Dayton Philharmonic - Mozart to Mahler
One of only two piano concertos Mozart composed in a minor key.
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Dayton Philharmonic - Mozart to Mahler
One of only two piano concertos Mozart composed in a minor key (No. 24 was the other), the Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor begins with a dark atmosphere in the opening allegro movement that the strings and piano soloist brighten slightly, almost as though afraid to release the minor key’s hold. The second movement, romance sounds at its onset almost like a practice piece for aspiring piano students. However, it soon becomes apparent that no mean degree of skill will suffice to portray the insightful, heartfelt emotion of the quietly intense music here that puts the use of a minor key to glorious, nonthreatening use. The final movement, rondo allegro assai (repeating theme and contrasts), pushes the pianist not only to interpret the work as skillfully as Mozart would have desired but also to convey the emotion that was his overriding intent. Tonight's guest pianist, internationally renowned virtuoso Spencer Myer, brings a wealth of adroit performance experience to the task of interpreting one of Mozart’s most memorable and praiseworthy compositional efforts.
Gustav Mahler’s Das irdische Leben is a dark, ominous piece worthy of the term draconian—more Russian than German in its pessimistic nature. The piece, most often performed in a vocal medium by a soprano, is taken from the German anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn). Its text revolves around a plea by a child ("Mother, oh Mother! I'm hungry! Give me bread; otherwise I will die!") to a mother ("Just wait, just wait, my darling child.”) The wait is too long; the child dies.
Gustav Mahler marked the first movement of his Symphony No. 4 in G major “moderately, not rushed.” Its sound makes it seem to have been written in a minor key rather than major, as many of his ten symphonies were. The second movement (“leisurely moving, without haste”) is reminiscent of a Lindler, a German/Austrian folk dance, and the interplay of various themes has the ability to lead one into daydreaming of earlier, perhaps happier times. The third movement (“peacefully, somewhat slowly”), the longest of the four, starts off very softly and gradually morphs into an idyllic passage. Then one long-held note signals a transformation to a rhapsodic theme with a clarinet’s three-note replication of the sound of a cuckoo that other sections repeat. The final movement, marked “very comfortably, strophic” (meaning that all verses or stanzas use the same music), opens with woodwinds underscoring a theme that mimics the sound of a bird, intercut with a driving, almost frenetic theme of winds and brass. This last movement calls up mental images of an aerial trip over the mountains, forests, and rivers of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
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The Schuster Center
Dayton Performing Arts Alliance
