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Mozartiana
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Born May 7, 1840, in Votkinsk, Russia

Died November 6, 1893, in St. Petersburg, Russia

Suite No. 4 in G Major, Op. 61 "Mozartiana"

I.   Gigue: Allegro
II.  Menuet: Moderato
III. Preghiera: Andante non tanto
IV. Tema con variazioni: Allegro giusto

First known performance by the Wichita Symphony.

“Of all the great composers, I feel the most affectionate love for Mozart,” wrote Tchaikovsky to his patron Nadezhda von Meck. “When I play Mozart, I feel brighter and younger, almost a youth.”

Tchaikovsky’s idea of using music by Mozart emerged around 1884 when Tchaikovsky was working with a ballet company. The work gradually took shape and was completed in 1887 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Tchaikovsky’s favorite Mozart opera, Don Giovanni. The premiere took place in Moscow in November 1887.

Tchaikovsky did not designate his work as a suite. That title and numeration were added after his death. However, the structure resembles his earlier orchestral suites. A popular style of composition in the early 18th-century, a suite is a multi-movement instrumental work mostly consisting of popular dances. The form survived in the 19th century mainly through the efforts of lesser composers like Franz Lachner (1803 – 1890), Joachim Raff (1822 – 1882), and with some French composers, particularly Jules Massenet (1842 – 1912), who Tchaikovsky admired. For Tchaikovsky, a suite represented “the sphere of unrestricted musical fantasy allowing the composer freedom from traditions, conventional technique, and fixed rules.”

For his source material, Tchaikovsky chose four lesser-known works by Mozart that he believed deserved wider recognition. Three of the works are very brief and believed to have been written by Mozart as gifts for friends. The fourth work was probably extemporized by Mozart in a concert and later written down for publication. Most of the music is Mozart’s orchestrated by Tchaikovsky, who re-wrote some of the idiomatic keyboard parts for orchestral instruments.

As a composer noted for his ballet music, Tchaikovsky drew upon Mozart’s music containing elements of dance. These characteristics were later born out in the 20th century when George Balanchine choreographed Mozartiana in 1933 for the American Ballet and again for the New York City Ballet in 1981.

The first movement uses the curious Gigue in G major, K. 574. Mozart wrote the work into the notebook of Leipzig organist Carl Immanuel Engel and dated the piece May 16, 1789. Described as “a vertiginous harmonic labyrinth based on chromatic lines spidering up and down,” the piece uses ten of the twelve chromatic pitches just in the first two bars alone. Mozart probably intended the work to be a tribute to the music of J.S. Bach, a long-time Leipzig organist, whose music Mozart had studied in depth during the 1780s. The shape of Mozart’s theme resembles the subject of Bach’s B minor Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1.

Mozart’s Menuet in D, K. 355 (K576b), another popular 18th-century dance style, is the second movement. Little is known about the piece’s origins. Scholars now believe it was composed later than the original Köchel catalog number suggests, hence the revised Köchel number, which places the work in 1789 or 1790. Like the opening Gigue, the work is highly chromatic and suggests that Mozart was working out the complexities of chromaticism found in Bach’s music.

One of Mozart’s sublime vocal compositions, the motet Ave verum corpus (Hail, true body born of the Virgin Mary), K. 618, forms the third movement of “Mozartiana.” Tchaikovsky used the description “preghiera” (“prayer”) for the movement’s title. Composed in the last year of Mozart’s life, Ave verum corpus marks a departure from a style of ecclesiastical grandeur to a personal statement of inward contemplation. The musical source was Liszt’s piano transcription of Mozart’s vocal work, and Liszt’s embellished keyboard writing becomes a prominent concertmaster solo in Tchaikovsky’s version.

The Suite’s fourth movement is Tchaikovsky’s orchestration of Mozart’s piano variations on Unser dummer Pobel meint (Our simple people believe), K. 455. The theme comes from Christoph Willibald Gluck’s 1764 opera The Unexpected Meeting, or the Pilgrims of Mecca. Mozart composed variations throughout his life. The Henle edition of Mozart’s Variations contains eighteen, with the earliest dated 1766 when Mozart was ten and the last in 1791, the year of Mozart’s death. The most familiar of these sets of Theme and Variations is on the French folk song Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman (Oh, shall I tell you, Mama?), which we know as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Mozart improvised his variations on Gluck’s theme in a concert presented on March 23, 1783, at the Burgtheater in Vienna with Gluck in attendance. Variations on another composer’s theme were a high form of flattery in Mozart’s day and served as a vehicle for showcasing a pianist’s virtuosity at the keyboard. Tchaikovsky recognized both the humor and potential for colorful orchestration in adapting these variations for orchestra.

Tchaikovsky scored Mozartiana for winds in pairs, four horns, timpani, glockenspiel, bass drum, harp, and strings.

