Mozart’s Coronation

Mozart composed the majority of his concertos for string instruments from 1773 to 1779, but it is unknown for whom, or for what occasion, he wrote them.^[1] Similarly, the dating of these works is unclear. Analysis of the handwriting, papers and watermarks has proved that all five violin concertos were re-dated several times. The year of composition of the fifth concerto “1775” was scratched out and replaced by “1780”, and later changed again to “1775”.^[1] Mozart would not use the key of A major for a concerto again until the Piano Concerto No. 12 (K. 414).^[2]

The autograph score is preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.^[1]

The concerto is scored for two oboes, two horns and strings.

The movements are as follows:

1. Allegro aperto – Adagio – Allegro aperto
2. Adagio (E major)
3. Rondeau – Tempo di minuetto

The aperto marking on the first movement is rare in Mozart’s instrumental music (two of his piano concerti, Piano Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major and Piano Concerto No. 8 in C Major, have this marking, as does his Oboe Concerto in C Major are two other examples), but appears much more frequently in his operas. It implies that the piece should be played in a broader, more majestic way than might be indicated simply by allegro. The first movement opens with the orchestra playing the main theme, a typical Mozartian tune. The solo violin comes in with a short but sweet dolce adagio passage in A Major with a simple accompaniment by the orchestra. (This is the only instance in Mozart’s concerto repertoire in which an adagio interlude of this sort occurs at the first soloist entry of the concerto.) It then transitions back to the main theme with the solo violin playing a different melody on top of the orchestra. The first movement is 10–11 minutes long.

The rondo Finale is based on a Minuet theme which recurs several times. In the middle of the movement the meter changes from 3/4 to 2/4 and a section of “Turkish music” is played. This is characterised by the shift to A minor (from the original A major), and by the use of grotesque elements, such as unison chromatic crescendos, repetition of very short musical elements and col legno playing in the cellos and double basses. This section gave the concerto the nickname “The Turkish Concerto”. The famous Rondo alla Turca from Mozart’s piano sonata in A major features the same key and similar elements.

Mozart later composed the Adagio in E for Violin and Orchestra, K. 261, as a substitute slow movement for this concerto.

The entire piece is about 28 minutes long.

Canadian Violinist, Timothy Chooi has been described as “the miracle (Montreal Lapresse)”.

Regarded as one of Canada’s most promising and exciting young artist, Timothy Chooi has recently won the Bronze Medal Winner of the 2015 Michael Hill International Violin Competition, completed an extensive recital tour with Jeunesses Musicales Canada, performed with Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra, record his debut album, and was featured at Ravinia Festival in Chicago. He is also a recipient of the 2013 Vadim Repin International Scholarship, Sylva Gelber Award, Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank and was the Grand Prize Winner of the Montreal Symphony Manulife Competition.  Timothy continues to have an engaging role in the promotion of the arts and education for the youth in communites across Canada and the USA helping raise over one million dollars in the past two years.

Timothy regularly appears with his brother, Nikki in the violin duo the Chooi Brothers where they perform themed based programs which have proven to be successful across audiences around the world.

He looks to expand the classical music audience by increasing its appeal to the young generation via all available social media platforms. In particular his series of self- made online videos in non traditional locations broadening the reach of classical music through videography.

Timothy was born in 1993 in Victoria, British Columbia. He began his studies at the Victoria Conservatory of Music where at age 3. He is a graduate of the Mount Royal Conservatory received his undergraduate degree at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Timothy gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, CBC Radio, the Sylva Gelber Foundation, and the Victoria Foundation. He also acknowledges the generous loan of his 1717 Windsor-Weinstein Stradivarius from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Symphony No. 41 is the last of a set of three that Mozart composed in rapid succession during the summer of 1788. No. 39 was completed on 26 June and the No. 40 on 25 July.^[1] Nikolaus Harnoncourt argues that Mozart composed the three symphonies as a unified work, pointing, among other things, to the fact that the Symphony No. 41, as the final work, has no introduction (unlike No. 39) but has a grand finale.^[3]

Around the same time as he composed the three symphonies, Mozart was writing his piano trios in E major (K. 542), and C major (K. 548), his piano sonata No. 16 in C (K. 545) – the so-called Sonata facile – and a violin sonatina K. 547.

It is not known whether Symphony No. 41 was ever performed in the composer’s lifetime. According to Otto Erich Deutsch, around this time Mozart was preparing to hold a series of “Concerts in the Casino” in a new casino in the Spiegelgasse owned by Philipp Otto. Mozart even sent a pair of tickets for this series to his friend Michael Puchberg. But it seems impossible to determine whether the concert series was held, or was cancelled for lack of interest.^[1]

Movements[edit]

The four movements are arranged in the traditional symphonic form of the Classical era:

1. Allegro vivace, 4 4
2. Andante cantabile, 3 4 in F major
3. Menuetto: Allegretto — Trio, 3 4
4. Molto allegro, 2 2

The symphony typically has a duration of about 33 minutes.

4\f r8 } ” src=”https://upload.wikimedia.org/score/n/9/n9mqqvlym36e19aiczzkmmokh9qmttx/n9mqqvly.png”>

The sonata form first movement’s main theme begins with contrasting motifs: a threefold tutti outburst on the fundamental tone (respectively, by an ascending motion leading in a triplet from the dominant tone underneath to the fundamental one), followed by a more lyrical response.

