Election Section

Among the myriad qualities that distinguish Mozart from all other composers is his dramatic sense. Others may be inventive, ingenious, clever at writing melodies, but few have his intrinsic understanding of drama. 

Among jazz musicians, this quality is best exemplified by Louis Armstrong. So many Louis Armstrong recordings begin with what seem like acceptable improvised solos by his sideplayers until the curtains part and Pops steps forward to play a solo that is not only lyrical, crafted, imaginative and virtuosic, but also crackling with drama.  

Likewise, although Mozart excelled at every form of composition in a way that no other composer ever has, he found his center in opera, musical drama. Music for him, vocal or instrumental, involved the emotions and the interplay of personality, whether clashing or congenial. 

For Mozart, every instrument had a personality, especially when these instruments were played by his friends, students, patrons and associates.  

Until he was 9 years old, he would grow pale when the trumpet was played solo in his presence. Whether this was because it suggested Mars’ call to arms or Gabriel’s last trump of doom is unknown, but its timbre evoked a synaesthetic psychological response in the musical prodigy.  

Most of his compositions, like those of Duke Ellington, were conceived with the talents, limitations and humours of specific performers in mind.  

For their second concert of the season, the Oakland East Bay Symphony, under the direction of Michael Morgan, will be performing three of Mozart’s most dramatic masterpieces, all composed in June and July of 1788: Symphony No. 39 in E flat major (K. 543), the Adagio and Fugue in C minor for Strings (K. 546), and Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K. 550).  

About two weeks after completing these pieces, Mozart entered the opening bars of his final symphony, No. 41 (K. 551), the Jupiter, into his Verzeichnis aller meiner Werke, his autograph thematic catalogue of his compositions.  

In other words, during a six-week period, after the failure of Don Giovanni in Vienna, during the time that his infant daughter died, while composing half a dozen other pieces including the Adagio and Fugue, he carried these three symphonies around in his head and then wrote them down one after the other in fully orchestrated versions.  

Not only would that be difficult in itself, but these are the greatest symphonies of the 18th century and among the greatest pieces of music ever composed. The contrapuntal final movement of the Jupiter, which the OEBS performed a few years ago, is usually singled out for particular excellence, but all three symphonies are magnificent from beginning to end.  

Among other aspects, the three together encapsulate the progression from the full flowering of the classical to the first seeds of the romantic whose ripened ears were to be reaped by Beethoven. Listening to them in sequence is like hearing Charlie Parker’s passage from swing to bop on his Jazz at the Philharmonic recording of “Lady Be Good.” 

The most esoteric piece of the evening is the Adagio and Fugue, which, like Symphony No. 40, is in a minor key. This work is often, and with no evidence, linked with Mozart’s freemasonic compositions.  

He became a mason in 1784 followed shortly thereafter by Haydn and his own father. This was the same benchmark year he began keeping the Verzeichnis. The fugue was actually written in 1783 for two pianos (K. 426) and then refashioned in 1788 for strings with the addition of an introductory adagio. In it, he delights to tremble on the brink of discord.  

Although it has no real Masonic link or content, its exquisitely strange, powerful, modernistic harmonies and dark mood suggest the movement of an inexorable fate. We are reminded of Marvell’s words: “But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” 

All of these old warhorses have been heard frequently in the Bay Area during the last few years in performances conducted by, among others, Neville Marriner and George Cleve. It doesn’t matter.  

Under Michael Morgan’s inspired direction, “age cannot wither nor custom stale” their “infinite variety.” Whether you favor the flying terpsichore of the minuets, the rollicking finale of the 39th or the opening of the 40th, which begins stately and plump like Joyce’s Ulysses, there is not a moment in these great works that is devoid of delight and surprise yet always with an undertone of poignancy.  

With a nod to the present, the concert will also feature the West Coast premiere of Chen Yi’s accessible Romance and Dance for two violins and string orchestra (1998) featuring OEBS co-concertmasters Terrie Baune and Dawn Harms.  

The highly regarded Ms. Chen was born in 1953 in Guangzhou, China, and is a graduate of the Central Conservatory of Beijing. She has lived and worked in the United States since 1986. In her compositions, she may combine traditional Chinese instruments like the pipa and erhu or the Chinese pentatonic scale with the Western orchestra.  

This will be the West Coast premiere of her Romance, which incorporates as the first of its two movements her earlier Romance of Hsiao and Ch’in. It has been described as bright and cheerful and, in its contemporaneity and texture, provides a nice contrast to the rest of the program.