Gioacchino Rossini: William Tell – Overture
Rossini’s monumental and final opera premiered in Paris in 1829. The gallop featured in the closing section of the Overture has started to live a life of its own. It is in fact impossible to predict when we will hear the piece again in the form of a signal, a ringtone or even a film score.
The entire Overture, lasting over ten minutes, is almost like a symphonic poem. It is characterised by unusual harmonic and orchestral solutions, and the emotional fluctuations of the movement are quite exceptional. According to Berlioz, the first theme played by the cellos “suggests the tranquillity of profound solitude, the sublime silence of nature at a time when the elements and human passions are also silent”. Wagner likewise held the Overture in high esteem, and tried out some of its musical solutions himself, for example in his overture of ‘The Flying Dutchman’.
Carl Maria von Weber: Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 73
I. Allegro
II. Adagio ma non troppo
III. Rondo. Allegretto
At the age of 25, Weber met one of the outstanding clarinetists of the era Heinrich Joseph Bärmann in Munich. At that time Bärmann is known to have led an adventurous life. According to music historians, but for this encounter Weber would never have thought of writing several concert pieces for the clarinet, among which ‘Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F Minor’ remains one of the most outstanding pieces in the instrument’s repertoire to this day. The first movement of the work is innovative in terms of form and instrumentation, and had a profound influence on the later history of Romantic concertos including Mendelssohn’s style. The piece was written in the same year – in 1811 – as Beethoven’s no less daring ‘Piano Concerto No. 5. in E flat Major’. The slow movement is reminiscent of an opera aria, and its tone is similar to the slow movement of Mozart’s ‘Clarinet Concerto in A Major’. The middle section of the movement is uniquely original with the clarinet accompanied by three horns. In the third part of the movement, the melody of the aria returns: this time in an even more obscure and emotional manner. The final movement is a light, playful and virtuosic rondo.
Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C Major, D. 944 “Great”
I. Andante – Allegro ma non troppo
II. Andante con moto
III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace
IV. Finale. Allegro vivace
‘Symphony No. 9 in C Major’ was published in print in 1840. The publisher printed it as ‘Symphony No. 7’ (and it is still referred to under this name in German-speaking countries). However, in Otto Erich Deutsch’s catalogue of the composer’s works, it is listed as Symphony No. 8, and the English refer to it as ‘Symphony No. 9’. The piece’s nickname “The Great” distinguishes it from another Schubert symphony in C major, ‘Symphony No. 6’. According to Schumann, Mendelssohn was the most significant symphony composer of the post-Beethoven era, therefore it is very telling that he considered ‘Symphony No. 9 in C Major’ to be perhaps even “greater” than Mendelssohn’s similar works.
Shortly afterwards, Schumann wrote an enthusiastic review of ‘Symphony No. 9 in C Major’ praising its masterful composition and its astonishingly innovative features even in the year 1840. The opening movement, for example, is written in the most “regular” sonata form possible, but the individual sections are not separated by sharp caesuras or pauses but rather by unique transitions, and they somewhat musically flow into one another. It was also considered a sign of extraordinary talent by Schumann that Schubert, who had heard and experienced so little of his own instrumental works performed, orchestrated this piece really magnificently. Schumann also noted that Schubert used the instruments in ‘Symphony No. 9 in C Major’ as if they were singing voices, and the instrumental groups as if they were a choir.