Program Notes: Noah Geller Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5

By A. Kori Hill

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1043 in 1730 during his tenure as director of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig, Germany, and later would transcribe it for two harpsichords. This work requires that the violinists both listen and be in dialogue with each other, sometimes supporting the music’s direction while other times developing it. The opening Vivace is a fugue: the second violin introduces the main theme in D-minor, and when the two violins move into new thematic material, the first violin enters with the same theme but at a fifth above (starting on open A). Like most fugues, and especially Bach fugues, the interlocking melodies create an intense polyphonic texture with the orchestra; even during moments where one violin drops out and comes back in, the forward drive doesn’t stop.  

The Largo ma non tanto that follows is also a fugue, with a lyrical, identifiable melody that is enhanced with dynamic swells from the orchestra. The dialogue between the soloists once again drives the movement, circling back to the opening figure at the end. The closing Allegro is less a strict fugue than a call-and-response form. There are moments of fugal overlap as the soloists pass motives between each other. But this movement serves as a coming together: less a dialogue or fight than a united front. Though ferocious in character, sinister due to the return to a minor mode, there’s a sense of something achieved — triumph in the face of an obstacle.  

Like the Bach and Mozart on this program, Samuel Adams’ Movements (for us and them) strikes a balance of the fiery, light and fast. The two main sources for this work came to Adams from two different centuries and sources: the virtuosic concerti (not just concertos but also concerti grossi) of the 17th and 18th centuries, and Italian author Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the New Millennium,” written for a Harvard lecture series. Adams engages with three of the five memos (Calvino died before he completed the sixth): lightness, quickness and exactitude.  

Composed in 2018, Movements is for string orchestra and double bass; but unlike the hierarchical relationships that have become standard in orchestras (first chair always leads, first chair of the first violins leads the entire ensemble after the conductor), each player moves between soloist and ensemble member. The result is a musical texture and narrative that moves from direct and focused, to spacious and expansive. This is particularly apparent in the second section, which segues into a more structured passage full of repetitive figures that buoy and sustain the polyphonic texture. Rarely is there no forward motion: even during a break in the polyphonic texture, there is a steady pulse in the background as lyrical solo voices move in and out of the foreground. The theme and rhythmic flurry return at the close, bringing the work full circle.  

In some cases, a composer’s engagement with an “exotic” music tradition says less about what they know about said tradition than it does their geopolitical context. Such is the case with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219, “Turkish.” One of five the composer wrote as a young man for the violin and arguably his most popular, his Fifth Violin Concerto (1775) is nicknamed “Turkish” because of the idioms used in the last movement — those of the mehterân, or military bands (also known as janissary bands) of the Ottoman Empire.  

Mozart was born less than 100 years after the Battle of Vienna, which took place between the Holy Roman Empire and Ottoman Empire in 1683, inciting a war that lasted until 1699. The 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz led to an uneasy truce and no further loss of territory to the Ottomans. But the sounds of the Ottoman Empire could and did continue to cross borders. The metherân were a tradition and music style familiar to composers of Mozart’s time. The use of an energized tempo along with vertical, percussive articulations, minor mode and improvisatory grace notes were key features Mozart employed in this concerto and the Alla turca movement of his Piano Sonata No. 11, as did Haydn in his “Military” Symphony and Beethoven in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony.  

In the Allegro aperto, there is no full statement of the main theme in the orchestral introduction. When the soloist opens, it’s a rhapsodic, introspective passage that leads into the first clear statement of the primary theme. The form is fairly standard sonata-allegro from then on, with statements of the main and secondary theme followed by a development section and recap of the beginning with a cadenza. Traditionally, the cadenzas are improvised by the soloist, a tradition that went out of style in the 20th century. Tonight, Noah Geller will play cadenzas written by Berlin Philharmonic concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley and the 19th-century violinist Joseph Joachim. 

The Adagio is lush and stately, its main theme introduced by the orchestra and continued by the soloist. The cadenza near the end of the movement takes the main theme and transforms it before passing it to the orchestra, which closes the movement with an answering phrase. The Rondo: Tempo di Menuetto–Allegro that closes the concerto is an interesting mix of two music forms: rondo and minuet-trio. In a rondo, the main theme returns between phrases with new melodic material; and in a minuet trio, there’s a spritely opening section, a more relaxed triplet section in the middle and then a return to the spritely opening section. The “Turkish” section functions as the “trio” part of this movement: it shifts from A-major to A-minor, with a more vertical, percussive quality to the articulations that’s enhanced with the orchestral strings playing col legno (during which they strike the string with the stick of the bow across the instrument’s strings) in some parts. A short cadenza connects this section with a return to the cheerful, A-major rondo, ending on a flippant and assured note.