Name: Premier coup d'archet (Opening Night)
Start: 2023-11-16T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2023-11-16T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center)

Organization

Admin

American Classical Orchestra

Violinist

Augusta McKay Lodge

Violin I

Orchestra

Premier coup d'archet (Opening Night)

New York City

United States

Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center)

Premier coup d'archet (Opening Night): Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 297 Mozart (+2 More)

Public

Symphony No.31 in D major, K.297

Symphony No. 6 in F Major, op.68 ("Pastoral")

Violin Romance No. 1 (Beethoven)

Approved

In 1778, at the age of 22, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited Paris with his mother.  On a previous visit, he and his older sister, Nannerl, had been paraded before Europe’s courts and aristocrats as child prodigies.  Nannerl was then twelve; Wolfgang, seven.

Mozart’s 1778 reception was somewhat different.  He claimed the performance of his own Sinfonia Concertante had been sabotaged by an Italian composer, Giuseppe
Cambini.  To make up for that, Joseph Legros, the director of the esteemed French public concert series, Concert Spirituel, asked him to write a new symphony.  The result was Symphony No. 31 in D Major, known as Mozart’s “Paris” Symphony.  It premiered at the Parisian home of Count Karl von Sickingen on June 12, 1778, with its first public performance at Concert Spirituel six days later.

A few days after that, Mozart’s mother died suddenly of an undiagnosed illness.  He stayed in Paris through August 15th for the Symphony’s second public performance.  

Our ACO concert takes its name—Premier coup d’archet—from the symphony’s opening bars.  The term simply means all the instruments playing together at the start of a piece.  Mozart knew the French public expected it, and that’s indeed what they got:  all the instruments repeat the same forte D-Major chord in the first two measures, followed by an explosive ascending scale in the third, and then some meandering before the D-Major chord returns—sounding direct, forceful, and supremely confident.  The symphony is also notable for introducing the clarinet in a starring role.  Mozart had just discovered the instrument in Mannheim, which he had visited on his way to Paris, and from then on, it played a substantial part in what became known as Mozart’s sound.

The final movement—allegro—again repeats the soft then forte pattern of the beginning but introduces a meditative fugato midway through.  It ends with one surprise after another and is considered Mozart’s grandest piece of instrumental music up to that point in time.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in G Major, Op. 40, was written about 1801 and published in 1803.  It is the fruit of what many call Beethoven’s “first” or “early” period, during which he basically adhered to accepted 18th-century techniques and compositional forms.  That period lasted until approximately 1802, during which time most of his published works were for piano, with or without other instruments, the majority of the exceptions being for piano and strings.  His first symphony—for full orchestra—premiered in 1800.  By then his hearing difficulties had begun, his deafness was not complete until several years later.

For this performance, we are privileged to have Augusta McKay Lodge as our violin soloist.  Augusta—originally from Oberlin, Ohio, but now based in Paris—has served as concertmaster with Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, and most recently, Opera Fuoco at the Theatre des Champs-Elysee.  She is a founding member of Voyage Sonique (New York) and the Spielerei Piano Trio (Amsterdam). Having performed with major orchestras and groups around the world on many of its best-known stages, we were lucky to have her with us for our March 12, 2020 Alice Tully Hall concert—the day before the COVID lockdown started—at which she performed in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major. Now she can apply her skills and talents to Beethoven’s lyrical themes.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, The Pastoral, showcases Beethoven’s love of nature.  Each of its five movements—to which Beethoven gave names (here translated into English)—reflect that:  allegro ma non troppo (“Joyful Feelings Upon Arriving in the Country”); andante molto mosso (“By the Brook”); allegro (“Peasant Merrymaking”); allegro (“The Thunderstorm”); and allegretto (“The Shepherd’s Song After the Storm”).

The Sixth Symphony is unique in the way it captures the sounds of nature.  Indeed, Beethoven himself said of it, ’Even without descriptions, one will recognize the whole, which is more expression than tone-painting.’  ACO renders The Pastoral using instruments from 1802, with their natural timbres and blend.  The result is the “pleasant merrymaking” of Austrian shepherds and a terrifying storm scene where the thunderclaps are made by a violent stroke of the calfskin timpani head.

David Larkin, Executive Director

English

Premier coup d'archet (Opening Night) by Mozart, Beethoven, No (2023/2023), Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), New York City, United States

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