Ludwig van Beethoven (born Bonn, Germany, December 16, 1770; died Vienna, March 26, 1827)

Overture to Egmont, op. 84 (composed 1809-10; premiered Vienna, June 15, 1810)

            Ludwig von Beethoven was born into a musical family in Bonn, Germany.  While he initially studied music with his father, he soon moved on to other teachers, including Salieri, Albrechtsberger, and Franz Joseph Haydn.  While he was employed as court musician for a short time by the Elector of Bonn, he soon found a single position too confining for his compositional desires.  He found many wealthy patrons, first in Bonn and then in Vienna, and became one of the first composers to be able to earn a living without having to rely on a royal or church appointment.  This freedom would not only allow him to rely on subjects of his own choosing for his work, but was the basis for the beginning of the Romantic Era in music.

            Beethoven's career falls into three categories, usually called Style Periods.  The first period includes such popular works as his first two symphonies and the Moonlight Sonata.  Much of his best-known work comes from the middle period, normally considered to be from 1803-1812.  This is when the composer realized his hearing impairment would not improve, causing mood swings and periods of depression.  In spite of that, music produced during this time includes Symphonies 3-8, much of his string chamber music, and his last two concertos for piano (Nos. 4-5).  While he did not produce as many works in his final style period, that time includes a series of string quartets, the Mass and the 9^th Symphony, considered his most profound music.

            By the time of his death in 1827, he was recognized not only as a great composer, but a representative of freedom and heroic struggle.  It is reported that 10,000 people attended his funeral.

            Beethoven was fascinated with the concept of freedom.  He had originally intended his Third Symphony to be dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, until the French General and emperor showed himself to be more dictator than Freedom Fighter, causing the composer to change the title of the work to Eroica (Heroic), meant to honor all heroes.  It is no surprise, then, that he was excited to accept a commission to compose the incidental music to the 1810 Viennese production of Goethe's play Egmont.    

Count Egmont was a 16^th century Spanish general charged with putting down a rebellion in the Netherlands.  When he pleads with the king for leniency for the Dutch for tyranny, the King sends a new general to crush the rebellion and the spirit of the people, and imprisons Egmont for tyranny.  In spite of the oppression, Egmont continues to remain a hopeful, supporting and generous person even during his imprisonment and execution. 

Beethoven begins the overture with solemn chords that lead to a frantic, downward melody introduced by the cellos.  After building to a climax and repeating the main themes, the orchestra comes to a complete halt, adding to the suspense.  Rather than continue the dark, oppressive sounds after the pause, the music takes on a joyous, heroic nature indicative of the title character.


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born Salzburg, Austria, January 27, 1756; died Vienna, December 5, 1791)

Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 (composed 1788; premiere disputed, but likely Dresden, April 14, 1789)

            Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is one of the most famous composers of music in the classical genre.  Even people who do not know his pieces by name or association have heard his work; countless compositions of his are used to sell cars, butter, and vacations through advertisements; his music is also a regular in elevators and waiting rooms; and his life and death were the focus of a play and later a movie.  While his fame is well deserved, some of the assumptions of his lifestyle and habits appear to have been over-stated and the dramatic counts of a sinister aspect of his death are highly unlikely.

            Mozart was born to Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart in Salzburg.  Leopold was a second-tier composer, but he used his family's musical talent in an attempt to make a name for himself throughout many of the European cultural capitals of the time.  After receiving a leave from his position in Salzburg, he travelled extensively with Wolfgang (now five) and his sister Maria throughout Europe, showing off their talents.  This led to the young Mozart's reputation for being able to play back pieces after only one hearing, to compose entire pieces at the keyboard, and a series of other talents that were all the rage in upper crust society.

            The young composer's reputation allowed him to receive numerous appointments and commissions, from Salzburg, to Paris, and finally Vienna.  His musical output included virtually every ensemble and solo combination of the time, including opera, symphonies, concerti for most instruments (including the clarinet, brand new at the time,) and a wide variety of chamber music.  While he had much success and travelled extensively, he did like to live well, and his financial circumstances began to catch up with him later in his life.  He spent the last few years of his life in and out of good health, sometimes selling his property to make it through to his next commission.  He finally succumbed to rheumatic fever (although countless other theories and diseases have been named as the cause) on December 5, 1791, shortly after conducting the premiere of his opera The Magic Flute and completing most of his Requiem, which was completed by his student Franz Sussmayer.  He was buried in a common grave, standard practice at that time in Vienna, and not an indication of public disapproval.  In fact, the next few years saw an increase in the performance of his works, and biographies of his life were quickly produced and sold well throughout Europe.

