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| Holy Roman Empire, 1789 |
(This essay was first published as a programme note for the Salzburg Festival, 2015)
FRANZ
SCHUBERT • Overture “in the Italian Style” in D, D. 590
WOLFGANG
AMADEUS MOZART • Symphony No. 38 in D, K. 504, “Prague” SymphonyLUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN • Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 36
Bright open strings, trumpets,
drums: such are the stereotypical associations of orchestral works in D major,
perhaps especially during the Baroque and Classical periods. Schubert’s D major
Overture was the first of two such works he composed ‘in the Italian style’,
although that tag was not Schubert’s own, added after the event by his brother,
Ferdinand. At any rate, the influence of Rossini – also to be felt in the
composer’s Sixth Symphony, on which he began work in 1817, the same year that
he wrote these overtures – is the reason, although such influence can readily
be exaggerated, and often has. There is certainly a Rossinian surface to the
work, especially in its orchestral crescendo, doubtless inspired by the first
performances of Rossini operas in Vienna the previous year; nevertheless, form
remains typical of ‘early’ Schubert. Both he and Rossini, of course, owed a
good deal to Mozart. If the prominence of the woodwind might suggest Rossini,
it might equally be a nod to Mozartian Harmoniemusik,
or it might simply be characteristic of Schubert. Likewise, one might hear
Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in the transitional repeated notes between opening
Adagio and the main Allegro giusto, or one might simply
think of the way paved for Schubert’s later symphonies. There is certainly much
‘Viennese’ charm, not so characteristic of either Rossini or Beethoven, and a
good deal to compare with Schubert’s later writing, not least his music for Rosamunde. Accented notes are characteristic;
so are the introduction’s modulations. The coda, moreover, may be heard to
offer presentiments of the ‘Great’ C major Symphony. Whether ‘Italian’,
‘Austrian’, or simply Schubert, the Overture is a splendid curtain-raiser –
fully worthy of hearing, especially in an age such as ours, in which concert
overtures have become strangely unfashionable.
‘Nationality’ is, according to
inclination, either a fraught or a supremely irrelevant issue for Mozart and
his music. Was he ‘Austrian’? Only in an anachronistic sense, for Salzburg would
not become part of Austria until 1805, and then initially only for four years.
‘German’? That is how he tended to describe himself, as did many others within
the Holy Roman Empire: in many respects, more a (frustratingly slow) legal
system than a state, whose crown Joseph II declared only to be worthwhile on
account of the troops it brought him. Prague was generally considered just as
much a ‘German’ city as Vienna, and it was, famously, a source of great
happiness to Mozart. But there was nothing narrowly nationalistic to his works
for that city or elsewhere; Don Giovanni
and the ‘Prague’ Symphony owed a great deal to Italianate models too. Indeed, a
hallmark of eighteenth-century German cultural identity was its proud,
cosmopolitan receptiveness to varied styles; and Vienna remained a celebrated
haven for Italian musicians. Prague itself offered early performances of Die Zauberflöte in German in 1792, and
in 1794, both in Czech and Italian. The symphony itself, however ‘German’ it
was to become, derived from the Italianate opera sinfonia.
But let us return specifically
to the Prague Symphony. It has been
suggested, for instance by Daniel E. Freeman, that the lack of a minuet and
trio, and thus the symphony’s three-movement form, was a nod to Prague; it is
certainly at odds both with Mozart’s and Vienna’s practice, and the symphonies
of Mozart’s friend, Josef Mysliveček, are all in three movements. Charles
Rosen, in his book, Sonata Forms,
described it as ‘Mozart’s most massive achievement in the symphonic genre – a
work which unites grandeur and lyricism as no other.’ Prague’s enthusiasm for
Mozart’s music has often and not without reason contrasted with Vienna’s often
lukewarm reception. The warmth of its reception for Le nozze di Figaro may have emboldened the composer, as it
certainly would in the case of Don
Giovanni, to write one of his more complex, profound creations. We do not
know specifically ‘why’ it was written, but intention for Prague is a harmless
and possibly revealing myth. Completed in December 1786, the symphony was taken
with him on his visit early the following year to the German-Bohemian city, in
which he conducted a performance of Figaro
as well as the premiere of this work. The world of opera buffa, albeit Mozart’s own dramatically heightened and
darkened opera buffa, or soon-to-come
Giovanni-esque dramma giocoso, haunts
its pages. Mozart certainly took advantage of the renowned talents of the
Prague woodwind players, his writing for that section seductively euphonious
even by his own exalted standards. One of the composer’s earliest biographers,
Franz Xaver Niemetschek, always proud to point to Bohemia’s affinity with the
Salzburger and vice versa, pointed to
Mozart having ‘judged with extreme accuracy’ in this work ‘the nature and range
of all instruments … the exact time and place to make his effect,’ resulting in
‘the admiration of all experts’.
