Overture, Rosamunde, D 644

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Overture, Rosamunde, D 644

Schubert never actually wrote an overture for Rosamunde. When Wilhelmina von Chézy’s play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus) was first performed with Schubert’s incidental music in Vienna in 1823 it was certainly introduced by an overture. But like much else in the Rosamunde score, which was put together in a great hurry, it was recycled from music written for something else - in this case from his recently completed but unperformed opera Alfonso und Estrella. Later, presumably because the earlier work was thought to be more appropriate, the Alfonso und Estrella Overture was replaced by one Schubert had written for his melodrama Die Zauberharfe (The Magic Harp) to a text by Georg von Hofmann in 1820.

The work now universally identified as the Rosamunde Overture rather than the Zauberharfe Overture, in spite of its conceptual relationship with von Hofmann’s libretto, is one of Schubert’s most attractive orchestral inspirations. Beginning with an Andante in C minor, where solemn chords offset a plaintive and beautifully scored melody for woodwind, it slips as if by accident into a delightful Allegro vivace in C major. There are two main themes, a carefree tune for violins and a more lyrical one on clarinet, which are not so much developed as repeated before the construction is completed by a jubilant coda.

Overture:

Andante - allegro vivace

Ballet Music:

Allegro moderato -      andante un poco assai

Andante

Schubert never actually wrote an overture for Rosamunde. When Wilhelmina von Chézy’s play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus) was first performed with Schubert’s incidental music in Vienna in 1823 it was certainly introduced by an overture. But like much else in the Rosamunde score, which was put together in a great hurry, it was recycled from music written for something else, in this case from his recently completed but unperformed opera Alfonso und Estrella. Later - we don’t know exactly when, why and by whom - the Alfonso und Estrella Overture was replaced by one Schubert had written for his melodrama Die Zauberharfe (The Magic Harp) to a text by Georg von Hofmann in 1820.

    The work now universally identified as the Rosamunde Overture - rather than the Zauberharfe Overture, in spite of its conceptual relationship with von Hofmann’s libretto - is one of Schubert’s most attractive orchestral inspirations. Beginning with an Andante in C minor, where solemn chords offset a plaintive and beautifully scored melody for woodwind, it slips as if by accident into a delightful Allegro vivace in C major. There are two main themes, a carefree tune for violins and a more lyrical one on clarinet, which are not so much developed as repeated before the construction is completed by a jubilant coda.

    Apart from the Overture, there as many as ten pieces of incidental music for Rosamunde, including four vocal items, three entractes and two ballet episodes. Bearing in mind that, according to one account, Schubert had no more than five days in which to complete the score, it is highly unlikely that more than a small proportion of it was written specifically for this purpose. One of the longest pieces, the first Entracte in B minor, is thought to have been conceived as the last movement of the recently abandoned “Unfinished” Symphony in the same key.

    The opening Allegro moderato section of the first ballet episode is based on material from that Entracte in B minor, opening with just the same dramatic gesture but gradually relaxing its minor-key demeanour to admit lyrical woodwind melody and a cheerful march. The charming Andante un poco assai, featuring more woodwind melody over gently undulating strings, follows after a magical transition and a short pause. The second ballet episode, an Andantino in G major, though written some years before the earliest of the Moments musicaux has much in common with those unpretentious and tuneful piano pieces.

Gerald Larner ©2003

Violin Classics

To write good violin music you don’t have to play the violin. But it certainly helps. Failing that, the next best thing is to know someone who does play the violin and, preferably, who plays it with such technical brilliance and such musical understanding as to inspire new sounds and fresh ideas. Of the four composers represented in today’s programme by a work for solo violin, three of them were violinists of one kind or another. Only Mozart, who for a few years was one of the leading violinists of his day, was accomplished enough to play in public, but Schubert and Elgar both learned to play the instrument as part of their musical education. As for Tchaikovsky, while he was not a violinist, several of his best friends were, including one who was particularly close to him.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Overture, Rosamunde, D 644

In spite of his inside knowledge of the violin, which he put to particularly good use in his string quartets, as a composer of orchestral music Schubert was interested at least as much in the woodwind section as the strings. The work we know as the Rosamunde Overture - which was actually written for a melodrama called Die Zauberharfe (The Magic Harp) in 1820 and added to the Rosamunde incidental music some years later - is an outstandingly attractive example. Here the woodwind principals are the stars while the strings appear mainly in supporting roles and crowd scenes.