As popular as the composer was during his lifetime, and as quickly as his life and works began to be studied after his death, it is a bit surprising that there is no definitive evidence regarding the first performance of Mozart's 40^th Symphony.  It is clear that Mozart had composed the work to be performed at a series of "Concerts in the Casino" for a new casino built by one of his Masonic brethren in 1788, but it is unclear whether those concerts ever took place.  There are at least three other possible performance dates, shown by programs listing symphonies by Mozart, but without key or number identifications, between 1788 and the composer's death in 1791.  While early scholars assumed that the premiere of this work did not occur until after the composer's death, more recent investigation has shown that Mozart appears to have rewritten the symphony to include clarinet parts and to rescore the flute and oboe parts to accommodate the inclusion of those parts.  It seems reasonable that the composer would not have gone to the trouble of adding sections to a work he had not heard in performance.

            The first movement features an opening theme that is famous for several reasons, not the least of which is its melodic simplicity.  The half-step interval that is repeated becomes a building block for the entire symphony.  Likewise, the rhythmic pattern continues throughout all four movements, making for an easy transition from movement to movement.  The second movement is in a traditional, slow tempo, and continues to show the composer at his melodic best.  The third movement, in traditional Minuet form, is notable for its heavy character and use of hemiola (making the rhythmic pulse sound as if it were in a different meter) at the beginning.  While the listener expects a three-beat dance, what is produced sounds much more like an angry, two-beat march step.

The fourth movement returns to sonata-allegro form, a bit unusual for the last movement of a symphony of this period (it would traditionally be in rondo form, with a recurring theme heard throughout.)  While the form unfolds in a traditional manner, Mozart adds a twist in the development section.  The beginning of the development features ten notes of the chromatic scale played without repeating any of the pitches, until all of the notes have been heard, except G-natural (the namesake pitch of the Symphony!)  This is, in fact, likely the first-ever tone row, a compositional technique not heard again until the music of Schoenberg almost 150 years later.



Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (born Hamburg, Germany, February 3, 1809; died Leipzig, November 4, 1847)

Symphony No. 3 in A minor, op. 56 "Scottish" (composed 1829-1842; premiered Leipzig, March 3, 1842)

            Felix Mendelssohn was born to a prominent, wealthy Jewish family.  While brought up without religion, he later converted to the Lutheran denomination and added the name of his grandmother's family, "Bartholdy," to his professional name.   His family were part of the German intelligentsia, and he some of the most famous thinkers and philosophers of the early 19^th century were regular visitors at his family's home.

            A prodigy, Mendelssohn began performing at age nine and composing shortly after, producing works for chamber groups and even symphonies for string orchestra by the time he was 14.  This early experience also led him to an in depth study of the compositions of J.S. Bach.  Mendelssohn would continue to be a champion of Bach's music for the rest of his career, and his support is a significant reason that the elder composer's music did not fall into anonymity.  He also is credited with the revival of G.F. Handel's music in Germany.  In spite of this look back to his musical roots, he began to take on the full extent of the Romantic era by gaining a sense of nature in his compositional style.  While this can be said of many of his colleagues, Mendelssohn gained a reputation as being able to represent nature, and to use it as an influence in his music, in a profound way that had not been captured previously.

While he was celebrated as a composer throughout Western Europe, he gained particular note in Britain, where he would spend many years composing, performing, conducting, and traveling.  He would make a total of 10 trips to Britain during his life, and those trips not only influenced the British musical scene, but had a great influence on his music, as well.  He settled in Leipzig and founded a conservatory, where he convinced Robert Schumann and Joseph Joachim to join him on faculty.  He was also the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and spent years taking great care to examine rehearsal techniques, conducting patterns and leadership skills that became the basis for the role of the professional conductor.  As a byproduct of this appointment, he is credited with being the father of modern conducting technique.  Mendelssohn suffered a series of strokes in 1847, and he died on Nov. 4 of that year, at the age of 38.

            Mendelssohn's Third Symphony, titled "Scottish," was influenced by the composer's travels through Great Britain in the 1820s and 30s.  The opening movement includes musical elements that lead the listener to imagine both the expanse of the countryside as well as the rugged beauty of both the Highlands and the seascapes of Scotland.  While not composed in Scotland, the work was influenced by many of the composer's trips.  The opening theme of the first movement is reportedly the composer's reaction to seeing the ruins of Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.  By the end of the movement, the winds along the coast can be heard, and the outline of the Hebrides Islands coming into view.  The Second movement features a primary theme based on the same five-note scale that bagpipes use, and the rhythmic snap of Scottish folk music is heard prominently.  The elegiac Third movement allows Mendelssohn to contemplate the life and fate of Mary Stuart, the Scottish monarch (from the time she was six days old!) who would eventually be imprisoned, tried and beheaded for her attempting to take the British Crown from Queen Elizabeth I.  The final movement has been described as Highland warriors charging in full battle dress.

Notes © 2010 by David Scott