THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2018-2019 39
Program Notes
skillful construction cloaked by a deceptive charm.
Written in 1779, this three-movement, half-hour
piece is a marvel of refinement and taste, and one
of the more joyful creations in Mozart’s treasure
chest.
A sinfonia concertante is much like it sounds: a small
orchestra in which soloists appear, all wrapped into
one, usually with a lighthearted dialogue between
the soloists. While hundreds were written in the late
18th century – many by a union of court composers
in the German town of Mannheim – Mozart left us
one that outshines everything else in the genre. He
also knew a thing or two about the violin and viola
(the latter tuned a half tone higher to give it more
prominence), as he played both with fluency.
The opening movement, marked Allegro maestoso
(lively and majestic), opens abruptly with a full
orchestra chord on which the string section sets
the stage for spirited duets by the soloists. For the
remainder of this long, march-like section, solo
violin and viola weave in and out of the orchestra
with seamless ease.
Things turn darker in the second movement, cast
in C minor, and the soloists sing a lament that
seems stolen right out of one of Mozart’s operas. A
tinge of sorrow and seriousness grounds the music
and reflects Mozart’s assurance in balancing his
material. Things turn festive in the finale, taken at a
presto clip by an energized orchestra with plenty of
white-knuckled fiddling and high, aerobatic E-flat
leaps by the two protagonists.
Listening to this sublime music, it becomes obvious
that Mozart enjoyed the banter between these two
related string instruments. He returned to them
again four years later in his Duos for Violin and Viola,
again striking gold with the conversation he drew
from a pair of fiddles.
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Symphony No. 1, Op. 39
Duration: ca. 38 minutes
One of the most gifted composers of the 20th
century, Sibelius lived a life stretching from the end
of the Civil War and opening of the Suez Canal to the
year Elvis released Jail House Rock and the Soviets
launched Sputnik.
Quite a span. But just as Sibelius had thrown
down the gauntlet as a giant among late-romantic
symphonists, following Mahler and Strauss, he quit
composing. With the completion of his symphonic
poem Tapiola in 1926, he stopped writing the major
works that had brought him fame. The question
was, and for many still is, why?
Sibelius was essentially a romantic composer who
bridged the 19th and 20th centuries, and whose
best work is perfumed with the mists of his Finnish
homeland. Like Wagner, he was fascinated by myth
and legend, and wove ancient characters into many
of his dark and powerful tone poems.
One of those, Finlandia, evokes the struggle of the
Finnish people and became a symbol of nationalism.
His seven symphonies, which he called “confessions
of faith,’’ share the composer’s concentrated and
tonal expressions, soaring crescendos, and stalled
climaxes. The world waited for an eighth symphony,
but it never came. Historians and biographers
have posited a number of theories about the
silence. Some point to the composer’s hypercritical
attitude toward his work, or conversely, a sense
of accomplishment and completion. Others cite
creative exhaustion, depression, and alcoholism.
Some biographers attribute the end of his creative
energies to the last suggestion, which he battled
most of his life. “My drinking has genuine roots that
are both dangerous and go deep,’’ Sibelius once
wrote. “In order to survive, I have to have alcohol.
And that’s where all my problems begin.’’
The Symphony No. 1 offers no hint of the troubles
and despair that would soon plague Sibelius. It
opens with an extended clarinet solo over a roll of
timpani and builds on the scaffolding of classical
sonata form. Soon, the orchestra unleashes a
flood of autumnal colors in complex meters so
characteristic of the composer’s emerging style.
An army of brass follows, laying the harmonic
groundwork for the rest of the movement.
The lyrical slow section bears the influence of
the Pathetique Symphony of Tchaikovsky, whom
Sibelius admired, and the short scherzo, with its
monolithic drive, sounds like a page torn from
Bruckner. Sibelius described the finale as quasi una
fantasia (“like a fantasy’’), and tips its hat to the
opening clarinet theme, this time between strings
and brass. Alert rhythms punctuate the rest of the
section, creating tension until the strings unleash
a choral-like theme and rolling timpani bring the
work to its dramatic finish.
Program notes by Kurt Loft, a freelance writer and
former music critic for The Tampa Tribune. ©2018