Summer Sinfonietta 2019 Opening Concert

A note on the Mozart Don Giovanni Overture:

On the evening of the 27th (or possibly the 28th), it was mentioned to Mozart that there was no overture [for the Don Giovanni Opera]. He reportedly said “Don’t worry. It is here,” pointing to his head. He went to his desk well after midnight and spent the entire evening composing, as his wife helped to keep him awake with punch and poetry readings. There was no time to write a score, so he wrote out the individual parts without one! A copyist had been ordered at 7a.m., and at 7a.m., the overture was finished. The work is virtually the first movement of a symphony and contains no themes from the opera. At the end, the music quietly glides into Leporello’s first aria. For the benefit of concert performances, Mozart provided a louder ending in the correct key of D major.

A note on the Haydn Symphony no. 104:

Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 in D major, the “London,” was the last of twelve symphonies he wrote for English audiences, and while there is no evidence that he intended it to be his last, it is a fitting capstone to the symphonic tradition he helped to build. When he was finally freed from his contract with the princely family of Esterházy at the age of 59, Haydn immediately set out for London at the invitation of German violinist and impresario Johann Peter Salomon. Coming from a relative backwater, near what is still a rural area of the Austrian-Hungarian border, Haydn was aware of the international taste of London audiences and “interested in surprising the public with something new.” Now with an orchestra twice the size of his old one at Esterháza, he made good on his promise with the dynamic tomfoolery of the Symphony no. 94, the “Surprise,” which prompted delighted gasps. The response to the oddity of the Symphony no. 95 in C minor, on the other hand, was decidedly unenthusiastic. The “London” Symphony is more monumental, although not without Haydn’s characteristic wit, and it more than earned its acclaim.