Join us on Sunday, April 19 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, April 20 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 and Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante for winds. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts, and four principals of The Philadelphia Orchestra are featured as soloists.
The concert opens with the Mozart work, which has a somewhat uncertain provenance. In 1778, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a Sinfonia concertante for flute, oboe, bassoon, and horn, for a planned performance that never materialized. The organizer of the concert series reneged on his agreement to premiere the work but kept the score, not accounting for the composer’s sterling memory. As Mozart wrote in a letter to his father, the music was still fresh in his mind, and he intended to write it all down again.
That’s where the story ended, at least during Mozart’s lifetime, when nothing more was heard of a Sinfonia concertante for winds and orchestra. But nearly a century later, a manuscript emerged among the papers of a recently deceased Mozart scholar. It was immediately hailed as Mozart’s lost work, even though in place of a solo flute, it specified a solo clarinet. Perhaps, some have surmised, only the solo parts were by Mozart. Maybe he swapped flute for clarinet when calling up the work from memory. And with the full score lost, maybe someone else wrote the orchestra parts, aiming to emulate Mozart’s style. Various theories have been advanced, none proven. Still, wind players, orchestras, and audiences have all embraced this work as Mozart’s.
For Esa-Pekka Salonen, there’s no debate. “When you hear the second movement, it can be only him. There's no other way. It's so heavenly and perfect,” the acclaimed conductor observes. “It really displays the virtuosity of all four players, in a great way. I chose it for this program because I knew that the solo players in this orchestra are fantastic artists and they really bring out the joy and elegance of Mozart’s music, really wonderfully.” Those soloists are Orchestra principals Philippe Tondre, oboe; Ricardo Morales, clarinet; Daniel Matsukawa, bassoon; and Jennifer Montone, horn.
After intermission, with all four of the Mozart soloists back in their principal chairs, the concert concludes with the expansive Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”) by Anton Bruckner. The composer was inspired by the idea of a medieval hunt, and echoes of this inspiration can be heard through most of the Fourth Symphony. “I must say that it's full of beauty,” says Salonen. “The themes are very clear. There's a famous horn call in the beginning of the first movement. And that theme comes back in various guises... There are these kinds of landmarks, after which you can orient yourself as a listener.”
The first movement opens with a nocturnal string tremolo. Sunrise appears with the solo horn call. As the hunt gets underway, knights on horseback proceed through pastoral landscapes, where birds sing and peasants dance. The slow second movement was described variously by the composer as a prayer, a serenade, and a song — and there are elements of all three. An energetic Hunting Scherzo forms the third movement. The finale seems to depart from the hunt. An early version of the symphony cast this fourth movement as a folk festival. But before the premiere the composer reworked its material to such an extent that it follows no clear program. Nevertheless it is a movement of drama and grandeur, concluding with a magnificent coda.
PROGRAM
Mozart: Sinfonia concertante in in E-flat major for winds and orchestra
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major (“Romantic”)
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Philippe Tondre, oboe
Ricardo Morales, clarinet
Daniel Matsukawa, bassoon
Jennifer Montone, horn
The Philadelphia Orchestra
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer and Broadcast Engineer
Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts every Sunday at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1, streaming at WRTI.org, on the WRTI mobile app, and on your smart speaker. Listen again on Mondays at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2. Listen for up to two weeks after broadcast on WRTI Replay, accessible from the WRTI homepage (look for Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert On Demand).
