New Year's Concert

Fireworks, oliebollen, champagne and music. Get the new year off to a good start with Mozart's beautiful melodies.

What are you going to listen to?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote eighteen operas in his short existence. But whereas when he was alive he was praised for his dramatic theatrical works, today his joyful operas in particular have become immortal.

Singspiel

Mozart was a lover of the German Singspiel, an upbeat opera with spoken dialogue and rounded musical numbers. His very first opera, which he composed as a 12-year-old, was the Singspiel Bastien und Bastienne. But his Last opera was also a truly German Singspiel. He wrote Die Zauberflöte in his Last year of life for the revue theater of impresario Emanuel Schikaneder with whom he was good friends. It is a joyous work, but also has serious undertones in which true love and fidelity play an important role. Of course, the comic Papageno steals the show who, at the end, can finally embrace his beloved Papagena with a whirlwind duet. The singing play Zaide, set in Turkey, never achieved fame, although that was mainly due to the fact that he composed only a few parts and never completed it.

Mozart and Da Ponte

But Mozart became best known with three Italian comic operas on texts by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Librettist and composer formed a golden duo who worked closely together in text and music and enjoyed great success in Vienna, but also far beyond. Their first collaboration was in 1786 Le Nozze die Figaro after a French play. Because in it a nobleman is made quite the fool by a servant, the Viennese nobility was not pleased with this opera. The success in Vienna was not great at first, but the performances in Prague were a real triumph.

So big that the city begged Mozart for a new opera. That became Don Giovanni in 1787 about the notorious Spanish womanizer Don Juan. It was an opera buffa with a sinister tail, though, because at the end, Don Juan is punished for his misdeeds and dragged into hell, something Mozart unapologetically shows on stage with dramatic music.

Three years later, in early 1790, the pair's third opera hit the stage: Così fan tutte. It is a light-hearted story about two friends who boast about the fidelity of their fiancées. They make a bet with an older cynical man that they will seduce each other's girlfriend in disguise. This naturally gives rise to all sorts of comic entanglements that are given added sparkle by Mozart's sparkling music.

Last symphony

Most of Mozart's symphonies originated during his Salzburg years and were intended for the court orchestra of the cardinal where he was employed. As an independent musician in Vienna, he wrote several more symphonies for various occasions, but of his Last three, all of which he produced in a short time in 1788, it is unknown for what purpose they were composed. It has been claimed that Mozart wrote them purely for himself, with no intention of performing them, but this is very unlikely. In his Last years of life he was in considerable financial trouble and was always looking for opportunities to sell his music. In 1789 and 1790 he traveled all over Germany giving concerts and on some programs that have survived a new Mozart symphony was announced. Chances are it was one of the Last three.

That said, the very last, the Symphony No. 41, is an absolute highlight of Mozart's oeuvre. Each movement has its own perfect character. The opening is powerful with fanfare-like touches, the slow sounds like a dreamy fantasy and the minuet is much like a Ländler, an Austrian folk dance popular at the time. But the finale is still the most beautiful. It consists of five separate melodies that constantly alternate in a motley procession. At the end they all sound at the same time and it turns out that they fit together harmoniously.

The nickname "Jupiter," after the ancient Greek/Roman chief god, by the way, is not Mozart's own. It first surfaced in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century and has stuck ever since.

Kees Wisse