Czech Chamber Music Society • András Schiff

Beethoven wrote the Coriolan overture for the eponymous tragedy by the Austrian playwright Heinrich Joseph von Collin (1771–1811) as his Op. 62 at the beginning of 1807. It is still not clear why he composed it at this time because Collin’s tragedy was no longer playing. It premiered on 23 November 1802 in the Burgtheater in Vienna, enjoyed extraordinary success and remained on the program until March 1805. Maybe the changes that were taking place at the Burgtheater played a role in the revival of this play. The Burgtheater’s director Braun resigned and the direction was taken over by a group of three noblemen, Princes Lobkowitz, Schwarzenberg and Esterhazy, and Collin and Beethoven wanted to impress the new management. In the end, the overture was first performed on its own in March 1807 at a concert in the Lobkowitz Palace in Vienna (together with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, and Symphony No. 4 in B major, Op. 60). The theatrical play with Beethoven’s music appeared on stage only once, in April 1807, never to be repeated.

In his tragedy, Collin recounts the fate of the Roman general Gaius Marcius who lived in the 5th century BC, as later described by Plutarch. The themes of pride and betrayal have attracted many authors, for example Shakespeare and his last play of the same name. Gaius Marcius is a contradictory character: originally an unpopular victor over Rome’s enemies, he was praised and given the name Coriolanus after conquering the Volscian city of Corioli. He became consul, and after an intrigued revolt was expelled from Rome. His insulted pride and his desire for justice and revenge led him to join forces with the enemies of Rome, the Volscians, and he besieged the Eternal City of Rome with them. Coriolanus was eventually dissuaded from revenge and the destruction of the Eternal City by his wife and mother. In Plutarch’s version, he was then killed as a traitor by the Volscians; in Collin’s tragedy, he dies by his own hand.

Coriolan is portrayed as a hero who is at the same time full of doubts, which serves as a basis for Beethoven’s concept of his character. Coriolan at first enters the scene as a proud general; this heroic theme is followed by a lyrical theme, perhaps representing the women who came to beg Coriolan to spare Rome. At the end, Coriolanus’s theme fades and the piece ends in pianissimo.

The overture has become part of the concert repertoire and, according to some opinions, was in fact primarily intended for the concert stage. However, the composer dedicated his Coriolan overture to the poet and author of the tragedy. Beethoven and Collin were contemporaries and great friends; they planned other projects together (oratorios, operas), but they were never carried out.

Franz Schubert has always been considered a master composer of Lieder, works for piano and chamber music. Yet his oeuvre is much more extensive and rich in genres, and also includes 12 symphonies – five of which are incomplete, including his famous Unfinished Symphony which may not be unfinished at all. The first fragment dates from 1811; the first numbered Symphony in D major dates from 1813; the following one – in B flat major – was completed in 1815; and the Symphony No. 3 in D major came into being in the same year in an incredibly short time; two symphonies – namely No. 4 in C minor “Tragic” and No. 5 in B flat major – date from 1816.

Schubert wrote Symphony No. 6 in C major, D 589 a year after his Fifth Symphony, from October 1817 to February 1818, at the height of his creative activity, while he rejoined his father and reluctantly took up teaching at his father’s school in Rossau not far from Lichtental. Unlike the several weeks’ work on the previous symphonies, he spent five months on the Sixth, although probably with interruptions. He originally described it as “Große Sinfonie in C” because of its use of clarinets, trumpets and timpani. Today, however, it is Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944, which is known as “Great C major” for its unusual length, while Symphony No. 6 in C major has been labeled “Little C major”. The Sixth Symphony is a culmination of the series of Schubert’s early symphonies in the classical style of Haydn and Mozart. It took Schubert ten years to compose other works in this genre, paving the way for the early Romantic symphony.

The first sonata movement of the Sixth begins with a slow introduction in the Beethovenian spirit; in the second movement Schubert works in variation with a characteristic melodic theme; the third movement is a scherzo instead of the usual minuet; the final movement is a fierce rondo. Brahms, who contributed to the complete edition of Schubert’s symphonies and otherwise admired Schubert, did not think much of his youthful symphonies and thought they should not be published but only preserved with reverence. Antonín Dvořák, on the other hand, respected Schubert and was one of the few who truly appreciated his early symphonies. In an essay published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (New York, 1894), he wrote: “I have just observed that mastery of form came to Schubert spontaneously. This is illustrated by his early symphonies, five of which he wrote before he was twenty, at which, the more I study them, the more I marvel. Although the influence of Haydn and Mozart is apparent in them, Schubert’s musical individuality is unmistakable in the character of the melody, in the harmonic progressions, and in many exquisite bits of orchestration.”

Shortly after its completion, Symphony No. 6 was reportedly performed at a private concert by the Hartwig Orchestra (in which Schubert and his older brother also played) in the Gundelhof on the Bauernmarkt in central Vienna. The public premiere did not take place until a few weeks after Schubert’s death, on 14 December 1828 at the Hofburg in the Great Hall of the Redoute as part of the subscription concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna; the performance was conducted by Johann Baptist Schmiedel. Soon afterward, on 12 March 1829, the symphony was performed as part of the Concert Spirituels series presented in the Estates House of Lower Austria on Herrengasse in Vienna.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed most of his piano pieces for himself to be presented at his concerts. Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major, K 271, is an exception, although Mozart later also played it himself. It was the last and most important of the piano concertos he wrote while still in Salzburg (he was 21 at the time); his following concertos came into being in Vienna. This concerto is dated January 1777 and was created for Louise Victoire Noverre whose married surname was Jenamy (1749–1812). She was a daughter of Mozart’s friend, the dancer Jean-Georges Noverre, and evidently passed through Salzburg at the end of 1776. However, due to a mistaken reading this concerto has become known as the “Jeunehomme” one, which some interpreted as a “concerto for a young man”, while others believed that “Jeunehomme” was the surname of its unknown female performer. To this day, the concerto is presented under this title.

Its dedicatee Victoire Jenamy must have been a great pianist if she actually played the concerto because the work is highly virtuosic and represents a whole new quality in Mozart’s piano concertos. Compared his earlier works, which in many ways follow Johann Christian Bach, this concerto has considerably progressed in terms of establishing the form of the concerto and its content. The opening Allegro is characterized by harmonic richness and formal unity, with the piano coming in immediately after the first bars of the orchestra, rather than after the first exposition. The Andantino is the first minor movement in Mozart’s instrumental concertos ever, and the vocal elements (arioso, recitative sections, etc.) are reminiscent of the Sturm und Drang style. The final Rondo surprisingly includes a minuet. There are other formal unusual features, for example, the above-mentioned entrance of the solo instrument in the opening ritornello, or the soloist returning to play after the final cadenza. Mozart did something like this again in his two late concertos, Piano Concerto No. 24 and the last work of this kind, Piano Concerto No. 27.

Not much is known about where and when the concert was premiered – just as not much is known about where and when Mozart and Jenamy first met. There is speculation that the meeting took place as early as 1773 in Vienna, not in 1776 in Salzburg. The premiere must have been given by Jenamy, but Mozart himself is said to have played the concerto in a private concert on 4 October 1777. This brilliant work, considered the first of Mozart’s mature concertos, was soon performed by the composer in Paris, Munich and probably also in his first public concert in Vienna.