Program notes for solos & Celebrations
By Emily Reese

Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major, K. 299
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
b. Salzburg, 27 January 1756
d. Vienna, 5 December 1791

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first trip to Paris came when he was 7 years old. It was in Paris that a composition of his was published and the city fell in love with the phenomenal child and his exceptionally talented sister. When Mozart returned to Paris in March of 1778, after numerous failed attempts to gain sufficient employment in Mannheim, the reception was not as warm as it once had been. He was young, only 22 years old, but the luster of Mozart’s child prodigy had long worn away. He was bored with the Parisian taste in music, yet he still managed to write music the people enjoyed.

Financial success eluded Mozart during his time in Paris. He was forced to teach lessons to supplement his income. Payments for commissioned works, as well as his teaching jobs, were often late, furthering the financial hardship. Adding to his struggles, Mozart was often asked to write for instruments he disliked, and in the Parisian style that he detested.

Mozart received a commission in April from the Duc de Guines, a French aristocrat who played the flute.  The Duc’s daughter was a talented harpist, and he asked Mozart to write an orchestral piece that the two could play together. Mozart’s animosity for the flute is well documented in letters to his father: “…and as you know I am quite inhibited when I have to compose for an instrument I cannot endure.” Given Mozart’s additional lukewarm feelings toward the harp, one can imagine his excitement upon receiving the commission from the Duc.

It may initially appear in the first movement as though the flute takes a prominent role over the harp, but Mozart quickly allows the harp its opportunity to be heard. The three movements are crafted with delicate balance between the duo, with both flute and harp occasionally assuming a soloistic role. The flute and harp often accentuate one another in melodic accompaniment.

It is difficult to find a composer in the history of Western music as intriguing and entertaining as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for despite his colorful antipathy for the flute, the harp, and the Parisian style, he created what has become one of his most beloved compositions.


Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
Richard Strauss
b. Munich, June 11, 1864
d. Garmisch-Partenkirchen September 8, 1949
Premiered January 31, 1920 in Vienna; Richard Strauss, conductor

Richard Strauss was an international star by the early 1900s, highly acclaimed for his skills as conductor and composer. He was able to live off of royalties and guest conducting appearances until the First World War wiped out his savings. Concerts consisting solely of his compositions were becoming rather common, and the city of London held a Strauss Festival in 1903. He had successful working relationships with multiple opera houses and orchestras throughout Europe, and in light of his recent operatic success, Strauss began collaborating with renowned poet, dramatist and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

In 1911, Hofmannsthal and Strauss created an idea to combine the composer’s next opera, Ariadne auf Naxos, with spoken theater. The first half of the planned premiere would contain an adaptation of Molière’s comic play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670) with incidental music provided by Strauss. Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme would serve as an elaborate prologue to the opera, which would appear on the second half of the concert. Not only were the two works disparate in nature, the opera itself combined two opposing genres of opera, that of opera seria and commedia dell’arte. The ensuing premiere was unsuccessful; the concert was far too long, and concertgoers struggled with the bizarre combination of theatrical elements.

Strauss and Hofmannsthal abandoned the initial design in favor of revising Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Ariadne as solitary works. The opera received a new prologue in 1916, and the overhauled play became much like a ballet with pantomime and dance. Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (or Der Bürger als Edelmann) had its new premiere in Berlin in 1918 to more mixed reviews. Strauss believed in the music enough however, to revise it once more as an orchestral suite that premiered in 1920.

Inspired by the styles of the 18th century, Strauss wrote in a neo-classical style.  He wrote few neo-classical works, but many of the nine movements in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme borrow concepts from the Baroque era. The fifth, sixth, and seventh movements are inspired by airs written by Jean-Baptiste Lully who composed music for the original 17th century play written by Molière.  Characteristic of Strauss, individual instruments are repeatedly highlighted in a soloistic manner. Although the work is dramatically overshadowed by Strauss’ tone poems such as Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan, and Ein Heldenleben, he chose Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme as the only work performed at the celebration of his 85th birthday.