Program II

MOZART

Saturday, August 27, 2011 • 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, August 28, 2011 • 4:00 p.m.

Divertimento in Bb, K.287
Piano Concerto in D Major, K. 537 (“Coronation”)
Trio for Violin, ‘Cello and Piano (newly completed by R. Levin)

Robert Levin, piano
Rose Mary Harbison & Heidi Braun-Hill, violin
John Harbison, viola • Rhonda Rider, ‘cello • Liz Foulser, bass
Whitacre Hill & Linda Kimball, horn

In his early twenties Mozart was planning to hang up his spurs as a violin star-soloist (in spite of his father’s belief that he would be the greatest player in Europe – if he practiced!) As a going-out present to himself he wrote two brilliant divertimenti that contain his most colorful and extreme violin writing. The first of these, which we are presenting, is especially blessed by a richly expressive slow movement.

Next to opera, the piano concerto was Mozart’s most favored field of operation. He often, but not always, played his solo piano parts himself. After a break of two years away from this favorite medium Mozart composed what turned out to be his last piano concertos. The first of these, which we’re presenting in its chamber version, was for many years the most popular Mozart concerto. (It is now one of the least-visited.) The public correctly perceives that in spite of its outward buoyancy it is reserved and subtle, its moods are sketched in minimum detail. All this it shares with his (inadvertently) final concerto, in which these same qualities have been much prized.

Mozart inhabited the combination of piano, violin, and ‘cello relatively seldom. Robert Levin has found a stylistic affinity between three promising unfinished Mozart trio movements, all from the same point in his career. In shaping conclusions for the movements he proposes a very tempting addition to the repertoire. (Mozart did the same thing in fusing two separately-hatched movements to make his Piano Sonata, K. 593 and K. 594.)