Mozart: Serenades No. 6 and 13, 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik' / Divertimento No. 10
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Eine kleine Nachtmusik Divertimento in F major Serenata Notturna As a child Mozart had enjoyed phenomenal success,...
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Eine kleine Nachtmusik Divertimento in F major Serenata Notturna
As a child Mozart had enjoyed phenomenal
success, travelling through Europe and, with his sister
Nannerl, performing for kings and queens, the nobility
and others able to afford the spectacle. His father
Leopold Mozart, Vice-Kapellmeister to the Archbishop
of Salzburg, had taken good care of his only surviving
son's education and musical training, and had managed
his career at the expense of his own.
In December 1771 the Mozarts' patron, the
Archbishop, had died and was succeeded early in the
following year by a less sympathetic churchman, the
reformist Count Hieronymus von Colloredo, a son of
the Imperial Vice-Chancellor. The new Archbishop
shared the feelings of the Imperial family on the
activities of the Mozarts, who seemed to bring no credit
on their employers by "travelling around like beggars".
The concert tours that had brought some profit and
distinction to the family were to be curtailed, and
Mozart was for a few years to be more or less confined
to the narrow limits of Salzburg, in a position that he
and his father found quite unworthy of his genius.
Nevertheless in Salzburg there was work to be done,
music to be written and played.
In 1777 Mozart was to set out, accompanied only
by his mother, to seek his fortune in Mannheim and in
Paris, an abortive journey, during the course of which
his mother died. Mannheim in particular, with its
virtuoso orchestra, provided a stimulus to his work.
Before this, however, Salzburg had provided the
occasion for a number of compositions, including the
Serenata notturna and the two Divertimenti sometimes
known as the Lodron Nightmusic, occasional pieces to
celebrate the name-day in 1776 and 1777 of Countess
Antonia Lodron on 13th June. The Countess, born
Arco, a name we meet in the accounts of Mozart's later
dismissal from the Archbishop's service in 1781, was
the wife of the hereditary marshal of the court, and a
leading patroness of music in Salzburg. The Mozarts
were on visiting terms, however deferentially, and
Leopold Mozart and his son had joined the Lodron's
party at a fancy dress ball in February, 1776, Leopold
Mozart as a porter and his son as a barber's boy.
It was during the winter that Mozart had written the
Serenata notturna, K. 239, completed in January, 1776,
and clearly designed for some Salzburg social occasion.
The work is scored for a concerti no of single strings, two
violins, a viola and a double bass, and a body of ripieno
strings and timpani, an arrangement which, bar the
drums, must remind us of the form of the Baroque
concerto grosso.
The first movement of the Serenata is a stately
March, in which the smaller and larger groups of
instruments are contrasted. There follows a Minuet, and
a Trio played by the concertino, leading, after the
repetition of the Minuet, to a final Rondo that includes
episodes of possible topical reference. Within the
framework of the repeated principal theme comes a
solemn Adagio, the music of a country dance and a
brief and unexpected plucking of strings, before the
lively conclusion.
The Divertimento in F major is scored for two
horns and strings, and was completed in June, 1776, for
Countess Antonia Lodron's name-day It starts with a
lively movement in all the clarity of classical first
movement form. This is followed by a C major Andante
grazioso and a first Minuet returning to the key of F,
with a contrasting D minor Trio.
The next movement, marked Adagio and in the key
of B flat, is scored only for strings, the first violin
taking the lead. The second Minuet, in F, with a B flat
Trio for the strings alone, leads to a final movement
with a slow introduction and a varied concluding rondo,
all well suited to the occasion of the composition
Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Serenade in G, K 525,
comes from a later period of Mozart's life. In 1781
Mozart, who had returned from Mannheim and Paris to
the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, accompanied
his patron on a visit to the Imperial capital, Vienna.
There he finally broke with his employer and secured
his dismissal from the archiepiscopal court. In Vienna
there seemed every opportunity, which it seemed his
patron was deliberately preventing him from seizing.
The last ten years of Mozart's life were spent in
Vienna, without the presence of his father to guide him
and without the kind of secure patronage that he had
hoped to gain at court. An imprudent marriage brought
its own difficulties, but Mozart, nevertheless, won
some immediate acclaim, both in the theatre and as a
performer on the fortepiano, popularity which waned,
but had begun to revive at the time of his sudden death
in December, 1791.
Eine kleine Nachtmusik was written in August,
1787, a few months after the death of Leopold Mozart
in Salzburg, while Mozart was preparing his new opera,
Don Giovanni, for performance in Prague. The occasion
of its composition is unknown, but the work would have
been suitable for domestic performance. Originally
including a first Minuet, now lost, the Serenade opens
with music as lucid and cheerful as anything Mozart
wrote, followed by a Romance of charm and ingenuity,
a spry Minuet and a final Rondo, a conclusion to the
remarkable series of Serenades and Divertimenti on
which Mozart had embarked twenty years before, as a
ten-year-old.
Keith Anderson
Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, Hob.VIIe:1: III. Finale (more info)
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I. Allegro - 6:07
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II. Romance: Allegro - 6:10
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III. Menuetto: Allegretto - 2:16
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IV. Rondo: Allegro - 3:45
Serenade No. 6 in D major, K. 239, "Serenata Notturna" (more info)
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I. Marcia: Maestoso - 4:22
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II. Menuetto - 3:44
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III. Rondo: Allegretto – Adagio – Allegro - 4:58
Divertimento No. 10 in F major, K. 247, "Lodron Night Music No. 1" (more info)
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I. Allegro - 8:49
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II. Andante grazioso - 4:54
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III. Menuetto - 4:17
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IV. Adagio - 7:33
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V. Menuetto - 3:49
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VI. Andante – Allegro assai - 6:56