Friday, December 9, 2016

Juilliard Lab Orchestra Performs Haydn and Mozart

Earlier this week, as part of the Wednesdays at One series at Alice Tully Hall, the Juilliard Lab Orchestra gave an excellent performance of two great symphonies from the Classical period in a one-hour concert that highlighted the talents of four student conductors.

The program opened with Haydn's Symphony No. 99 in E-flat major, Hob. I:99 (1793).  This was the first of six symphonies the composer wrote in anticipation of his second visit to London in 1794.  Haydn had enjoyed the adulation he had received during his first London tour, not to mention the great amount of money he had earned from it, and was determined to pull out all the stops to impress his wildly enthusiastic English audiences.  The present work was intended as a showcase for the talents of "the father of the symphony" and Haydn left nothing to chance.  He even included for the first time clarinets in the instrumentation.  When the work premiered in London, Haydn's efforts were rewarded with what one newspaper described as "rapturous applause."  The two conductors at Wednesday's performance were Benjamin Hochman (movements 1 and 3) and Jane H. Kim (movements 2 and 4); the latter's work on the finale was especially noteworthy.

The second and final work on the program was Mozart's penultimate symphony, the No. 41 in C major, K. 551 (1788), the "Jupiter" - a sobriquet given it not by the composer but some time after Mozart's death by Johann Peter Salomon, the same impresario who arranged both Haydn's London tours.  Even so, the nickname is highly appropriate, for this is truly the most majestic of Mozart's symphonic works.  Though it may never have been performed during his lifetime - there's no clear evidence either way - it was nevertheless the culmination of his writing for orchestra.  This can be seen most clearly in the finale where, in an astonishing display of fugal writing, he has five separate melodies playing in counterpoint to one another.  As one listener wrote:
"The mass of simultaneously writhing fragments, at all rhythmic levels and in all instruments, with the relentless background of the four whole-notes, cannot be taken in. It reveals vistas of contrapuntal infinity. The coda thus creates a cognitive exhaustion born of sheer magnitude. It makes vivid the mathematical sublime."
The two conductors for the Mozart symphony were Gregor A. Mayrhofer (movements 1 and 3) and Jesse Brault (movements 2 and 4).

In listening to these two symphonies back to back, one could not help thinking of the contrasts in the careers of the two composers, who were not rivals so much as personal friends who exchanged musical ideas.  The second London journey was the high point of Haydn's career.  After almost thirty years of relative isolation spent working for the Esterházy family, he became with his London journeys an international celebrity, universally regarded as the greatest composer in Europe.  Mozart, on the other hand, by the time of his death in 1791 was living in obscurity and near poverty, his days of fame as a child prodigy long forgotten.  Ironically, one of the few to appreciate his genius was the loyal Haydn who famously averred to Mozart's father Leopold:
"Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name; he has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition."
It was only after his death that Mozart's greatness was at last recognized and that his reputation grew to equal, if not surpass, Haydn's own.  Such are the vagaries of fate.

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