Mozart, Hewitt & Schubert "the great"
programme notes
written by WALDO GEUNS
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, KV 467 (1785)
Franz Schubert Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944 'The Great' (1824-26)
[read also: in conversation with Hewitt]
[discover also: Hewitt's favourites]
[all programme notes]
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13.02.2025 KÖLNER PHILHARMONIE
16.02.2025 FLAGEY BRUSSEL
Mozart expert Angela Hewitt brings her "Mozart Odyssey" project to Brussels for the 2025 edition of the Flagey Piano Days. Between March 2024 and December 2026, she will perform all of Mozart’s piano concertos worldwide with various orchestras and conductors. With the Brussels Philharmonic and Kazushi Ono, she will present three concertos over two evenings.
Sparkling and playful
"My concerts are well attended and received by the audiences with great enthusiasm. Here in Vienna, I feel like a fish in water. People understand and value music differently than I have ever experienced elsewhere."
These enthusiastic words were addressed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to his father, Leopold Mozart, on 4 April 1781. That year, he had moved to Vienna as a freelance musician. To earn money, he gave music lessons and organised subscription concerts, known as ‘Academies’. These concerts took place mainly in Advent and Lent, when the theatres were closed. Mozart himself was responsible for the organisation—on some occasions he even took the tickets at the door himself—as well as for writing as well as for performing the music.
For each of these Academies, he tried to write a new symphony and other, smaller orchestral works as well as arias, solo works, and from the winter of 1782/1783, piano concertos in which he played the solo part. It is mainly in his piano concertos that he displayed his true virtuosity to the Viennese audience. By blurring the boundaries of symphonic grandeur and virtuoso solo passages, the concerto is the ideal genre in which he could shine as both composer and performer. In all, he wrote 27 of them, with each piano concerto was given a unique, individual approach. What he wanted to avoid above all is for his concertos to be reduced to frivolous showpieces.
This unique approach is certainly evident in his Piano Concerto in C, KV 467. It is one of Mozart’s most beloved works. He finished the work in March 1785, one of his most successful years: "There are concerts every day, and all my time is filled with teaching, playing music, composing, etc. It is impossible for me to describe the rush and bustle”, he wrote to his father. The reason for the popularity of the concerto is its overwhelmingly cheerful mood. This is obvious from the march-like opening measures—played by the strings in unison—of the first movement, Allegro. Mozart evoked the bright and sparkling atmosphere of Italian comic opera, known as ‘opera buffa’. He gave the woodwinds a prominent role. After the march theme returns for a third time, the soloist takes over the theme. What follows is a thrilling dialogue between the piano and the orchestra, filled with lively melodies, triumphant trills and virtuoso passages.
The subdued second movement, Andante, is by contrast particularly fragile. This movement, with its uninterrupted triplets in the accompaniment, offered Mozart, the soloist, the opportunity to improvise. The great melodic leaps lend the movement a sense of restlessness, that culminated in an emotional climax full of dissonance. After this, it is the soloist who calls for a return to the calm of the opening measures.
In the final movement, Allegro vivace assai, Mozart once again plunges us into the world of opera buffa. The music is energetic and exuberant. The mischievous main theme sets the tone for a playful and dynamic interplay between the piano and the orchestra. Mozart seems to have in mind nothing but pure joy and pianistic playfulness.
A heavenly length
"Schubert’s last and greatest work." That was how the composer Robert Schumann described his Symphony No 9 in C, D. 944, when he discovered the work in 1838, nine years after the death of the composer. Franz Schubert wrote the symphony in 1825, during a holiday in Gmunden and Bad Gastein. He dedicated the music to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde [Society of the Friends of Music] in Vienna, but unfortunately, the music—nor one of his other symphonies—was never performed in his lifetime. After his death, the score found its way into the hands of Schubert’s brother Ferdinand. Its nickname "The Great” was not coined by Schubert himself, but was introduced by the publisher in order to distinguish this work from his earlier Little Sixth Symphony in the same key. But this does not mean that the symphony is monumental.
"It is like a thick novel in four volumes by Jean Paul — that can never come to an end, but you want it to continue. The sparkling and innovative orchestration, the breadth and expanse of the form, the striking changes in mood — all of this submerges the listener into an entirely new world." (Robert Schumann)
At first, the length surprised audiences. The orchestra musicians found the complex finale “unplayable,” and early performances were often limited to the first two movements. Fortunately, Schumann was there, and in his enthusiasm persuaded Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy to hold the première in Leipzig in 1839. They immediately recognized Schubert’s visionary approach. The symphony is a work of contrasts. Schubert – known primarily as a composer of art songs (Lieder)—combined lyrical themes with an epic structure. The first movement, Andante-Allegro, with its majestic horn call that returns in all four movements, sets the tone for a long musical journey. The composer gives the broad melodic themes all the space needed to develop.
In Schubert’s works, the slow movements are often the high points, and that is the case here as well. The Andante con moto is extremely subtle, and it was mainly in response to this movement that Schumann wrote of its “heavenly length”. The return of the main theme in the horn is “as if from another sphere. Everything else is hushed, as though listening to some heavenly visitor hovering around the orchestra.”
The lively, fast scherzo that follows leads to the magnificent final movement, Allegro vivace, with its infectious rhythms and energetic strings. The energy and incessant richness of the music continues to astonish until the very last notes. Schubert’s Ninth Symphony is considered today as a precursor of the large-scale symphonies of Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. With its kaleidoscopic expression, this work marks a turning point in symphonic music.