hkpo Live! (2007)
The CD is an exciting live recording of Hong Kong Philharmonic performing music by Mozart, Mahler, Beethoven, and Dvorak under the baton of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Edo de Waart. To get your own copy for free, simply purchase U Magazine on 2 November or HK Economic Times (retail edition) on 7 November.
Programme
MOZART Symphony No.41 – fourth movement
DVORAK Wind Serenade – first movement
MAHLER Symphony No.4 – first movement
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.7 – fourth movement
CD Sleeve design: Kevin Lo
Sound Engineer: Raymond Lo
Programme Notes
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Symphony No.41 in C (K.551) - "Jupiter"
Finale (Molto allegro)
The title, "Jupiter", was not Mozart’s. His son suggested to the English publisher, Vincent Novello, that it had been coined by the London impresario, Salomon, but the first actual evidence of the title being associated with the work came in a concert programme for the Edinburgh Festival held in October 1819, in which it was described as the “Jupiter Symphony”. It is thought that a German-born composer of piano studies, J B Cramer, first suggested the name. He wasn’t thinking of the planet but of the Roman God who was associated with thunder and thunderbolts.
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Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904)
Wind Serenade in D minor, Op. 44
First Movement (Moderato, quasi Marcia)
Brought to a peak of perfection by Mozart, the wind serenade must have appeared an anachronism when Dvorák composed his D minor Serenade in 1878, more than a century later. The instrumentation, with cello and double bass added to the complement of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn, recalls Mozart's E-flat Serenade of 1781 — with the influence of Brahms' A major Serenade of 1860 evident in the melodic writing.
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Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Symphony No.4 in G
First Movement (Bedächtig Nicht eilen)
By 1899 Mahler had earned enough money to buy a plot of land on the shores of a picturesque lake (the Wörthensee) in Austria’s Carinthian mountains near the small in the small village of Maiernigg. He built a villa there to which he retreated the following summer, following a hectic round of conducting engagements, to commit to paper the Fourth Symphony which had been developing in his mind over the course of the previous 12 months. As he wrote in a letter to a friend, “so my Fourth Symphony was completed on Sunday 6th August 1900 at Maiernigg. I’ll make a fair copy of it in the winter”. Much of the happiness and ease Mahler was experiencing during his summer at Maiernigg finds its way into the Fourth Symphony, which is on a far smaller scale and conceived along far more Classical lines than its two immediate predecessors; the only unusual element being the introduction into the final movement of a solo soprano who sings a song from Das Knaben Wunderhorn, an anthology of German children’s tales which Mahler had set to music in 1892.
While Mahler’s Fourth Symphony was the first to gain widespread acceptance amongst concert audiences, its first performance received a surprisingly unfriendly reception. Mahler himself conducted the première with the Kaim Orchestra in Munich on 25th November 1901. The critic for Die Musik described it as “morbid, tasteless, non-music”, while the Musical Courier compared it to a “circus scene” and found the work “a shock and an unpleasant one”. It seemed that the audience were expecting something altogether more extravagant and revolutionary; they even went so far as to hiss each of the movements. One member of that first night audience - Wilhelm Ritter, described as a “French-Wagnerian”, was particularly hostile, whistling and shouting throughout the performance, but subsequently confessing that while “all my thoughts and convictions condemn this music. Yet I am fighting my own enjoyment. At heart I love only this music. I give in. I admire it.”
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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No .7 in A, Op.92
Fourth movement
A Symphony is one of the most common types of orchestral music. It became popular in the 17th and 18th centuries when composers like Haydn and Mozart wrote dozens. Beethoven had lessons from both these composers and wrote nine symphonies of his own. But while his teachers’ symphonies were pleasant collections of fine melodies and happy dances, Beethoven poured all his emotions into his. He made such big changes to the symphony that we now regard him as one of the greatest composers of symphonies in the history of music. Symphonies generally have four movements. The fourth movement of Beethoven’s seventh symphony is so full of manic energy and fun that it’s difficult to appreciate that, when he wrote it, Beethoven was really very unhappy indeed (he started to go deaf when he was just 30, so by the time he wrote his Seventh Symphony – he was then 42 – he could hear nothing except a continual ringing in his ears). But just as classical music can express emotions which words cannot, it can also help us change our moods from sorrow to joy.
Written by: Marc Rochester
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