ K. 446, of which only the first violin part survives and ‘layers and blends’ them in his inimitable way. At one point there is a clear but brief quote from Mozart’s 40^th Symphony. 

The ‘Haydn’ in the title refers to the ‘Farewell’ Symphony where players leave the platform as their participation ends. Schnittke was obviously taken by this idea.

As well as the music, the composer asks for lighting effects and adds stage directions for the players and the conductor, producing a visual as well as an aural experience.
 

The Haffner began life as a serenade, requested by his father Leopold in July 1782, to celebrate the elevation to the nobility of a family friend, Sigmund Haffner. Wolfgang, now a free-lance musician in Vienna, was in the throes of establishing his career in his new base and did not hide his irritation at the request:

‘How will it be possible?…Oh well, I will have to give up my nights to it, for it cannot be done any other way’. 

He promised to send something through the post each post day but a week later:

‘You will make a face when you see that you are receiving only the first movement, but there is no help to it. I had to compose another serenade for wind!’ 

He then promised to send two minuets, a slow movement and a march, but on the promised day:

‘You see, my intentions are good, but what one can’t do, simply cannot be done. I just will not smear down on paper any old notes – the rest will now have to wait until the next post day!’ 

Having got married in the meantime, it was on 7^th August when the final march completing the score arrived with Leopold. Wolfgang added instructions that the first movement should be played with great fire and that the last movement should be as fast as possible. 

In February the following year Mozart was in desperate need of a new symphony for a series of concerts of his own works he was organising. Remembering the serenade he had sent his father, he wrote to ask that the score be returned. His idea was to discard one of the minuets and the march and behold, he would have the four movement symphony he needed. When he saw the score he wrote to his father that he had forgotten every single note of it and how amazed he was by the work but then ‘I am really unable to scribble off inferior stuff’’. 

The concert with the ‘new’ symphony on 23^rd March 1783 was a great success but Mozart complained that because it was the custom for the Emperor to send his money to the box office before the concert, he had only sent 24 ducats. The Emperor’s enthusiasm at the concert was such that Mozart reckoned that if the Emperor had paid after the concert, the takings would have substantially improved.

The Haffner became one of his most popular symphonies and the four movements surviving from the original serenade certainly make an eventful and enjoyable whole. 

I  Allegro con brio (quick & lively with fire) – the opening leaps and rhythms dominate a movement full of energy with moments of calm.

II  Andante (easily, fluently) – a melodic idea given largely to the violins throughout is decorated and embellished in a wonderfully transparent way.

III  Menuetto – this strongly rhythmic dance is in contrast to the previous movement.

IV Presto – Mozart asked that this be performed ‘as fast as possible’. 

© Barry Sharkey 2008