Written by Anna Vorhes

Born
January 27, 1756, Salzburg

Died
December 5, 1791, Vienna

Instrumentation
two each: flutes (doubling piccolo), oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, with a percussion section of 2 timpani and the Janissary effects of bass drum, triangle and cymbals, and the strings

Duration
6 minutes

Composed
Mozart was given the libretto in July of 1781, with serious work done in spring of 1782

World Premiere
July 16,1782 at the Burgtheater in Vienna

Something interesting to listen for
The most interesting thing to listen for is the Janissary band. This is a percussion group consisting of bass drums, triangles, and cymbals and from the wind section a piccolo. Janissaries were the historic guards of the Turkish rulers of the Ottoman Empire, and their bands were famous for the percussive sounds. Good cymbals are still made on formulas closely protected by the Turkish families that have made them for centuries. Vienna was in the midst of a Turkish fad when Mozart wrote this work. This percussion choice would have immediately invoked the exotic world of Turkey a century after that country had finally stopped invading Vienna. You’ll hear the Turkish effects in the beginning and closing sections of this work.

Program Notes

When this work was written, Mozart was in his mid-twenties. He had broken away from the Archbishop of Salzburg and with his father who had nurtured his career from early childhood. He was considered the best pianist in Vienna, and possibly the European world, and was publishing works successfully. He was ready to rise to the next level, hoping for a commission from the Emperor Franz Joseph, and the approval that would indicate.

Mozart approached Gottlieb Stephanie, the director of the Nationalsingspiel which was a project of the Emperor’s to help his people feel proud of being German. A singspiel is an opera that speaks rather than sings the dialogue of the work. The Italians developed opera where everything is sung in recitative or aria, with choruses as needed. The Germans were more comfortable with spoken dialogue. To that end the Nationalsingspiel was a theater group that encouraged and produced singspiels in German rather than the Italian normal for operas in that era.

Stephanie offered Mozart a commission with the Emperor’s approval. Stephanie himself chose the subject of an opera produced a year earlier on a plot of Christoph Betzner, and Stephanie wrote the libretto. There was no consultation or credit for the original plot, which upset Betzner as Mozart’s work was far more successful. The plot involved a European woman name Constanze who had be taken by the Turkish corsairs to join a harem. Her lover Belmont sets out to rescue her with the expected success. (The fact that Mozart was courting his wife Constanze at the time is interesting.)

The overture is in an ABA format with the Janissary music as a feature of the A section. The B section is actually the music of Belmont’s first aria that opens the opera. It was unusual in Mozart’s era to quote the music that would be heard in the work, unlike our present-day musicals which offer an overture that is a medley of tunes that will be given words in the actual body of the work. Another interesting fact is that the original overture moves right into Belmont’s aria. A concert ending was composed by Johann Andre whose father had written the music to the earlier opera on the same plot.

The opera was successful. It was a turning point in Mozart’s popularity and career. Indeed, one of the first full length obituaries of the composer called this opera “the pedestal upon which his fame was erected.”