The first melody to be heard after the solemn chords at the beginning of the slow (Andante) introduction is entrusted to a solo oboe and developed by woodwind colleagues and only then repeated by violins. Although the violins introduce the cheerful tune that makes its entry on the change to a quicker (Allegro vivace) tempo, the scarcely less happy second main theme goes to the clarinet and other woodwind but is never offered to the violins. Strings and brass have plenty to do, however, in colouring the more dramatic element of the work.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Violin Concerto No.3 in G major, K.216
Allegro
Adagio
Rondo: allegro - andante - allegretto - allegro

No one knows the identity of the violinist for whom Mozart wrote his five Violin Concertos in 1775. There is a theory that they were intended for Gaetano Brunetti, leader of the orchestra at the Archbishop’s court in Salzburg where Mozart and his father were also employed. It is tempting, however, to speculate that the composer had himself in mind as soloist: having just returned from leave of absence in Munich, where he had been on an unsuccessful mission to find a better job, he could scarcely have thought of a more spectacular way of recovering his reputation as a composer and instrumentalist in Salzburg. The Concerto in G would have been particularly effective in that respect.

Drawing on an aria from his recently completed opera Il rè pastore, Mozart secures a brilliant start to the opening Allegro movement. The soloist makes a decisive entry with the same operatic material but, ignoring the two contrasting themes introduced earlier by the orchestra, presents two more of his own - one elegantly poised on the top string of the instrument, the other politely taken up on a playful suggestion from the violins in the orchestra. In spite of this melodic abundance, the soloist adopts another new theme in the middle of the movement and, in an increasingly emotional dialogue with the first oboe, treats it for the most part in intriguingly anxious minor harmonies. The return of the operatic opening theme clears the air again.

To soften the colours in the Adagio, Mozart mutes the violins and replaces the oboes with a pair of flutes. But even here minor harmonies and agitated string figuration intrude on the lyrical serenity of the main theme in the middle section. Its final recall, in a little epilogue after the cadenza, is reassuring. So too is the carefree attitude of the last movement which is liberated enough to include a central episode that introduces not just one surprise element in a brief Andante serenade in G minor but also, immediately after it and with another change of tempo, a cheerful French folk tune that has nothing to do with the material on either side of it.

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
Overture: The Barber of Seville

Rossini wrote scarcely anything for solo violin. His major interest was vocal music, opera above all, and he did little else. As an opera composer, of course, he was brilliantly successful and nowhere more than in The Barber of Seville which, though a failure on its first performance in Rome in 1816, has since become much the most popular of all his operas. Verdi thought it the most beautiful opera buffa ever written. Its Overture, however, like that now associated with Schubert’s Rosamunde, originally belonged to a different work, the rather more serious Aureliana in Palmira written for Milan in 1813.

The Barber of Seville Overture also resembles the Rosamunde Overture in that it has a slow (Andante maestoso) introduction before getting into its stride in the main (Allegro vivo) section of the construction. Rossini makes a special feature of the woodwind too. The most expressive material in the introduction is scored for oboe with bassoon and horn to accompany it. Although the urgent main theme of the quicker section is the responsibility of the violins (doubled by piccolo), the more relaxed second subject is introduced by oboe and repeated, even more effectively, by a solo horn. All sections of the orchestra are involved in two characteristic Rossini crescendos, the second of which leads into the still quicker closing bars.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Salut d’amour, Op.12