This exchange is heard twice and then followed by an extended series of fanfares. What follows is a transitional passage where the two contrasting motifs are expanded and developed. From there, the second theme group begins with a lyrical section in G major which ends suspended on a seventh chord and is followed by a stormy section in C minor. Following a full stop, the expositional coda begins which quotes Mozart’s insertion aria “Un bacio di mano”, K. 541 and then ends the exposition on a series of fanfares.^[4] The development begins with a modulation from G major to E♭ major where the insertion-aria theme is then repeated and extensively developed. A false recapitulation then occurs where the movement’s opening theme returns, but softly and in F major. The first theme group’s final flourishes then are extensively developed against a chromatically falling bass followed by a restatement of the end of the insertion aria then leading to C major for the recapitulation.^[4] With the exception of the usual key transpositions and some expansion of the minor key sections, the recapitulation proceeds in a regular fashion.^[4]

The second movement, also in sonata form, is a sarabande of the French type in F major (the subdominant key of C major) similar to those found in the keyboard suites of Johann Sebastian Bach.^[4]

The third movement, a Menuetto marked allegretto is similar to a Ländler, a popular Austrian folk dance form. Midway through the movement there is a chromatic progression in which sparse imitative textures are presented by the woodwinds (bars 43–51) before the full orchestra returns. In the trio section of the movement, the four-note figure that will form the main theme of the last movement appears prominently (bars 68–71), but on the seventh degree of the scale rather than the first, and in a minor key rather than a major, giving it a very different character.

Finally, a remarkable characteristic of this symphony is the five-voice fugato (representing the five major themes) at the end of the fourth movement. But there are fugal sections throughout the movement either by developing one specific theme or by combining two or more themes together, as seen in the interplay between the woodwinds. The main theme consists of four notes:

Four additional themes are heard in the “Jupiter’s” finale, which is in sonata form, and all five motifs are combined in the fugal coda.

In an article about the Jupiter Symphony, Sir George Grove wrote that “it is for the finale that Mozart has reserved all the resources of his science, and all the power, which no one seems to have possessed to the same degree with himself, of concealing that science, and making it the vehicle for music as pleasing as it is learned. Nowhere has he achieved more.” Of the piece as a whole, he wrote that “It is the greatest orchestral work of the world which preceded the French Revolution.”^[5]

The four-note theme is a common plainchant motif which can be traced back at least as far as Josquin des Prez‘s Missa Pange lingua from the sixteenth century. It was very popular with Mozart. It makes a brief appearance as early as his Symphony No. 1 in 1764. Later, he used it in the Credo of an early Missa Brevis in F major, the first movement of his Symphony No. 33 and trio of the minuet of this symphony.^[6]

Scholars are certain Mozart studied Michael Haydn‘s Symphony No. 28 in C major, which also has a fugato in its finale and whose coda he very closely paraphrases for his own coda. Charles Sherman speculates that Mozart also studied Michael Haydn’s Symphony No. 23 in D major because he “often requested his father Leopold to send him the latest fugue that Haydn had written.”^[7] The Michael Haydn No. 39, written only a few weeks before Mozart’s, also has a fugato in the finale, the theme of which begins with two whole notes. Sherman has pointed out other similarities between the two almost perfectly contemporaneous works. The four-note motif is also the main theme of the contrapuntal finale of Michael’s elder brother Joseph’s Symphony No. 13 in D major (1764).

The First 86 Years…

The Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra’s partnership with the University of Saskatchewan stems back to the founding of both the orchestra and the Department of Music.

1931 was a pivotal year for music in Saskatoon – that year, the Carnegie Corporation awarded the University a three year grant to establish a school of music. With the appointment of Professor Arthur Collingwood, the U of S became the only university west of Toronto and Montreal to have a music chair.  That same fall, Collingwood officially founded Saskatoon’s orchestra.

Over the years the SSO was conducted by a number of prominent professors at the University including Maestros J.R. Macrae (‘47-’50), Murray Adaskin (‘57-60), David Kaplan (‘63-’71), and Dwaine Nelson (‘71-’76).

The University served as the performance home for many decades, first at Convocation Hall and later at the Gymnasium.

The SSO has a long tradition of collaboration with the choirs of the University and have been fortunate to work with Robert Solem, Gerald Langner, Duff Warkentin, Garry Gullikson, and Jennifer Lang.

The SSO has performed or collaborated with U of S faculty including Gyula Csapo, Neil Currie, Garry Gable, Kathleen Gable, Glenn Gillis, Robin Harrison, Dorothy Howard, Chris Kelly, Robert Klose, Gregory Marion, Dean McNeill, Isabelle Mills, Bonnie Nicholson, David Parkinson, Janice Patterson, Monte Pishney-Floyd, Kathleen Solose, and many many more!

The musicians of the SSO have had a lasting impact on the education of generations of musicians – while the list of musicians who have taught at the University would be far to long to list, the current sessionals include Erin Brophey, Darrell Bueckert, Richard Carnegie, Terry Heckman, Dawn McLean Belyk, Sarah Yunji Moon, Randi Nelson, Arlene Schiplet, Don Schmidt, Marie Sellar, and Margaret Wilson.

Many graduates of the University have gone on to be guest artists with the orchestra such as honoured alumni mezzo soprano Lisa Hornung, dentist Thomas Yu, composer Paul Suchan, and recent graduates Katya Khartova, Carissa Klopoushak, Chelsea Mahan, Whitney Mather, and Gerard Weber.

The future is bright – while the first 87 years have showcased a wonderfully vibrant relationship, the years ahead hold exceptional opportunities for the SSO and the U of S to connect, celebrate, research, explore, and create!