A lengthy slow introduction to
the first movement signals its weight: child to the Sturm und Drang and father to Beethoven’s ‘expansion’ of symphonic
form. Mozart’s own symphonic sonata form is arguably deepened further by its
incorporation of elements of the ritornello form familiar from the composer’s
piano concertos. Counterpoint and harmony, as so often in mature Mozart, stand
in a relationship which, often depending on performance style, may suggest
either the most perfect balance or the most daring dialectic – or both. It is
counterpoint, born both of Mozart’s recent immersion in works by Bach and
Handel and of his experience of earlier, ‘Austrian’ composers such as Fux,
which holds the key to connection between the profusion of melodic figures,
unusual even by Mozart’s standards. They appear first in turn in the
exposition, like characters in an opera, then entwine, Figaro-like, in ensemble, always, as in his symphonies and operas
alike, under the benign, dynamic goal-orientation of his tonal choices.
Combinations present themselves anew, answering to the musico-dramatic
requirements of the moment: ever-fresh, ever-surprising, ever-convincing. As H.C.
Robbins Landon once observed, truthfully if with exaggeration, Haydn surprises
us with the unexpected; Mozart surprises us with the expected.
The slow movement is, typically
for Mozart, written in the subdominant, G major. Its compound duple (6/8) meter
permits all manner of sinuous chromatic deepening, both melodic and harmonic.
Quicksilver shifts, here and in the finale, between major and minor, remind us
once again of Mozart’s operatic stage and his ability to smile through tears.
The finale may have been written first of all; some scholars believe it was
originally intended as a replacement finale for the Paris Symphony, KV 297/300a.
Mozart’s world of dramma
giocoso returns, woodwind once again cast their magic spell, busy Presto syncopations hurtling towards the
joyous final affirmation of D major. Darker worlds, darker forces, have been
summoned up during the Andante and
cannot be forgotten, but Classical tonality will still permit cheerful, though
certainly not blithe or uncaring, resolution.
If the Prague Symphony marked significant expansion of symphonic scope and
form, so too of course did Beethoven’s symphonic arrival – and not just in his
Third Symphony, the so-called Eroica.
It is understandable that his first two symphonies are often compared to Mozart
and Haydn, but they have their own character, and could certainly not be
mistaken for the work of anyone else. They too have their elements of
international ‘synthesis’, although by this stage in musical history, we are,
rightly or wrongly, far more likely to think of compositional ‘originality’ – a
Romantic concept of ‘genius’ if ever there were one – rather than ‘influence’
upon its creator. Interestingly, Rosen mentions the work with the utmost
brevity in Sonata Forms, simply in
terms of its influence upon Schubert, and not at all in The Classical Style. Yet, as Sir Donald Tovey remarked,
‘Beethoven’s Second Symphony was evidently larger and more brilliant than any
that had been heard up to 1801.’
The first movement also opens
with a slow introduction, but it tends more towards Haydn’s example than
Mozart’s; as Tovey again noted, ‘it is Haydn’s way to begin his introduction,
after a good coup d’archet with a
broad melody fit for an independent slow movement.’ Duly
imposing chords, such as we have heard from both Schubert and Mozart, are
responded to in melting – ‘feminine’, to employ the idiom of nineteenth-century
musical criticism – fashion. If we remain in the mood for ‘influence’,
then we might also find Haydn’s in the first theme of the exposition proper. It
is certainly no melody ‘in the Italian style’ but a typically ‘Germanic’ motivic
building-block, yet one whose various components may be taken apart, expanded,
in a word ‘developed’. Both tonal world and motivic material, then, are ripe for exploration; so is the young, although not so
very young, Beethoven. The eruption of the coda certainly looks forward to any
number of Romantic successors, though Beethoven not so much obscures as renders
sublimely irrelevant the dualism of ‘Classical or Romantic’.
The Larghetto, according to Tovey, ‘one of
the most luxurious slow movements in the world,’ offers warmth and soulfulness with an Innigkeit
that seems, at least in retrospect, as ‘German’ as the composer from Bonn
who yet settled in Vienna. Chamber music writ large pays homage to the
Classical divertimento, so does Beethoven’s unusually Mozartian profligacy of
melodic material. The scherzo, the very idea of such a movement not the least
of Beethoven’s innovations, is small, yet utterly typical in its concision and
tension, and downright explosive quality. Its trio may relax, yet it offers
dialectical struggle too: not least between post-Mozartian Harmoniemusik – of a very different variety from Schubert’s, yet
doubtless with that common root – and a dazzling whirlwind vortex of
proto-Romantic string-writing. The rondo finale has Beethoven’s gruff humour
propelled by that ‘goal orientation’ which has been the hallmark of symphonism,
and, in its denial, anti-symphonism ever since. Not for nothing did Stravinsky,
perhaps the twentieth century’s greatest foe of the Classical-Romantic German
‘synthesis’, construct his æsthetic upon denial of Beethoven and Wagner; not
for nothing, however, did he re-admit Beethoven to his pantheon when composing
his Symphony in C.
