Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Quiet City

Aaron Copland, champion of a truly American musical voice, involved himself in many aspects of the cultural life of America, including film and theater. Quiet City, one of his best-loved works, had its genesis in the theater. While the play did not survive, the music did. For the program of a 1941 Boston Symphony Orchestra performance the composer wrote: “In the spring of 1939, I was asked by my friend, Harold Clurman, to supply the incidental musical score for a new play by Irwin Shaw ... A Quiet City ... concerning the night thoughts of many different kinds of people in a great city. It called for music evocative of the nostalgia and inner distress of a society profoundly aware of its own insecurity. The author’s mouthpiece was a young trumpet player, whose trumpet playing helped to arouse the conscience of his fellow-players and of the audience. The play was given two ‘try-out’ performances in New York ... and was then withdrawn. Several friends urged me to make use of the thematic material used in my score as the basis for an orchestral piece. This is what I did in the summer of 1940.... I borrowed the name, the trumpet and some themes from the original play.” The original stage instrumentation was for clarinet, saxophone, piano, and trumpet. The scoring for the atmospheric tone-poem is strings and English horn in dialog with the trumpet solo. The piece perhaps reflects on Copland’s own habit of composing late at night in a time when a city was quiet, before awakening for a new day.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in E-flat Major, K. 364

Allegro maestoso
Andante
Presto

Late 18th century Europe saw the rise of the public concert and the rather short-lived genre, the Symphonie Concertante. A combination of concerto and symphony, these works supported the desire of the public to see and hear various combinations of first-rate instrumentalists perform as soloists as well as in ensemble. Mozart began five pieces in this form during his 1778-9 Mannheim-Paris journey and return to Salzburg. Two sketches were never completed; a work for four wind instruments and orchestra was written for four friends who were Mannheim wind players; a piece for flute and harp ended up being titled Concerto for Flute and Harp. It was also during the years of 1778-9 that, in many ways, Mozart came of age personally and musically. At age 22 he had lost his status as a child prodigy, his mother became ill and died while they were in Paris, he was rebuffed in love by Aloysia Weber, and economic necessity forced him back to the Salzburg he detested. The Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in E-flat Major, the last and crowning glory of Mozart’s efforts in this genre, was completed at Salzburg during the summer or autumn of 1779. It shows a new musical independence that ushers in his final, mature compositional period. More concerto than symphony, this radiant work allows the equally treated solo parts to grow organically from the orchestral texture. In all three movements listen for exquisite dialogue, not only between the soloists, but also between horns and oboes, winds and strings, soloists and orchestra. Notice the assertiveness of the orchestra in the first and last movements, contrasted with the accompanying role it serves in the pensive Andante movement. The ascending horn calls with answering oboes of the first movement are balanced with descending horn calls and oboes in the final, succinct Rondo.

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Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Symphony No. 8 in b minor (Unfinished), D. 759

Allegro moderato
Andante con moto

Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in b minor (Unfinished) holds a place of honor in the development of music, and is also his most popular symphonic work. The composer's unique lyrical genius was first manifest in his songs, but as he matured, this lyricism was also displayed in the orchestral and chamber works, bringing a truly romantic feeling to these classical forms. In 1823, Schubert sent the manuscript of two completed movements and sketches of a third for a b minor symphony to Josef Hüttenbrenner to be given to his brother Anselm as a gift. After being hidden away for thirty-seven years, this manuscript finally came to light, and was handed over to the conductor of the orchestra of the Musikverein in Vienna. Music critic, Hanslick, reported the Viennese reception of the first performance of the two completed movements in 1865, "When, after the introductory bars, the oboe and clarinet give out their suave tune in unison over the quiet murmur of the violins, any child could have recognized the authorship, and a stifled exclamation, almost a whisper, ran through the hall:  Schubert!  Before he has scarcely entered, they know him by his step, by the way he lifts the latch.” Many theories abound as to why, or even if, the symphony was left unfinished. Today we enjoy the piece as it stands, although some have attempted to expand it to a four-movement work by “completing” the scherzo sketches and using the b minor Entr’acte from the composer’s incidental music to Rosamunde for a finale. However, with these two most perfect movements, Schubert ushered in the age of the romantic symphony.

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Program notes by Linda Mack. Copyright 2000.
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