© Don Reinhold, 2021

WSU SOM 2
Mozartiana
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

Born May 7, 1840, in Votkinsk, Russia

Died November 6, 1893, in St. Petersburg, Russia

Suite No. 4 in G Major, Op. 61 "Mozartiana"

I.   Gigue: Allegro
II.  Menuet: Moderato
III. Preghiera: Andante non tanto
IV. Tema con variazioni: Allegro giusto

First known performance by the Wichita Symphony.

“Of all the great composers, I feel the most affectionate love for Mozart,” wrote Tchaikovsky to his patron Nadezhda von Meck. “When I play Mozart, I feel brighter and younger, almost a youth.”

Tchaikovsky’s idea of using music by Mozart emerged around 1884 when Tchaikovsky was working with a ballet company. The work gradually took shape and was completed in 1887 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Tchaikovsky’s favorite Mozart opera, Don Giovanni. The premiere took place in Moscow in November 1887.

Tchaikovsky did not designate his work as a suite. That title and numeration were added after his death. However, the structure resembles his earlier orchestral suites. A popular style of composition in the early 18th-century, a suite is a multi-movement instrumental work mostly consisting of popular dances. The form survived in the 19th century mainly through the efforts of lesser composers like Franz Lachner (1803 – 1890), Joachim Raff (1822 – 1882), and with some French composers, particularly Jules Massenet (1842 – 1912), who Tchaikovsky admired. For Tchaikovsky, a suite represented “the sphere of unrestricted musical fantasy allowing the composer freedom from traditions, conventional technique, and fixed rules.”

For his source material, Tchaikovsky chose four lesser-known works by Mozart that he believed deserved wider recognition. Three of the works are very brief and believed to have been written by Mozart as gifts for friends. The fourth work was probably extemporized by Mozart in a concert and later written down for publication. Most of the music is Mozart’s orchestrated by Tchaikovsky, who re-wrote some of the idiomatic keyboard parts for orchestral instruments.

As a composer noted for his ballet music, Tchaikovsky drew upon Mozart’s music containing elements of dance. These characteristics were later born out in the 20th century when George Balanchine choreographed Mozartiana in 1933 for the American Ballet and again for the New York City Ballet in 1981.

The first movement uses the curious Gigue in G major, K. 574. Mozart wrote the work into the notebook of Leipzig organist Carl Immanuel Engel and dated the piece May 16, 1789. Described as “a vertiginous harmonic labyrinth based on chromatic lines spidering up and down,” the piece uses ten of the twelve chromatic pitches just in the first two bars alone. Mozart probably intended the work to be a tribute to the music of J.S. Bach, a long-time Leipzig organist, whose music Mozart had studied in depth during the 1780s. The shape of Mozart’s theme resembles the subject of Bach’s B minor Fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1.

Mozart’s Menuet in D, K. 355 (K576b), another popular 18th-century dance style, is the second movement. Little is known about the piece’s origins. Scholars now believe it was composed later than the original Köchel catalog number suggests, hence the revised Köchel number, which places the work in 1789 or 1790. Like the opening Gigue, the work is highly chromatic and suggests that Mozart was working out the complexities of chromaticism found in Bach’s music.

One of Mozart’s sublime vocal compositions, the motet Ave verum corpus (Hail, true body born of the Virgin Mary), K. 618, forms the third movement of “Mozartiana.” Tchaikovsky used the description “preghiera” (“prayer”) for the movement’s title. Composed in the last year of Mozart’s life, Ave verum corpus marks a departure from a style of ecclesiastical grandeur to a personal statement of inward contemplation. The musical source was Liszt’s piano transcription of Mozart’s vocal work, and Liszt’s embellished keyboard writing becomes a prominent concertmaster solo in Tchaikovsky’s version.

The Suite’s fourth movement is Tchaikovsky’s orchestration of Mozart’s piano variations on Unser dummer Pobel meint (Our simple people believe), K. 455. The theme comes from Christoph Willibald Gluck’s 1764 opera The Unexpected Meeting, or the Pilgrims of Mecca. Mozart composed variations throughout his life. The Henle edition of Mozart’s Variations contains eighteen, with the earliest dated 1766 when Mozart was ten and the last in 1791, the year of Mozart’s death. The most familiar of these sets of Theme and Variations is on the French folk song Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman (Oh, shall I tell you, Mama?), which we know as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Mozart improvised his variations on Gluck’s theme in a concert presented on March 23, 1783, at the Burgtheater in Vienna with Gluck in attendance. Variations on another composer’s theme were a high form of flattery in Mozart’s day and served as a vehicle for showcasing a pianist’s virtuosity at the keyboard. Tchaikovsky recognized both the humor and potential for colorful orchestration in adapting these variations for orchestra.

Tchaikovsky scored Mozartiana for winds in pairs, four horns, timpani, glockenspiel, bass drum, harp, and strings.

© Don Reinhold, 2021

WSU SOM 2