Page 20 - Phil Nov8th program digital book

Program Notes

western, half-timbered side was Catholic, with the old City Hall (using the Gregorian
calendar). Mozart mentioned that each side had its own synagogue, house numbering
system, and concert venues.
In London and Paris, Mozart heard at least two of the sixteen horn concertos by
virtuoso Giovanni Punto (1746-1803), who coached members of George III’s orchestra.
Punto was pioneer of the hand-stopping technique, which allowed natural horns
to produce notes outside of the normal harmonic series. Stopping, combined with
the use of removable crooks of tubing to change a horn’s key, allowed composers to
write fully chromatic horn music and almost-fully chromatic trumpet music before
the invention of piston and valve instruments. Punto called stopped notes gestopft
(German) and bouché (French.)
Mozart also met and improvised with Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian Bach
(1735-1782). J. C. Bach introduced the structural innovation of allowing a soloist
to introduce new thematic material during his/her first entry (rather than only
reinterpreting the orchestral introduction). Mozart’s first seven piano concertos are
arrangements of piano sonatas by other composers, and Nos. 5-7 are 95% J. C. Bach’s
music.
Mozart’s father Leopold (1719-1787) wrote a Sinfonia da caccia (featuring four horns,
shouting, barking dogs, and gunshots) and a simple baroque concerto in D for two
natural (unstopped) horns, meant to be played in the “bells up” position. Mozart
Family friend Joseph Leutgeb composed some horn concertos (now lost) which he
premiered in Paris in the 1770s. Leutgeb was Mozart’s senior by twenty-four years,
and a family friend since his time as a member of the Salzburg court chapel. The
work called “Mozart’s fourth horn concerto” may be a re-working of an earlier work by
Leutgeb himself, as its sketches are more labored than usual for Mozart, and they are
annotated with many obscene asides to Leutgeb (“To you, Mr. Ass.” “Go ahead, aren’t
you finished yet?” etc). Mozart’s assistant Süssmayr created two versions of KV412’s
central slow movement and finished orchestrating that work in 1792. To read more,
see Benjamin Perl’s “The Doubtful Authenticity of Mozart’s Horn Concerto KV412” in
the Historic Brass Society Journal (2004).
Mozart’s three great horn concertos in E-flat major (KV417, KV447 and KV495) were
composed in Vienna in the 1780s. In 1777, Leutgeb had left to become a Viennese
cheese merchant, and he joined the princely orchestra at the Grassalkovich Palace: all
four of Mozart’s works for horn and orchestra are dedicated to him (“Wolfgang Amadé
Mozart has taken pity on Leutgeb the ass, ox and fool” in the score heard today).
All three E-flat concertos begin with a short orchestral exposition, presenting a first
theme combining lyrical and lively elements. The soloist enters with a new theme (à
la J. C. Bach), and the movements follow the same procedures (but more briefly) as
Mozart’s best piano concertos. The second movements are songlike and lyrical, and
the final movements are lively rondos based on fanfare motives that recall hunting
calls.
This period was full of successes for the young family: Mozart had just produced a

18 ~ Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra
18 ~ Plymouth Philharmonic O r ches tr a