Originally a solo piano piece, Salut d’amour (Love’s Greeting) was written not for a violinist but for one of Elgar’s piano pupils Alice Roberts, whom he was hoping to marry. It was completed in July 1888 and proved to be so effective that they were engaged two months later. It proved to be highly effective too for Elgar’s publisher, who made a fortune out of it while the composer, who unwisely sold all rights to the score, received no more than a few guineas for it. Although Elgar himself did not make a version for violin and orchestra, he did approve an arrangement prepared for a recording he conducted with his violinist friend Billy Reed as soloist in 1929. Not that it matters very much, where a work of such irresistible melodic charm is concerned, what instrument plays it.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Rondo in A major, D.438

The virtuoso violinist in Schubert’s circle was Josef Slawjk, whom he first met in 1826 and for whom he wrote his two last violin pieces, the Rondo in B minor and the Fantasy in C, both with piano rather than orchestral accompaniment. As a violinist himself, however, Schubert knew enough about the instrument to have written several accomplished works for the violin even before he met Slawjk, including four Sonatas and the Rondo in A major for violin and string orchestra. The fact that this earlier group of violin pieces was composed round 1816 or 1817 suggests that he was writing for a specific instrumentalist at that time too but, if so, nobody knows who it was.

Schubert wrote few virtuoso pieces for any instrument or any voice: it was simply not in his nature. So the whole-hearted indulgence of the solo violin in the Rondo in A major is as interesting as it is exceptional. From its first entry, half-way through the Adagio introduction, the violin scarcely rests. It is the first to play the main rondo theme, as the tempo changes to Allegro giusto, and it is responsible for every major structural event from that point on, tirelessly decorating the melodic line with runs and arpeggios until it excels itself in a climax of virtuosity shortly before the end.


Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Sérénade mélancolique, Op.26

The violinist in Tchaikovsky’s life was Josif Kotek who was not only a witness at the composer’s ill-fated wedding in 1877 but who was also the inspiration of the Violin Concerto he wrote a year later. It was for Leopold Auer, however, a more distinguished but very much less sympathetic violinist acquaintance, that Tchaikovsky wrote the Sérénade mélancolique (or Melancholy Serenade). Auer had commissioned the piece in 1875 but he left the first performance to Adolf Brodsky, who was also to undertake the first performance of the Violin Concerto in 1881 after Auer had condemned it as unplayable.

Auer could not resist the Sérénade mélancolique for very long, however. While it is not a virtuoso showpiece, it is a highly melodious composition which puts the violin in a most favourable lyrical light. There are a few modest cadenzas but they are supplied not so much for their own sake as to draw attention to the several entries of the lovely main theme. One of Tchaikovsky’s most eloquent melodic inspirations, it is first heard on the solo violin after a short woodwind introduction featuring, incidentally, a motif from his recently completed opera Vakula the Smith. Alternating with ingeniously coloured variants of the Vakula motif, it graciously makes way for a quicker and more cheerful middle section and, after a particularly effective manifestation on clarinet with violin obbligato, dies away virtually unaccompanied in the closing bars.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Overture: The Force of Destiny

Verdi is one of the few composers who wrote nothing at all for solo violin. Like Rossini, he was interested mainly in vocal music, opera above all, and the only work of any length which has nothing to do with opera and which has no words attached is the String Quartet he completed in 1873. He does, however, have a secure place in the orchestral repertoire by virtue of his opera overtures, several of which have a thriving concert-hall life quite independent of the operas for which they were originally conceived.

One of the most popular of all is La Forza del destino (The Force of Destiny) which was written in 1869 as a prelude to a story of thwarted love, family vengeance and highly unlikely coincidence inexorably determined by the force of destiny. Verdi’s genius for scoring for strings is evident almost from the start, in the tragically persecuted theme introduced between two sets of deliberately paced and grimly fateful chords. A lyrical episode on flute, oboe and clarinet is interrupted by another inspiration in scoring - a radiant prayer this time rising high on violins over dull echoes of the persecuted theme on lower strings. The prayer is heard again later, this time on a searingly passionate trumpet, before the whole orchestra gets involved in the dramatically eventful coda.

programme notes by Gerald Larner©