Maxim Emelyanychev conducts Mendelssohn, Mozart and Haydn

About the Work

Goethe’s two short poems Meeresstille (“Calm Sea”) and Glückliche Fahrt (“Prosperous Voyage”) were hugely popular in the early nineteenth century. Beethoven set them as a cantata for chorus and orchestra, Schubert set the first as a song, and in 1828 the nineteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn turned them into a concert overture without words. The titles are not a pair of synonyms. For a sailing ship a dead calm was a real danger, since without wind the crew could only wait, and the “prosperous voyage” begins when the breeze finally rises and the ship can move again.

The overture was first tried out privately at a concert in the Mendelssohn family home in Berlin on 7 September 1828. Mendelssohn kept revising it for several years afterwards.

Like The Hebrides, the overture is not a prelude to an opera or a play but an independent piece of orchestral scene-painting, and it anticipates the tone poems of later composers. Mendelssohn himself described the plan of the opening in a letter: a note “gently sustained by the strings for a long while hovers here and there and trembles, barely audible”, until the music comes to a halt “with thick chords and the Prosperous Voyage sets out”.

What to Listen For

The Calm Sea is an Adagio of almost motionless music: soft, sustained chords, a hymn-like melody in the strings, and a sense of waiting. There is no drama here, only stillness and unease.

Listen for the moment when a small rising phrase in the flute, like the first breath of wind, breaks the spell. The orchestra swells, the tempo quickens and the Prosperous Voyage begins, a bright and energetic Allegro in which the winds, timpani and trumpets join in. Near the end a broad, ceremonial passage seems to welcome the ship into harbour. Then comes Mendelssohn’s surprise: instead of ending with a blaze of brass, the overture closes quietly, with a brief, gentle memory of the voyage.

About the Work

All of Mozart’s horn concertos were written for one man: Joseph Leutgeb, the leading Austrian horn player of his time. Leutgeb had been first horn of the court orchestra in Salzburg, where he became a friend of the Mozart family, and he later moved to Vienna, as Mozart himself did in 1781. The friendship lasted until the end of Mozart’s life, and it was full of teasing. Mozart peppered his horn manuscripts with jokes at Leutgeb’s expense, and he wrote the score of this concerto in four colours of ink (red, green, blue and black). This may have been a joke intended to rattle the soloist, although some scholars have suggested that the colours are a kind of code for dynamics and phrasing.

Mozart entered the work in his own catalogue in 1786 as “a horn concerto for Leutgeb”. Despite its number it was probably not the last of the four concertos, and the Berliner Philharmoniker’s introduction notes recent research suggesting that it may be the second in order of composition.

The horn of Mozart’s day was the natural horn, without valves. Players changed notes by adjusting their lips and by moving the hand inside the bell, so the chromatic lines in the first movement and the rapid passagework in the finale were a real test of Leutgeb’s skill. On the modern valve horn these concerts showcase the principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Yun Zeng, in his first solo appearance with the orchestra.

What to Listen For

I. Allegro maestoso. A broad, stately orchestral opening, after which the horn enters with a singing theme. Listen for the passages where the soloist moves by semitones: easy on a modern instrument, but on the natural horn a feat of hand-stopping.

II. Romance: Andante cantabile. Essentially a song without words, in which the horn’s warm middle register carries a gentle, lyrical melody.

III. Rondo: Allegro vivace. The best-known movement, a lively hunting-style finale in 6/8 time. Its bouncing main theme, built largely on the notes of the major chord that a natural horn plays most easily, keeps coming back between episodes, each time with a little more brilliance.

About the Work

Unlike Mozart, Haydn was not a keyboard virtuoso, and his reputation rests above all on his symphonies and string quartets. Yet his Keyboard Concerto in D major, Hob. XVIII:11, is the best known of his concertos for keyboard and one of the few to be published during his lifetime. It was written in the early 1780s and published in 1784, and it was his last concerto for the instrument.

The score allows for either harpsichord or fortepiano, a reminder that the 1780s were a period of transition between the two instruments. At these concerts Maxim Emelyanychev plays the fortepiano, the lighter, more transparent ancestor of the modern piano, and directs the orchestra from the keyboard as Haydn’s contemporaries would have done. The concerto dates from the years in which Haydn and Mozart came to know and admire each other, and writers have heard echoes of Mozart’s piano concertos in it. The Berliner Philharmoniker’s own introduction suggests it may even have been a response to Mozart’s work in Vienna.

The orchestral writing is modest. The interest lies in the solo part, which is more demanding than in Haydn’s earlier keyboard concertos, and in the finale’s borrowing of the “Hungarian” style that was fashionable at the time.

What to Listen For

I. Vivace. A lively, instantly catchy main theme sets the tone. Listen for the dialogue between the fortepiano and the orchestra and for the crisp, sparkling passagework in the solo part.

II. Un poco adagio. A singing slow movement in which the keyboard spins out long, ornamented melodies. Its expressive warmth can sound surprisingly forward-looking for music of the early 1780s.

III. Rondo all’Ungarese: Allegro assai. The finale is written in the “Hungarian” manner that was fashionable at the time: stamping rhythms, bright accents and a main theme that keeps returning with fresh energy.

About the Work

Symphony No. 104 is Haydn’s last symphony and the last of the twelve he wrote for London. In 1790 the death of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy released Haydn from nearly three decades of court service, and the violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon persuaded him to come to London. His two visits, in 1791 to 1792 and 1794 to 1795, were among the great successes of his career, and the twelve symphonies he wrote for them are the summit of his orchestral music.

The nickname “London” is somewhat arbitrary, given that eleven other symphonies have an equal claim to it; in Germany the work is often called the “Salomon” Symphony. It was the main work at a concert of Haydn’s own music at the King’s Theatre in London on 4 May 1795, given for his benefit. Haydn noted in his diary: “The whole company was thoroughly pleased and so was I. I made 4,000 gulden on this evening: such a thing is possible only in England.”

Whether or not Haydn knew it would be his last symphony, it has the feel of a grand summing-up: a solemn introduction, a first movement built almost entirely from one theme, an Andante with a sudden outburst, a sturdy minuet and a folk-flavoured finale.

What to Listen For

I. Adagio; Allegro. The symphony opens with a stern call for the full orchestra, using only two notes, so that you cannot tell at first whether the music is in D major or D minor. A brooding minor-key introduction follows. Then the Allegro begins quietly in the violins in a bright D major. Listen for how Haydn builds the whole movement from this one theme: when the “second theme” arrives, it is essentially the first one again, in a new key.

II. Andante. A simple, lilting melody in G major for the strings. It darkens gradually and then breaks out into a minor-key storm for the whole orchestra, before calm returns, with the flute prominent near the end.

III. Menuetto: Allegro. A robust minuet, full of Haydn’s wit and unexpected pauses. The trio in the middle is lighter and dominated by the oboe and bassoon.

IV. Finale: Spiritoso. The finale opens over a sustained drone in the bass, like a bagpipe, with a folk-like tune in the violins. It was long thought to be based on a London street cry, but it has more recently been identified with a Croatian song, “Oj, Jelena”. Listen for the surprises Haydn keeps springing almost until the final chord.