Page 22 - The Plymouth Philharmonic Legends and Legacies 11-2-2024 digital program flipbook

This story of a ghostly statue and an unrepentant libertine was already centuries old in
1787. Mozart develops the tension between these characters in this Overture, which, in
a departure from the standard practice of the day, plays a dramatic function. Opening
D-minor chords immediately set the tone, summoning the vengeful statue who will
dominate the opera’s finale. This is followed by a deathly silence. Sinister scales lead
to an energetic giocoso allegro representing the (sometimes comic) exploits of Don
Giovanni, but a spectral tragedy has already begun to enfold before the subsequent
vivacious themes can be presented. In the first scene of the opera, Don Giovanni will kill
Donna Anna’s father (whose dying breaths are touchingly rendered with a solo oboe
c–b–b♭–a–a♭–g–f); in the final scene of the opera, a marble statue from the father’s
grave will return to usher Don Giovanni into Hell.
The first of Mozart’s three piano concertos to begin in minor keys was his Concerto in D
minor, K. 466 (1785): it shares the same key as Don Giovanni, and Romantic composers
identified it as the embodiment of Mozartian pathos. Just before his first visit to
Prague in 1787, Mozart composed his Symphony No. 38 in D major, K. 504, often called
the “Prague Symphony”: the minor-key music of its first movement and orchestral
effects (the tread of surging basses, the heart-stopping drum rolls, the suspenseful
wind chords, the rising chromatic scales) augur Don Giovanni’s overture. This music
became very popular in Vienna just after its Prague premiere: Dexter Edge has shown
that many of the original Viennese performance parts for Don Giovanni, copied in 1786
and 1788, were in continuous use at the Court Theatre as late as the 1890s. The recent
fictional film Interlude in Prague (2017)
incorporates music from this Overture to
support a rumor that Mozart patterned
his Don Giovanni after a specific nobleman
whom he could have met during this first
visit to Prague.

— Laura Stanfield Prichard

508.927.4261
www.flairfloral.com
170 Water Street • Plymouth

20 Plymouth Philharmonic O r ches tr a
20 Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra