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Assembling a respectable cast for the play and
the opera was a shared di culty. In the end,
compromises were reached and the work was
completed.
e premiere of Hofmannsthal’s adaptation of
Der Bürger als Edelmann
with Strauss’s inciden-
tal music and opera (
Ariadne auf Naxos
) took
place on October ,
, at the Court eater
in Stuttgart. Reinhardt oversaw the production,
and Strauss conducted the music.
e perfor-
mance was not a complete success, perhaps due
to the unusual structure of the work—half dra-
ma, half opera—or the fact that the portion of
the drama that introduced the opera was omit-
ted. Further, a reception given by the king of
Würtemberg during the intermission before the
opera, which lasted three quarters of an hour,
ruined the dramatic continuity that Hofmanns-
thal had hoped to produce. Later performances
had similar di culties, and reviewers were crit-
ical of the work.
Hofmannsthal suggested immediate revisions,
but Strauss thought the work itself a success,
attributing the failure to the unforeseen perfor-
mance di culties. Only in
did Strauss agree
to begin the revision of
Ariadne
. Hofmannsthal
had suggested that the opera be li ed out of the
play and a new prologue (
Vorspiel
) be added
to complete its narrative.
e prologue, which
Hofmannsthal had dra ed and sent to Strauss
in
, would serve to introduce the characters
and was to be composed in a declamatory style,
in the manner of
secco
recitative. In this form,
prologue and opera, the second version of
Ari-
adne auf Naxos
,
a, was premiered on
November ,
at the Court Opera eater in
Vienna.
Strauss extracted nine movements from his
incidental music to Molière’s play for the Suite
from
Der Bürger als Edelmann
(
Le bourgeois
gentilhomme
),
c, which was premiered
in January
in Vienna. e music is scored
for a small orchestra of Baroque proportions. As
the play begins, the middle-aged Monsieur Jour-
dain busily acquires all the markers of his newly
gained wealth, but without the associated per-
sonal class.
e Music Master provides a song
heard toward the end of the rst act’s overture.
In imitation of the court of Louis XIV, the Danc-
ing Master adds a minuet for his inept pupil. e
Fencing Master experiences similar frustration
with the graceless Jourdain.
Strauss added three movements, all stylized
th-century dances in the manner of Louis
XIV’s favorite composer, Jean-Baptiste Lully—
Lully’s Minuet
,
Courante
, and
Entry of Cléon-
te
—for a Berlin production of
Der Bürger als
Edelmann
in
. Jourdain welcomes two aris-
tocratic lovers, the impecunious Count Dorante
and the widowed Marchioness Dorimène, to his
home in the second act’s prelude, and then he
treats them to a lavish meal, in Strauss’s hands
a smorgasbord of musical references: Rhine
salmon (Wagner’s
Das Rheingold
), mutton
(Strauss’s
Don Quixote
), and fowl (Strauss’s
Der
Rosenkavalier
).
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756–91)
Piano Concerto No. in D minor, .
Scored for one ute, two oboes, two bassoons, two
horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings, and solo piano
e Lenten concert season of
brought Mo-
zart’s popularity as a pianist to its zenith.
e
number of his performances had increased
steadily in previous seasons, and the young
musician satis ed this demand with a magnif-
icent series of piano concertos. Within a ve-
year span, Mozart composed works for solo
piano and orchestra: in
, one concerto and
two rondos; in
, two concertos; in
, six
concertos; in
, three concertos; and in
,
three concertos. Solo opportunities inexplicably
evaporated a er this year, perhaps a victim of
ckle public taste. Mozart wrote only two more
piano concertos for isolated performances in
and
.
Leopold Mozart arrived in Vienna days before
his son’s rst Lenten subscription concert in the
Mehlgrube. is visit provided the skeptical fa-
ther a chance to meet his new daughter-in-law
and to assess rsthand Wolfgang’s professional
advancement. Among several works scheduled
for the February program was the D-minor
concerto, a work begun in late January and
“completed” the day before his concert. Writing
home to his daughter, Leopold bragged proud-
ly about the magni cent event, prepared under
severe time constraints. “ en we had a new
and very ne concerto by Wolfgang, which the
copyist was still copying when we arrived, and
the rondo of which your brother did not even
have time to play through [i.e., rehearse before
the concert], as he had to supervise the copying.”
A few days later, Leopold received further con-
rmation of Wolfgang’s growing stature when
Haydn made his famous declaration: “Before
God and as an honest man I tell you that your
son is the greatest composer known to me either
in person or by name. He has taste and, what is
more, the most profound knowledge of compo-
sition.” is pronouncement came a er a recital
featuring Mozart’s new string quartets dedicat-
ed to “Papa Haydn.” Two months later, Leopold
returned to Salzburg, reassured by the nancial
and artistic success of the Lenten concerts.
e haunting intensity of the Concerto No.
in D minor, .
, almost certainly disturbed
the wealthy Viennese patrons accustomed to
fashionably lighthearted musical fare. On the
other hand, this very quality later attracted
generations of Romantic musicians, including
Ludwig van Beethoven, who composed his own
cadenzas for his performances of the concerto.
Mozart had never before written a minor-key
piano concerto, and he would do so only once
more, in the C-minor work of
( .
). e
key of Dminor gained demonic signi cance two
years later in his opera
Don Giovanni
.
Mozart immediately casts a gloomy spell over
the
Allegro
with unsettling D-minor string syn-
copations and brooding bass gures. He varies
this music slightly at a louder dynamic level
Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1910)
M. Jourdain from Molière’s
Le bourgeois gentilhomme
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Johann Nepomuk
Della Croce
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